Rays of light slowly appeared on the bodies of his mother, sister, and Harmony's sleeping forms as if baptizing them from the horrors of yesterday. The sound of their deep breathing bringing a feeling of peace in direct opposition to the world as it currently was. As the sun began to rise and flow into the room, Han waved his hand at the floating orb. Closing his book, he asked, "Have you made your decision?"
Grace's light footsteps were heard as she made her way into the small room. "I may not agree with everything you do, but I want to go with you and everyone else."
Han chuckled at her words. "It has been nearly a full night since everything has happened, so don't be surprised if the world you imagined is gone. You may be shedding your morals off a lot sooner than you think." Turning his head, he looked up at her standing next to him. "It has been decided that we will be going to the university in order to gain the weapons used by one of the clubs there. This may turn into a dangerous trip for us, so I'll still consider you to be deciding to accompany us."
"I understand... I...," Grace tried to say.
"I will tell you this now... I will not put up with actions that put my family in danger. If you act out... I’ll leave you behind," his voice was harsh, the edge helping to accentuate his intent.
Grace was quiet, listening to his words and understanding gravity of his intent.
Han turned his head towards the sliding door and observed the day. Next, to the seat, Grace just stood there, looking as if she didn't want to interrupt his thoughts.
The light sound of movement let him know that his mother and sister were beginning to wake up. His talk with Grace likely rousing them from their sleep.
"What time is it?" his mother asked, her hair covering her face. Jennifer, next to her, had a similar appearance. Considering how difficult it was for him to wake up, they were handling the short amount of rest better than he would in the past.
"Sorry for disturbing your rest," Han apologized to his mom and sister.
Jennifer stretched out her arms and yawned. "It feels like I slept for an entire night, not a few hours," she commented. Even though there was still sleep in her eyes, her expression appeared bewildered at not being more exhausted.
"I'm glad that you're not feeling too tired. We have a busy and potentially dangerous journey ahead of us, so all of us will need to be on top of our senses." Han quietly said. "Though it's probably better that the two of you woke up now, considering the time it'll take us to get there."
He noticed Harmony's eyes fluttering open, there was a little bit of drool coming out of her mouth. Raising one of her hands to her mouth, she reflexively went to wipe the drool off of her face. Harmony paused with her forearm to her face when she woke up enough to notice Han watching her. Looking down at what she was doing, she blushed at having such a scene be revealed.
Seeing Harmony look so flustered caused him to grin. "Did you have a good sleep?" He asked her, amusement in his voice.
"Yes...," she finished wiping the drool off of her face and nodded her head.
"When do you think we should leave for the university," his mother asked him, her eyes glancing over at Grace standing next to him.
"Now is just as good of a time as any, unless there is anything we need to do beforehand? Considering how guns are not effective against these creatures, I don't know of any kind of preparations we could make." Han shrugged his shoulders at her words.
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Journeying through the forest, they were all nervous at what the world would look like. They were fortunate about not running into any of those creatures yet. The difference this time was the wildlife waking up to meet the new day. There was the occasional rabbit hopping away from them, making it seem like everything was fine.
With the sun out, there was a feeling of being exposed. Each crackling of leaves and snapping of branches made each of them flinch. Han looked back and saw the feeling of stress return to their faces, likely they wished it was night so that the darkness could keep them hidden. Remembering the hole in the bathroom door, he wondered if the creatures even needed to see them.
"It feels like we're walking through these woods longer than last night," Jennifer remarked after they were walking for what seemed like several hours.
"I'm having Harmony lead us towards the mall through the woods, instead of going through the city. We don't know what the situation is, and the likelihood of us running into one of them lowers this way. Hopefully." He explained saying the last part to himself.
Nodding at Han's words, Harmony added, "It isn't that much further. We'll be able to see the mall any moment now."
Looking at where they were walking, Han saw that the trees were beginning to break up, letting more light through the trees.
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"It's horrible," his mother whispered once they walked out of the forest.
"I guess the attacks, last night, happened around here first, seeing all the cars still parked here," Grace said.
In front of them was a full parking lot, located behind the mall, with blood covering a lot of the cars. The scene was ghoulish in its presentation, bodies scattered amongst the spaces between the parked vehicles.
"There are so many people...," Harmony said.
