Promise Me

Chapter 1 – Nightlight

…

Night fell slowly. Rochelle watched the light diminish across the trees, the grass, the empty highway. A few times she dozed off, but awoke with a slight jolt every time her forehead came to rest against the icy cold car window. Eventually she surrendered to fatigue, shifted herself to rest her head on Nick's shoulder and she drifted off, her unease a little quieter thanks to Ellis' positivity.

The sun set silently without her watch.

…

"So do we turn back or what?"

"Maybe it's time we stretched our legs a little bit."

The sound of hushed conversation gradually roused Rochelle out of the darkness of her own mind and pulled her unwillingly back to reality. The new reality. This wasn't the first time that she woke up in confusion as to where she was, why she wasn't at home, how she got here. She was in the back seat of the race car she and the other survivors had taken from the mall where CEDA had promised to be and had not been. Ellis was fast asleep behind the wheel, although the engine was off, the key removed. Pushing herself up enough to glance out the car's window, she saw that Coach and Nick were the source of the voices. They stood just outside the car. Nick was leaning against the hood. She couldn't see much passed him.

"Oh, yeah? And where would we go?" Nick inquired. He folded his arms over his chest and that was when Rochelle realized that he wasn't wearing his suit's jacket, although he'd been wearing it when she fell asleep on him, of that she was certain. Now it was draped over her lap, nearly fallen off. She pulled it around her shoulders.

Nick's voice was steady, but his uncertainty gave away what his tone would not. He was scared.

"You see the sign," came the reply, calm, as always, even in the face of conflict.

"You can't honestly tell me that's not a long shot. No one in their right mind would hole up in an amusement park," Nick retaliated.

There was a brief silence.

"We don't have a whole lot of options, Nick."

Both men looked up at the sound of the car door opening. Rochelle stepped out, attempting to straighten out both her clothes and her hair, which had both seen better days.

"What's going on?" She asked, gently pushing the door shut so she wouldn't wake their group's youngest member. Thankfully, he slept on. The poor boy certainly needed the rest.

With few functioning street lights and only a sliver of a moon watching them from above, the team's visibility was cut down to a frighteningly low level. Rochelle pulled the jacket tighter around herself, shivering from a mix of the cold and her ever growing unease.

"Nothing's going on," Coach answered, "Sleep well?"

"You can't protect her from it," Nick interrupted, although Rochelle hadn't planned on answering the question anyway. She peered between the two of them, straining her eyes slightly in the darkness. Cars. Everywhere. They'd stopped not for a rest but because they can't go any further. She could easily picture Ellis when he found out, shaking Coach awake, apologizing profusely for something that neither was his fault nor that he could change.

"… What now?" She asked quietly.

There was no answer for a long time.

"Not enough gas to go far if we turn around," Nick pointed out glumly.

"Then we walk," finished Coach.

The other two agreed in silence. While Nick looked thoughtfully over the traffic ahead which had stopped their beloved road to freedom, his two teammates glanced back at Ellis, still sleeping soundly in the car. Neither really wanted to wake him. While they had all been sleeping, he had stayed awake, graciously refusing to take shifts. They all thought he just wanted to drive the car as long as he could. Although they'd never know, he simply wanted them all to get some rest.

"Fuck's sake, I'll get him," Nick muttered, strolling passed both of them. He banged twice on the hood of the car, causing the sleeping Southerner to groan slightly and wave his fellow survivor off.

"It's Sunday," Ellis said in a tired voice.

"So?" Asked Nick.

"So I ain't gettin' up until I smell pancakes."

Rochelle laughed. Coach smiled. Nick just banged the hood a few more times before he was hit in the midsection by the car door.

"Okay, okay," Ellis complied, smirking a bit as Nick stumbled back in pain (though he seemed to be smiling a bit too; they already acted like feuding brothers). "I'm up."

"Asshole," Nick cursed under his breath.

"Have a nice stretch, boy," Coach said as he opened the trunk, pulling out their pooled equipment. Customized guns from the shop, some pistols, two med-kits and a bottle of painkillers that was still two-thirds full. Not too bad. One by one the survivors picked up their guns and secured their ammunition. After a brief discussion, Coach ended up strapping one first aid kit to Rochelle's back and one to Nick's, pocketing the bottle of pills himself.

"Aw, hell, this is kickass," Ellis said. "I love amusement parks. This one time I went to one for a birthday party and Dave got real wasted. Like, real wasted. Man, I don't know how we did it, but we convinced him this one clown was his dad. It went pretty downhill from there…"

On and on Ellis went, but for once, Nick said nothing to get him to stop. Having to abandon what they had thought to be their sure salvation was definitely a bummer. Ellis' energy wasn't all that annoying at this point.

They walked between, passed and over cars of all kinds, trapped in a traffic jam that would never move. Few infected wandered the area. Under Coach's instruction, they took the things out quietly, so that they wouldn't alert more to their position. Things were still going fairly smoothly when they reached the motel.

"You think they got any mini fridges or whatever?" Ellis asked idly, peering into rooms as they passed by. All of them wanted to do a thorough check, but it was risky. Things were much too quiet.

"Probably nothing in them," Nick answered. "This place looks too cheap for that kind of quality."

Silence fell over the survivors once more. Up the stairs they went, then soon after, back down again. All four were happy when they finally got out of those confined and slightly smelly rooms.

"Shit's pretty steep," Ellis muttered as he peered over the edge of their only open path. Down the hill. Cliff was a more fitting title, he thought, but he didn't say anything more about it, except, "Watch your footing, guys."

