Dust 2: A New World Order

Chapter 2-1

Chapter Two

All alone:

Under the brilliant night sky, Dust sat upon a rock outcropping. He gently stroked the shivering, furry animal in his hands before he released it. The creature was the last of the small rodents that he had encouraged to approach him.

He had been careful not to kill any of them. At first, he hadn’t been sure what to do about the changes inside his body. All he could think about when his teeth lengthened like a vampire’s straight out of a movie or a book was that his sudden hunger for blood meant he must have somehow died during his battle with Daciana and turned into the undead.

There were two inconsistencies with that thought. First, he didn’t remember dying. He was pretty sure he would have recalled something as important as that. Second, except for a few minor changes to his body—he still felt alive and pretty much the same as before.

Shaking his head, he laid back on the rock. He shivered and then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he stared up at the stars and wondered what would happen when the sun came up. Would he dissolve into a pile of ash?

“If I do, I’ll know that all the writers of vampire stories were right. Dang, but I didn’t know vampires could be cold. For once, I wish I had Josie’s powers.” His quiet, slightly humorous words drifted on the light breeze.

He listened, but except for the wind and a few animals in the distance, there was nothing nearby. A frown creased his brow when he felt something hard and tubular against his fingers. Tracing the shape, he released an exasperated sigh. He pulled his hand out of his jacket’s outer pocket and removed the cigarette lighter from the small pocket on the inside. He’d forgotten he picked it up along his journey.

Sitting up, he shook his head. “Well, it isn’t as cool as Josie, but it will work,” he dryly chuckled before he flicked the wheel.

Twenty minutes later, he had collected a stack of dried wood and a large pile of dead brush. He placed some of the wood in a ring of rocks near the outcropping of boulders that he was using as a wind break.

It didn’t take long for the dried wood to catch fire. He sat down and held his hands out to the warmth. Soon, exhaustion took over and he laid down on his side with his back to the rocks. He knew he probably shouldn’t stare into the flames. Such an action ruined his night vision, but there was something mesmerizing about watching the multi-colored flames dance across the wood.

His mind drifted, and once again he thought of his parents. They, along with everyone else in the tiny town he grew up in, had perished. How had he survived? He decided he might never understand. Perhaps it was the way the house had collapsed around him, sheltering him. One thing he was sure of—whatever had been in the strange cloud was what caused him to change.

“Whatever happens, I won’t forget who I am,” he murmured.

That was the last thing he remembered his dad talking about—never forget who you are. They had been working on his grandfather’s old truck, rebuilding the six-cylinder engine the day the comet struck. The 1948 Ford F-series pickup truck was supposed to be finished by his sixteenth birthday which was now in a couple of weeks.

Dust’s lips curved upward when he thought of that morning nearly two years before. His mom had gone to town to get her hair done while he and his dad had gotten up early to work on the truck. His grandfather had bought the truck new in 1948 and used it on the small farm where Dust grew up. His dad had told him that Dust’s grandfather gave him the truck when he turned sixteen. His father had driven it around the farm for another twenty years. He had parked the truck in the back of the barn and covered it with an old tarp. In time, his dad had forgotten about the truck until Dust discovered it when he was four. The vehicle had been in the barn for nearly thirty years by then, and he had played in it for as long as he could remember.

He had been sitting in it one day three years ago, mad at his dad because his father had refused to let him go hang with some of the boys in town. That day had been a pivotal moment in his life. He hadn’t realized it until much later.