Harmony's body was shaking in fear from being exposed to the parking lot. Han looked over at the others and saw a similar reaction. Sighing, he said to Harmony, "I'm going to need you to be aware of our surroundings, with you being the only one in this group who have seen them before."
She turned her head away from the dead bodies and tried to give him a confident smile.
"Are there any of them down there?" Grace asked.
There was a long pause as Harmony turned her head, searching for the creatures. "I don't see any of them here."
Continuing out of the forest, Han led the way towards the parking lot. With their lack of knowledge of the creatures, he was cautious as he walked onto the trimmed mall lawn. Smell of iron seemed to hang in the air from all the blood splattered. A part of him wanted to block the scent, but you never knew what could be discovered casually through smell.
"Those bodies aren't going to spring up and attack us, r-right?" Grace said behind him.
"Remember not to use your gun," Han reminded her, hearing the panic beginning to bubble out. "The gun would only alert others of our presence, and we don't know who or what would show up."
A sigh was heard. "I-I know," Grace said.
Soon they were within a couple of footsteps to the black surface of the asphalt. "Just in case, make sure to stay away from any bodies," Han suggested.
Buzzing noises of flies flying around were now heard, as insects feasted on the bodies. Han had to breathe through his mouth slowly, trying to lessen the rotting smell. Gagging noises behind him let Han know how the others were fairing.
Trying to be observant, he looked at the various corpses. Unfortunately, not enough time had passed to make identifying the people harder. Many of them still showed their emotions right before their deaths. On one of the hoods of a car, a young teenage girl was laying on her back; her eyes were open as if to stare accusingly at the heavens. Her mouth was contorted in a scream, but only the haunting image remained. Moving his eyes, Han saw that there was a massive hole in her chest. Such a sight was unmistakably done by the creatures.
Passing by the body, Han could only imagine what her last thoughts were like. Looking around, he didn't see any of the figures that could possibly be her parents.
Sounds of his sister quietly sobbing was heard. His mother softly comforted her, telling her the girl was in a better place.
After passing by a third of the rows, Han noticed a pattern of a blood spray that made it seem as if there was a body laying there before. "It seems that many of the people here in the parking lot have changed into those things."
"What do you mean?" His mom asked.
Pointing to one of the blood spray spots, Han explained, "That spot looks like there should be a body there, the space between the splatter. With the amount of blood splattered on the ground, I doubt the individual could have just walked away." Taking a look at Grace, he said, "What do you think?"
Grace shook her head, saying, "Sorry, I didn't receive much training in such things. The department was thinking about sending people to get trained, but..."
To prevent Han from passing judgment, Harmony said, "Grace is a good officer. The guys just..."
Han lifted his hand to cut Harmony off, "I got a decent picture at the reasons why back at the station."
They continued past equally disturbing scenes, some of them made Han look away. He slowly understood the difference between what was seen in movies versus real life. A part of him was tempted to use his powers and revive the corpses.
Now that Han had pointed out the pattern, the others began pointing out similar areas to one another. There was a lack of wonder in their voices; instead, terror seemed to increase as their current reality built up inside each of them.
When they were halfway through the parking lot, Jennifer asked, "With the number of empty spots seen, where are they?"
"I'm not...," Han started to answer, but a soft thudding noise was heard.
"What is that!?" Harmony cried out, her voice muffled near the end.
Han saw that Grace had placed a hand over Harmony's mouth. Both of their eyes were identical with how wide they were.
Listening to the thudding noise, Han tried to see where the sound was coming from.
"It's coming from a car over there," his mother said, pointing towards a minivan.
"Should we run towards the forest?" Jennifer said.
"No, I don't think it's those things, so let's see what's causing the noise," Han said, understanding he was breaking a fundamental rule in any horror movie. "Stay close to me, and be prepared to run if you guys see or hear anything."
Navigating his way towards the minivan, he kept his head on a swivel to make sure that nothing was happening. There was a chance that the repeated noise would draw something towards them. Incrementally increasing his pace, he remembered to stay away from remains laying on the ground or vehicles.
It was the most unassuming minivan he'd ever seen, a typical blue colored vehicle that mothers would use to drive their children to sport events. Drawing closer, he could make out a fist banging on the window. The window was slightly tinted and with the sunlight, he couldn't make out the face of the individual.
