Bleached Out Eyes

Chapter 7 - Sandstruck

Despite the cold desert night, and the fact he'd fallen asleep sat up next to Party, Ghoul was comfortably warm. It seemed like all their talk of dreams and nightmares had chased them all away and, if he had dreamt at all, he'd completely forgotten when he woken up.

It wasn't Party who woke him, and it wasn't even Jet or Kobra; it was a loud smash, accompanied with a clatter and sound of lots of small things hitting the ground.

He jolted upright, almost overbalancing from his position on the floor, at the sudden noise, seeing Kobra and Jet also jolt awake through his tired bleary eyes.

It took him a moment to gauge exactly where he was and what was going on, but Jet was already off of his mattress and brandishing his gun.

"What the fuck was that?" Kobra asked, rolling over and out from underneath his blanket.

A scarlet blur went across the room from Ghoul's peripheral vision, as Party walked from the old diner seats in the direction of the smash.

He stopped in the middle of the room, turning around and calling into the back room, "A rock just came in through the window!"

Ghoul was too tired to jump up into action like Jet had, and before Ghoul could even think about standing up, the other three were on their feet, panicking about what to do.

"A... A rock? Did someone throw it?"

"Who would be out in this weather?" Jet shouted in reply to Ghoul, "It's just the storm."

Ghoul knew he had to try and help; he could hear the wind whistling through the shattered pane, probably blowing sand, gravel, and shards of glass across the floor of the diner.

"Okay, right..." Ghoul struggled to his feet and stretched his arms out, shrugging off his blanket, "I'll go find some duct tape and cardboard."

Ghoul knew exactly where the duct tape and cardboard were for just such an emergency. They'd had stones through the windows before - not many, but enough to mean that duct tape and cardboard were necessary items to keep handy.

Ghoul walked through the kitchen area to the door that lead to the garage, where the Trans Am lived. inside the dark of the garage, on a low shelf, were several pieces of old cardboard box, all cut to the perfect size to cover up a pane of glass in one of the diner windows. There were also several rolls of duct tape, for all kinds of uses, but they were kept with the cardboard just for ease of access.

The broken window pane was at one of the highest points on the window, grit still flying in, with stones and glass strewn across the floor that Jet was unsuccessfully trying to sweep up, while Kobra and Party were just kind of stood there, clearly unsure of what to do to help the situation.

"Can you get that blocked up?" Jet yelled, over the sound of the storm raging outside.

"Yeah, I'm on it!" Ghoul called back, as he clambered onto the table nearest the broken window, reaching up as he tried to tape the cardboard over the hole.

This, of course, proved to be a lot more difficult that he had expected, as the wind was still forcing its way inside and raining down all manner of grit onto the tables, seats, floor and, worst of all, Ghoul's face.

While trying to tape the cardboard to the window frame and simultaneously not look at what he was doing, Ghoul managed to stare the storm right in the face, and the storm stared back, flicking sand right into his eye.

"Crap!"

"What?" Party asked, stood just behind the table

"Sand in my eye," Ghoul replied through gritted teeth, keeping his one painful eye shut as he squinted through the other, trying to tape down the last edge on the window pane, "Hang on, I can do this."