As the group entered the darkness, one thing became entirely clear: there was a presence all around them. Joel, specifically, felt as if he was being watched from all angles. Those creatures were out there in the dark somewhere, watching from all angles, waiting to strike them and kill them. His breaths grew quicker as he began to move faster. He felt too exposed. He needed to get his hands on a weapon. An axe. Or a crowbar. Or a fuckin' chainsaw or something. Something to make him feel safe. Something to protect himself.

Valencia, on the other hand, for the first time in her life, felt fucking powerful with her lead pipe in tow. She felt like she could stop one of those things if it came for them. Maybe not kill it, but stop it from killing one of them, or stop it long enough for them to get away from it. She was in a constant state of hyper-alertness, her ipe held at the ready constantly, ready to bring it down on something.

Bring it on, fuckers. She thought, adrenaline pumping through her body as they all waited for Jeff to break the lock. Try me.

In reality, she was petrified. But she needed to be strong. Because if she wasn't, she would be breaking down, and that wouldnt be helpful for anyone in this situation, would it?

"Help me..."

The voice that came from within the darkness was so soft that they had almost missed it. "What was that?" Lee asked as she scanned the darkness for anything. It had sounded human.

"Help me...I'm over here."

Jeff had stopped working on the lock for a few moments. It had sounded like his mother's voice. His parents had left to find help after the darkness came and they never made it back. Lee grabbed Jeff's shoulder to prevent him from going anywhere. It was suspicious to the woman that there would be somebody out there. She assumed that it could happen and the person was just lost but there were things out here that seemed to like killing people. "Let me go." Jeff hissed.
Bob nearly fell forward when Avery let go of the box to run towards the sound of the voice. His mom was still alive! Avery made it a few feet away from the group, just at the edge of two cars parked along the building when something grabbed his shirt from the front. He screamed.

Rowena dropped the bag full of water bottles onto the ground before rushing over and gripping Avery tightly, trying to pull him back towards the group. Whatever had a hold of the boy wasn't going to let go. Avery was kicking and screaming. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks as he scratched at the thing that had him. Jeff had rushed over as well, trying to get his brother back. Avery was being lifted into the air by whatever it was and Rowena yelled for Lee. The woman aimed the gun into the darkness just above Avery's head and pulled the trigger. The creature let out a horrible screech of pain before grabbing onto Avery again and pulling harder. Rowena and Jeff pulled the boy back down before Lee let another shot ring out.
This time the monster released Avery enough to allow Jeff to scramble backwards with his brother. They were both crying. There was a bit of blood on Avery's shirt where the monster's nails had dug into his skin.

Rowena scrambled backwards once she was satisfied that whatever it was it wasn't going to come back soon. Lee frantically began working at the door. When it finally opened she ushered everyone inside before closing the door behind her. They needed something heavy to use to keep it closed.

Joels body felt as though it were moving on its own. He practically dragged Barb into the back of the shop, not wasting a second before suddenly, yet gingerly, dropping her onto the cold cement floor. His etyes scanned the back room. It felt like a garage of some sort, or a storage area, or something. He didnt have time to think about it. He was looking for something to block the door off with. Lee was standing with the gun aimed at the door, throwing out evey obscenity she could in anger, daring the creature to come in after them. She wasnt shaking, she wasnt frantic. She was posed, ready for action, in complete control. She just felt like swearing.

"Joel! Fuck, help me out here!" a voice called out, causing Joel's head to snap to the side, towards the source of the voice. Valencia had her body pressed up agaist a large, out of comission soda machine. She was slowly moving it, pressing all of her weight into the side of the machine, inching it along, and clearly, she needed help. Not missing a beat, Joel closed the distance between them in a matter of seconds. He slammed his body against the machine with Valencia, and together, they werw able to move it in front of the door, the sound of scraping metal filling the ears of everyone in the room for a few moments before they were all met with dead silence.

The air was still. Nobody dared to move, waiting for something to happen. The moments creeped along at a painfully slow pace before the silence was broken by Avery's wailing, followed by an uproar of panicked and frantic chittering and harsh whispering. Valencia sighed out loudly, relieved that they were, for the moment, safe. She let her body slide down the machine, plopping on the floor. Joel followed suite, taking a seat next to her, pulling his cap off of his head and tossing it onto the floor in front of them. He closed his eyes, looking up into the air as a small, exhausted chuckle bubbled out of his throat. Valencia smiled and did the same.

"Teamwork." She proclaimed, holding up her hand, for a high five, letting the other push some loose strands of hair from her face, put there by the sudden and tense actions of the preeding moments.

"Yeah, teamwork." Joel responded, givng her hand a meek, exhausted tap, followed by another small chuckle. He was incredibly relieved at the moment, for two reasons.

One, they werent in the diner. They were in a store full of potential weapons.

And two, there were no huge windows in here and, therefore, no place of the creatures to slip in through.

"Alright." Lee said, crossing her arms in frot of her, sliding the revolver into the waistband of her pleated pants. "Those were the final three shots I had. We need to find some more weapons in the store. Bob, see to Barb, make sure she's alright. Rowena, make sure Avery's okay, make sure the brothers are doing fine. Joel, Valencia, stay right where you are, you're doing great. I'll go into the ront of the store with Sam, and we're gonna see if it's safe in there."

She paused for a moment, looking around the room, making sure everyone was listening. All eyes were on her.

"Sound good?"

Everyone nodded and got around to their jobs given to them by Lee.

