Zain had agreed to travel with the others, and unlike the last group, no one in the group was too curious to see if there were any wounds on their body. Instead, they simply just asked if they had any.
To be honest, although it was favorable for their situation, Zain would speak to the leader and felt like it was best to force a check on whoever they brought into their group.
At the end of the day, when life or death is on the line, people would lie about these things. Being so trustworthy in a world like this wouldn't get one far, but it did make Zain want to meet this interesting leader even more.
What type of person was he to lead such a large group, and how was such a person able to survive so long?
They soon reached the Museum, and it was in the same state as they had left it in. There were sandbags on top of the large staircase, and behind them were people guarding the building with weapons. Observing from outside alone, Zain noticed at least ten of them with weapons on them.
'These are different from the last group. That time, I could tell, maybe it was their first time holding a weapon, but these guys, they have either been trained pretty well in this short time or knew how to use weapons beforehand.'
After passing all the guards and Brandon giving a bit of a nod to one of them, the double doors began to open, and they entered the main hallway of the Museum. Once again, he noticed that there were sandbag barricades even in the hallways as well, and there were more people with weapons.
It was set up in a way that would delay whatever walked inside without them putting all of the forces in one place.
"It's important to protect this place. That's why I was sent out to try and look after this scout team. The rest were to stay behind."
Going through the hallway, they finally reached the first main exhibit area, and a large model of a tyrannosaurus rex was placed there. It was a huge, fake bone model of the creature, with several other different things scattered around the side.
It looked like this was where most of the people were staying for the time being. As there were clothes, sheets, and sleeping bags all placed inside of the room, and along with that were all of the civilians inside as well.
"Everyone, you must have been tired. You are free to rest up. Please remember to give your reports as well." Brandon ordered the group that had returned with him.
After saying thanks to the saviors, each of them went off, including Pink's parents, to join the others, and immediately, the people began to ask them questions about what they had been through, the state of the outside world, and what they had witnessed outside.
The group wasn't shy at all and began to tell the tales of how they had narrowly escaped the clutches of death. First, they revealed the state they were in, and finally, they talked about the new group that had saved them, the Level Up group, and their display of skills.
"I will need to speak to Ryan first, and we should be able to meet in around thirty minutes to an hour. I hope that's all okay, and in the meantime, I will have Dave show you around the entire place.
Before leaving, Brandon had pulled Dave in and whispered in his ear.
"Treat them with extreme courtesy, and make them feel so welcome that they never want to leave this place."
Dave was the lead student of the group from before, so Zain didn't mind since the young student seemed to be an amiable person. After Brandon left, Dave gave the three a tour. While they were walking around, Zain was looking out to check if there was anyone he knew.
Dave told them that there were quite a few students who had arrived and were from the same university. Among the civilians, there were a few faces that Zain did find familiar, but none of them was from his classes, so he doubted they would know him or anything about him.
"And this is our canteen!" Dave said with a smile as they walked into another hall. "Food is already being rationed in this place, so everyone is asked to come here and eat at a certain time of the day. Since you're our special guests because you helped bring back that food from the care package, I'm sure Brandon won't mind if I let you guys grab something to eat here first."
There were a few people who hung around in the canteen. Even though they weren't eating due to the tables and chairs, often they would just come here to play cards or just chat with each other, and they had overheard this as well.
"Dave, I think it might be best that you wait before doing that." An older gentleman said. He had a skinny status, and as he came up from his seat, around four other older gentlemen walked with haste and bare belly and stood in front of the two. They didn't look like the kindest bunch.
"This food was gathered all with our own hard work. Our very own blood was split to gather that food, and you want to give it away to some newcomers?" The man asked.
Dave looked a bit nervous because, of all things, he didn't want to start a fight, and on top of that, the way they were acting wasn't exactly welcoming. There was a high chance that Zain wouldn't join this group after meeting the leader and getting what he wanted.
So Dave had figured that Brandon wanted them to stay.
"You don't understand, Roy. These guys saved the scout team. We would have died if it wasn't for them, and they had even brought back a lot of food from the care packages for us." Dave explained.
"Just these three? And are you talking about the care packages that were sent from the government to help all of us that didn't give us diddly squat?" Roy, the old man replied.
Although no one said anything out loud, it seemed like a lot of those in the canteen agreed with what Roy was saying. This was typical to happen in a group. Judging from their reaction, it was unlikely that they had new people joining them for a while.
Since this had been the group dynamic with everyone's roles during that time, they had grown close together and were now territorial over any new person that was to join.
"It's okay." Zain sighed. "We don't need to eat anyway, and none of us is hungry. Let's just continue on with the tour,"
Zain was the first one to start walking.
Seeing this, Roy thought that they had managed to win, but the truth was Zain, and his group didn't really eat that type of food anyway, and there was no need to cause a mess. If the two of them were to fight, and Zain accidentally cut one with his finger or something like that, then there was a chance that the former could be turned.
When they reached the doors on the other end and pushed through. Dave apologized.
"I'm sorry about all of that. I promise you that sort of the people here are few and far between. Everyone has been through tough times, which I'm sure you can understand."
"Don't worry, we understand. All sorts of things happened when we first met Zain, so we definitely understand." Pink replied, remembering that Zain had almost strangled Fingers when he woke up after passing out on his first day with them.
The group soon entered another large exhibit room, but it looked like it had been cleared of all items that were on display, and instead, they had three different training sessions going on.
There were three men in swat uniforms similar to the one on Brandom. One of them was teaching them how to use guns, reload, take the gun apart, maintenance, and to do a whole bunch of other things.
Then, another part of the room was teaching hand-to-hand combat. Here, the instructor was demonstrating how to fight by throwing your opponent and more. It looked skilful, but it was hard to tell how well it would fare against a zombie. Frankly, it seemed like it was more so something to be used against humans.
Then finally, there was also a weapons section, where the instructor was teaching how to use knives, daggers, and large lung blunt objects such as poles and baseball bats that the group had accumulated since the beginning.
"If you haven't guessed, this is our training room. Ryan has been trying his best to get it, so everyone reaches a certain standard, including us...but of course, we still aren't anything compared to you three." Dave scratched the back of his head because he thought their group had done quite well, at least well enough to be trusted with getting the care package but then this had occurred.
Just as Dave was going to introduce Zain and the others to everyone, the doors behind them opened again, and Brandon stepped inside the hall.
"Our leader Ryan is glad to meet you," Brandon smiled as he walked toward Zain and his group.
*****
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