This Dark, Dark World

Chapter 5

The shattering of a window closely followed the gunshot and my ears began to ring, making me wince. I turned and although that itself made me stumble from the continuous spinning that occurred after I had stopped, I could still see the small trail of smoke that drifted upwards from the barrel of the small handgun Alex was holding. Actually, it was quite good that my ears were ringing; that way I couldn't hear the many names Joey was calling Alex. But, as my ears slowly cleared, I heard Alex's voice, talking so quietly I almost couldn't hear how broken it sounded.

"She's gone," he whimpered, "so I may as well be too. She was everything to me; I needed her. Without her there's no point in me living. They'll come for me now, then I can be with Abby again."

"What you don't seem to understand," Joey said, his voice dangerously low, "is that they'll come for us too," he spat the words at Alex and I saw his eyes widen in guilt before he lowered his head, his curly hair swinging gently in the breeze. Joey, for once, wasn't glaring. But his eyes had a menacing glint in them that made me squirm, "I'll let you think about that one, Alex," and with that Joey turned on his heel and walked away from Alex and over to us.

"That crazy asshole! He's gonna get us all killed!" Travis yelled angrily, his eyebrows knitted together in anger.

"Well, screaming like a baby's not gonna help us not get killed, is it?" Shawna hissed. Travis glared at her hard as she marched over to Joey, "we have to get moving!" she said quickly.

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped. He pointed at Lewis, "right, you move a crate under that window. It's up kinda high so we'll need something to stand on to climb through."

"Got it," Lewis said. I bit my lip anxiously as I watched him run over to the large crates by the back wall until Joey pointed at me.

"You go help him," he said stiffly. I didn't say thank you to him. I wasn't about to thank a man who recently wanted to shoot me in the head. But I gave him a small smile that he refused to return before I ran over to Lewis' side to push the crate.

"Rest of you keep watch with me," I heard Joey say to everyone else, "we'll shoot any of 'em that get too close."

"Hey Sunshine," Lewis panted, his eyes flickering to me before again to the shattered window he had to push the heavy crate beneath. I smiled at him and ran round to the other side of the crate to pull it. Lewis grinned at me and I saw the laughter in his eyes as I pulled on the crate with all my might, my face turning bright red.

"Don't. Laugh. At. Me," I huffed, frowning at him.

"Alright, Sunshine," Lewis chuckled. I tried to keep glaring at him but couldn't stop my mouth from twitching upwards at the sides; Lewis' laugh was so infectious.

We managed to drag the crate over to the wall and that was when we finally heard the sound of gunshots going off behind us.

"Right, c'mon guys!" Lewis called over his shoulder, taking his jacket off quickly. He handed it to me and, before I could protest, lifted me onto the crate, "right, Sunshine, you get in first and hang that jacket over the window pane. Don't wanna get that glass in anybody. Now, come on, in you go."

I opened my mouth to tell him that I could help everyone else instead of going in first but the look in his eyes told me that there would be no arguing about it. So, I gave him a stiff nod and turned around to lay the jacket over the shards of glass still sticking out of the wood. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lewis give me a small smile before I scrambled through the small window and fell onto a thinly carpeted floor, nearly crying out in pain as I grazed my elbow and knocked my head hard against a wooden shelf. I lay there, winded, for a second before I heard the gunshots stopping and someone beginning to climb through the window. I looked around quickly and spotted a few large, squashy cushions against a wall. I ran over and grabbed them and managed to throw them underneath the window before the person came tumbling into the room, his black beanie flying off. I knew who it was instantly. The driver of the van smiled at me goofily, wiping his messy hair out of his eyes.