No Easy Hope - 01 (25 page)

I looked up and patted her on the back of her hand.

“It’s okay, I’m not mad at you. It’s just…”

“You lost someone to the infection, didn’t you.” Andrea said, picking up Aiden as she did so.

I shrugged. “Hasn’t everyone?”

“Good point.” She said, nodding.

“Look guys, I didn’t come over here to ruin the good mood. Emily, we’re cool. Andrea, go back to playing with the baby. Ethan, put a shirt on for crying out loud, you’re making me feel like less of a man.” My last comment elicited a round of laughter.

Ethan responded by standing up and making a show of flexing his rather impressive physique. Emily and Andrea whooped and applauded. A third voice joined in, and I turned around to see who it was. A pretty brunette approached and startled me by laying a hand on my shoulder. She looked down at me with a pair of soft brown eyes and smiled.

“I was hoping you’d be walking around in those little boxer briefs.” She said, her southern accent rich and sweet as honey.

I smiled in return. “You must be Stacy.”

“Guilty as charged.” She said as she took a chair from the same stack I had, and sat down next to me.

“How you feeling this morning?” She asked.

“I’ve been better, and I’ve been worse.” I said. “Thanks for the bucket. It came in handy.”

She laughed with a rich, velvety voice.

“I thought it might. Your clothes are being dried as we speak.”

“I appreciate that. Ethan, didn’t you mention something about a shower yesterday?” I said.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Stacy, you mind giving him a hand?” Ethan replied, grinning.

“Absolutely not.” She winked at me and stood up, holding out a hand. “Come on, handsome, let’s get you cleaned up.”

I took her hand and followed her outside. It had been quite a while since the last time I held hands with a pretty girl, and I have to admit that my heart beat a little faster as we walked. Stacy led me out of the warehouse and around to the side of the building closest to the abandoned factory. Crude graffiti covered the factory’s back wall, and all of the windows had long ago been broken out. Birds hopped and flapped in the empty panes, calling back and forth to one another.

The shower area stood between the factory and the compound. It hadn’t been there the day before, so it must have been set up that morning. The showers consisted of several large, black plastic bladders mounted on wooden tripods eight feet off the ground. Thin wooden partitions surrounded each shower to provide privacy. A short hose with a plastic shower nozzle jutted from the bottom of the bladders, and as we came closer, I recognized them as camping showers. I remembered seeing them advertised in a magazine for outdoors enthusiasts. The black plastic absorbed heat from the sun and warmed the water within the bladder. Each bladder held five gallons, and were collapsible for easy storage when not in use.

A stack of clean towels sat on a bench beside the showers. All of the showers were in use, and a young man with a stepladder and a five-gallon bucket stood ready to take water from one of several barrels and refill the showers once their occupants were finished. I looked around, and noticed that there were four guards on duty around the perimeter. Two of them were carrying the SCAR rifles that Ethan brought in the day before with the kind of casual competency that I have always associated with police and the military. The other two guards I recognized as Greg and Rick. Greg carried the hunting rifle Bill had given him the day before, and Rick had his Mini 14.

“I’ve already met Greg and Rick over there,” I said to Stacy, “But who are those two with the big guns?”

“The blond guy is Cody Starnes and the older one is Stan Walters. They were both SWAT with CMPD before everything happened. They’ve been out gathering supplies the last couple of days, and they didn’t get back until this morning. Don’t worry, they’re nice guys. I’ll introduce you later.”

I nodded and grabbed a towel from the table. Stacy pointed to a couple of boxes sitting against the nearest partition.

“There’s shampoo and soap in those boxes. Ethan found a load of the stuff in a hotel a few miles up the road from here. Think you’ll need anything else?” She asked.

“I wouldn’t mind some company.” I replied jokingly.

Stacy smirked, and hit my arm with a half-hearted slap.

“No problem, I’ll go get Cody. I think you’re just about his type.”

I laughed and held up my hands.

“No, no thanks. I’ll be fine on my own, thank you very much.”

A man stepped out of one of the showers with a towel wrapped around him and went behind another set of partitions to put his clothes on.

“Looks like you’re up.” Stacy gave me a swat on the backside.

I watched her walk back around the building admiring the way she filled out her shorts. Just before she turned the corner, she glanced back in my direction, saw me watching her, and gave a little wave.

“I know the scenery is nice, but you’re the last one getting a shower this morning, and I need to get this place cleaned up. Sorry to rush you.”

I turned around and faced the young man with the bucket and the stepladder. I was expecting him to be irritated, but instead he merely looked tired and a bit sunburned. He was a few years younger than me, and had the loose skin and sunken features of someone who had recently endured rapid weight loss. A few shallow pockmarks lined his cheeks, and he wore a pair of thick glasses. I wondered if he was one of the college kids Earl had told me about the night before.

“Sorry about that. Can’t blame me though, know what I mean?”

His face brightened slightly into a weary, haunted smile.

“No, I guess I can’t. Stacy is pretty hot.”

I held out a hand. “Eric Riordan, nice to meet you.”

“Noah Salinger. Likewise.” He said as he shook my hand. “Seriously though, I have to break down the showers and get everything moved back inside before ten-thirty. Use this one on the end. I’ll leave enough walls up for you to get showered and dressed.”

“Thanks. I’ll give you a hand as soon as I’m done.” I said.

