MORT day 1 – the dream

the day was warm bordering on hot. The bright sun shone through the window and made mom look like an angel. She picked me up and put me on her knee.

I looked up at her with a wide grin. We looked at each other for a second, when I saw a shadow creep across her face. I whipped my head around and saw a geek looking at us through the window. His lower jaw was hanging by a fragile piece of flesh and his massive rotten tongue was lulling on his neck. A murky drip of saliva was running down his torn shirt and his mangled hands were pumping against the glass. Mom got to her feet, tossing me onto the floor. I started to cry, but stopped when I saw two more geeks in the window. I was just about to scream when Mom grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted “hey Mort!”.

But her voice was weird, it was rough and way to deep.

I looked at her confused, but she just bellowed: “Mort, seriously, you need to get up”

I blinked my eyes once and Mom was replaced by Desmond. He stood over me red faced and panting. I ignored him, turned on my side and pulled my blanket over my head, hoping to fall back asleep.

I shouldn’t have done that, though, because suddenly my blanket was gone. The cold hit me like a ton of bricks  and my eyes shot open. It took me a second to adjust to the light and a second further to understand what that meant

“Son of a…” I cursed as the realization hit me; I was late. I got to my feet quickly, but I had to stop as the world started to spin..

“you OK?” Desmond asked because I had started to cradle my head with my hands.

“yeah, I’m fine I just…” I said cutting myself off as I heard the distant sound of church bells.

I started dressing in a hurry. Desmond just, kind of, stood there and watched me as I struggled to get into my worn jeans and tattered sweatshirt.

We both knew that we had a little under 5 minutes to get to the cathedral or we would be facing overtime, and nobody wanted that.

Desmond and I lived in a rigidity old shed at the edge of sector 4, where no one would bother us.

We had two beds… well madrases, an old oil-drum for fires and a bookshelf where Desmond kept all of his books. It wasn’t much, but it was as close to a home as I was likely go get in savior city.

I was actually supposed to come wake Desmond up this morning. I was a very light sleeper, which meant I usually woke early enough for work. Desmond must have woken just a couple if minutes before I did.

These were all things that flooded my head as I put on my socks, with Desmond still glaring at me. Finally, as I was shoving my last shoe on, Desmond lost patience and just hauled me out of the door by my arm.

MORT day 2 – late

“come on” Desmond shouted and started running the second we were out the door.

I stood hugging myself, for a second, taking in the scene as Desmond disappeared into the freezing combination of mist and snow.

Large heavy flakes were drifting lazily down, making it impossible to see more than 2 feet in front of your face. The dilapidated features of the ruins in my port of sector 4 were already starting to disappear under a fresh coat of snow.

The scene was actually kind of beautiful, which made me forget for a moment, that I was in a hurry, but then I heard Desmond distant voice from somewhere out in the fog “for gods sake, Mort, COME ON!”

I took a deep breath of the brisk air and started running.

I caught up to Desmond and we ran in silence side by side through the snow. The muffled sounds of the bells cathedral bells reassured me that there was still time, but Desmond and I had a while to go still.

I don’t think I ever ran so fast in my life. By the time we turned the corner that faced the cathedral, I had lost all feeling in my feet and I was soaked to the bone. The fog had cleared up a bit, so I could see the doors of the cathedral inching together just meters away. If I thought I was fast before, then I was definitely flying at this point.

I just made it in the nick of time, to squeeze through the barely open doors. Desmond, was not so lucky. I turned around and caught a glimpse of him running as the doors closed.

A wave of guilt washed over me as I heard him slam his hands against the door from the outside. He was going to have to do overtime and that was on me.

I hung my head as I started to walk towards the stands. I could hear the guards at the door sniggering behind me.

The cathedral was a huge dome shaped building, which, like most building from before the plague, was made completely out of concrete. The Makers tried to spruce it up, by adding a thick red carpet and huge dark tapestries, but the overall effect was just gloomy.

I made my way to the winding staircase that lead to the musty second floor balcony, also known as the late section.

The choir was just finishing some sad hymn when I made my way to the pews. The 3 big screens over the alter showed the crest of Savior City and the room was packed. I found an empty seat in the last row and tried to settle down next to a tiny asian girl with pitch black hair. She looked at my soaked clothing, puzzled. She was about to say something when the song abruptly ended.

