AllFreeNovel
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“Because.” He turned and flipped the visor up on the helmet. From the glow of the headlight, he noticed the terrified look in her eyes. “I want to put the bike on it’s stand, and I can’t with you on it and we are walking the rest of the way.”
“Oh!” She hurriedly got off the bike and watched as he put the kickstand down, then carefully leaned the bike on it. “Shouldn’t you turn the lights off?”
“I will in a bit. Hopefully, the ground isn’t too soft,” he muttered. He then looked at her and reached out to unclasp the neck strap. Feeling inside the helmet he released the air that Desi had earlier pumped into it. “Just hang it back on the handlebars.”
He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. The signal was still there but thankfully hadn’t moved since he had awoken Desi.
“Aren’t you afraid of someone coming and stealing your bike?” she asked, putting the helmet on the handlebar.
He shook his head. “Not in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I have the key.”
Desi crossed her arms over her chest. “Right. So how far are we now?”
Lane turned to face the road, and said, “About a quarter of a mile that way across the road. Or if you take the road, another three miles. Needless to say, we won’t be going that way.”
“Are you nuts? Don’t you remember what happened earlier? We can’t just go traipsing off into God knows what.”
“We aren’t. That’s what the backpack is for.”
She had completely forgotten about it being on her back. Pulling it off, she handed it to him. “What’s in it?”
Lane unzipped the pack and pulled out two bags.
“Camping gear,” he answered. One he held onto and handed her the other.
With a couple of twists, he tossed it into the air and a two-man tent sprung open, landing on the leaf covered ground.
“Feel like a magician, do you?” she asked as she opened the second bag.
“A little,” he chuckled.
“Good, can you make another sleeping bag appear? There’s only one...”
Not telling her that he did it on purpose, Lane ducked and busied himself with unzipping the tent. He didn’t want her to see his face, if she did, she would have seen guilt written all over it. “Yeah, sorry about that, there wasn’t room for two. You can have it.”
Desi rubbed her arms against the chill in the air. She could be selfish sure, but they were both adults. “We can share it... unless you don’t want to.”
He straightened and then looked at her. “As long as you don’t have a problem with it, neither do I.”
He took it from her and stuffed it into the tent, “After you.”
Desi got down on all fours and climbed in and instantly noticed how small it was. Shaking her head, she unrolled the sleeping bag, unzipped it, and heard Lane say, “It’s going to get dark now, I’m turning off the lights on the bike.”
Desi was plunged into a darkness she had never experienced in her life, and she didn’t like it one bit. One second, she was fine, the next she wasn’t. She strained to listen for Lane but all she could feel and hear was her heart racing faster with every breath. She knew it was all in her mind, but she started to feel like she was being swallowed into the shadowy night. She felt like she was going to pass out; with great effort, she screamed at the top of her lungs for Lane.
––––––––
LANE HAD WALKED THIRTYpaces from their makeshift campsite to take a piss and was just zipping up his jeans when he heard Desi screaming. He ran back to the tent and ripped the flap open. Flashing the beam of the flashlight around the inside of the tent, he asked, “What is it?! Was it a bat?”
Not seeing a thing, he was about to rip into her about screaming in the middle of a forest but then he looked at her. She sat there rocking back and forth, eyes not focusing on anything. She was in the middle of a panic attack. He crawled in and sat beside her, putting his arm around her, he softly called her name and started rubbing her back.
“It’s alright, I’m here.” He could feel her shaking and it was his fault for not telling her he was taking a whiz. “C’mere,” he said softly. Tossing the flashlight on the floor of the tent, he pulled her onto his lap; that snapped her out of it.
Desi hiccupped and shook her head. “No, I’m too heavy for you.”
He guided her head onto his shoulder. “I’ll be the judge of that. Want to talk about what happened?”
“When you shut the lights off it was so dark, I don’t know how to explain it other than it was total blackness.” She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. “I tried listening for you but all I could hear was my heart beating. Then, I thought you left...”
