"Rose? Is that you? I'm so glad you're safe!" A woman with dark black hair wearing a pretty yellow sundress stood in the hallway, Rose clinging to her leg. She glanced at us, then looked back down at Rose "Where did you run off to? Your father and I were worried sick. In fact, why don't you go tell him that you are okay? He's over there in the office" She looked up from her daughter towards us, pushing Rose gently off of her leg and towards another room next to her.

"Thank you so much for finding my baby girl. Sometimes she gets these ideas in her head to wander off alone. If you don't mind staying outside though I would greatly appreciate it. Given our current situation, my husband and I felt it best to not let anyone else in."

"What do you mean Mommy? You told me to leave when the pizza man showed up. I was just doing what you said." Rose turned back as she was entering the room her mother had indicated. "Why is Daddy in this dark room?"

"Honey, why don't you go say hi to Daddy first. He's in the dark because he had a surprise planned for you. Go on now, and let the grownups talk with each other." The woman had a smile that looked almost like a grimace on her face. I didn't have the greatest feeling about this. First, the parents who were missing were now suddenly back, and now trying to get Rose to go into a dark room alone. As she walked in, I almost moved to stop her, but something held me back. And then a man slammed the door behind her, quickly locking it.

"Mommy? I'm scared of the dark." came from behind the locked door.

"Now that our daughter is safely contained. Shapeshifter or human? Not that I expect you'll answer anything other than human." The woman spoke to us while the man typed on a keypad I hadn't noticed next to the door. A metal fire door slid into place over it with a crash. "I, unfortunately, don't have a good method to test for whether or not you are shapeshifters without DNA analysis. My lab has the equipment for it, but I don't trust you enough to go there. So, convince me."

"Lady, you need to be convincing us. You just trapped a little girl in a dark metal cage. A girl that you claim to be your daughter. Am I the only one seeing this bro?" Stanley looked over at me.

"Listen, it's fine for now. But as much as I want it to be human, I know in my heart my daughter is dead. She wasn't lying about some of what she likely told you. The pizza man was a shapeshifter, but I didn't tell her to run. She was grabbed by him before I could get there to help. He didn't kill her, at least not when I saw her, but that man got away before I could stop him. We hadn't seen her since. My husband and I are researchers who were drafted to figure out a method by which we can kill these things by the National Guard when they took over our lab yesterday. That was before we knew how bad the outbreak was, and we had headed home at the behest of one of our guards for our safety. The only thing we found was a DNA test will reveal what they are and that the only real way to kill them is with fire."

Stolen novel; please report.

The man walked up, "We will take care of her, and see if we can remove the parasite somehow. But right now, we can't trust you. I can do a blood draw and take some tissue samples from you if you choose, but we can't test them without my wife's PCR machine. Until that point, I think it best that you leave.

"Mommy! Let me out!" A slightly garbled and muted voice came again from behind the door. I heard a thudding sound against it, with much heavier force than a 10-year-old girl should have been able to output. The man looked nervously at the door as visible dents began appearing on it.

"Rowen, we may need to activate the contingency protocol. She's starting to deform the metal on the fire door. Our containment area isn't going to hold her."

Rowen looked extremely conflicted about whatever the contingency protocol was. "Fuck. Just do it. We knew it was a longshot that some cheap metal could hold in one of them." She turned to us "You might think John and I callous for our actions, but we are doing what we have to for the sake of the world."

John pressed a few more buttons on the keypad and a loud whooshing sound came from the room, followed by the painful screams of a little girl. Rowen visibly winced and said something softly to herself. I could just barely make it out. "I'm sorry baby. I hope you can forgive Mommy and Daddy for not being there to protect you." I looked over and Stanley still looked horrified at what was happening.

"You two should get moving. We learned that whenever the creatures die they send out a psychic signal to any of them still in the area. More will be showing up soon. If you survive, meet us at the industrial district. I've heard some rumors people are getting set up there, and as long as they haven't been infiltrated it could be a decent place to hole up until we either get a handle on everything, or it all goes to shit."

"What about you two? Aren't you in danger as well?" The two of them didn't seem to be in a hurry to start packing to get out of here.

"We will be fine son. This house has a few more surprises left in it. And we weren't always laboratory researchers, so we can handle ourselves. Besides, someone needs to pay for what they forced us to do to our daughter." John said, eyes steel and fists clenched. "Run along now, you won't want to be here when the fireworks start."

I grabbed Stanley and we got moving. I couldn't be sure but based on what John was saying I wouldn't put it past them to have some nasty traps waiting for the new arrivals. We stayed out of sight, watching as odd creatures of flesh and bone lumbered towards the house. Alongside them were others that still appeared to be human. I wasn't sure how we were going to survive the time required if this is what we were up against. Once we had gotten far enough away that I felt comfortable, we rested for a bit. Off in the distance, I could still vaguely hear popping sounds coming rapid fire from the direction we had just left. Well, at least we had a lead about someone setting up civilization. Stanley and I were hopeful as we moved ever closer to our goal, although I was still skeptical that things would be as good as the two had made it out ot be.