Joels body felt as though it were moving on its own. He practically dragged Barb into the back of the shop, not wasting a second before suddenly, yet gingerly, dropping her onto the cold cement floor. His etyes scanned the back room. It felt like a garage of some sort, or a storage area, or something. He didnt have time to think about it. He was looking for something to block the door off with. Lee was standing with the gun aimed at the door, throwing out evey obscenity she could in anger, daring the creature to come in after them. She wasnt shaking, she wasnt frantic. She was posed, ready for action, in complete control. She just felt like swearing.

"Joel! Fuck, help me out here!" a voice called out, causing Joel's head to snap to the side, towards the source of the voice. Valencia had her body pressed up agaist a large, out of comission soda machine. She was slowly moving it, pressing all of her weight into the side of the machine, inching it along, and clearly, she needed help. Not missing a beat, Joel closed the distance between them in a matter of seconds. He slammed his body against the machine with Valencia, and together, they werw able to move it in front of the door, the sound of scraping metal filling the ears of everyone in the room for a few moments before they were all met with dead silence.

The air was still. Nobody dared to move, waiting for something to happen. The moments creeped along at a painfully slow pace before the silence was broken by Avery's wailing, followed by an uproar of panicked and frantic chittering and harsh whispering. Valencia sighed out loudly, relieved that they were, for the moment, safe. She let her body slide down the machine, plopping on the floor. Joel followed suite, taking a seat next to her, pulling his cap off of his head and tossing it onto the floor in front of them. He closed his eyes, looking up into the air as a small, exhausted chuckle bubbled out of his throat. Valencia smiled and did the same.

"Teamwork." She proclaimed, holding up her hand, for a high five, letting the other push some loose strands of hair from her face, put there by the sudden and tense actions of the preeding moments.

"Yeah, teamwork." Joel responded, givng her hand a meek, exhausted tap, followed by another small chuckle. He was incredibly relieved at the moment, for two reasons.

One, they werent in the diner. They were in a store full of potential weapons.

And two, there were no huge windows in here and, therefore, no place of the creatures to slip in through. 

"Alright." Lee said, crossing her arms in frot of her, sliding the revolver into the waistband of her pleated pants. "Those were the final three shots I had. We need to find some more weapons in the store. Bob, see to Barb, make sure she's alright. Rowena, make sure Avery's okay, make sure the brothers are doing fine. Joel, Valencia, stay right where you are, you're doing great. I'll go into the ront of the store with Sam, and we're gonna see if it's safe in there."

She paused for a moment, looking around the room, making sure everyone was listening. All eyes were on her.

"Sound good?"