Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The regional park wasn’t exactly inviting when the two buses pulled into the parking lot.
Three cars sat deserted, one of which was occupied by a trapped infected.
The welcome center and the ranger station were brightly lit, and cabins dotted the gentle hills close by.
Les sat and pondered the scene from the safety of the bus for a few moments.
“Looks okay,” someone ventured from behind him.
“Looks can be deceiving,” he said. Rising to his feet, he glanced at Devora. “You okay to be in charge while we’re off checking out the place?”
“Sure.” She seemed pleased by his choosing her again but he liked her demeanor and the fact she’d been a police dispatcher.
He and his armed men left the bus and met up with Ethan and the armed individuals from his bus.
The ad hoc team worked their way methodically through the buildings, not finding anything but sad vignettes of past carnage.
Two of the cabins were clearly occupied by infected, as there was groaning and thumping in response to the sound of their approaching footsteps.
Les wondered if the infected could communicate with each other.
He didn’t want to risk going in there and killing them if he didn’t have to but neither did he want them summoning up a swarm of their ‘friends’.
Deciding he was worrying too much, he and his team finished checking their half of the cabins and met up with Ethan in the parking lot again.
They’d marked the cabins of infected with big X’s made from duct tape he’d found in the bus’s toolbox, so no one would go in there by mistake.
Devora opened the bus door in response to his signal and the person Ethan had left in charge opened his. The refugees spilled out in the fading sunlight and gathered around Les.
“A couple of the cabins have infected trapped,” he said.
“We’ve marked them so stay away. The others were empty.
Some have personal effects in them if that’s going to bother you.
I don’t give a damn where you bunk or with who so long as those of you assigned to guard duty show up at the appointed times.
Devora here needs volunteers to help with fixing dinner, see her if you can cook.
I’ll draft people if I have to. We’re only going to get through this and reach safety by working together. ”
“I’ve been here before,” Devora offered, glancing at the assembled passengers.
“There’s a big meeting room with an attached kitchen next to the welcome center.
There should be dishes and pots and pans there so I just need the food we found at the restaurant carried over and I can get dinner going.
It won’t be fancy but it’ll be filling.”
“What about the hot springs?” a young man in the crowd asked. “Can we go swimming?”
There was a lot of murmuring about how nice it would be to take a swim and clean up.
Les pointed to Ethan. “Take a team and go check it out.”
“Sure thing, boss.” His friend gave him a loose salute and motioned to his two armed passengers. The trio moved off at a run in the direction of the springs, as indicated by a series of signs and arrows.
Les thanked the Lords of Space yet again he’d been able to grab Ethan at the compound and get him to drive the second bus.
Having a second in command he could trust was invaluable in the current situation.
He supervised unloading the stasis containers of ingredients Devora wanted for her kitchen, aided by a team of people who volunteered to help.
Even Jenny carried a small can of peaches in one hand and her favorite among the stuffed animals he’d picked up for her at the rest stop in the other hand.
Les circulated constantly as the evening progressed, checking on who was in which cabin, taking in the hot springs set up with an eye to security, visiting the kitchen and grabbing a fast meal, complimenting Devora with amazement at what a tasty dish she’d been able to make from the odds and ends scrounged from the restaurant.
She had plenty of helpers and Jenny played contentedly in a corner of the big, industrial type kitchen, pretending to cook and serve her stuffed animal a meal.
As he returned his plate to Devora, Les watched the child play. “She said anything about her parents?”
Devora shook her head. “She asked me if her mom would be waiting for her wherever we’re going and I said we’d have to see.
I mean, I know there’s no chance her parents survived the compound if they aren’t on our buses but I’m not ready to crush her hopes yet.
” She tucked an errant strand of blond hair into her braids. “I wish we knew who she was.”
“Planetary DNA database would tell us in five minutes, if this was normal times,” Les agreed. “Now we may never know.”
“She’s not from Rosewater,” Devora said. “I’d recognize her. So she probably came into the compound with her mother, taken by Jonny at the barricade.”
Thinking about the late warlord, Les shook his head.