MORT day 3 – the church

I was wondering why the hymn broke so suddenly, when I saw pastor Masters approach the alter down in front. I really couldn’t see him very well from where I sat, up in the nosebleeds, but I knew Masters well enough to know that he was someone you wanted to stay away from.

Pastor Masters was the leader of our sector. He was a huge, intimidating man. Which you really only got to appreciate if you saw him up close and if you were seeing him up close, that meant that you were in trouble. He had one lazy eye, his eyes were always bloodshot and he insisted on cutting his hair super short. All these things combined made him look like an bulldog.  A look that could have been sweet if he did not insist on always shouting and using the most brutal kinds of discipline imaginable. My stomach tightened thinking about Desmond standing in the cold down by the cathedral doors, he was going to get it for sure.

The pastor stopped at the alter for a second, presumably to give dirty looks, then his staticky voice exclaimed “follow me in prayer” over the PA system. The prayer was short, concise, and without missing a beat he mechanically said “and now, the sermon from bishop Black”.

The 3 huge screens above his head flickered on, accompanied by a roaring trumpet fanfare that left most ears ringing.

“Good morning my children, did you sleep well?” bishop Black said.

The Bishop was a tall, handsome man, who always seemed happy. He had bright red hair, a face full of freckles and pearly white teeth. He gave a sermon every week from the cathedral in sector 1 and every week it was exciting and new. I didn’t know how he did it, but his sermons were one of the few things I looked forward to every week.

“good” he smiled addressing the congregation in the sector 1 cathedral and through wireless connection the rest of us in the remaining 3 sectors. Then without warning he suddenly bellowed ”kids!”as he leaned across the alter on the screen.

“have I ever told you the story of Noah?”

Someone screamed “NO!” from the audience on the screen. The bishop laughed a little and then said “well, Noah was a great man.”

He held his breath for a second, letting the statement sink in, before he continued.

“you know, God told Noah that he saw too much sin in the world. So, you know what he was going to do? He was going clean it off the face of the earth” the bishop had the attention of the entire audience by now, spanning across 4 sectors.

MORT day 4 – Bishop black

“and so god told Noah to build an ark” the bishop continued ”a large ship that would hold all of the animals in all of creation. Because god had made it all, and just because man was sinful, did that mean that the animals had to suffer?“ he said, raising an eyebrow.

Desmond didn’t like the bishop. He called his sermons stupid and said that he was just pulling it all out of his ass. He was weird like that.

Desmond was by far the smartest person I knew. If he didn’t have his head buried in a book, he was talking all kinds of nonsense at me about how corrupt Savior was and how the gangs were the actual rulers. He never did this in front of the guards of cause, people have been thrown in isolation for less.

The weird thing was, that even though he seemed to know everyone in savior by name, I was the only person he actually talked to. He never left my side, unless he was going off to work, and even then he would pick me up at the end of my shift by the fences.

Once or twice I had lost him alone in a public place and found him being shoved around by guys twice his size. The bullies left as soon as I approached, which was still weird, but when asked Desmond about he just, kind of, brushed it off.

“no, I don’t think so” The bishop was saying and I snapped back to his sermon. Thinking about Desmond standing out in the cold, was really taking away allot of my focus.

The bishop added another one of those meaningful pauses before he went on.

“so Noah got to it and build the largest boat anyone had ever seen. He put two of every animal on that boat, so that when the flood came, they would all be safe” bishop Black said, making a grand gesture that was both graceful and comical.

“and then the flood came and it came hard. It rained and it rained, until there was no earth left to be seen” I could hear some of the younger settlers gasping, the bishop had that effect on people.

“but you know who was safe?”the bishop asked “Noah and all the animals!”

Once again I was amazed by how bishop Black was able to put a trance on most of the people here. Even some of the bigger guys had stopped pushing each other around for long enough to pay attention.

“now does that remind you of anything?” the bishop asked.

he let the anticipation build for a couple of second before exclaiming “SAVOIR CITY!”.

You could hear hoots and exited bellows from around the cathedral as people recognize their home. The bishop let it go on for a few seconds before raising his arms and silencing the crowd.

“remember when you came here?” the bishop asked ”remember being cold and scared with nowhere else to go. We took you in didn’t we? we put you on our ark” he said, putting emphasis on the word, you.

MORT day 5 – the buses

I did remember coming to Savior.

