At Dusk

4

For the next few days, we plan everything out. Dylan barely even talks to me since he is still mad that I didn't tell him I was leaving even though he is coming. I don't think it's fair for him to cut me out when we barely even knew each other.

The old baby blue wall phone starts to ring waking me up from my deep sleep. I walk over to it still half asleep rubbing my eyes and I answer it.

"What?" I moan groggily.

"We have to leave tonight at dusk," Weston tells me.

"What? Why?" I ask snapping fully awake, "I thought we were leaving tomorrow."

"A group of Crawlers showed up at our door a few minutes ago, Hayes is becoming a Nooner so we have to leave tonight before they can take him," Weston replies and I can hear the panic in his voice.

"Oh my god, Okay, have you told Oliver and Dylan yet?" I ask, still trying to wrap my head around it.

"I've told Oliver and I am about to tell Dylan, just be at the abandoned church at dusk," Weston says before hanging up.

I stand there for a few seconds, the phone in my hand, this news, making us leaving, feel way more real then it did before. I snap out of my trance and I quickly start shoving the last few things in my backpack. I stick on a basic blue bikini before going outside to have a shower. I dry off and then I pull on a pair of black cargo pants, a greeny brown tank top, black combat boots, and my leather jacket. I put my wet hair into Dutch braids and I wrap my black bandana around my neck. I check that the sun is nearly going down so I chuck my rucksack out the window before swiftly hopping out after it.

I swing my rucksack onto my back and I sneak around my house. I head to the abandoned church and when I arrive all of the guys are waiting for me.

"Hey," I smile weakly and Hayes gives me a small smile back.

"You guys better be sure that you want to do this because once we leave there is no going back," Hayes whispers in case anyone is around.

"Let's go," Weston says after everyone has agreed.

We hastily head east out of Saint Laclade towards the mountains in the distance. As we rush out of town, I look back at Saint Laclade. I feel a bit of sorrow wash over me, knowing I might never see it again the way it is. It may be a crappy place, but I grew up there and all my memories were formed there, good and bad.

....

Even though we have traveled miles and Saint Laclade is barely visible, the mountains don't seem any closer. They still seem unreachable with a mass amount of land and trees in-between. We take a break under a small group of trees. I whip out my flask to have some water before leaning against a tree. I stare up into the night sky and I just watch the full moon go in and out from behind clouds completely wrapped up in my own thoughts.

"You okay Cam?" Hayes asks walking over and sitting down beside me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I sigh taking a few seconds before confessing what I'm thinking, "It's just, I know that Saint Laclade sucked but what if we don't find anything out here, what if we do all of this for nothing, I don't know how we could go back and if we did go back it will never be the same and I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing."

"I think it will be a good thing," Hayes admits, "If we don't find any help out here we will just fight the battle ourselves, it will all work out in the end."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I acknowledge.

"You guess?" Hayes gasps, "I am always right and you know that," he smirks walking over to the others and I follow.