Apocalypsis: Book 4 (Haven) (8 page)

“You still aren’t going.  Try it and I’ll bash you over the head with a shovel.”

I lifted my eyebrows at that.  Rob was seriously worried about his friend.  He might actually have been serious about knocking his friend unconscious.

“Ha.  You could try, but then you’d better wear a cup the rest of your life.  I hold a grudge you know.”  Fohi gnawed off another hunk of stale bread.

Rob laughed.  “Bullshit.  You couldn’t hold a grudge if your life depended on it.”

“Go to hell, Rob.  You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”  Fohi looked at Winky.  “So, you come around here often?”

She snorted.  “Not if I can help it.  You want anything else?”

“As a matter of fact …”

Rob punched him hard in the back.  “Nah, he’s good.”

Winky walked away, shaking her head and smiling.

I glanced up in time to see a ghost of a smile on Paci’s face.  He looked at me and I turned back to Fohi, avoiding his gaze.

“What the hell?!” shouted Fohi, wincing when his outburst caused the kitten to claw his shoulder in fright.  “Ow, little kitty cat, ease up on the skin removal, will ya?”  He pulled her off his shirt and set her down on the ground.  “Go away, Fuzzybeans.  Scat.  I’m busy.”

She picked her way across his blanket to his plate and helped herself to part of his breakfast, completely ignoring his dismissal.  Her litter mate was sound asleep on a spare corner of the sleeping spot, not interested so much in the close and personal style of cuddling her sister was doing with Fohi, apparently.

Fohi frowned at her for a second before turning his ire back on Rob.  “What they hell’d you punch me for, assbag?  I’m friggin injured in case you hadn’t noticed. 
And
I’m trying to eat.  You raised in a barn, or what?”

Rob stood.  “Just shut up for five minutes, would ya?”  He walked away without saying another word, heading to the breakfast buffet.

“What the heck’s wrong with him, anyway?  What’d I say?”  Fohi looked from me to Yokci to Paci, trying to find answers.

I shrugged.  I had a feeling there was some kind of girlfriend drama going on here, but I sure didn’t want to be the one to stir up that hornet’s nest.  “I have no idea.  Maybe he’s jealous of your broad shoulders.”  It wasn’t a very elegant suck-up, but it was the best I could come up with on such short notice.

Fohi got a huge grin on his face.  “You think so?  You’re probably right.”  He sat up straighter and puffed up his chest a little.  “My ma always said I had broad shoulders.  Like a swimmer, she said.”

“Yeah.  Like a swimmer,” I agreed. 
Like a tadpole, more like it
.

“Chicks dig broad shoulders,” he said, trying to nudge the kitten away.  She just batted at his fingers and ate more food.  “Come on, little Fuzzybeans.  I need to eat too, you know.”

“Fuzzybeans?  Is that her name?”

“How the heck do I know?  She’s not my cat.”

“What about that one?  What’s it’s name?”

“I call her Freak, but I don’t know.  She’s not my cat either.”

I laughed.  The kitten known as Fuzzybeans was climbing back into his lap to lick her paws and wipe her face.  “I’m not so sure about that one.  I think she’s selected you as her pet.”

Fohi smiled as he patted her on the head.  “Yeah.  All the pussies like me, what can I say.”  He leaned over and grabbed the other one too, putting her in his lap with the other one.

I gagged on my own spit.

Yokci barked out a laugh and then turned away so we couldn’t see his face.  Paci laughed silently, head down.

“And on that note, I’ll be leaving,” I said, standing to go get my breakfast.

“Take Fuzzybeans with you, would ya?  She’s eating all my food.”

“Hell no,” I said.  “She’s your cat now.”

***

I joined Peter and his minions in the place he’d set up as City Manager central in front section of the lobby.  He’d found paper and pens and had been busy writing out lists of things to accomplish, inventories of all our supplies, and plans showing the layout of the prison.

“Whoa,” I said, picking up one that looked like a blueprint or something, showing the section I knew housed the kitchen and our impromptu crematorium.  “This is good.  Who did this?  The detail is amazing.”

“You can thank Bianca for this little jewel,” he said, taking it gingerly from my hands.  “I’ll just put that back where it belongs if you don’t mind.  Don’t want anything to happen to it, do we?”

“I had a shower in the rain yesterday, you know.  I don’t smell anymore.”  I checked my pits just to be sure and then smiled.