Suddenly, and not too far away, a jockey cackled. The survivors froze. Panic seized Rochelle's heart in a vice as she checked over her shoulder, turned, then did it again. The creature was nowhere to be seen. That was always the worst part. She fought back her want to scream, show yourself!

And then it did.

"Jesus! Get it off! Help!" Nick's frightened cries rang out in the quiet night. The jockey's laughter filled his ears and struggled frantically to pull it off his back. He wanted to stop moving but his feet wouldn't comply, his body doing its duty to try and keep him upright. Closer and closer he came to the edge of the hill. No one shot in fear of hitting their friend instead of the monster that had attached itself to him.

Ellis sprang forwards and grabbed the jockey around the waist area, digging his fingernails deep into the pink skin. Blood seeped out and warmed his fingers, making him feel sick.

He pulled with all his strength.

There was a ripping noise as part of Nick's shirt came off with it, but suddenly Ellis was on his back, the writhing creature in his arms. He shrieked in both surprise and disgust and threw it off. Coach put a bullet through its brain, nearly drowning out Nick's yell completely.

There was no time to breathe. Pulling the infected individual off the conman had saved him, but in turn, thrown off his balance. One moment he was standing there, the next, he'd disappeared below the lip of the gully. Shoulder over shoulder he rolled, losing all his equipment on the way. He couldn't hear his teammates yelling for him over the sound of his body connecting with the soft ground over and over again. It was a full thirty seconds after he stopped rolling that he even realized that he had stopped rolling. Nick was dizzy, disoriented and struggling to catch his breath. He almost didn't notice that Ellis had come stumbling after him and was now trying to lift him up.

"Is he okay?" He heard someone ask. The world wouldn't stop spinning.

"No broken bones, I think," answered a familiar voice. Coach. Nick blinked furiously with no avail. "I worry about his head."

The sound of gunfire cut through the haze. Only a little bit, though. There was more conversation. It frustrated him how little he could hear over the blasted ringing in his ears.

"Should we stop for a bit?" Rochelle shouted over her own weapon, an M16, firing at rushing infected, no doubt roused by all the commotion. Nick was fully upright by now, but heavily relying on Ellis, who acted as a temporary crutch.

"Ain't nowhere to stop. We should just push on. The park's close," Coach shouted back. The shooting died off to little bursts, then to a couple of shots, then went silent. The world had finally decided it was bored of spinning and for the most part cleared up. Still, Nick's head hurt like a bitch. His hand was lifted, opened palm-up, and suddenly he was holding something. Coach had given him three painkillers. He took them at once without protest.

"You okay?" came a timid, concerned voice to his left. Ellis.

"Nah," Nick answered simply. He became aware that he had nothing; no gun, no med-kit, not even his suit jacket. Rochelle was carrying them all. He only had his pistol left, still somehow in the holster strapped to his right leg.

"Coach said the park ain't all that far from here, so we gotta walk, okay? I'll help you."

Slowly but steadily, they started walking again, and it was under a minute before Nick insisted he was okay. He stepped a little more hesitantly and seemed to still be quite off-balance, but he no longer needed to lean so much on any of his teammates. Still, they watched him, the trees, their backs, everything. One concussion a day was enough.

It wasn't long before they found themselves at the other side of the valley, faced with another hill nearly as steep as the first one.

Nick seemed too unsteady. It was unsettling.

"Alright, you're not doing this alone, tough guy," Coach said and, before Nick had any chance to protest, he was slung over the man's shoulder in a fireman's carry. Rochelle snickered.

"This is bullshit. I'm perfectly fine! Put me down!" But Coach was having none of it. He couldn't help panting a little bit as he pulled himself and his extra baggage up the hill, trusting the safety of himself and Nick in the hands—and the aim—of his other two teammates. They picked off anything that happened to look their way with their sidearms. Although it took longer than any of them would've liked, they eventually stumbled their way to the top, allowing Coach a moment to breathe after he put Nick down again.

"Look at that!" Ellis exclaimed, "A saferoom! Shit, Coach, you're a brilliant man."

"Last mile, boys. Can you make it?" Rochelle inquired, looking at Nick with a hint of worry on her features. He was trying so hard to be strong. But they all knew something wasn't right. A line of blood slipped its way down his right temple and he made no move to wipe it away, as if he didn't even know it was there at all.

"Just don't touch the car," Coach muttered between breaths. He was already moving towards the saferoom. Ellis fell in behind him, keeping an eye on the chain link fence. Rochelle stuck close to Nick, almost believing he'd collapse in a matter of seconds. One by one they filed into the trailer with the bright red door. Rochelle was digging through the first aid pack before the door was even closed.

"What's next?" she wondered out loud as she cleaned the blood off Nick in an attempt at finding whatever wound had hurt him so.

"I don't know," Coach said quietly, and he sounded tired. Coach was always supposed to know what to do next. If he didn't know, then they were lost. Maybe they wouldn't get evacuated here, or at the next place they found themselves, or the next place after that. Maybe they were—

"Guess we ought to just keep goin', right? If we found a saferoom, that's one step in the right direction," Ellis stepped in, his smile as bright and as confident as ever. He seemed to lighten the room as if one of them had just set a candle out. "We'll be outta here in no time."

Ellis told stories about his friends, his amusement park experiences, and everything else that did or didn't relate, and no one objected. He took the first shift of watching the door for threats, talking to all of them until Nick fell asleep, then the two of them until Rochelle fell asleep, then to just Coach until he said goodnight and fell asleep, as well. They were all gradually put at ease. They felt safer.

And their human nightlight shone silently on.