After Tomorrow

World So Cold

Chapter 5-World So Cold

It’s been weeks, we’ve stopped a few times but that wasn’t enough. I was tired, hungry, and my hair was greasy. I couldn’t stand it. I probably looked like a Ghost. I looked up and joy exploded inside me, houses! “Duke! Duke! Look!” I cheered. “What?” he grumbled and saw the houses. “Yeah, what about them?” Duke looked at me. “They might have running water!” I clapped happily. “Yeah, with radiation in it. We’ll go in the houses calm down.” Duke told me. I stopped clapping and went back to being tired. “Are we going to sit down?” I asked. “Yes, we’ll rest up there and start looking for supplies.” Duke didn’t look up from the map. I wanted to run for the houses, there were so many. Some big, some small, it was great. I saw pictures of things like these, they were called neighborhoods. The houses had stairs like in the Gates and had purifiers to! They were long and skinny though, they were chrome to. Maybe I would be lucky enough to find one, which would make my day.

We finally made it to the houses. I had a hard time choosing which house I should go in first, the big ones, or the little ones? Duke looked at the steps to the door at the front. I almost walked right up to it and opened the door but Duke grabbed my arm and pulled me back, he was in front of me so I had a good look at his sniper rifle, it was long and black. It had a high tech scope that zoomed. He slowly reached for it and checked it to see if it was ready to shoot, it was and he looked through the scope. “What are you doing?” I asked, he didn’t answer or even regard my question; he just looked through the scope. “Hey, hey Dukie, what are you doing?” I asked again, poking his shoulder. Again he disregarded me; I poked him again, again, and again. “What!” He yelled at me, finally looking away from the scope. “What are you doing?” I smiled happily. It looked as if his brain was melting inside his head, all emotion faded from his face, he turned back to his scope and said, “I swear sometimes I think I feel my IQ fall every moment you talk.” I glared at him and walked over to the house next to the one Duke was looking at. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I’m not going to be in the same house as you if you insult my intelligence.” I growled. “Well if you would stop poking me all the time I wouldn’t.” Duke put down his gun. “You wouldn’t answer me!” I almost yelled. “I was concentrating.” He told me. “On what?” I asked loudly. “The door, I was trying to see if there was a bomb connected to it. Raiders do that all the time.” Duke said plainly. “What are Raiders?” I asked, forgetting I was mad at him. “People who raid houses for supplies and drugs then they set up traps for travelers.” Duke explained. “Oh so you want to see if there is a bomb on the door, let me solve that problem for you.” I shrugged walking over to the door, Duke almost ran over to me but I already cut the wire on a bomb that I found. “What? How did it not activate?” Duke wondered. “I disconnected bombs in the Gate. They were duds of course, but if we activated it then it was flash and if we didn’t it would play a victory tune. Pretty funny if you ask me.” I answered; Duke stared at me and opened the door to the house.

The house didn’t have a lot of supplies, just stuff Raiders left behind and dud bombs. I started playing with one of them on the lower level the house, Duke was upstairs snoring away the hours we walked when I was surprisingly awake. I opened it up and looked at the controls; it was weird, nothing like the bombs I opened up in school. I got up and went into the kitchen and threw it away. I went back to the chair I was sitting in and heard a door close. I looked around; everything was in its place. I got up again and went upstairs. The hall seemed longer since I’d seen it last, “Duke?” I called, no answer, it was Duke. He would answer, I know he would. I walked down the hall listening closely, closely to the floorboards creaking under me, the house slowly moving, my own breathing. I heard something downstairs, I went down and saw the kitchen door open, it closes by itself. I walked in and saw a man in black pants and a black hoodie with the hood up, the hoodie was duct taped to him. He looked over at me surprised. “Who are you?” I asked, he ran at me, ramming me into the wall and pushing me to the floor, knocking over a plant on a little table. It crashed loudly, the man went to jump on me but I kicked up back into the wall. I got up and ran for my pistol, he grabbed my ankle and I fell. He started pulling back but I kicked at his hand and he let go, I got up and he did to, I tackled him as he grabbed at me.