Stay the Night - Harry Lewis & Chris Dixon

Chapter 12: Light in the Dark

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-Kyleigh's POV-

"How are you doing?" Arthur asks me as we continue following everyone else down an abandoned road.

"Not great, but not terrible," I shrug, "I don't want to sound dramatic, but I think my body's a little numb to everything right now."

"I get it," Arthur nods reassuringly, "The last few days have definitely been some of our hardest. But it's important to remember we can rely on each other. We're always going to be here for each other. You know that."

Despite myself, I smile, probably for the first time in 48 hours. Even before the apocalypse, Arthur was always a light in the dark. He's positive when everything is going to shit. I've always admired that about him.

I look to my right and see Harry walking a little distanced from the rest of the group. No one has really talked to him since last night. Chris tried at some point, but it was a short-lived conversation. I want to talk to him, but I don't even know what I'd say.

Almost as if he heard me thinking about him, Chris slows down to match his speed with me and Arthur.

"How long have we been walking?" Chris asks me. I check my watch and reply, "A little under two hours."

Chris nods as he looks down at my bloodied arm. There are now dark red splotches staining the once white bandages. "Do you need to stop?"

"I think I'm good. Arthur redressed by arm last night anyway. I don't want to use up any more of our bandages," I reply.

Chris rolls his eyes, "We've had this conversation a million times now. We can always look for medical supplies in the future. We'd all rather keep your arm clean and uninfected than save a few bandages."

"Chris is right. Plus, your arm bleeding that much is just another reason why we should look at it. Your stitches opening last night means you have to be even more cautious than you have been. You've lost a lot of blood," Arthur chimes in.

Chris then looks at the map and points out a place, "We can stop here. Just for a bit."

"Sounds good," Arthur says.

When we arrive at the location, Chris tells everyone to turn to the right. We're careful to look for any zombies as we get closer to the three stores in front of us.

We walk into the middle one first and do a quick scan, seeing no one dead or alive. The store is practically picked over, and the glass window is shattered, providing no protection.

"What are we doing here?" Erica asks.

"We're not setting up a base here," Chris announces, "Obviously it has terrible protection, but we also need to move as far away as possible from that horde. We're just taking a break so we can look for supplies or eat a snack or drink some water while Arthur redresses Kyleigh's arm."

Harry's the first one out of the door. We watch as he walks away, all of us staring in silence.

Chris finally says, "I'll go with him. You guys can either relax or check out the other store, but either way be ready to leave in 30."

George and Erica decide to check out the other store as Arthur takes out our medical supplies. He starts by cutting the old bandages off and unraveling them. When he throws the dirtied bandages to the side, even I can't ignore how bad my injury looks now.

"Fuck, Kyleigh," Arthur says, looking worried.

"It's fine," I say, even though it looks anything but fine, "At least it doesn't hurt."

Arthur digs through the bag and finally pulls out a liquid. I read the label as he turns it around and see it's a disinfectant.

"Did Chris ever use this on you?" He asks.

"No," I say.

"Shit," Arthur says as he immediately begins unscrewing the cap, "He should have."

He then pulls out spare cotton pads from the bag and pours the disinfectant on to one.

"This is going to be extremely painful, but we need to do it to clean around the stitches. I'm then going to put the healing ointment on the stitches like I did last night," Arthur explains to me, "You can squeeze my other hand to help with the pain if you want to."

I let out a deep breath and grab onto his left hand, "Okay. I trust you."

Arthur gives me a comforting nod before placing the cotton pad on my skin. He gently moves around my wound, and I wince as the cotton pad fills with blood. I feel bad for how tightly I squeeze his hand, but it's all I can do to keep from yelling.

"Almost done," He says as he finishes cleaning the borders of the bite mark. He then throws the pad on the ground and says, "Right. The hard part is done. Now I'm just going to add the ointment."

I let go of his hand and immediately say, "I'm so sorry. I don't know why I squeezed your hand like that."

Arthur smiles as he carefully places the ointment on my arm, "It's okay. I barely felt it. Honestly, you handled that really well."

He quickly finishes everything up before rewrapping my arm and taping it together.

"There. You look good as new," He says as he packs everything up. I look down at my arm, and even though there's a faint stinging feeling, it looks and feels cleaner.

"Thank you."

"Any time," Arthur says. We both stand up and decide to spend the rest of our time looking through the store. I can't tell if it's too soon to talk about it, but I can't help but have one thing on my mind.

"How are you? After last night?" I ask.

I notice the slight drop in Arthur's face, but his voice stays neutral, "I guess the same as everyone else. Different moments keep flashing through my mind, but I feel like my mind won't process what actually happened. I almost feel like I'm rewatching it through someone else's perspective. That probably didn't make that much sense, but yeah, I don't know. It's tough."

"It makes total sense. I feel like everything was going so well recently. We reunited with you guys, we were finding useful supplies, and we created a safe base. And then everything flipped upside down. It just shows how fucked up the world is now," I say, feeling my stomach churning a little at how quickly everything can change.

"Yeah. Everything is fucked," Arthur says, shocking me as his voice cracks a little at the end, "But it will get better. It has to."

I turn toward him and pull him in for a hug. He immediately leans in, resting his head on my shoulder.

We stand there for a minute, just existing. When we pull away, Arthur quickly wipes a tear from his eye saying, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Like you said, we'll always be here for each other. We'll get through this together," I say, echoing his words from earlier.

Arthur gives me a sad smile, "Thanks, Kyleigh."

The two of us spend the rest of the time looking around in comfortable silence. George and Erica make it back first, with Harry and Chris returning minutes later. It's clear from the looks on both Chris and Harry's face that they had some kind of talk. I want to ask Chris about it, but I know now is not the time.

Chris checks in with all of us before we get back on the road, exactly 30 minutes later like we said.

I don't even know where we're going. It feels like we've traveled a million miles and only a few inches all at once. I think we're just hoping we'll walk into some luxury safe haven, but we know that's not a reality. We need to start from scratch, restocking our supplies and rebuilding our base. It's going to take some time, but we have to do it. We have to do it for ourselves, but also for Ethan and Chip. We owe it to them.