The ride to savior city took a while. Savior was one of the newest settlements and further north than any other settlement in existence. They had made a big deal about that when I was at the recruitment meeting.
Most of the people around me looked like bullies. They were probably street kids who were looking for a better life. Most of these guys didn’t have families, which made me feel lucky, because I had my mom.

My mom had sent me to one of the recruitment meetings a couple of months before I signed up. She was so proud that her little man was going to become a settler, just like her father had been. I sat In a dark theatre in the outskirts of New Jerusalem and listened to a man who looked and sounded much like Bishop black, tell med the great promise that awaited me if I became a settler. The promise of unexplored land and greener pastures made the Savior city seem appealing. I was 13 at the time.

The pilgrimage (as the makers called it) to Savior city started out great. My mom saw me off at the edge of new Jerusalem, just ouside the city gates. We were standing at the brink of the newly re-paved street and saw 6 buses pull op. Honest to god buses!

I can’t remember ever being so excited and so scared, as just at that moment. I was going to drive inside of a real bus. I had only ever taken the train once and I was far to young then, to remember much about that.
The buses were huge steel monstrosities with 6 wheels each, they had large spiked bumpers and big spot light on the nose. I remember my mom wondering out loud how they got the fuel for these things, but I was just happy I would get to ride one and then scared that I was going away.

After a short, teary goodbye with my mom and a last look at New Jerusalem, I filed into the second bus with allot of kids my age, who were all chatting excitedly..

I settled down in a seat and began staring out a window as we started driving. The landscape went from dull autumn to barren and rocky wasteland. I kept to myself for the most part, most of the other kids scared me anyways.

The entire first day I was anxious, but that died down, when I realized that we would be driving for quite a few more days to come.

I settled into a routine after a while, ignore everyone during the day, eat by myself whenever we stopped for meals and sleep against the cold window during the night.

The first bit of excitement happened a couple of days after we had left New Jerusalem, when one of the guys on my bus spotted a geek off in the distance.

We were passing a huge empty field, where nothing larger than a bush grew, when one guy across the isle from me started shouting excitedly. Every kid on the bus hurried over to his side of the bus, making the thing lurch. I had to fight my way to the window, but once there, I could see a small figure way off in the distance. He was just walking alone, there really wasn’t anything special about him, but he still gave me the creeps. Most of us had never seen a geek before, they were mostly gone in the south.

After that first geeks started turning up with more regularity. They would be wandering aimlessly through fields or you’d spot one emerging from a forest of weeds. They were old geeks, so most of them were in pretty bad shape. Their skin had turned a dull gray, their eyes had long since rotted out of their sockets and there were huge gaping holes where their mouths should have been. Some of them were still wearing the clothes they died in, which hung in laces on their shriveled bodies.

The geeks would hear the bus and start stumbling in our direction, with their arms outstretched. those spindly, spidery creatures scared me so much that I had nightmares for the rest of the trip.

Mort day 6 – the horde

It was beautiful in the early sunlight, the spires and broken antennae of the ruined skyscrapers shone in the morning sun. 

It was, however, probably late afternoon, when we finally entered Savior city.

Through the bars on the windows, I could see rusted husks of cars scattered everywhere and broken gray buildings reaching into the sky. Most of the streets were cracked and smashed, with weeds sticking out where they could find room and everywhere was littered with debris ranging from boulders larger than the bus I was in, to tiny shards of glass that twinkled in the sunlight. All of this was, of cause, obscured by the mess of geeks that was milling around.

The streets were teaming with them. Around every corner and in each alley I could see the living dead wandering aimlessly about. The bus sped through the city at a brisk pace rocking and swaying every time it hit a geek. The speed made it impossible for the geeks to follow, but still, they would all turn their heads and start walking in our direction, when they heard the bus approaching. There was something interesting about the geeks, the way they seemed to walk as one. So even though they made me sick to my stomach, I couldn’t help but stare. That was until we came across our fist horde.

We had been driving for a while when the bus suddenly started to slow down. I was sitting near the back of the bus and had been occupied by the tallest building I had even seen, when I noticed that we were stopping. The people in front started to freak out, which made me stand up in my seat. My heart sank into my stomach as I saw what was right in front of us; a gathering of geeks were spread across the road, standing shoulder to shoulder. There were so many standing so close together that they formed a wall, that even our row of buses, couldn’t have broken through. As a watched, the first line of the geeks started noticing us and wondering in our direction. A sense of unease started to rise in the bus. We were the first bus in the convoy, so we would be first to be attacked. If we stopped now, the bus would be overrun for sure.

