This Dark, Dark World

Chapter 8

The sound of Lewis' heart thumping beat a quick rhythm into my ears as I kept my head buried in his hoodie, the faint sounds of everyone crying and asking each other if they were okay drifting to my ears in faint murmers.

As Lewis' heartbeat slowed down so did my breathing and I swallowed tears back. I had finally stopped shaking and just let Lewis hold me close to him, locking everything else out. But, the silence I made for myself was suddenly destroyed by the sound of cheering and two gunshots from inside the store. Out of instinct, we all ducked. Joey was the first to look up again and he glanced around, his face in a tight glare.

"The fuck are those assholes doing in there?" he hissed, "that's gonna draw zo-"

All of a sudden Joey's voice stopped and his face paled. That's when the sounds came to my ears as I took my head away from Lewis' chest. The low moans. So many of them. I looked round wildly but in the thick blanket of darkness I could only just see the other people in the group against the dim moonlight trying to break through the grey clouds.

"Shit!" Joey cried, "we have to get to the van! Where the hell is it?"

"The parking lot!" Leo called. My heart nearly stopped as the moans increased. The moans coming directly from the parking lot.

"We have to go! Now!" Terry shouted. My heart almost stopped at the sight of the faint silhouettes of the people in our group wordlessly scattering in different directions. Some of them grabbed at each other but some simply raced off in a panic, with no plan and no idea where the van was. Lewis grabbed my hand and the wind raced past my ears as he turned me around and dragged me away, as silent and clueless as the rest of us.

There was no time to think before we split up and there wasn't any at the moment either. All that I could keep in my mind was that I was grasping Lewis' hand tightly enough to break it and my hope that the men inside the store were still cheering so the zombies were drawn to them and not us.

During the mindless running I did alongside Lewis, my mind frantically grabbed at another realisation: we didn't know where we were running; whether it was towards the van or further away from the group. We could even run into a zombie since I could barely hear anything through the blood pumping in my ears at the same rhythm as my feet pounding against the gravel. Suddenly, I saw the glint of a windshield only a few yards away from us and hope shot through me. I tugged Lewis' arm and pointed at it. He nodded and we darted towards it. The hope quickly faded as I realised it was just a random car but Lewis crouched down beside it anyway, pulling me down with him. My heart thundered in my chest as we squatted on the hard, uneven ground and I tried hard to control my ragged breathing, even though it made my throat burn.

The only thing I had to stop me sobbing purely out of fear was Lewis' hand closed around my own. I was still trembling on the ground though, and Lewis couldn't say a word to try to comfort me. I could faintly make him out in the darkness, and saw him stretching his neck out. I realised he was trying to listen to what was going on and did the same. As I did, the moans from the zombies drifted to my ears, making me shudder. But, they were further away, which made me ever so slightly let go of the breath I was holding as I tried to stay silent.

I couldn't hear anyone else in the group though, and I bit my lip anxiously, straining my ear for any sound to tell me that they were all still alive. Lewis seemed to notice that we were quite far away from the zombies hopefully staggering towards the store and that I was trying desperately not to burst into a sprint and yell for everyone in the group to try and find them and keep us all together.

"They're okay, Sunshine," Lewis whispered as quietly as he could, "we would know if they weren't."

I nodded stiffly, trying to keep the tears from clouding my eyes. I could feel him staring at me as if just willing me to stop panicking and quickly tried to change the subject.