Escape the Walking Dead // h.s.

9

Jane's POV

Harry had accompanied me all night up on the scaffolding lookout point until that horrifying hour of 2 a.m. came along. He showed me to his house, which I knew was right across the street from where Ben and Ciara were still staying, and upstairs into his room. William and Leslie were right down the hall and so was Luke, the man who showed the three of us to our first room. I wasn't sure of his job in camp but I knew he was an important part of the mechanics of everyday living.

Harry opened the door with his abnormally large hand and walked in before me. The uneasiness in the air was strong and I felt uncomfortable with the idea of me moving into his room. As I stepped inside, my skin prickled and I immediately smelled him everywhere. It was a musky scent, not too clean but not too dirty either. It smelled like leather and gun powder.

His feet carried him to the bed and he leaned down to grab a pillow from it. His shoulders were wide and it looked strange for such a broad man to be carrying such a fluffy pillow. I didn't dare smile at the thought because I was still so uneasy being in there. I had told him I trusted him, but I wasn't sure if I knew what that even meant yet. I just knew how to survive, and that's what I was trying to do here.

"Um, yeah," he tucked the pillow under one of his arms and adjusted the brown curls on his head. "I'll have Luke tell you what to do in the morning for clothes and food and whatever."

His feet backed out of the room quickly, leaving me to look around with wide eyes. The room was bare of anything other than books, magazines, and small tables with old items sitting on top that were waiting to be fixed. In the corner of the room nearest the window and the bench underneath it, sat a table with board games stacked six high in different piles. That caused me to smile.

"Goodnight," Harry said and I looked back at him in time to see the door shut between us. His feet stood outside the doorway for a moment and I watched him shift from foot to foot under the door until he finally walked away.

My chest felt lighter when I heard him go down the stairs and out the door. I walked to the window to see where he would go and I pushed back the navy curtain to peek at him. He took the sidewalk across from this house and turned back to glance up at me staring down at him.

I gasped at his peering and shot backwards with embarrassment. Dammit. I took a step forward and peeked my nose and eyes past the curtain again. He was still standing there, but now he was waving at me with a small smirk. I rolled my eyes and stepped away from the window for a final time. It was strange seeing him so goofy and normal, I had been so used to seeing him so serious.

I took my sweaty shirt off and slept in my bra and underwear, but I soon realized that the house was way too cold to sleep in nothing. The few clothes in his drawers I could find didn't offer much help either, so I looked at the clothes on the floor. He had a black hoodie and a pair of black sweats just laying on the floor near the edge of the bed. I assumed that they were what he used to sleep in too.

After crawling into them, I realized how warm and comfortable I was, but I just wasn't ready to introduce myself to sleep. Instead of staying in the bed, I grabbed one of the many books on his nightstand and walked to the window to sit on the bench just underneath the glass.

My back rested on the wall of the nook and I leaned my head against the glass of the window.  The moon shined into the room enough when I pushed the curtains away for me to read the words in the book. Eventually while I read, I had fallen asleep and had a perfectly dreamless night. Maybe this room was the best thing that ever happened to me in the new world.

"Jane! Let's go!" I was awoken from my slumber in the nook when Luke opened the door to my new room.

The older man rushed out and I was left with an aching forehead once I jumped and threw the book into my face. Maybe this wasn't actually the best thing that ever happened to me in the new world...