In his opinion nothing in Rosewater would have been defensible if a big enough swarm of the infected arrived but certainly a lot more could have been done at the compound to at least buy time for people to escape.
“I gotta go. I need to check up on my sentries for shift change and then Ethan and I wanted to do some work on the buses.”
Eyes wide, Devora stared at him. Lowering her voice so none of the others in the kitchen could hear, she asked, “Is something wrong with them?”
“They weren’t super well maintained, as far as I can tell but Rosewater was a pretty small place, probably didn’t get much wear and tear either. Not meant to be long distance haulers. We want to make a few adjustments, tune the engines up a bit. No big deal.”
“Okay.” Devora let out big breath. “That’s a relief. Listen, later you want to go to the hot springs with me?”
Surprised, Les blinked and tried to ignore the twitch his cock gave at the idea.
“I need a bath and I want to wash my hair.” She put a hand to her elaborately braided hair. “I found a little bit of soap in the pantry here, not ideal for hair but better than nothing.”
The idea of her naked with all that glorious hair down around her shoulders made the problem in his pants worse.
“But I’m afraid to go there by myself, especially at night. I think everyone else has probably been there and left by now. I’ve been stuck in the kitchen. I’m not complaining. I did volunteer.”
“Sure,” he managed to say, clearing his throat before he could continue. “Let me finish my to do list and we can go over there for a swim. What about Jenny? Is she coming too?”
“Sandy said she’d keep an eye on Jenny for me. We’re sleeping in the conference room tonight so we can get an early start on breakfast before it’s time to pull out.”
“You sure you don’t want a cabin? We did check them all.”
She shook her head. “I’m happier right here. For one thing it’s closer to the buses than any of the cabins.”
“Okay, give me an hour and I’ll swing back for you.”
“No problem. It’ll take us at least that long to clean up from dinner.” She turned away. “See you then.”
If Devora hadn’t hated being so sweaty and grimy, she never would have been bold enough to ask Les to escort her to the hot springs.
He was an intriguing guy, good looking and low key, but he’d taken command of their motley group pretty easily.
His self confidence was appealing to her and she definitely felt safe with him in charge and personally, one on one.
He wasn’t at all like Jonny Fafield, who’d been a bully and who had required constant placating and praising.
As they walked along the path from the central area to the springs, she was tense despite Les’s presence. She felt like her head was a swivel as she kept checking the shadows and startling at every small sound. Luckily the power was still on at the campground, so the path was well lit.
“We did a thorough sweep,” he said after the fourth or fifth time she’d bumped into him as she reacted to a new noise. “There were no current signs of the infected, aside from the ones trapped in those two cabins.”
“I know,” she said, giving his arm a squeeze and then self-consciously moving a few steps away. “It’s just they’re so scary and they can come on you before you even know they’re around.”
“You get cornered in Rosewater?”
“No, actually I was in an incident at the New Damarkal zoo, early in the outbreak. A janitor saved me and himself by hiding us in a small storage closet. Other people in the area weren’t so lucky.
” She swallowed hard, remembering the poor young couple who had been a few feet ahead of her.
Their gruesome deaths had saved her life, giving her time to run.
Guilt swept over her again. She’d never even been able to learn their names, despite her resources as a police dispatcher.
“The authorities hushed it up immediately.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Les said. “I don’t think the powers that be wanted to believe the nature and scope of the problem we were facing until it was way too late.” He showed her his projectile gun. “I’d rather it was a blaster but at least we have a weapon.”
“I brought a knife,” she admitted. “From the kitchen. It’s in my bag.”
“Good idea.” His approval was warm. “Remember to go for the head. But hey, we’ll be fine tonight.”
“Oh, so pretty,” she exclaimed as they came around the final curve and she saw the pond sparkling in the moonlight in front of her.
“I’d forgotten how nice it was up here.” A few stragglers were swimming or lounging in the shallows and she was glad not to be alone.
Les took her elbow to steady her as they descended the rough hewn stone steps to the edge of the water.
His touch was warm and set off tingles all along her nerve endings.
Devora set her bag near a big bush and kicked off her shoes. “Are you coming in?”