“Yes, but it only takes one drop of sweat to smear the ink, you know.  I just wish I had some plastic sheet protectors.” He frowned, looking out the windows into the distance.  If I didn’t know any better I’d think he was planning a pilgrimage to Office Depot.

“I think you’d better give up on whatever little fantasy you have cooking in your bean right now.  You’ll just have to keep everyone away from all your little lists and drawings.  Maybe put them behind glass or something.”  I was attracted again by the detail in Bianca’s drawing.  “What’s that right there?” I was pointing to a section that showed something with hashmarks going through it.

“It’s a shower facility.  We’re not sure what we’ll use it for.  Someone suggested we find a way to pump rainwater from a roof cistern into the pipes, but I’m not sure if we’ll have the engineering knowhow to do that or not.  We’re also kind of missing the cistern part of the plan.”

I nodded my head, impressed someone would even dream of doing it.  “Maybe not today or next week, but how about next year?  I’ll bet we could find what we need out there somewhere, and probably not that far from here.”

“Anything’s possible.  All I know is, we’re here to stay, and we’re going to find a way to make things work.  There’s no reason why we can’t have some of the comforts we used to have.  Showers are a must if we’re going to keep disease and illness to a minimum.”

“I agree.  So what’s Bianca’s deal?  How’d she get so awesome at this?”

“She took a bunch of drafting classes in school.  She wanted to be an architect.  Her mom was one I guess.”

“Sweet.  Maybe with this group and anyone who joins us we can have every career field represented.  It’ll be like in the olden days when kids did whatever their parents did.”

“Not every job needs to exist now, but the ones that matter in this world could, like engineering and making things and farming,” said Peter.  “I wanted to talk to you about the library.”

I frowned.  “What library?”

“Well, first of all
our
library.” He pointed to another map, to a square that looked like it was probably a large room of some sort.  “Here’s where we’re putting all the books - in the former prison library, which was pretty crappy, actually.  You and I brought the most, but some of the other kids had some too.  We’ve all agreed to make them available to the community.  All except for George’s journal of course.”

I nodded.  “Of course.  That’s exclusively mine and yours.  No one else’s.”

“Understood.  And as for the library’s future, we’d like to see about going to some local libraries and book stores and moving their books over here.”

“All of them?”  Peter was going a little nuts now.  With books being so heavy and bulky, I couldn’t imagine how we’d move them over long distances without putting ourselves at huge risk.

“Sure.  Almost all of them, anyway.  Technical stuff, fiction novels, encyclopedias.  If we’re going to rebuild, we’ll need that knowledge.  I think one of the best places we can go is the university bookstores.  I heard from Bianca that the University of Miami has a monster one.”

The wheels were starting to turn in my head now.  “I’ll bet they have all kinds of technical goo-gah there.  Like engineering and chemistry stuff.”

“Exactly.  And we have kids with skills already.  We could do some study courses to help increase what knowledge we have and get going on really setting this place up for the long term.”

“Now all we have to do is figure out how to move all that stuff without getting attacked and eaten.”

“I’m working on that, too.”

I hugged Peter to me hard.  “What would I do without you?”

He patted me lightly on the back.  “You’d manage.  But I appreciate your gratitude.  It’s nice to be needed.”

I pulled away, but left my hands on his arms.  “I’m going to go and get him for you, Peter.”

“Who?”

“Don’t play games.  You know who I’m talking about.”

Peter closed his eyes and shook his head.  When he opened them again, they were as cold as I’d ever seen them.  “I don’t care what he does.  He can stay and rot in that stinky swamp as far as I’m concerned.”

I dropped my hands from his arms.  “Peter, don’t say that.  You know you don’t mean it.”

“Don’t I?”

“No, you don’t.  You’re not that cold-blooded.”

“It’s not about being cold-blooded.  It’s about walking away when that’s the right thing to do.  He could have come with us.  He could have stopped me.  He made his choice, and now we both have to live with it.  That’s life out in the badlands.”

I shook my head.  “First of all, badlands?  What’s that?  Are we living in a Blade Runner movie now?  And when did you get so hardcore, anyway?  What happened to my fluffy doodle dumpling?”

He shrugged, shuffling some papers and making a big deal out of straightening the ones laid out in front of him.  “I’ve always been this way.  People who can’t adapt and move on get left behind, and I’m not getting left behind.”

