The Dark

The Tennis Courts

"Are you okay?" Crabs says with concern. I notice I am sweating and a little dazed. The impact of my eyelids touching as I blink even hurts. I glance around the room, every detail from the framed photographs of old men to the dusty trophies and wine bottles seems to go in and out of focus. Crabs and his curly, messy, orange hair look as if they're towering over me, when he's clearly standing about two metres away. I catch the smell of beer on his breath when he talks and it makes my nostrils sting, but the sound of the sweet guitar on the radio is the only thing keeping me sane.

"Are you okay?" he asks again, widening his eyes impatiently.

"I-....I'm-........I need sleep?" I don't hear the words come out of my mouth. My eyelids droop, allowing me to see less and less, and my feet take me over to the comfy looking couch. The men currently sitting on the couch alertly pull away from the thing as I fall face-first onto it, sleeping within two minutes.

Hours later I am woken up by a boy's whisper.

"C'mon we're goin' to da courts," he says quietly into my ear. My vision has improved and I am no longer sweating so I decide to sit up. The boy almost looked like Matt for a second but then I realised its just dark. This boy has brown eyes, like me, and his voice sounds like an English accent. His hair isn't curly, but is instead covered by a floppy beanie, with the black bits poking out the front. He grabs my hand to gesture me to get up.

"Dey weren't kiddin' when dey said you was beautiful were dey?" he says in an honest enough tone. I am surprised for a second by the complement until he laughs and says,"Don' think of dat as flirting," he pauses,"Dat'd be weird." I realise I haven't said anything yet,"What's your name?" I ask,

"Da name's Daren, but since you're a gonna be hangin' wiv us, you can call me Daz for short." he says, shushing a few boys behind the couch. "By da way, I pretty much run things round 'ere, the rest of da boys are just dumb, ok?

"What do you mean dumb?" I ask and the others laugh a little, but Daz shushes them again,

"Look, if dey bother you, honestly just punch 'em in da nose, but don' tell Kash," he says with laziness. He adds 'don't tell Kash' with a bit more seriousness than before, but he shrugs it off and when he signals, all of us stand and tip-toe towards the door. There are four tall boys, including Daz, and two guys who are about my height and we creep past the small couch and to the door, Daz twists the doorknob carefully and peeks into the night. He raises his hand and waves towards the tennis courts across the road. When he creeps outside, we follow in the same way. The road is cold on my black, bare feet when it's my turn to step onto the road and I jump back at the touch. I continue and hope no one noticed because everyone else seems to do this quickly and efficiently while I trail behind. The air is twice as cold as the road, when I take my first breath of it. Back in my town the air was always hot and humid, nothing like this, not even in Winter. I'm rudely interrupted in my thoughts by Matt smiling in the hot Winter rain. I push him out of my thoughts, refusing to cry, as I feel the gunshot in my chest like it happened two seconds ago. Daz is far ahead so I attempt to jog across the street silently while the hairs on my arms and legs stand. These courts are huge. I instantly understand that we don't play tennis here. A few lights flicker in the far corner but apart from that the area is pitch black. Someone grabs my hand and pulls me over to a wall. I can't see his face, but I'm assuming it's one of the taller boys. My back hits the wall when I suddenly feel both my hands being dragged above my head. The boy's face approaches mine, but is quickly pulled away.

"Fletch, get away from her! She's been here for one night, one night!" Daz's voice booms at the tall boy I'm assuming is Fletch. Daz grabs my shoulder and glances around while we walk further into the darkness.

"See what I mean? Dey're all pigs, don' trust 'em till you know you can okay?" he says quietly, making sure that the other boys don't hear. His hand falls off of my shoulder and he jogs into the only light on the courts.

"Righto, who's got da booze?" he shouts out to the other boys. Booze? If we are going to drink I'm not really-

" 'Ere," Daz hands me bottle of beer," 'Ave you ever drunk?" he asks when he sees my red cheeks,

"No I haven't," I say honestly, but quietly so the guys don't hear,

"Just 'ave a sip, and if you don' want to," he hands me a different bottle,"Dis ones filled wiv water, so you don' look wuss," he takes the other bottle, already knowing that I don't want to have a drink like him and his stupid friends.

"It's what I do to fit in." and with that, the conversation is over. So he really doesn't drink. Cool. I guess Daz isn't too bad after all.
Ten bottles of fake beer and deep conversations later I come to find these arses aren't too bad. There's Fletch of course, he makes everyone laugh, as well as being super creepy at the same time. I found out from Daz that he usually greets lovely looking ladies like the way that he did. I blushed when he said 'lovely looking ladies' indicating I was somewhat lovely looking? But fortunately he didn't notice because it was dark. There's Sam, he's just shorter than me and he has a tiny button nose with frizzy brown hair covering his eyes. He's sweet and loveable, but he is mysterious and quiet most of the time. Although, after a few drinks he was the main attraction of the party, with his skilful acrobatic moves. He actually successfully did a backflip while drunk. It was a little wonky, but he did it. There's Paul and Bary, or better known as Bazza. They're brothers and they're completely different. While Paul is slim and tall with glasses and a tie, Bazza is chubby with messy hair, and is wearing a singlet and shorts in Winter. Paul is proper, the way he talks, walks and dresses himself all says 'probably from a rich family'. But since Bazza is from the same family...never mind. Lastly there's a boy who towers over everyone. He is tall, muscular and probably has a girlfriend judging by his great jawline and 'oh-so-perfect tan'. I already hate him because I can't help but stare. Don't get me wrong, he's great and everything, but it's actually distracting.

We all tip-toe across the street again, stealthily, now that I'm a little used to the cold weather now. I don't stay more than a metre behind Daz, but Fletch is right behind me, almost touching my lower back as his arms swing. We reach the little pub again, smoothly opening the creaky door, and slipping back into our sleeping positions. Since there aren't really beds here in this tiny pub, the boys and I crash on the couch, on pillows and blankets that cover the floor and some people even found proper mattresses so they brought them inside to sleep on. After we all settle into our spots I close my eyes and notice that I didn't see the Mad Woman all night, like at all.

Whoosh.

There's a rummaging bags and a couple of footsteps. They come closer and closer until I can't bear but look.
I open my eyes.
I am face to face with the dreaded eyes that glow, but this time they are about two centimetres from my own.