“I should be most of the way finished by then, but I appreciate the offer.”

He turned and walked to the other end of the showers where a large blue lumber cart like the kind used in home improvement stores stood. He started taking apart the partitions and loading them onto the cart. I watched for a moment, then grabbed some soap and water and stepped into the nearest shower stall. I hung my clothes over the top of the stall and turned an orange lever at the bottom of the bladder to let water flow through the nozzle. The water was warm, and it felt wonderful on my grimy skin.

The shower made me feel, and smell, immensely better. You know you stink pretty bad when you can actually smell yourself. I put my clothes back on and walked back around to where I last saw Noah. True to his word, most of the shower’s partitions, tripods, and bladders were already loaded onto two carts.

“Jeez, you work fast.” I said.

Noah gave another one of his grim smiles.

“I designed the walls to fit together by hand, no fasteners necessary. You just fit the pieces together and let gravity do the work. They’re super easy to put together and take down.”

I watched him take apart the last stall. He emptied the water from the bladder into a barrel, and put it on the cart with the other bladders. The tripod was actually three four-by-fours, each post had a large nail jutting from one side. Bungee cords wrapped around the boards under the nails and held them together. A flat piece of plywood with a foot long two-by-four nailed to the center of it formed the platform upon which the bladder rested. The two-by-four rested between the tall supports and held the plywood steady. The partitions around the shower itself were thin pieces of wood paneling that slid into slotted boards braced by more plywood. It took Noah all of about forty five seconds to break the shower stall down and load it onto the carts. I had to admit, it was a clever design.

“If you want to help, you can wheel one of these carts back inside.” He said.

I nodded and grabbed the one with the heavier looking load. Noah went ahead of me and parked his cart in front of the blue shipping container that covered the front entrance. He trotted over to the same forklift Ethan had used the day before and moved the container, then slapped the door three times and called out.

“It’s Noah. I’m bringing the showers back in.”

The door slowly rolled up and Stacy stood on the other side. She smiled when she saw me.

“Damn, you just got here and somebody already put you to work.” She said.

I laughed and pushed the cart inside. Noah directed me where to park it and thanked me before walking off to move the shipping container back in place. Stacy lowered the door and locked it, then sauntered back over to me.

“You look a damn sight better. It’s amazing how much better being clean makes you feel, ain’t it?” She said.

“God, you’re not kidding. I feel like a new man.”

I walked over to the bed of my truck and took out a shaving kit. Stacy followed behind me and walked a lap around the big gray Tundra.

“You’ve got quite a bit of stuff in this thing. What’s it all for?” She asked.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know when I find out.”

I grabbed a folding camping stool from the truck’s bed and set it down on the floor. I did not want to get shaving cream all over my clean shirt, so I took it off and threw it into the cab through the passenger side window. Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but Stacy noticed and whistled at me.

“Bout damn time, I was wondering if the front was as nice as the back.” She stepped in front of me and ran a hand over my abdomen.

“Looks like you’ve done a few sit-ups.”

She stared at my mid-section for a moment then looked me in the eyes, her full lips slightly parted. She was standing very close, and the touch of her fingertips made me break out in goose bumps. The effect was not lost on Stacy and she stepped closer, only an inch or two away. My heart started pounding in my chest, and I had a strong urge to lean down and kiss her. Just as I was about to lose my will to resist, Stacy stepped away, winking at me.

“I’d love to stick around, but I got work to do. You staying the night, or are you still planning on heading out today?” She asked.

My hot blood quickly cooled down, and the gears of my brain started to turn again.  How did she know I was leaving today? I had just met her that morning, and I hadn’t mentioned anything about my plans to drive to Morganton.

“You must have been talking to Ethan.” I said.

“Yeah, I had breakfast with him and Andrea this morning. He told me about what happened yesterday. You did a good thing stopping to help him. It’s nice to see there’s still at least one decent guy in the world.”

Her teasing smile went away, replaced by an expression of sincere respect. I felt myself flush a little and shrugged.

“I’m just glad I was there to help. Ethan seems like a good man.”

“The best.” She said. “A lot of people around here owe him their lives. We would all probably be dead if not for him and his father.”

Stacy walked around the truck and picked up a small tool bag from one of the numerous shelves.

“I promised to help my dad make a bed frame today. It only took me the last three months, but I finally convinced him to stop sleeping on the concrete.”

“Have I met your father yet?” I asked.

“Yes, I believe you met Bill yesterday.”

I felt my eyes go wide with surprise. Stacy laughed.

“Don’t worry sweetie, I take after my momma. I didn’t figure you’d see a resemblance.”

She turned, still laughing, and walked to the common area. I shook off my surprise, and when her buttocks was too far away to properly admire, I sat down on my stool and poured some water in a metal bowl. I spent the next few minutes shaving off my beard stubble and pondering my next move. I still needed to see about getting some gas for the truck, and I needed to talk to Ethan about plotting a route around the disaster at Iron Station. If the roads were as bad as he said they were, I had no desire to tackle that particular obstacle head on. I decided that my policy for dealing with the undead was going to be stealth, evasion, and speed. After the encounters of the previous day, it had become painfully clear to me how dangerous engaging the undead in a fight really was, even with a suppressed firearm. One on one they weren’t much, but their advantage lay in numbers; something they had plenty of.