Tommy and Daniel went to sleep quite early, the last few days have taken a toll on them, requesting more rest. The church in which they took shelter in was quite safe. Demons couldn't come any closer than the radius of about twenty metres allowed and the gates were loud and squeaky, nobody could sneak inside without making a noise. As they woke up on this Friday morning they noticed something in the air. The smell of rotten eggs or sour milk hovered around them, quickly through a brief sniff test they noticed that they were the source of it. Ever since the start of the apocalypse they didn't have a proper shower. Instead they fought, travelled, fought more and tried to survive. Their hair was noticeably greasy and their skin sweaty and shiny, even a slightly sticky. They were quickly disgusted of themselves and decided it would be a good idea to get some fresh clothes and wash somewhere. The only problem was that the weather wasn't quite that nice to them. They could wash in the river, however they quickly remembered that they might actually catch a cold out there. So they needed to find a source of warm water as well as fresh clothes, the latter being the least of their worries. With a little luck they could probably find some fresh clothes in a store nearby, however finding warm water was a different question.
"There is a toilet in the church, maybe the sink gives you warm water?" Tommy asked.
"No, sadly not. The toilet barely works too. Since nobody works on the maintenance all the tubes and shafts seem to have clogged up."
The toilet wouldn't flush, they had to throw in a bucket of water from the river to manually flush it. Although they had no idea how long that would be possible, how long until it would clog up completely. However, this made Daniel think.
"Then let's find a metal container and boil water!"
Tommy was quite intrigued with his idea and agreed to it, lifting his fists in awe, before quickly pulling them back down in embarrassment.
Thus they took a walk through the city, which by now was quite the safe place. They didn't see any further demons other than the ones from the day before. While they were outside, they wanted to also look if there was anything to eat in the stores. Sadly, the shelves were empty, somebody must've taken them all ahead of time. Same went for all the good stores. Almost having given up on all hope, they saw a second hand store. 'Children Aid Second Hand' the sign said in bold letters. They went inside and were surprised, it was full, most of it was junk but at least they least found something which hasn't been completely cleaned out.
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Many old dresses and clothes, which were placed on a hanger, hung from a metal rod attached to the wall. Some of which looked like their grandparents could have worn them, some of them actually looked fine however.
"Maybe it's good that this is old, at least they still had quality back then," Daniel ironically said, snickering afterwards.
"Yeah, I guess so."
They also found a few bags in which they could place their findings. Those were just plain white plastic bags, rather large but that was fine. Since they were in no hurry, the boys looked around if they could find anything else which would be useful to have. Tommy spotted some old cooking supplies, a few pans, bowls, pots and even some plates and some cutlery. The plates were painted with lovely flowers and even had some images of rivers, animals and forests on them, one of them even a white wolf standing in front of a forest.
"I call dibs," Dan swiftly demanded, since it reminded him of Wulf.
"Sure, I don't mind." Tommy placed the plate into the bag with the other things.
There was a corner with many old games and toys, most of them broken, sticky or have become brittle. Among it, a wooden box with a chess board and fitting pieces inside, some of them sadly broken a little. Tommy even found a deck of cards.
"Who knows, maybe we end up having too much time on our hands?" Tommy thought out loud, throwing the games in a separate bag before moving onto the next corner.
"Hey I found a few cushions!" Daniel shouted.
"Yay! Finally, something softer than those seats," Tommy roared through the shop.
"Shush, we don't want to attract any strangers who have the same idea as we do." He held his index finger in front of his lips.
"Sorry," the child whispered.
Daniel's find was quite a blessing for them, although they wished for them to be more plain. Neatly decorated in stitchings of flowers, it was quite lovely but not exactly their taste. Despite that, they didn't dare consider to complain, cushions, be it flowery or not, were great.
Finally, they also found some scarves, winter hats and gloves. The boys found everything they wished for, and more, thus they wanted to go back 'home' to the church. As they left the shop however, three men stood on the road and they spotted each other.