Shock

-29-

"Hey Nathan?" I whispered.

"What?"

"Can you make sure I don't fall asleep?"

"Sure. Can you do the same for me?"

I nodded.

Though I didn't know exactly what it was he dreamt about, I didn't want to see him go through the hell of waking up again.

I looked at the shed, in which Peter and Haley were still sleeping. I decided we'd continue walking when they'd wake up. No need to disturb their sleep. It would be dangerous to walk in the dark anyway. Plus, I wasn't ready to leave Paisley behind.

I couldn't see her very well now, just a few beams of moonlight reached the pavement down below, and yet my eyes were glued to the spot where I'd left her.

It felt so unreal, I almost convinced myself that it was. That I'd just imagined the whole scenario, and she was safely sleeping in the shed with Peter and Haley. Almost.

As my thoughts wandered, I felt the weight of Nathan's head resting on mine increase. After a while, his breathing slowed and it became apparent that he had dozed off.

"Nathan," I hissed. He didn't respond.

"Nathan!"

His eyes snapped oped and he shook his head a few times.

"Did I fall asleep?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

It didn't take long before my eyelids started to get heavy and Nathan had to nudge me awake as well.

Shortly after that, Nathan started slipping again.

This cycle continued, until finally, Nathan sat up a little straighter.

"Okay, this isn't working," he said after I'd dozed off for the third time. "We need to do something, to stay busy so we don't fall asleep."

"Yeah, don't get me wrong, but I really don't feel like going for a run right now,"

"It doesn't have to be something physical, we can just... Talk. Tell stories. Something like that."

I perked up. "Oh, I know a story! It's a bedtime story though, so perhaps it's a bit counter-productive..."

"Anything's better then looking at the sky, counting stars."

I lifted my head to look at him.

"You were counting stars?"

"I know, terrible idea, they're uncountable-"

"No, that's not why I think it's a bad idea. You were counting stars, that's like counting sheep, you were bound to fall asleep."

He twisted his lips.

"Yeah... That too."

I chuckled.

"So. The story."

I scraped my throat and straightened my shoulders to get myself into 'story-teller-mode'.

"Once upon a time, in a great big swamp in the southern Florida, there were a crocodile and an alligator-"

"Really?" Nathan interrupted.

"Huh?"

"Do they really live there? Crocodiles and alligators? Do they really live in Florida?"

"It's the only place they live side by side. I wouldn't tell my brothers lies."

He snickered.

"I knew you'd care about the scientific accuracy of bed time stories."

A smile crept to my lips.

"Well, yes. So the crocodile and the alligator wanted to know who the scariest reptile was, and they decided to host a competition between the two of them.

'What's the most important part of being scary?' The alligator wondered.

'Well,' the crocodile answered..."

I could hear Nathan snicker as I did the voices.

"'Everybody knows that the number of teeth you have directly correlates to the level of scariness you posses.'"

"Obviously," Nathan joked.

I rolled my eyes. "So, the crocodile and the alligator started counting their teeth. One, two, three, four-"

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to fall asleep?" Nathan asked. I ignored him.

"... Five, six, they kept on counting 'till both were done. Then, the alligator asked the crocodile how many teeth he had. 'Sixty-seven.'

'Seventy-nine. I win!' said the alligator. 'Okay,' said the crocodile, 'Maybe you do have more teeth than me. But I bet you I can swim faster!'

'We'll see about that,' said the alligator, 'I'll race you for it!'"

After a while, Nathan stopped interrupting me. He just stared at me as I told the story. I tried my best to ignore his goofy expression. I'd told this story dozens of times before, but still I tripped over my words a few times.

When I finished telling the story, a soft orange glow was starting to shower our suroundings, making the street shimmer. I yawned.

"Looks like we made it 'till dawn."

"Looks like we did. Great story."

I felt my smile broaden.

"Thanks."

We sat next to each other in silence, watching the sun rise over the buildings.

As beautifull as it was, I still wished it would stay dark just a little longer. The night had covered everything with a veil of mystery, as if the world stopped existing for a while. It had allowed me to forget my worries and to be something close to happy. Now that daytime had come around again, reality crashed back in without mercy.

"I, uh, I'm going to check on the kids," I announced.

Nathan mumbled a reply. I got to my feet and took a few steps in the direction of the shed.

When I was just a few meters away from it, I could hear Haley's voice. She and Peter were both awake.

I didn't want to interrupt their conversation, so I softly knocked on the side of the shed.

Both heads turned to me.

I smiled.

"Hey... Uhm, if you're both awake, maybe we could start walking again in a few minutes?"

"Can we have breakfast first?"

"Sure."

I picked my backpack off the ground, opened it, and told them to pick out what they wanted while I got Nathan.

As I walked over to him it occured to me that I should have told them to leave enough for later. There was no guaranty as to how long we'd be on the road, so we'd need as much provision as we could get. Though I figured that if the need got too high, we could always break into a store. Still, the idea of normalising B&E to my little brother wasn't really high on my bucket list.

Nathan had already gotten up and met me halfway.

"Are they up yet?"

I nodded.

"They're having breakfast right now."

We walked back together and joined Haley and Peter in the shed.

As we sat down to eat I got a weird deja-vu feeling. Less than twenty-four hours ago we'd been sitting in the same configuration, only there'd been one more mouth to feed.

I felt a nudge on my arm. When I looked up, I saw Peter was offering me a bisquit.

I forced a smile and a 'Thank you.'.

I tried to focus completely on the action of nibbling on the bisquit.

A couple of minutes later, when the can of beans was empty and there were about ten biquits left, we packed our bags once again and, for what felt like the hundreth time, we started walking.