Simple (20 page)

Over the course of weeks that followed, the group settled into a routine.  Alice and I scavenged for supplies, Ben and Maude cleaned, and Barbara did the cooking.  We took shifts standing guard, and life was as normal as one could expect, under the circumstances.  Alice complained that Giz was “distant,” and I did my best to explain to her how he was just focused on the vector coding.  Truth be told, I was feeling much the same about Mic.  The two of them had taken a room on the sixth floor as their workspace, and they came out only to eat.  Several nights Mic hadn’t even come to our room to sleep.  I’m not the needy type, but I missed the sex, and it was getting old.  We didn’t see much of Two or Deraline, because the guys were either working on them or studying them.  This was fine with me.  The less I saw of them the better.  My nightmares had been working overtime since they’d joined us, and I was sick of Two getting all of the attention from my man.

By October, I’d stomached all I could take of Alice’s whining.  It was late afternoon, and I was sitting on the front steps of the hotel with her, Ben, Maude and Barb.  It was nearing the end of Alice’s guard duty shift, and I was due to take over.  Since we’d had little in the way of encounters with simps, everyone had relaxed a bit.  None of them were taking guard duty very seriously, and they resented me for enforcing the practice.  The front steps had become the hangout.  There wasn’t a trace of fall in the weather, and the heat was getting to all of us.  The hotel was stuffy and aside from Mic and Giz, no one wanted to be in there if they didn’t really have to be before dark when it was cooler.

I was out of cigarettes and bored enough to kick the shit out of the next person that looked at me sideways.  Alice balanced her hand on the weathered railing and swung her right foot back and forth.  Her yellow sundress fluttered upward with each swing, and her bare foot was close enough to my face when she did it to aggravate the shit out of me.

“So, I was thinking that we could look for some hair conditioner the next time we go on a run.  My ends are splitting so, bad!”

“I told you to try the mayonnaise,” said Maude.

“You could try olive oil. We have a huge can of it, and it wouldn’t take much,” suggested Barb. 
Swoosh.
I followed her foot with my eye as she drew her leg back again.

“My wife used to use avocado.  She’d mush it all up and it was a mess, but she swore by it,” Ben said. 
Swoosh.
  I opened my mouth to say something, fully intending to blow up at her for being so ridiculous.  What the fuck did it matter if her hair was dry? Chop it off and move on.  Distracted, I stood up.  There it was again, a faint glint in the distance.  All at once, the group went silent.  I raised my right hand to my forehead to shield my eyes from the sun, and looked out into the desert.

“What is it, Lee?” asked Ben.

“It’s a couple of people, and they’re headed this way,” I said.  I moved slowly to the bottom stair.  Reaching down for a large rock, I spoke quietly.  “Maude, go warn Mic and Giz.”  “I’m on it,” she said and moved up the stairs.  It would be a while before they were close enough for me to use my slingshot, but I was getting prepared.  If they were simps, they would be on us quicker than I could reload, so grabbing more than one rock was pointless.  The strangers progressed forward.

“Alice, get the shotgun,” I said, urging her to move.  We’d scored a sawed-off and two boxes of shells from a motorcycle repair shop in town during one of our runs.  I’d made Alice practice with it, and she was a surprisingly good shot.  Ben hunkered beside me, and from the ragged sound of his breathing, I could tell he wasn’t doing well.  He’d been doing his best to hide it, especially from Maude, but I’d noticed the yellowish tinge in his skin.  It bothered me to have him out here.  With his progressed limp, there wasn’t a good chance of him escaping if they were simps.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.  His face was a mask of concern and fear.  I glanced at the tremble in his fleshy hand as he clutched the rail.  He wasn’t up for a fight, and we both knew it.

“Go to my room.  Look in the far right top drawer of the dresser.  You’ll find a box of ammo there.  Bring it back as fast as you can,” I said, pulling my pistol from my waistband.  He eyed me with suspicion.  “You’re not sending me on a goose chase are you?”

