Free ZerOes by Chuck Wendig Page B

doing a jihad on those clothes—I mean, hell, look at you. You’re folding them like it’s a religious war.”
    The woman spins around, eyes narrow, lips curled in a scowl. “Oh really? You would’ve used that same word if you were speaking to her?” She gestures first toward another young woman, in a loft space above—a big girl splayed out on a bed, using a duffel as a pillow, a wide grin that could only be described as shit-eating smeared across her face. “Or him?” Now she points to a lanky black dude—maybe Chance’s age, early twenties or so.
    That dude says, “Naw, no way, uh-uh, don’t drag me into whatever this is.”
    Hesitantly, Chance steps in through the door with Copper just behind him. The cabin’s an A-frame—narrow at the top, like some kind of ski chalet. Not much in there except three beds down below and two on the loft. Couple of bookshelves: all fiction from a quick glance, nothing nonfiction. A couch at the far wall. No kitchen. A small door that Chance guesses might be a bathroom and shower?
    But most important: No TV. No computers. No phones. No connection to the outside world.
    â€œKids today,” the older man says. “I swear, you are about as tough as a rain-soaked Kleenex. Everybody’s so easily offended . As if that’s the worst thing that’s ever gonna happen to you, somebody saying something that puts a little grit in your panties? I was born in 1950, which means I saw some time in ’Nam, and let me tell you—”
    Up on the loft, the big girl guffaws. “Man, really? We’re shut upin this place with a crotchety old vet?” She laughs so hard she almost cries. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type, gramps. You look like Ben & Jerry, not John Rambo.”
    The old vet waves her off. “Well, you look like you eat a lot of Ben & Jerry’s.”
    That just makes her laugh harder. “Fuck, man, we haven’t known each for a whole hour and”—here she wipes laugh-tears from her eyes—“already with the fat jokes? Suck it, old man. You know I’m a prime piece of real estate up here. My homie down there knows what I mean.”
    â€œGoddamn,” the black guy says, “can’t y’all just shut up for five minutes?”
    Their voices all start to rise together again.
    Hollis has obviously had enough, because he pushes his way in. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
    Everyone shuts up. They don’t quite scatter like cockroaches in the light, but they do freeze in place like spooked mice.
    Hollis clears his throat, then nods. “Good. Here’s the last of you. Chance Dalton, meet your pod. In order left to right: DeAndre Mitchell, Wade Earthman, Aleena Kattan, and up there in the loft, Reagan Stolper.”
    â€œâ€™Sup,” DeAndre says.
    Wade gives a clumsy salute. “Dalton.”
    Aleena looks away.
    Reagan gives him an obnoxious waggle of her fingers. “Ahoy, script kiddie. Welcome to the Good Ship Dipshit.”

                                    CHAPTER 10
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  The Babysat
    ----
    THE LODGE
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    D eAndre thinks as he walks:
    Keep your head low .
    Do your time .
    These people gonna dangle bait in front of you—don’t take it. Just do the bare minimum of what they say and run for the hills soon as they let you out .
    His “pod”—man, how he hates that term, sounds like something out of some science fiction film, something out of Cronenberg—follows their new babysitter, Hollis Copper, back toward the main building. A building Hollis refers to as the Ziggurat, “because it is your temple.”
    The little know-it-all, Aleena, corrects him: “Ziggurats weren’t necessarily temples.