Quarantine

Claustrophobic

Quickly, they both scrambled out of their current position and to their feet. Kayla grabbed her backpack, hoping they hadn't been spotted through the dirty glass of the storefront.

"Where are we going to hide if they come in here?!" She asked in a loud whisper.

"There's a supply closet on that side of the store," he was grabbing his backpack now too, trying to erase any sign of their presence, "follow me."

She silently wondered how she went from holding a knife to this man and being pinned under him afraid for her life one minute, to completely trusting him and following him the next, but didn't have much time to sort out why.

She followed him quickly and quietly to the door he had pointed out, when he opened she saw that it was just barely big enough to fit both of them. Without hesitation, Timmy quickly pushed some of the mops, brooms, and buckets to one side of the closet and then shoved Kayla in. He closed the door with them inside just in time, as they heard the front door of the bookstore being shaken.

Kayla's back was against the wall opposite of the closet door, old supplies to her left, her arm and shoulder were against the wall directly to her right, and Timmy's backpack pushed against her chest. The confined space was giving Kayla a familiar panic, but not nearly as much as the fear of two Outsiders finding them. She pushed her fear down as the two went completely silent.

"The front door is locked right?" She dared to whisper.

Timmy just nodded his head 'yes'.

They both flinched when they heard the clash of the glass front door shatter.

Kayla tried to remember what she imagined these people looked like from when this man had come and investigated this area from when she had pulled Timmy into the store earlier that day. The image of a white-haired man with a long beard came to her mind.

"Well even if a famous person was here, Red, he's probably long gone, the rain stopped hours ago." The woman seemed to be complaining.

Even in the dark, Kayla could see TImothee physically pale, how had they found out there was a famous person here? Kayla wondered if the two Insiders she saw captured earlier today had caught a glimpse of Timothee and gave away this information to save themselves. 

"We have to start somewhere if it's true. Imagine how much power we will get if we bring an actor back? They may even promote us to leaders since there hasn't even been a sighting of a famous in months." There were sounds of shuffling as they searched the front part of the store, "Make yourself useful and go look over there, will ya Mag?" Red said frustration in his voice.

When they heard footsteps start coming closer to their location, Timmy and Kayla froze and altogether stopped breathing. Kayla's mind raced, she didn't grab her pocketknife in the shuffle. If she opens the door will they be able to fend off two outsiders by themselves? Maybe she could use the brooms as a makeshift weapon? Even if they succeeded in defeating these two in the store, there was no way of knowing if a crowd waited outside. 

"Make yourself useful Mag. Go look for supplies Mag." Mag was saying in a hushed mockery voice as she walked closer, "one of these days I'm gonna be the one making orders to these stupid..." she started murmuring to herself.

From under the door Kayla and Timmy could see the shadow of Mag walking past their hiding spot, Timmy reached his hand over to a broom and lowered his position as if getting ready to pounce. Kayla's heartbeat was pounding so loud in her head, that she felt the echo of it alone would give away their location.

From right outside their door, "Nothing over here! Can we go now?" Mag yelled exasperated.

"Alright, alright- stop your yelling or your gonna attract the Rabid!" Red yelled back from the other side of the store.

"Don't try to scare me with that, you know the Rabid only come out at night," Mag said as she walked further away from the supply closet.

Kayla was confused, had she heard them wrong, or were they saying the word Rabid? She had no idea what they were talking about and tried to listen as closely as she could from her cramped spot.

"You should be scared of them Mag or you're gonna turn into one yourself if you're not careful. You know there's a reason we always travel in groups- day or night. And you're always going off by yourself without tellin' anyone when you know they've been pickin' us off one by one."

"Well I ain't seen one yet, I still think it's a scary story Mitch tells us to keep us in line and under his control."

"HEY! Don't you ever accuse Mitch of lyin'! I can put up with a lot of your crap Mag, but if you question our leader again I'll report you!"

"Yes Red," Mag replied dejectedly.

"Look I'm sorry I yelled at ya, we've been up for hours now, why don't we rest here for a bit before heading back? We will say we were following a lead for the hunt."

"A nap would be nice..."

These were the last words that Kayla could clearly hear before the outsiders went silent.

"They are still in the store, who knows how long they'll be here," Timmy whispered over his shoulder to Kayla.

Now that the initial adrenaline of being found wore off, Kayla's claustrophobia started biting at her. Not knowing how long they would be stuck in this dark, cramped closet, she could feel her reasoning give way to panic.

"I... I can't... it's too small in here." Kayla choked out quietly taking shallow breaths.

"Oh shit. Look you need to stay quiet ok? We will make more room, here take off your backpack." Timmy instructed his back still to her.

Kayla struggled to do so, with so little room her elbows hit the wall, increasing her panic. She finally got it off and handed it to Timmy, who put it in one of the mop buckets to their left slowly. He then cautiously did the same thing with his own backpack, sure to make as little noise as possible.

He then slowly turned around, his shoulder and arm briefly brushing against her chest as he did so.

"Sorry." He whispered once he was facing her.

"It's...." shallow breath in, "ok." She kept her eyes squeezed shut.

"Is this better?"

Kayla opened her eyes to try to ground herself and had to look up at Timmy's face. "Better." Was all she could manage out with the little bit of oxygen she had in her lungs.

There were a few inches between them now that the backpacks were off so that at least they weren't touching. With her eyes closed, she could pretend that she was standing in an open field, and not cramped in a closet that felt as if it were shrinking by the second. All she wanted to do was stretch out her arms but the knowledge that she would hit the wall caused her breathing to get shallow again, she couldn't catch her breath. She felt her heart rate increase and her mouth go dry- her heart was going to explode if she kept on like this.