“Ben, go!  I’ve only got what’s chambered, and if they’re hostiles, I’m gonna need the ammo!”  He conceded without much resistance, and as soon as he was gone, I tucked my pistol in the back of my pants.  I would rely on my slingshot first.  I turned my attention back to the intruders.  The male walked slightly ahead of the woman, his long hair puffing back with each determined stride.  The female seemed to be struggling to keep up as she walked.  It looked more as if she was waddling. They were close enough now to hit.  Alice came to stand on my right.  Under other circumstances I might have laughed.  She was a sight in her girly sundress with her lean legs spread for balance, but I’d invested time in her training.  Her one-handed pump signaled her readiness.  I positioned a rock in the ammunition pocket of my slingshot and drew back.  Squinting against the sun, I released and hoped my aim was right.

“Ai yi yi! They are shooting at us!” screeched the stout woman, her butterball figure hopping clumsily to hide behind the male.

“Keep calm and shut the fuck up, Sonya,” he said.  For a split second, I debated drawing my pistol, but the man lifted up both of his arms in surrender.  “We’re humans for shit sake, don’t shoot!”

“What do you want to do, Lee?” whispered Alice.

“Stay where you are,” I shouted back.

“You got it, lady,” said the man.  I could hear Mic and Giz with Maude and Ben behind me.  “Stand down, Lee.  They’re human,” said Mic.  I turned to see he had his tablet in hand.  I gave him the
are you sure
face and he shook his head in the affirmative.

“Drop your weapons,” I shouted out.

“We don’t have any weapons,” said butterball.

“Drop the knife Sonya, we don’t want any trouble with these good people,” said the man.  There was a brief exchange between the two, and then the woman grudgingly dropped something on the ground.

“Approach slowly, and keep your hands where we can see them,” I instructed.  The two newcomers came to stand before us, and our group stood in a semi-circle.  It was natural for all of us to be skeptical of intruders, but Mic surprised me with his hostility.

“What do you want from us?”

“Name’s Kyle,” said the man, ignoring Mic’s question.

“Fish,” said Mic, shaking the man’s hand briskly.  I turned to see if our simps were anywhere in sight; to my relief, they were not.  I didn’t want to jeopardize anything if we really were that close to a solution with the two of them; not that I would mind seeing the demise of my double.  I crossed my arms and eyed Sonya suspiciously.  Something about her didn’t sit right with me.  Maybe it had to do with her close-set beady eyes, or the body odor that wafted through the thick air around her.  Her black stretchy pants did little to hide the globular mounds of her thighs that mashed together as she walked toward me.  “Oh my God,” said Alice, placing a hand over her mouth and nose.  Sonya either didn’t notice this was directed at her, or didn’t care.  She smiled broadly revealing crimson gums and a mess of dental problems.  It looked as if she’d been sucking shit through a rag.  Frankly, her breath smelled as though that was the case as well.

“Thank you so much for taking us in, sweetheart.  You have no idea how bad it is out there.”  She licked her cracked lips and looked from me to Alice.  “Do you have any water or food here?” she asked.  The way she replaced the letter Y with J irritated me, and from her girth, the size of her potential appetite bothered me as well.  I did not intend to share our meager food supply with the likes of this gypsy troll or her weird rock star- looking companion.

“We have burgers and lemonade,” said Barb from behind me.  Finding those frozen buns and hamburger patties at the senior center had been an incredibly rare score, and I had risked my ass to get them.  I gave her the dirtiest look I could manage.  Kyle was making uncomfortable small talk with Mic and Giz, and I realized that Ben had slipped out of sight.  I assumed that Mic had sent him to watch over the simps while we worked through this.  As we filed into the hotel, Mic quietly confirmed this.  “Why are we letting them in?  I don’t like that woman.  She stinks,” I added quietly.  Mic took my hand in his and pulled me to a stop.  The others continued down the corridor to the small dining room.

“I don’t want them here anymore than you do, Lee, but it’s getting dark and I can’t turn them away in good conscience.  We’ll get rid of them first thing in the morning.”

“I don’t like it, Mic.”

“I know, I know.  I hope that they’ll take a room, and sleep as soon as they eat, so that I can get back to work.  They’ve been walking for days, according to Kyle, so they have to be exhausted.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Los Angeles.  Kyle said this was his hometown.  He was trying to get to family.”