I could hear the bus driver curse into his communicator and start backing the bus up. The hurried course correction happened in lurches and then the bus suddenly stopped. The bus-driver started to scream into his communicator once again, but there was no help to be found. Through the rear window I could see the other buses start to back away, The horde continued to advance. 

The Bus-driver was in a blind panic as he started pulling on every one of his instruments. People inside the bus was mirroring his sense of dread as the geeks began to to swarm the vehicle, banging on the windows and pushing on the armored sides of the bus. Little by little we were being surrounded by geeks.

I had my head down, praying for help, when the sound pierced the air. It was a high pitched wail, that made my ears hurt. It went on and on, but I had no idea where it was coming from. I had shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears, when the wail finally stopped. I looked up, light headed, my ears still ringing, and was amazed to see that most of the geeks had lost interest in our bus. In fact they were walking right past us without even noticing the bus. They were all walking towards the tall building I had been looking at only a couple of moments earlier.

It took a while, but eventually most of the horde had passed and we could start driving again. During the migration of the geeks, the bus driver must have figured out what was wrong. There was nothing but silence in the bus.

I had thought that this kind of horde was something special, but I was quickly proven wrong. As we drove deeper into the city, we encountered more and more of these ghostly congregations. They appeared as land mines, out of nowhere, some of them on the move, others, standing completely, eerily, still. Luckily, we were never swarmed again.

Mort day 7 – sector one

There was a collective sigh of relief when we could finally see the safe zone up ahead.  

I don’t know what I has expected, but what I saw definitely wasn’t it. The recruiters had told us that Savior city was a land of promise and beauty. What I was looking at was a maze of geek covered fences that held in dilapidated buildings, some of them covered in scaffolding. Between these mammoth ruins were small huts made from anything and everything bunched together in tight groups all around the place.

The bus rode through a landscape of home made huts, destroyed skyscrapers and broken structures before suddenly arriving at something much nicer. The shift was so sudden it took my breath away. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was seeing for the first time, was sector 1. It seemed like the plague had missed this part of the city. The buildings were nicely painted, the hedges were neatly trimmed and we even drove past a group of kids playing around.

Before long, we arrived at a very nice, but kind of modest square. At one end was a large church, decorated with all kinds of gargoyles, at the other was a large river flowing with murky water and in-between were all the of citizens of sector 1. I remember feeling overwhelmed, that they would all come to say hi to the new arrivals. For a second I dared to believe that the recruiter might have been telling the truth, maybe Savior City was aptly named.   

The roar that came from the crowd as I stepped off the bus almost felt like a physical hit. The people greeting us seemed nice and welcoming as they gathered around us. I was handed the good book  and ushered into a the large church along with the rest of the new recruits. After the ride in, I was both exhausted and excited. I perked up even more, when I noticed that there was cake. Actual, honest to god, cake. They were kind of small square lumps, hard as bricks, but they were probably the greatest thing I had ever tasted. 

I sat down on one of the long wooden benches with my cake and the glass of milk that accompanied it, a little way away from every one else. Even though, we had ridden the bus together, I didn’t really feel comfortable around any of them. Anyway, I had my cake, so I was pretty content.

About halfway through my glass of milk, a small kid came up to me and sat down. He was a wiry little guy with sandy colored hair, who walked like he owned the place.

“Hey” he said conversationally, as he sat down.

I took some time to swallow, then said “hey”

“you’re one of the new ones, aren’t you? You’re kind of a big guy, huh? So, how do you like the city?” he asked. I noticed that he didn’t have any cake with him.  

“Umm…” I said, a little wary of this guy “I guess it’s OK. A little scary though, with all the geeks”

“Yeah, I guess it can be” he said looking at me in an odd way“where are you from?”

“I’m from New Jerusalem, why?” I asked suspiciously.

“lucky you, that won’t matter though. You are going to sector 4 like everybody else… unless you parents were big shots. Were they big shots?” he said, shooting me an appraising look.

“No… my mom washed… I mean she wasn’t a big shot” I said feeling increasingly uneasy about this guy.

“well, That’s great!” he said, a smile growing creeping across his face. “I mean not for you, but you know…”

We sat in silence for a couple of seconds, while I ate the rest of my cake.  

“OK!” the guy announced suddenly“I think, we just became best friends”

“We did?” I asked incredulous.

