Days Of Dust

Chapter 5

Hayley had taken Jack to his room; he shared it with three other boys, Lewis, a small, intelligent kid, who played with his slingshot a lot, Harry, a handsome football jock with an old fashioned bow, who cared about his appearance more than any of the girls did and Taren, a gentle giant who loved to take practice shots with his crossbow and talk with Lewis.

"Boys," Hayley said in a loud voice, "this is Jack; he'll be sharing a room with you guys until we put him into a group."

She turned and left. Jack felt awkward, "Uh, hi guys."

He put out his hand and Lewis jumped off the bed to shake it, "Hi Jack, pleasure to meet ya!" the little boy yelled.

The other two mumbled a hello and went back to playing with their weapons.

"So, um, what's this about being put into a group?" Jack asked.

Lewis smiled at him, "We each get put into groups of what we are good at. Us three are in the skirmisher's group, we basically fight infected from a distance with our ranged weapons, and hopefully you'll be in our group too."

He laughed and jumped on his bunk bed. "Cool, I think I'll be good at that, I'll be back soon, I just have to get something."

He made his way back to the kitchen room, where he found Hayley washing up dishes in a large tub.

"Hey." He said as he walked through the door.

She turned around, "Oh, hi there Jack, how can I help you?" she smiled, revealing a row of gleaming white teeth.

"Well, I, uh, I just came to talk to you, do you need a hand with the dishes?"

She laughed, "I'd love a hand with them, it normally takes me an hour by myself, just grab that tea towel over there and dry the dished to put in that cupboard there."

Jack picked up the towel and started drying. Half an hour later they were finished.

"Do you mind telling me where Rick's room is?" Jack asked.

"Sure," Hayley said, sounding a little disappointed, "it's just down there on your first right, then turn left and you'll be facing his door."

Jack smiled, "Thanks Hayley, see you later." He turned away from her set out to find his guns.
Kyle was up on the roof again, but this time testing out a scoped rifle that Rick had given to him, the guns really belonged to the new kid, but he couldn't use all the guns, could he? Kyle had told Rick that they needed to send a party of kids to the army camp that Jack kept going on about, and Rick got Arthur and Darcy to start modifying a bus that they quickly pushed from the car park to the auto-mechanics shop, and the last Kyle saw, the boys were fitting metal sheets onto the windows and iron bars across the windshield. Kyle looked through the scope; he hadn't loaded the gun, but was just getting accustomed to the weight and feel of it. Kyle's dad had given him a scoped rifle for his twelfth birthday, and they had gone pig hunting every weekend. He wondered where his dad was now, his dad wouldn't have gone down without a fight and he had his street gang with him. Kyle's dad was a drug dealer, the biggest in the city, and had a lot of criminal friends.

Oh well, he though, live in the present, forget the past. If he tried remembering his past, he'd start to cry, so he stayed up on the roof most days, constantly staying alert and always on the lookout for grown-ups.

Jack burst into Rick's room; Rick was sitting on his bed going through the gun bag.

"Give me my weapons back!" he said sternly.

Rick spoke calmly to him, "You can have one gun of your pick and one pack of ammunition, and we need to save up our supplies for an emergency."

Jack grumbled, "I found them they should be mine and mine alone. I want two packs of ammo, and the sniper."

Rick rolled his eyes, "Two packs are fine, but why would you want the sniper, when there's a perfectly good shotgun in there."

Jack laughed, "Because that kid, Lewis, wants me in his group and while I was at the army base, I used to go up in the tower and shoot any dangerous-looking grown-ups."

Rick smiled "Fair enough, here you go, but Kyle's in the lookout, so you'll have to organize a roster between you two, there's not enough room for the both of you."

Jack noticed there was one rifle missing, "I'm guessing Kyle has the other sniper."

Rick nodded. "We need to go back to the base and try to grab more of that ammo, all of it if we can."

Rick laughed, "Way ahead of you there, I've got Arthur and Darcy working on a ride, and I'm getting a team together."

Jack smirked, "We'll need all the best fighters we can get, because the army base was loaded with infected when I left."

Rick shook his head, "We take some of the best fighters and anyone who can fire a gun. We still need someone to guard the mall while we are gone; we've even had other kids try to take over this place before." 

Jack nodded, feeling stupid, "Ok, I'm going to practice shooting, see you later." Jack walked out the door.

"We leave tomorrow!" Rick announced.