“How did he end up with her?”

“I’m not entirely clear on that.  I guess we’ll find out, though.”  I traced the back of my hand over his cheek.  “You look tired.”

“I am exhausted.”

“Are you making progress?”  I asked.

“We are so close,” he said, with a heavy sigh.

“That’s what you always say, Mic.”  I leaned in to kiss the tip of his nose.

“I know, but this time I mean it.  We’ve actually isolated the Vector code…” he trailed off.

“What?”  I asked.  Mic ran his hand through his hair and looked away.  I tugged his chin to make him look me in the eyes.

“What are you not telling me?”  I asked.

“We need a simp to test it on, now.”

“That’s fucking perfect.”

“Please, Lee, don’t chew me out now.  I know you’ve had to pull extra weight, I know I haven’t been around, but I swear to God, it is going to be worth it when this is over.”

“Okay, that’s great Mic, but how are we supposed to get our hands on a simp for you to test out this theory of yours?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t talk about it now.  We need to join the others.”  He tried to kiss me, but I turned my head before he had the chance.

“Yeah, let’s go eat, because that’s exactly what I feel like doing right now,” I said.

We joined a lively group in the small dining room.  They were all laughing, and I realized that Kyle was the center of attention.  His long legs were stretched out and resting against the chair next to him.  He was just finishing another joke that had my friends laughing hysterically.  When the group noticed us entering, they begged Kyle to tell the joke again, but he politely declined.  I was fine with that.  As far as I was concerned, he could keep his humor to himself.  There was an awkward silence while Mic and I prepared our plates and sat at a nearby table.

“So Kyle, how did you and Sonya meet?” I asked.  Kyle picked up his burger and took a bite.  His jaw worked furiously and he took his time with that bite before answering.  “We were both staying in this park out in Chatsworth.  She makes her way by… cooking for people,” he said, pausing to take a long drink from his glass of lemonade.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Sonya. Maybe you could help us with the food preparation,” said Barb.

“I would love to help, but I’ll need some time to regain my strength,” she said.  I took one look at her filthy fingers wrapped around her burger and silently vowed not to let her come near any food I planned to eat.

“So, she cooked for you?” asked Giz.

“Dude, I hadn’t eaten anything but mustard weed in days.  Man was I hungry.  I smelled food, so I went to check it out.  I wasn’t sure if she was a simp, but after I saw a few others going down where she was, I said to myself, ‘fuck it man!’ I mean what did I have to lose?  So, I went for it.  I didn’t have anything to trade, but she fed me,” said Kyle.

“He was so scrawny.  Nothing but skin and bones,” said Sonya, as she shoveled a large bite into her mouth.  “He reminded me of Jesus.  How could I not take care of him?”  She made the sign of the cross.  Kyle blushed at this.  He was clearly the macho type, but in times like this, every man was given the opportunity to show his true self.  I gathered that Kyle was not self-sufficient.  He relied on Sonya, even if it repulsed him.

“He was so weak when he came to me; I had to nurse him back to health.  I think I did a good job, though.  You can see that he’s strong now, and that took a lot of gato.”

“What’s that?” asked Alice.  Sonya licked her greasy fingers.  “Cat,” she replied.  Kyle looked away.

“You cooked cats?”  Alice asked, her face contorted with disgust.

“Cats, rats, dog, whatever is available.  I find meat and I cook it.  You can’t be too good for food that will help keep you strong in times like this.  Meat is meat.”  This brought to mind a raggedy shepard-mix named Bono and the sharp odor of his mangy fur.  I struggled to swallow the bite in my mouth.  I had eaten dog food, but the thought of eating a dog or cat was repulsive.  Sonya smiled and wiped her mouth.  “That was a good quality meal.  You are a good cook Barb, and I thank you for your trouble.” She actually patted her stomach and belched.  I turned my attention back to Kyle.  “I can see why you are so fond of her,” I said.  Kyle winced, but said nothing to this.  I could only imagine how he’d paid for his meals.