“we did” he affirmed with a smirk“I’m Desmond, by the way”

“yeah, Hi Desmond. I’m Mort” I said, hoping he would leave me alone soon.

“Mort, what kind of name is that?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

“it’s better than Desmond” I shot back and then added “it’s short for Mortimer”

“Mortimer it is then” Desmond said, sounding like we had just made some kind of business deal. 

MORT day 8 – sorting

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

I was wishing I could have another piece of cake, when I noticed a guy pushing his was to the alter up in front. He couldn’t have been more than a couple years older than me, but he was wearing a uniform and a holding a sheet of paper very firmly. 

The guy made it to the alter and a high pitched wail from the sound system quieted everybody.

“Hi there, new recruits” the guy said into the microphone. “We are happy to see that you have arrived here in one piece” a couple of sniggers followed this.

The guy looked nervously over the crowd, then gained his composure and said “I am here to give you your sectors and your work assignments. After I have read the final name you will report to the pastor for you assigned sector and he will show you where you will be staying”

“well, I guess that’s my cue” Desmond said next to me.

“your what” I asked absentmindedly.

“My cue to leave, I’ll see you back at sector 4” and with that he got out of his chair and walked towards the exit. 

I was about to call out or maybe get a guard or something when the guy at the alter  cried out “ Anniston, Taylor. Sector 3. construction!”

It took me a second to figure out what was going on. Desmond had talked about sectors, but he hadn’t mentioned work assignments. I thought back to my recruitment meeting, but the recruitment officer had just told me I was going to become a settler, nothing more. 

Panic started to rise in my throat as the guy called out “Cafrey, Jake”. 

People were already starting to look around, trying to figure out where they would live and what they would do. I was looking behind me, to four people standing at the back of the church, looking very menacing, when I heard “Dolores, Mortimer. Sector 4. Exterminator”

My head whipped around, to see the guy mechanically reading the list aloud.

He had called me an exterminator. What did that mean? Were I going to be taking care of the rat problems in the city? Was I going to be a janitor?

My head was swimming with questions, none of which I were likely to get answered, as the guy read the rest of the list. All I could do was look around panicked. 

I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who was taken off guard by this turn of events, several of the kids behind me were looking just as panicked as me, and one girl had started sobbing loudly.

The guy finally finished his list and walked away from the alter. There was a moment of silence as everybody took in what had just happened. Then a commotion as some people got to their feet, confused as to what they were going to do.

“sector 4, over here” The yell came out clear in the relative quite of the church. 

My head whipped around to see pastor Masters yelling at the top of his lungs.  I was standing at the end of a procession of people, all representatives from their own sectors. He seemed to emanate authority, much more so than the small pale woman to his left, who was the pastor for sector 3. I inched my way through the crowd towards Pastor Masters.

MORT day 9 – the speech

Pastor Masters stuffed the group of frightened teenagers into yet another bus. This was one smaller,  unarmored and had wooden seats. It was nothing like the big things we had arrived in. Once we had settled in, Pastor Masters stood up. 

He didn’t speak loudly, but no one had trouble hearing his voice as he said “welcome to Savior City. I am pastor Masters, the leader of your sector. You will address me as Father or Pastor. We will be driving to you new home, the Makers and I hope you will be very happy there”

With that he sat back down and the bus lurched into motion. 

The ride back to sector 4 had an odd sense of deja vu to it. It was like experiencing the last hour in reverse. We rode through the pretty part of town and on through the nasty part of town, to the place by the fences where we had gotten our first glimpse of Savior city. 

All hope I had of Savior being any better than New Jerusalem were quenched as I looked at the ruins of broken city interspersed with patches of shantytown.

The bus stopped by the fence, where several withered geeks were staring at us with eyeless faces. Pastor Masters got up and walked out and the entire busload of people followed suit. The mass of teenagers, myself included huddled together, in front of the bus, as pastor Masters turned around. 

Silhouetted against the barrel fires of sector 4. The pastor looked even more intimidating than he ever had in the church, I got the sense that this guy probably wasn’t someone you wanted to mess around with.

“this” Pastor Masters said, gesturing to the city behind him “is sector 4, your new home. There are a couple of things you should know.”

“First, there are sirens stationed around the city. These are meant to distract the geeks, so they don’t come knocking on our door. I believe some of you are acquainted with those” 

I gulped as I recalled the horrible incident a couple of hours earlier.

