Two Worlds by Lesley Whyte

"There are two worlds now. Are you listening to me, kid? Because if you want to go back out to highway and carry on scavenging from corpses in burnt out cars, you be my guest." I pause for dramatic effect. There's no freaking way I'm letting this kid out of my sight, but he doesn't need to know that.

He gulps. I can actually see him swallow. Awesome.

"I didn't think so," I say in my most cutting voice. It cracks halfway through - dehydration's a real bitch - but it'll do. "As I was saying, there're two worlds now. The world inside the fence and the one outside it. You're outside the fence, which means you lost. But you found me, so I guess in a way, you also kind of won, didn't you? We got food. We got clean water. Not a lot, so don't be getting any ideas, but a little. We got somewhere sheltered for when the attacks come and we got strength in numbers."

The kid looks terrified, but he looked terrified when I found him. The M16 might've had something to do with that, but it doesn't matter. He's scared. Scared is good. I can use scared. The kids who didn't seem scared, the bolshy ones or the ones who'd just given up, they had to go. I couldn't have them around. Couldn't have them getting ideas and infecting the rest of my army. Because that's what these kids are. An army. And soon we won't be the ones outside the fence, the losers, the ones who got left behind. No, soon we'll be inside and we'll rule both worlds.

I turn and walk away from the kid, pushing through the overgrown field.

"You coming?" I shout back over my shoulder, but I don't look round. I don't need to. There's no way that kid is saying no to me.