“Rap sheet?” Cal frowned. “You
are
a cop, aren’t you?”
“I…” He should say “was.” But he’d never been able to put it in the past tense. “Am. I’m a cop, and it’s my duty to protect these women and their children.”
“You don’t have to protect them from me,” Cal said. “I’m not interested in women.”
“And children?”
Cal’s eyes blazed. His raised his clenched fists and took a step toward Mitch. “I should punch you in the fucking head for even asking that. Of course not!”
“Good answer,” Mitch said, smiling.
It released Cal’s tension, and he stepped back, arms dropping to his sides, fists unclenching. He gave a sheepish grin. “Well, I nearly got myself tossed overboard right there, didn’t I?”
“No. I was provoking you to see your reaction. I’m sorry. But I’d rather you got angry with me than anyone else here. You feel like punching anyone, you come to me.”
“And you’ll let me punch you?” Cal asked, his smirk indicating he liked the idea.
“No,” Mitch said. “I’ll take you down to the gym and let you
try
to punch me. Now, speaking of the gym…” He led Cal back inside and continued the tour. After showing him the gym Mitch made for the accommodation area. While they were ascending the steep staircase Mitch had learned to call a ladder, he glanced back over his shoulder at Cal.
“I’ll show you where you’re sleeping. You’re sharing my room.”
Cal faltered and almost stumbled. “I’m what?”
“Believe me, I don’t like the idea either.”
“Who said I didn’t like the idea?” Cal flashed a smile. Mitch snorted and led him deeper into the accommodation areas. The larger rooms had bunks and mostly young women in them. Cal got a smile or two from the ladies, Mitch saw, and responded. No doubt if he wanted, he could have a harem of his own pretty quick.
“Here,” Mitch said, opening a heavy metal door. He flicked on a light. It was a gloomy chamber, and he felt suddenly ashamed of it. Metal walls, no windows. Barely any furniture. One cot stood made up in a corner, an upended crate beside it with some books and other bits and pieces piled on it. Clothes hung from hooks on the wall. A couple of mats relieved the cold of the metal floor, and there were a few posters on the wall that went back to the days when this was a working rig. They were all about safety procedures and evacuation routes.
“Sorry, it’s kind of basic,” Mitch said.
“For the king of the rig you don’t exactly get the best room,” Cal said.
Mitch pointed at the corner opposite his, where there was a folded cot and a crate with blankets and Cal’s backpack in it. “Get yourself set up.”
Cal checked his gear first. “Where are my guns?”
“In the armory,” Mitch said. Cal gave him a scowl. “Don’t look like that. They’re locked in airtight containers to keep the salt air from corroding them. Wouldn’t want to find yourself ashore with a useless weapon, or for anything to happen to that nice Winchester.” When he and Bren had checked Cal’s gear, they’d found a very nice Winchester rifle and a Browning Hi-Power pistol. Those and the looted equipment in his pack had made Cal well equipped for survival ashore.
“It is a choice piece,” Cal said. “Got it from a house in New Orleans. Still in a gun cabinet. Place was like an arsenal. It took me hours to decide which to take.”
Mitch went a bit quiet as Cal spoke, going over to help assemble the cot but saying nothing. How could he still get squeamish about the thought of looting? Better than leaving good stuff to rot, surely? But his old instincts were strong.
They put up the cot, and Mitch left him to make it up with the blanket, sheets, and pillow. He sat on his own cot, one leg stretched out, the other foot on the floor, his back to the wall.
“This room may not look like much,” he said. “But it’s big, it’s private, and it has its own shower.”
“Not so private anymore,” Cal said. “Sorry.”
Was Mitch annoyed about losing his private quarters? Or did he fear the temptation of having Cal in them? How easily he and Cal could take advantage of the privacy, the big bolt on the door, and the easily cleaned walls. He closed those thoughts down at once. That was not going to happen.
“I’ll look around for something to make a screen or partition,” Mitch said. “To give us both a bit of privacy.” Cal hadn’t asked for any privacy, and he had no reason to be embarrassed about his body. But that was exactly the reason Mitch could use that privacy.
“I haven’t had a shower or a shave in a week,” Cal said. “Can I take one now? I’d like to look my best before I meet the rest of the gang at dinner.”
