Chapter 7: Midwich

When Emily woke up, she found herself lying on a bench in what seemed to be a deserted playground. Then she remembered where she was. "Aah!" she shrieked with pain, remembering the dog bite.

"Shh," Wilson told her, "It's going to be okay. You've stopped bleeding and I've got a bandage on your leg."

"Where the fuck are we?" she asked angrily.

"We're in the school playground. I found the key to the back door, but I wanted to rest for a while."

"What? Aren't you man enough to carry me over the school threshold? Or are you just calling me fat?!"

Wilson stared at her in anger. "Look, Emily; I don't care if you're ungrateful, and I don't care if you're a bitch, but don't you think you could at least pretend to be nice sometimes?"

"I... Sorry."

They were both silent for a second.

"Hey... Where's Billy?"

"I don't know..." Wilson replied, "After I shot the dog and you passed out, I looked around, and he was gone..."

"So you didn't stop to rest. You were looking for him."

Wilson nodded. "Why would he run off like that? In a town filled with monsters?"

Emily shook her head. "We should get inside. It's getting dark. Pretty soon we won't be able to see anything." She held out her hand, "Let's go. We'll find Billy tomorrow."

"Okay," he said, squeezing her hand, "Let's go inside." He carried her without difficulty and opened the back door of the school.

"Damn it's dark in here!" Emily exclaimed, stating the obvious.

"Yeah..." Wilson replied, searching the wall with his elbow (his arms were holding Emily), "Uugh! Yuck!"

"What?!"

"I just felt something on the wall... I think it's blood!"

"Eww! Fuck!" Emily cried, "Let's go. Anything that smears blood on the wall is probably not something we want to hang out with."

"Oh come on! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Only retards want adventures. The rest of us are good with real life."

Wilson rolled his eyes (but no one could see that in the dark). "Look, we're doing this my way. We're going to find an empty room to camp out in... And then we're going to bolt the door shut and sleep for whatever time we can."

She had become silent in his arms, agreeing in her own way. So they proceeded to the back of the little room to find a wide open door. It was kind of strange considering most doors around here were impossible to open or locked from the inside. They went through to another hallway, finding another wide open door that lead to yet another hallway. This one seemed to have several classrooms.

He smiled at her, not saying a word; he just continued to walk up the stairs. When they reached the second floor, they both heard it. "Mmmm..." it was the mumbling of some kind of tortured thing; a monster.

"Oh God! Wilson! What are we going to do?!" she cried with fear.

"We'll just dodge it. Don't worry," he calmly replied, "We'll head for that door over there; the one with the light." Wilson ran as quickly as a guy carrying a 120 pound woman could. They dodged the little green zombie creature easily and ducked into the room quickly, bolting the door shut. Wilson set Emily down on the floor... And then, after the fear wore off, they saw where the light was coming from: Billy. He was playing with a couple of toy cars and a flashlight.

"Billy?!" Emily asked.

He looked up at her, "Yeah?"

"How did you get up here... without getting hurt?"

He shrugged his shoulders; "I don't know..." he mumbled and continued playing with his cars.

"Billy, you can't run off like that!" Wilson scolded, "You could've been seriously hurt by -- God knows what!"

The boy looked at Wilson in sadness and whispered, "I'm sorry."

Emily slowly got up and limped over to him and sat next to him. "It's okay, Billy," she said, caressing his soft red hair. She truly loved this child like she would her own.

Wilson smiled when he saw this. It reminded him of his wife and son that he never saw anymore. "Well, everyone... it's late. Let's make up a bed or something so we can sleep."

So, they made a bed of the cushions from the sofa. Wilson decided to keep watch at the door while Emily and Billy slept. Tomorrow, they would try to find Billy's family... And possibly find a way out of this horrible town.