While none felt entirely safe this place was better than the diner. Avery's cries died down into whimpers as Jeff and Rowena made sure that he was fine. The scratches on his chest and stomach from the claws of the monster weren't deep and probably wouldn't need stitches. Ruth came over to check on the boy. Her hands shook, not from her fright but because she had yet to have another drink of alcohol. Bob asked Ruth to check on Barb since he had to rest. The woman nodded and checked on the injured woman.

Avery soon fell into a restless sleep next to his brother on the floor. So much had changed for the boys in such a short amount of time that Rowena was worried for them. They had lost their parents and their lives, everyone's lives, were turned upside down. Bob had found a stack of boxes to sit on with his leg outstretched. The damn thing still gave him problems after all of these years. The silence was beginning to wear on his nerves and Bob began to sing. In his younger years he sang in his church choir but it had been years since then. He sang to his children but they were grown and lived a few states away so he couldn't sing to his grandchildren.

"Ae fond kiss and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee,
Who shall say fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around beknights me."

Bob's singing voice as a bit higher than most thought but it was welcomed. He continued his song and Rowena had a small smile on her face. This was one of Sam's favorite songs. She couldn't remember where he said he heard it from, possibly one of his grandparents who died when he was just a little boy. Jeff stared blankly at the far wall; he couldn't see much of it through the dimness of the rest of the room. The burgundy haired woman sat next to Jeff and she fixed his short hair. He didn't move away from her touch nor did he lean into it.

"It's okay to be scared," she said softly, taking his hand in hers. Her dad had the habit of holding her hand when she was scared and it carried on to her. "He's safe and that's all that matters, okay? We'll protect him."

Sam was busy looking around the front room of the hardware shop. There was only one window but they could block it off soon enough and there were enough things they could use to make weapons out of that they could protect themselves the next time the monsters come. "We should get to work on blocking that window. Maybe the door too." The door seemed sturdy enough but he didn't want to chance it.

The front half of the store was separated from the back by a thick cement wall and a heavy, metal door with a single window in the center, reinforced by some sort of a mesh metal that entwined and twisted between the panels of glass. In terms of hiding places, the group could have done a hell of a lot worse, that's for sure. Sam, now convinced that the people in the back were at least relatively safe, had taken to wandering the isles of the store while Lee rummaged through the front of the store, behind the counter. She was searching for another gun, or maybe ammo for the gun. She had only been in the store twice-- once to buy some putty to fix her leaky sink, and another time to buy a hammer for something unimportant-- she had seen the man who owned it. He was big, he had a beard, and he wore lots of plaid. If he didnt have a gun behind this counter, she would be surprised.

She was surprised, and she made that clear.

"Jesus fucking christ..." she muttered under her breath, rubbing at one of her temples as she stood up. "Nothing..."

Sam was finding that his explorations were leading to much more fruitful results. Big, heavy pipes. wrenches, scythes, hedge clippers, bladed objects, blunt objects, they could all be found in the isles.

"Hey, I think theres stuff we can use here!" He said, calling out to Lee. "Like, a bunch of good stuff."

Lee couldn't believe someone like the owner of the shop didn't own a gun or have any bullets. He was a big man surrounded by power tools and Rosswood was generally a nice place to live with a low crime rate. Maybe it was a bit of stereotyping on her part but if she asked anyone else they would have said the same. When Sam called her over the woman quickly walked over and looked down the aisles. This place was like a weapon heaven.

"We better get to work on the window and distributing these to everyone." Lee was already making a mental checklist of their new inventory. There were some things that were suited to people like Bob and Avery. Lightweight things that would help protect them.
The nails were a few isles closer to the register while the wood was closer to the back of the shop; she grabbed a fistful of nails and a hammer before sending Sam to call for someone else.

"Jeff come and help us." The man called into the back room. The teen stood and with one final glance at his brother, quickly entered the front of the shop. His father used to bring him to this store back when he was a little kid. Jeff used to love the smell of the wood and tools. As a pre-teen Jeff and quickly grown out of wanting to tag along with his dad to trips into town and as a teen his dad had to practically drag Jeff to the truck to do anything together. His eyes teared and he quickly wiped them so the two adults wouldn't see.

Lee was hammering the nails into the boards while Sam was holding them up, Jeff was told to keep an eye out for anything, even though he couldn't see anything through the darkness.

As the others milled around the front of the store, nailing boards, making weapons, Joel stuck to leaning against the old vending machine in front of the door with Valencia. They didnt know what it was, but for some reason, they felt like they were adding a lot to the weight against the door by doing it. They hadnt said anything for a while. Avery's quiet sniffling was getting to him, though, so he decided to try and rile up some small talk between the two of them.

"So... um, yeah..." He started, pulling his hat onto his head as he spoke. "What... do you think is happening? Out there?"

"Out there?" Valencia said, pausing to turn and look at the vending machine against the door. She let out a sigh her shoulders slumping down as she relaxed her body a bit. She didnt realize how much tension she had been holding in her shoulders. Weird, fucked up situations like this tended to do that to people. Now that she finally had a chance to breathe, she was going to seize every opportunity to catch a break. "Well, other than those weird, giant, purple eyed things... who knows! There could be nothing else, or there could be plenty more horrors to be found."

She paused, looking over at Joel.

"Nothing like this has ever happened in recorded history. Ever." She said, eyes locking with his for a moment. "IF we get out of this alive, I'm writing a book. Im going to make millions off of a book about this shit, and everyone will either think that this is an amazing event in history, or they'll think its Non-Fiction. Whatever happens, I'm not complaining. I'll be happy to be alive."