I sighed, very frustrated.  “Could you stop with the papers for a second?”  His casual attitude was really worrying me.  Before, I’d always thought Peter having a breakdown would be all about hysterics and girly screaming.  Now I wasn’t so sure that it wouldn’t be a lot of hyper organization and planning like what I was seeing here.

“I’m busy right now.  Maybe we can continue this conversation later.”

“No, maybe we can continue it now,” I said, more firmly this time.

He stopped and put his hands on his hips.  “You’re getting a little high-handed, don’t you think?”

“You haven’t even seen high-handed, yet.  Trust me.  Either talk to me now and cut the crapola or I’m going to carry you out of here and force you to talk.  And I’m warning you … there could be possible cuddling after.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said, his nostrils flaring.

“You sure about that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.  I widened my stance, preparing to grab him around the middle and haul him out of there.

He wilted like a newly airless balloon.  “Fine.”  He dropped his gaze to the floor.  “But I’m not going to like it.”

“Come on, you don’t have to like it.”  I took him by the elbow and led him out of the lobby and over to the front gate.

Once we were out of everyone’s earshot, I spoke again.  “Listen, I know Trip was a total douchebag blowing you off like that.  But you have to admire him for doing what he believed in, even though it was obviously tearing him up inside.”

Peter snorted.  “Yeah right.  Tearing him up?  I don’t think so.”

“I talked to Rob.  He said Trip was miserable after you left.  It was obvious to everyone he was very upset about you leaving.”

“It wasn’t about me.”

I laughed.  “What?  You think he was upset to see me go?”

Peter tried to keep frowning but he couldn’t totally pull it off.  A tiny smile appeared.  “No.”

“Jamal?  Ronald?”

Peter’s smile got bigger.  “No.”

“Bodo?”

“Definitely not.”

“Buster?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe he misses Buster, but he wasn’t standing out on the riverbank as we drifted by for the poodle, you dork, and you know it.  He was glad to be rid of me.  He was mad at Rob, Fohi, and Winky for leaving, but he knew he’d see them again.  It was you he was upset about.”  I shook Peter gently.  “And you pretending that’s not the case is just stupid.  You’re just bringing the drama.”  I tickled his ribs a little.  “Drama queen.”

“Stop.”  He pushed my hand away, still smiling but trying not to.

“Drama queen.” I tickled him some more, using two hands now.

“Stop.  I’m serious!”  He tried like heck to push me away, but I wasn’t having any of that nonsense.

“Admit it!” I yelled playfully. “Admit you’re a drama queen!” I was getting him so good he was close to falling down.

“No!  Never!  And you’d better watch out before I start defending myself!”

I laughed with glee, so busy tickling him I wasn’t paying attention to the obvious signs of his impending revenge.  “Go ahead, drama queen, give it your best shot.”

I had expected him to try and eye gouge me or palm thrust me like I’d taught him, foolish girl that I am.  The revenge he’d planned so sweetly didn’t hit me until the intense burning flashed out from my chest.

“Titty twister!  Ah
ha!”
he squealed, dancing out of my reach.  “Take that, you smelly beast!”

“Oh my god!” I yelled.  “You just pinched my nipple!”  My jaw dropped in shock.

He held up two sets of pinching fingers in front of him.  “Stay away or you’ll suffer the worst purple nurple of all time.  I don’t play.”

I put my hands over my breasts.  “Dude, you
so
fight dirty.  I had no idea you were that vicious.”

He giggled.  “That’s pretty rich coming from the girl who kicks testicles up into throats.”

I shrugged.  “A girl’s gotta do …”

“… what a girl’s gotta do,” he finished, wiggling his pinchers around a little.

I held up my hands in surrender.  “Fine.  You’ve got me.  No more tickling, no more boobie pinching.”

“You surrender to my superior power.  Say it.”

“I surrender to your dirty fighting tactics.”

“Good enough.”  He dropped his hands.  “Were you telling the truth about Trip?  About what Rob said?”

“Yes, I was.  I swear.”

“And you said you’re going to go get him?”

“I’m going to try.  Rob says they’re planning on coming here.  I need to help them if that’s what they want to do.”

“It’s going to be dangerous.”

“Yes.”  I moved closer to stand in front of him.

“I want to come.”