Mitch glanced at his watch. “Yeah, you have time. But don’t take longer than five minutes.”
Cal sighed. “Shame I love a long hot shower—preferably shared.”
“Towels and soap are in there,” Mitch said, not rising to the bait. He stared as Cal started to undress and toss his clothes on the cot. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Before Cal could say another word or lose another piece of clothing, Mitch was gone.
* * * *
Cal was a hit at dinner. He strolled into the mess hall, where most of the women had gathered at the same time, rather than spreading out over a couple of hours as they usually did. He’d shaved and looked fresh-faced and younger than before.
“Wow,” Bren muttered to Mitch. “Now I knew he was hot, but I don’t think I realized quite how hot.”
He was swaggering; there was no other word for it. Radiating the supreme confidence of a man who knew he was good-looking and knew nearly everyone in the room thought the same. He gave a quick wave to Mitch and Bren, then went to the serving counter to get a meal. Mitch expected him to come and join them, but instead he sat at a different table, the women making room for him at once.
Mitch glowered a bit. Cal was loving it.
Look at him, sitting there being hero-worshipped.
“Don’t fret,” Bren said. “The novelty will soon wear off.”
“Who’s fretting?” Mitch asked.
“You’re either fretting, or you’re trying to fuse the atoms in that fork together.” She looked over at Cal, the center of an adoring crowd, and shook her head. “Shameless. He bi?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, you started tapping that yet?” Bren asked.
“Bren!” Mitch scowled at her and lowered his voice. “We only let him out of the chains this morning.”
“How long do you need? If it were me, I’d have jumped him by now. You’re sure he’s not bi?”
“Bren, please.”
“Okay, keep your britches on. I’m just winding you up.” She grinned. “Because that never gets old. But come on, it makes sense. And you know, him being gay is one of the things that made me vote for him to stay. Figured he’d be less likely to be trouble.”
Mitch snorted. “Don’t know where you’d get that idea.”
“Well, less of the trouble we’ve had before. Maybe you should get into his pants quick as you can. Make sure he doesn’t give bi a try out of desperation.”
“I sometimes wonder why I’m friends with you,” Mitch said with a sigh.
“It’ll be good for you,” she insisted.
“If you tell me that I need to get laid, then I promise that next time we’re ashore and run into zombies, I’m tripping you up.”
She grinned but then looked more serious. “I don’t just mean sex, Mitch. You need a friend.”
“I have friends.” He smiled at her. He’d never expected to have a woman as a friend—a real friend. He’d always found the idea absurd. And yet here she was.
“It’s not the same. You need an actual man friend. Just like I need… Well, there are things I won’t talk to you about, you know. Same thing. You need to be able to talk…you know, guy stuff.”
She might have a point. He didn’t like to admit it, but he could be very lonely sometimes. Bren might have grown up with several brothers and have been stripping and souping up cars since she was a kid, and then gone into the army, but she was still a woman, and there were things he couldn’t say to her.
Another burst of laughter came from the table where Cal was holding court. Mitch lost his appetite. “I’m done,” he said, standing and picking up his tray to bus it. “And stop looking at me like that.”
He stomped off back to his room—and got annoyed that he’d thought of it as “his” when it wasn’t anymore. Their room. He’d have to wait until Cal came back before he got to sleep, or he’d just be woken up by Cal coming in.
Deciding he didn’t want to undress in front of Cal, he stripped down to T-shirt and shorts and sat in bed with a book open. Not in any way
reading
the book.
Cal arrived an hour later, looking like the cat that ate the canary—with cream.
“In bed already?” Cal said.
“I suggest you do the same. You start your training first thing tomorrow. You should get some rest.”
“Okay.” He started to undress. Mitch quickly looked down at the book. Cal strolled into the bathroom wearing only his boxers, carrying a toothbrush.
He came back a few minutes later and tossed the toothbrush on his upended crate nightstand.
“Great bunch of girls, by the way.” He took the clothes he’d dumped on the cot and started to hang them up. “It’s a bit strange, all those women and no men. But I’ll get used to it.”
“They certainly seemed to like you.”
Cal grinned. “Now, now, Mitch, don’t be jealous.”
“Jealous.” Mitch snapped his book shut. “You think that’s what I’m angry about?”
“You’re angry?”
