Night Visions (TMR) (Newtmas)

03 (*)

Despite being amnesiac, Thomas was fairly sure he didn't like first days. That was before Alby took him in the Tour.

After the Tour, Thomas was sure as heck he hated first days.

Alby seemed to be on a costant mood, which didn't make him the best guide ever. Five minutes of the Tour, and Thomas had already learnt to keep his mouth shut. As the guy had put it, "Ain't no questions till the end. Ain't got time to jaw with you all day. I'll tell ya what I wanna tell ya." Thomas was beginning to realise how little Alby liked him, or people in general for that matter.

"Can I come?" had asked Chuck from the table, a milk mustache thick under his nose. The mustache ran down his cheeks as he grimaced with a shriek when Alby tweaked his ear harshly.

"Ain't you got a job, slinthead? Lots of sloppin' to do?" Then he let go of Chuck and motioned towards the Box with his chin harshly. "Ain't got all day, shank. Move it."

Thomas offered Chuck a sorry smile before running after Alby, who walked at a surprising speed. Then they started the Tour at the Box, where Alby started listing functions and places and the several jobs that Thomas would be trying for the following days and the Glade's functioning and conspiracy theories about the 'Creators' that had put them all in the Glade and sent a new kid and food every month. Never bothering to look at him in the eye, of course.

"Glade's cut into four sections—Gardens, Blood House, Homestead, Deadheads. Got that?"

Knowing how Alby wouldn't like it if he complained how everything kind of looked the same, Thomas nodded and looked around, hoping that he would learn to tell the zones apart soon. The Homestead looked like a massive pile of weird-angled wood, whereas the Gardens were a big stain of dirt where several crops were being harvested. Where the patch of forest started was what Alby had called Deadheads, the graveyard and—eerily enough—place to hang around, and in front of it at the southeast corner was the Bloodhouse, a big barn from which came a faint bleating. Overall, the Glade was an intelligently designed place, and Thomas felt a strange glee inside when he realised this.

"You'll spend the next two weeks working one day apiece for our different job Keepers—until we know what you're best at. Slopper, Bricknick, Bagger, Track-hoe—somethin'll stick, always does. Come on."

Thomas followed Alby towards the South Door, holding back an answer. Runner will stick. Around them were boys working, some with rakes, some with hammers, some weeding, two watching over a flock of sheep as they grazed near the forest. Chuck was nowhere to be seen, and Thomas hoped that the Keeper of whatever job he did would be kinder to him than Alby had. It wasn't a difficult thing. A cow mooed at them as they walked past, chewing at its hay. The pens were the fullest place, people bustling about as though they had been born with a straw between their lips and running a farm. Besides it, the rust-coloured barn looked grim and hollow.

Then they reached the South Doors, two massive walls flanking a thick gap through which Thomas could see a patch of wall similar to the one the Griever had crept up. Sticky flesh and soft wet plopping noises came back to his mind, and he had to make an effort to keep his breakfast down in his stomach. Alby gave him a sideways look and smirked.

"Out there's the Maze," he said, pointing at the exit with a thumb. It was big enough that Thomas could imagine a Griever rolling through it. He shivered and took a step backwards unconsciously. Then he realised what he was doing, how he was chickening, and undid the step. Alby didn't seem to care. "Two years, I've been here. Ain't none been here longer. The few before me are dead."

Maybe that was why he was so bitter. Maybe he didn't want to get too close in case someone else died. Still, Thomas thought, that didn't give him the right to be a jerk with even small kids.