“That sounds fine with me,” West said. “You, Brody?”
Brody shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“So we’re good, then,” he said, smiling at her.
“It’s not like we need them, right?” Roy said, sounding overly anxious. “The creatures, they can’t cross the water. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Lara nodded.
“Then we don’t need our weapons,” Roy said, and she thought that last statement was directed more at Brody and West than her.
Roy moved ahead of the others until he was walking beside her. He was carrying a backpack, as were the other three. She assumed Danny had checked their bags before letting them on the pontoon.
“Thanks again for letting us on the island,” Roy said as they walked down the pier. “You don’t know what this means.”
“Like I said, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll see how it goes.”
“Absolutely, I understand.”
“Danny says you guys came all the way from Oklahoma.”
“Most of us, except for Brody and West. We started out from Tulsa.”
“I’ve never been up that far.”
“It’s a city of about 400,000 people, about two hours from Oklahoma City, give or take. Home of the Tulsa Hurricane.”
“You get a lot of hurricanes there?”
He grinned. “No, the Golden Hurricane is the mascot of the University of Tulsa. I’m an alumnus.”
“Oh. What did you major in?”
“Computer science. Basically, the most useless degree you can think of these days, and I have it.”
“So you know how to fix computers?” Danny asked from behind them.
“Sure, I was an IT manager in my old job,” Roy said, sensing the sudden interest. “Why? You guys have a working computer on the island you need fixing?”
“Not on the island, no,” Lara said. “Though we do have a couple of laptops.”
“Working laptops?”
“Well, we have power…”
“But no Internet, sorry, kid,” Danny said. “You’ll have to get your porn elsewhere.”
Lara exchanged a brief look with Danny and smiled. She was pretty sure they were thinking the exact same thing at that moment: Harold Campbell’s facility back in Starch, Texas, was still waiting for them to reclaim it. They had left so much behind, from the supplies to those ultraviolet lamps inside the Green Room that had saved their lives. If they only had the time and the right personnel to fix what was broken, the facility would make for an invaluable backup plan. Jen’s helicopter was the key, though. Without it, braving the highways again was simply too risky.
“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” as Will would say.
Danny stayed behind with the men as they took their turn in the dining room. Sarah and Carly had whipped up a new batch of fish and cold drinks. The men attacked the cold drinks even more ferociously than the food, which wasn’t that surprising. Ice was the new currency in today’s world.
While the men ate, Lara went to check on the women. As expected, they had grabbed rooms next to each other near the middle of Hallway A. It was instinct. When she, Will, and the others had arrived at the hotel, they had done the exact same thing.
So when Lara found Jo’s room, she didn’t have to go far to find Jo’s sister, Bonnie, in the room next door. Bonnie’s door wasn’t closed, and when Lara leaned in, the older woman was pulling clothes out of her backpack. She had washed her face and hair, and she looked more stunning than when Lara had seen her earlier in the day. An open luggage stuffed with undergarments and personal hygiene products sat on the bed.
Lara saw a portable sonic toothbrush and toothpaste among Bonnie’s things. “You too, huh?”
Bonnie looked over. “Which one?”
“Toothbrush.”
“Oh God, I would end it all now if I couldn’t brush my teeth at least once a day.” She pulled out a fresh batch of batteries still in shrink wrap. “That’s all these are for, you know. The toothbrush. The trick is finding enough toothpaste.”
“You’re in luck. We have boxes of the stuff in storage.”
“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.” She held up an almost empty tube of toothpaste. “I’m not kidding.”
“I’ll show you guys where to grab everything you’ll need later.”
“Thanks.”
“You and Jo are sisters, right?”
“How did you know?”
“There’s a resemblance.”
“She’s my little sister, yeah.”
Lara closed the door behind her.
Bonnie stopped what she was doing and looked over. She must have seen the seriousness on Lara’s face. “You have questions.”
“I do.”
“About the men.”
Lara nodded.
Bonnie pursed her lips.
She knows what I’m about to ask. She’s been waiting for it.
No, that’s not true. She’s been dreading it.
“Can I trust them?” Lara asked.
Bonnie sat down on the bed. She seemed to be thinking about her answer. Or maybe she was trying to decide how much to say.
Lara didn’t push her, letting her take her time. There was a reason she had decided to trust Bonnie. She had seen how the other woman acted around Mae, and how she made sure Lucy and Kylie and the boy Logan ate while they were in the dining room. Once, Bonnie gave the last piece of a fish to Logan, and sat for ten minutes waiting for the next round of food to show up. All the while, she hadn’t complained, hadn’t made a scene, and simply kept the conversation going, laughing all the while, even though Lara could tell she was still hungry.
She’s a good woman, Lara remembered thinking.
After a while, Bonnie met her gaze. “Roy’s a good guy.”
“What about the other two?”
“It was just Roy, me, and the girls in the beginning,” Bonnie said.
Lara didn’t interrupt. She understood; Bonnie was telling her this because she thought Lara needed to know the background, the context of what she would say next. So Lara stood against the wall and listened.
“It was hard,” Bonnie said. “Roy’s a really good guy, but you can tell by the way he dresses, this isn’t his thing.” She gave Lara a small but endearing smile. “It’s not our thing either, but it’s really not Roy’s thing. He worked in an office fixing computers, you know. But we got by. Barely. We were skin and bones when we ran across Brody and West. Those two guys could have survived in the pioneer days. Me, Jo, and Roy, and the others? I don’t know how long we would have lasted.”
“Brody and West saved you.”
“They did, yes. In the very real sense that we wouldn’t be here without them. Roy pitched in whenever he could, but it was mostly Brody and West. They went out for supplies, came back with food, kept us basically alive.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“They were heading up north when we crossed paths with them in southern Oklahoma. We were on our way down here after we picked up the radio broadcast. We convinced them to come down with us because we needed them in the worst way.” Bonnie paused. She looked down at her hands. “From the very first week, we made an arrangement. It was between me and Gwen, and Brody and West. They agreed not to touch Jo or the kids. And they didn’t.”
Lara didn’t have to ask what kind of “arrangement” Bonnie was talking about. “You did what you had to do,” she said.
Bonnie nodded. “I know. And I don’t regret doing it. I’m not going to be writing about it in my journal or anything, but it’s a different world out there. You have to do things you might not otherwise have done before in order to survive.”