Chương 21: Night Work

When Vane finished explaining Jack's offer, the settlement fell quiet. Elias did not answer immediately. He looked around at the others instead.

"What do you think?" Cass spoke first.

"I think it's worth trying." Reed nodded.

"Me too." Vane said, "It's worth trying, but the payment needs to be clear." Marg, Susan, Ray, and Thomas still looked uncertain. Elias stayed silent for a while before he finally spoke.

"If Jack only wants labor, then we can consider it." Everyone turned to him. Elias continued, "When we go out looking for supplies, we may come back with nothing. Even if we find something, bringing it back safely is another problem. But if we can trade work for stable supplies, that gives the settlement another way forward." The settlement fell quiet again. No one needed Elias to explain what he meant. They had all gone out looking for supplies before. They knew how often a trip ended with almost nothing.

They also knew how easily a simple search could turn dangerous. Sometimes people came back with too little to make the risk feel worth it. Sometimes people did not come back at all. Marg broke the silence first.

"So what do you want to do?"

"I'll go with them tomorrow," Elias said. Cass stared at him.

"You're going too?" Elias glanced at him.

"If I don't, are you going to explain everything clearly?" Cass opened his mouth, then wisely shut it again. Elias continued, "Jack wants our help planning defenses. We need to see the place properly before we can talk terms." He looked at Cass again.

"And relying on the three of you to repeat everything afterward doesn't sound very reliable." Cass silently looked away. After a short pause, Elias added, "And then there is Jack himself. I would rather meet him in person than keep hearing about him from you." Meanwhile, Jack sat by the checkout counter inside the convenience store, looking over the plan he had just written. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it When he finished the last line, he checked the time.

Five in the afternoon. It was still bright outside. Jack glanced at the door, then decided against going out right away. He set the plan aside and went to make dinner. He did not feel like cooking anything complicated today, so he boiled some pasta and added canned meat sauce. After dinner, Jack took a shower and lingered upstairs for a while. By the time he returned to the glass door, the world outside had gone completely dark. It was the first time Jack had really paid attention to night in this place.

No streetlights. No distant city glow. Not a single point of light from anything human. Across the empty wasteland, only the convenience store shone out, bright and exposed. For a moment, Jack did not move. During the day, the wasteland was empty, hot, and hostile, but at least he could see it. At night, the same empty ground felt different. The dunes became dark shapes. The pit outside turned into a shadow. Anything beyond the reach of the store's light simply vanished.

That bothered him more than he wanted to admit. If something was out there, he might not see it until it was already close. The Red Sand Badgers had come during the day, but that did not mean everything in this place followed the same schedule. For all he knew, something worse might prefer the dark. And with the convenience store glowing like this, it probably looked less like shelter and more like a sign screaming, free food here. Jack glanced at the glass door, then at the wide windows on both sides.

The more he looked, the less safe they seemed. He could lock the door. He could hide inside. But if something big enough decided to charge straight through, a locked glass door would not mean much. The thought made his earlier idea feel less like a hobby project and more like something he really needed to start. Jack stood inside the door and looked at it for a while before muttering, "This is way too flashy." He shook his head. Work first.

Jack turned on all six camping lights, grabbed a flashlight and some tools, and pushed the door open. The night outside was still hot, but without the sun beating down on him, it was at least bearable. He no longer felt the urge to turn around the moment he stepped out. He placed the camping lights one by one, then used the light to check the ground around him. In the end, he chose a spot near the hose. The hose was close, and so was the large pit.

If he needed to guide water into the pit later, having a shaded work area nearby would make things easier. Whether it would actually help during the day was tomorrow's problem. Tonight, he just needed to get it set up. The plan sounded good. Reality had other ideas. Jack opened the tent bag and pulled out the outer tent, inner tent, poles, stakes, and a pile of ropes that all looked almost the same length. He stared at the pile for a long moment.

"… This shouldn't be that hard, right?" It was. The poles went in the wrong places. The tent fabric faced the wrong way. The stakes refused to go into the ground no matter how hard he hammered them. The reddish-brown surface was ridiculously hard. By the time Jack's hands started going numb, the stakes had only left a few shallow marks. He finally managed to prop up one side, only for the other side to sag and collapse because he could not secure it properly.

Jack crouched on the ground and stared at the wrinkled mess of tent fabric for a long time.

"Do people who go camping usually torture themselves like this?" No one answered. The camping lights only made his failure easier to see. After fighting with the tent for a while longer, Jack finally reached his limit. There was no sun at night, but the heat had not gone anywhere. He had only been outside for a short time after his shower, and sweat was already sticking to his back. His palms were slick, making the poles even harder to grip.

He tossed one of the poles onto the ground and dropped into the folding chair beside him, breathing hard.

"Nope." At this rate, he was going to dehydrate before the tent ever stood up. Jack looked at the light spilling from the convenience store, then at the unfinished mess of tent fabric on the ground. He needed a way to cool down. At the very least, he needed to make the outside bearable enough to work in. Then an idea hit him. Jack went still. A second later, his eyes lit up.

"Hey." He let out a short laugh. That could actually work. Jack shot up from the chair and ran back toward the convenience store.

"How did I forget about that?"