Phoebe came out of the stall.
“Sorry, I had to pee.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
We finished up what we needed to do and headed back to the store. The guys let us in the gate and headed out themselves. Robert gave Phoebe a kiss before going. Freddie didn’t even look at Jamie.
After they left, Phoebe climbed into one of the tents.
“Night, girls. I’m beat.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
Jamie smiled and said “Night, night.”
I sat on the log in the makeshift camp sight.
“I heard what Freddie said to you earlier,” Jamie said. She continued when I looked at her confused. “About my brother.”
“Oh, that.”
“I’m sorry. He can be bit crude,” she said.
“You sure do apologize for him a lot.”
She shrugged, “he’s just not good with people.”
“You mean he’s not a good person.”
“He is, deep down. You wouldn’t understand,” she said looking down at her feet.
I sighed, “I understand. It’s hard when you love someone to always see them clearly. Believe me I know.”
She nodded, “well, it wasn’t nice what he said to you. He’s jealous of Daniel. I don’t really know why.”
“Well, now’s the time for him to man up and stop being such a baby.”
She laughed, “Yeah. That’s not going to happen though. Goodnight.”
“Night,” I said.
She went into the other tent and zipped it shut.
The guys came back shortly after Jamie had gone into the tent. We closed and locked up the gate. Freddie settled in with her without saying much to anyone. Daniel, Robert, and I sat around chatting a little before Daniel went to sleep. He had set up his sleeping bag off to the side of the two tents instead of sleeping in one. I think he wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice if he needed to be.
Robert and I set together with the lantern on. We didn’t talk much. Robert seemed to be deep in thought and I was just trying to stay awake for the three hours our watch lasted. Volunteering to go first I realized might have been a mistake.
“Strange how life has turned out, isn’t it?” Robert said.
I nodded, “strange indeed.”
Robert was about to reply when there was a sudden burst of laughter. It was coming from down the hall.
Chapter 14
Robert looked at me. He pointed behind the counter where the cash register was. I made my way over to the counter and crouched behind it. Robert picked up the lantern and followed me. When he got in position in front of me, he turned the lantern off.
We sat in silence waiting for whatever it was. I could only hear Robert’s breathing and the deep breaths of the others sleeping in the tents. Then the laughter echoed off the hall. It sounded unnatural and unreal given the situation the world was in. It was something you would expect to hear in a mall on a Saturday afternoon from a bunch of teenagers.
I wondered if these people had been here awhile and if they had known we were here. What if this was part of a sick game and now that the world had about come to an end, they were going to go on a killing spree of the few people that were still kicking?
“Let’s go sleep in the hammock store,” a girl said. Her voice was echoing in the open space. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Could you take this a bit more seriously? We were almost attacked by those things.” Said another girl.
“Yeah, but we weren’t so let’s enjoy what we can.”
I saw the light from their flash light. They came into view in front of the store. I almost thought it was only the two of them until a boy joined them in front of the store.
“Come on Laci, we’re safe for tonight.” He said.
He looked at the store we were in. Robert and I moved more behind the counter just in case they shined the light in. I was worried someone was going to wake up and give us away. Daniel couldn’t be seen from that angle where he was sleeping thankfully.
“Why is the gate down on this store but none of the others?” the boy asked.
I felt my blood run cold when he said that. I just knew we were done for.
“It’s probably to cage in those ugly things.” One of the girls replied.
“No, they would be trying to get us. There are people in there.” He said his voice sounded sinister. “Come out, come out and play whoever you are.” He then began to laugh.
There was a smacking sound.
“What the hell did you do that for?” He shouted.
“You’re going to get us killed. If someone is in there that’s alive, which I highly doubt, they’ll probably kill us. It’s not like we have anything to defend ourselves with.”
“Look, I was just being funny, you’re so damn uptight. Let’s go.”
Their footsteps started and faded into the distance.
I heard a zipper.
“What was that?” Phoebe whispered.
“Just some stupid teenagers,” Robert replied. “They won’t hurt us.”
Phoebe nodded and went back in the tent after Robert’s reassurances. Robert and I went back to where we were guarding near the front of the store. He only turned on the lantern to guide our way back then shut it off to keep from being noticed.
“How do you think they got past all those zombies outside?” I asked, curious beyond belief considering that they had said they had no weapons.
“They’ve probably moved on from there. It’s been awhile. Regardless the reason, it sounds promising for us tomorrow.”
We kept guard for two more hours. There were no more occurrences. The teenagers settled in somewhere because they never came back and there were no appearances from any zombies either.
After we were done with our watch, we woke up Phoebe and Daniel. Robert gave them the watch to keep track of time and we switched places. I