“The siren” Pastor masters continued over the murmur of kids talking “will sound 3 times a day, it is your job to listen for it, because that means meal time. The meals are served in the mess hall. There are no substitutes for missed meals.”

“Second, there are rule sets hung around the city.” the pastor gestured to a poster that hung on a building behind him “you are expected to learn these rules, and learn them well. If you overstep your bounds in any way, you will be punished” Pastor Masters looked very stern as he leaned in and said “and I oversee all of the punishments”

“third, you will be expected to show up every day for you assigned work. The exterminators will be working at the fences and the sifters will be working in the sorting halls. You are expected to show up everyday, if you do not, you will be denied meals.”

Several people started talking at this, a sigh even escaped my lips at this; I had been worrying about what I was going to be doing. I looked over my shoulder at the geeks. I guess they could be dangerous in large numbers, even if they were weak. But the few that stood by the fence; I think I could have taken them out myself.

Pastor Masters glared at us for a while as the murmuring died down, then he straightened himself and said “once again, welcome to Savior City, the makers and I hope that you will learn to love it here.” with that he turned on his heels and started to leave.

A sense of unease traveled along the group. Was there something he had forgotten to tell us?

Finally, a young girl with fiery red hair piped up. “Umm… Pastor, Father, Sir, where… umm… where are we supposed to sleep?”

Pastor Masters didn’t even turn around as he said “figure it out”

 

MORT day 10 – figuring things out

When pastor Masters turned his back a full blown panic swept through the crowd. Several people started crying, a few of the guys started yelling at each other and some of the more street wise kids set off at a run towards the more habitable buildings. I just stared blankly at the space where The paster had been, not quite putting together what had just happened.

I had been looking forward to Saviour City. This place was supposed to be everything I was dreaming of, you know, sunshine and honey… and now I was stranded in the middle of a ruin, with people I didn’t know and supposed to just “figure it out”.

The commotion around me was getting louder so I deciding that this might not be the best place for me. I started to wander off in no particular direction, hoping that I might find some shelter there.
I had just made it out of sight of the group, when I sank to the ground, next to the remains of a huge truck.

The whole thing was washing over me; the helplessness, the hopelessness and the overwhelming sense that I had been better off with my mom. At least there I had been sure that I would have a roof over my head and something that resembled food every day.

Here I was expected to work with god knows what, in a place that one could barely call a city with nowhere to sleep.

I was holding my head in my hands, taking in deep gulps of air and trying my best not to cry. My mind was a whirl of images and emotions, all competing for attention.
“hey” the voice was faint and it took me a while to react.

“hey, Mortimer” I lifted my head, looking around for someone. The only thing I could see around me was broken bits of building. I was sure that I was loosing my mind, I turned my head back down, when I heard it again “hey Mortimer, back here.”

I looked over my shoulder and there was Desmond, looking a bit worse of wear, standing on the other side of the truck.

“where did you come from” I asked, a quiver still in my voice.

“I was on the bus with you” he said, looking me dead in the face.

“no you weren’t” I countered. I hated liers, also I had been looking out for him on the bus, and he definitely was not there.

Desmond looked at me for a while, sizing me up it seemed, then relented “OK, I wasn’t on the bus”

“then what were you doing in church” I asked, confused.

“looking for you” Desmond said, matter of factly.

“for me” I asked tentatively.

“Yeah, I needed a best friend, and you are it” he said.

“Umm, OK…” I said, feeling kind of weirded out.

We stayed like that for a while, not saying anything. I was about to get up and walk away from this weirdo, when Desmond, probably sensing the mood, said “I can help you, you know”

“How?” I asked incredulous.

“I have lived here a lot longer than you have, I know things. Like what gang you need to avoid and where to sit in the mess hall or when and where you’re supposed to go to work” Desmond listed.

I hadn’t thought of this. With all that had happened, it had never occurred to me that I would have to figure out how to live in Savior… with the gangs and all.

“Also, I have a house you could stay at” He added, almost as an afterthought.

I had been looking down at the ground while he talked, but at this my head snapped back. I didn’t like this guy, but it was between this and sleeping in the street.

I got to my feet slowly.

“just for tonight” I said, hoping beyond hope that this kid wasn’t as creepy as he seemed.

Desmond smiled wryly at me. He stepped around the busted truck and stuck his hand out towards me.

“Or however long you want to stay” he added still smiling.

We shook hands