“Yes!” Mitch was up and out of bed, getting close to Cal before he realized he’d done it. “I’m angry seeing you flirt with them. Because you don’t intend to follow through on it, do you? You’re just teasing.”
“That’s called normal human interaction,” Cal said. “Might want to look it up sometime.”
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the world changed. Those rules don’t apply. Do you know what those women have been through? Losing their husbands, lovers, boyfriends? Their children? Do you think they need someone coming along and giving them false hope?”
Cal lost his glare and winced. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Just don’t toy with their emotions,” Mitch said. “Not for the sake of flattering your own ego.”
“I’m sorry,” Cal said stiffly, looking defensive. “I’ll try not to flirt.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Mitch turned away and went back to his cot. He watched Cal get into his. “Lights out,” Mitch said and reached above his head to flick the switch. The room went pitch-black. He heard a gasp. “Cal? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Shit, that’s really dark.”
“I know. Took me a while to get used to.” He chuckled. “Maybe we should borrow a night-light from one of the children.”
“I think I’ll cope.”
Mitch heard Cal shuffling around, the rustle of blankets, the creak of the cot’s springs, then quiet. For a moment Mitch imagined he’d got up, was moving silently over to Mitch’s cot. But when Cal spoke again, his voice was still over in his corner.
“Mitch. The girls are lucky to have you on their side.”
Chapter Six
Cal got his rifle and handgun from the armory after breakfast and reported to the helipad as instructed. There was no helicopter up there, just a young woman with long brown hair fluttering in the breeze. She was dressed in practical gear like everyone else around here, dusty and patched jeans and a sleeveless shirt, sneakers on her feet. But she had makeup on. Not on his account, he hoped.
“Hi, I’m Tanya,” she said, shaking his hand. “Didn’t get a chance to talk to you at dinner. The crowd was too thick.”
“I’m a novelty,” he said. “Calvin Richardson. Call me Cal.”
“Cal. Hi. So, Bren wants me to assess your shooting skills and train you—if needed—to get you to the same standard as our soldiers.”
“Why you? Thought Bren herself would be the one to do it?”
“I’m the best shot. Come on.” She led him to a table with a couple of rifles and handguns on it and also earmuffs and safety glasses. He suspected Mitch’s heavy hand behind those. Mr. Safety-First-Do-It-By-the-Book.
“You can use your own weapons for the assessment,” she said. “But as part of the training, you’ll have to learn to use the same rifle we use.”
“Sure.” He started to load his rifle with ammo she handed him. “So, were you in the army, then, like Bren?” he asked as he worked.
“Me?” She laughed. “God, no! I was a nail technician.”
Cal frowned. “Um, you made nails.”
“No, dummy, I painted them.” She waved the fingers of one hand at him, the nails painted in a bright orange color.
“Oh, a manicurist.” He regretted saying it at once. Some people cared a lot about job titles. But he hadn’t offended her. She laughed.
“Yeah, what a lot of bull, huh?”
She didn’t hand him the earmuffs or safety glasses. He’d bet they didn’t take those ashore with them. There was nowhere to lean and rest his arms; he had to shoot as he usually would out there in the wild.
“Ah, there’s nothing behind or under there, is there?” he asked as he lined up to fire at a row of paper targets set up at the rail of the helipad.
“Nothing but the sea. And the rail is padded in case of ricochets.”
Reassured he wasn’t going to accidentally kill anyone, he took aim at the first target. Tanya didn’t have to tell him to go for a head shot. It was instinct now. You always went for a head shot. With humans the best plan was usually to aim for the chest to give yourself a better chance of hitting them, but with zombies only the head counted.
He nailed the first one, and Tanya snapped out, “Next!” while the rifle was still kicking back into his shoulder. Just as though he had a group of them coming at him. Sure enough, after he moved on, almost before he fired she was barking, “Next!” He tried to picture them advancing on him, as a group of the undead would, and himself picking them off one by one, methodically. He’d never stay so cold and calm in the real world with real zombies coming at him. When he’d “killed” all the targets, he and Tanya wandered over to take a look.
“Get less accurate with less time to sight on them,” she said. “And of course, accuracy drops substantially in the field, as opposed to the range.”
“Frankly, if they were this close to me in the field and I had the option, I’d run away instead of standing around shooting them.”