Oblivion {n.h.}

Chapter 2.

I wasn't sure what happened next whether I blacked out or just locked what I'd seen away in my memory forever, all I want to do is get out of there.

The sound of more explosions shaking the ground, making me weak in the knees every time I go to walk.

"Jackson–" I reach out for my brother who stumbles across the pavement of the school parking lot, "Jackson, I don't know what to do– I just, what's happening?"

I begin to panic, tugging on his shirt as we begin to attempt to run across the car park.

Emily cries out somewhere next to me and Steven is somewhat ahead of us, frantically looking for somewhere to go also.

The entire left side of the school is demolished and completely on fire from the looks of it, a lot of noise and screams screeching through the air.

I trip over my feet yet again, not letting go of Jackson's long-sleeve shirt and almost bringing him down with me, and a hand locks onto my wrist from behind.

"Are you alright?" A shaggy blonde haired boy asks me, the same one from last week who'd been hit with the eraser on the floor.

I nod my head at the boy before getting up on my feet and continuing to follow Steven wherever he may lead us.

We reach the far end of the car park and Steven stumbles with the keys to his Ford truck in his pocket, quickly trying to unlock the vehicle.

Jackson and I hop in the back of the truck, meanwhile Steven releases the locks and allows Emily and the blonde boy to climb up in the front.

"Where we going?" Jackson asks, covering his face with his hands, but yelling loud enough for Steven to hear him.

"We've got to check on our families, see if they're okay!" Steven yells back us, spinning the truck around and speeding off down the road I take everyday; Steven and Emily living in the same neighborhood as I do.

The truck speeds down the concrete road, hopping over bumps and sending me soaring off of my ass every few seconds, my brown hair blowing crazily in the wind.

The truck screeches to a halt and no one moves a muscle up in the front seat.

I get up into my feet, looking over the top of the truck to see the entire neighborhood where all of us had lived for so many years; fully demolished.

Nothing to be seen but a whole bunch of rubbish and fires soaring high in the air above the debris.

"No–" I whisper, more to myself than anyone else.

"Where do we go? What do we do? Who's gonna help us?" Are all questions that fly out of the five of our mouth's at once.

Steven staying mostly silent and Emily nearly having a panic attack.

"Not even any sirens or anything." I tell Jackson from beside me scoping out our surroundings with our eyes.

"I don't even know what's going on, what the hell do we do?" He frustrates, rubbing his hands through his hair roughly.

A rustling in the bushes behind me makes me turn my back so fast I might as well have whiplash, a few trees left although they'd been knocked over and killed from the explosion.

Trying desperately to see through the trees to see what may be causing the noise, it sounds like footsteps, rough ones.

A groan hits me like wind, and then the stench of year old milk, mixed with rotten dog shit reaches my nostrils.

"What the hell?" I ask no one in particular, looking again to see someone standing before me.

A woman with brunette hair that's tangled and knotted stares at me from where I stand above the truck.

Her eyes are foggy and discolored; it takes me a minute to realize that it was Lisa.

"Lisa? Are you okay? I thought–" I reach a hand out to my step-mother, the woman I once hated now here before me.

My hand reaches Lisa's shoulder before she opens her mouth widely, her black; rotten gums exposed to my eyes now, I pull my hand back just in time before she tries to sink her teeth into my flesh.

"LISA!" I yell, stepping back into Jackson, both of us nearly falling out of the back of the truck.

"Hey? What's going on back with you guys–" Steven sticks his head out of the window, Lisa then turning to him and clawing at the car window he'd quickly rolled up.

She groans and moans from the depths of her throat inhumanly, and more rustling echoes in the woods, much faster and louder this time.

A man with ear-length blonde hair proper hops into the back of the trunk with us, a baseball bat in hand as he swings his left arm around, hitting my stepmother right in the head.

The only sound to be heard; a squishy noise of blood and guts smearing on the hard surface.

"Who the hell are you?" Jackson asks loudly, nearly screaming at the stranger who'd just invaded our space.

Alex, the blonde guy, opens the back window of the truck in order to speak with us from the front.

"YOU JUST KILLED HER!" Alex screams at the guy, waving his hands in a crazy gesture.

"I didn't kill her, I killed it; and I only did kill it because if I didn't, it was going to kill you." The man rants on, his voice American and thick, yet he keeps it quiet. "I would strongly advise you to step the hell on the gas right now and get out of here."

"What do you mean she was going to kill us?" Emily screeches from the front seat, her voice crackly and it quivers as if she'd been crying.

"SHE WAS GOING TO EAT YOU, AND IF YOU DONT GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW SHE WON'T BE THE ONLY ONE TRYING TO." The man screams at my best friend, and I pull his arm down to where he can sit where Jackson and I do.

"Drive, Steven." I call toward him, more rustling coming from the woods as before; a never ending cycle now.

"But we can't even be sure if we can trust him–" Steven tries to finish before I interrupt him again.

"JUST DRIVE!" I yell this time, the boy quickly U-turning the vehicle around and speeding away as fast as the truck can go.

I look back to where we'd been just seconds before, person after person emerging from the woods just as the older man had; and they all slowly began walking down the road after us. Although we were long gone.

"Jackson Lerman." My brother sticks out a hand to the older American guy, and he purses his lips at him; shaking his hand confidently.

"Joshua Ameen." He shakes back, looking to me expectantly.

"Danielle Lerman, thank you."