They slowed down and crouched. On the off chance that they weren't spotted, it would likely be better for them to have the advantage. When Han was near one sliding door, he grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. A familiar rolling of the door and thump sounded as the door locked open.
"Ahh!" A scream sounded but was quickly covered by another individual.
"Calm down, Ivy! It's Han!" A grateful voice sounded, turning into sobs of relief.
"Ivy? Ruby?" Han said confused by the situation. "What are you two doing here?"
He had to wait for several moments as the two of them cried in relief. The expression on Grace and Harmony's face was full of confusion, considering they were full of fear about the whole situation and now they found two teenage girls that were crying their eyes out.
Placing his hands on both of their heads, he gently stroked their hair and tried to comfort them. "It's okay. You're safe now." He soothingly said to them.
"W-we came together from Star and Moon Studios and asked the driver to d-drop us off at the m-mall," Ivy haltingly said through her attempts at stopping her tears.
"The both of us thought about buying a new outfit, so...," Ruby blushed and looked at him.
Even though tears were still coming out of Ivy's eyes, she also blushed at the words Ruby said to Han.
Brushing aside the comment, he asked, "How did you get into a van if you were inside of the mall?" His words cut their happy faces away, reopening wounds from before.
"The two of us were inside one of the changing rooms, trying out some sporty outfits when we began hearing screams." Ruby started. "It wasn't the kind of scream you hear when someone is scared, but the kind that gives you massive goosebumps all over your body."
"It sounded like the animals my dad would slaughter at our house when he couldn't afford the get food," Ivy added. Her eyes seemed to be reliving the moment, though whether about the mall or her home only she knew.
"We didn't want to go back home, especially to..." Ruby tried to explain. She seemed to hesitate, as if afraid of how he would think of Ivy and her words.
"There's nothing for the two of you to hide from me," Han tried to reassure the two of them. Even though they were going through such a horrendous event, they were still thinking about their past lives before all of this.
Ruby nodded her head and smiled. Her face soon returned back to a grim expression as she continued, "After hearing the scream, the two of us wanted to find out what had happened but we were also scared. Slowly we left the changing area, and people talked about a woman biting someone and ripping their arm off. It sounded like they were talking about a movie, but then there were more screams." She paused to collect herself. "It didn't sound like the screams were coming from inside of the store and soon we saw people running past the front of the store." As if remembering something, Ruby began shaking in terror. "A guy fell into the store, and some creature jumped on top of him."
"It attacked the man, but even worse was after the thing left the man. When it finished, the thing jumped off the guy and started chasing some of the shoppers. Later, the man that was on the ground began twitching. Somehow, he got up and ran out of the store. The way he moved was beyond creepy." Ivy shivered in disgust.
Everyone was silent as they listened to Ivy and Ruby. Han urged them to continue, "How did the two of you get into the van?"
Ruby took a deep breath, and said, "Near the changing area, there's an emergency exit. Even though the sign said an alarm would sound if the door opened, I knew, from a friend, that some of the workers would use it for their smoking breaks so the alarm was disabled. We went through the door, and once we were outside, the two of us made sure to stick close to the area between the wall and bushes. Ivy suggested that we head to the parking lot so that we could run into the woods but when we reached the parking lot..." She paused for a second, "There were so many people in the parking lot, and those things were chasing after them. Just seeing how many of them, there were, we knew that it would be unlikely for us to reach the woods."
"I saw a woman and her daughter trying to get into a van, but before they could get in one of those things got the mother. The girl ran away where we couldn't see anymore. Remembering that man, we decided to keep hiding." Ivy said. Ruby nodded at her words. "Soon the woman was back on her feet but moving weirdly, like the man before."
"We watched the woman chase after more people. Seeing the van by itself, we realized that it was our chance to try and escape, so the both of us ran towards the van. After getting inside of the van, we shut the door and crawled towards the rear row of seats and hid behind the middle row seats. When we woke up, we heard voices and began pounding on the window." Ruby finished.
Seeing them try hard to convey what happened to them and not break out into tears, Han pulled the two of them towards him and hugged the two. "I'm glad that the two of you are safe."
Feeling the reassuring embrace from him, the two girls sobbed. Their fears from the night before rushing back after having to recount the earlier events.