Free Pilliars in the Fall by Ian Daniels Page A

alone with when they’re so dark all the time these days?” he asked the stinging and honest question.
    “Hey I’m not gonna off myself or anything like that,” I said, offering him a sip out of my glass. “I know I’m moody and pissy, but you know me, on my own is how I work stuff out.”
    “Yeah I know, it still sucks to see you unhappy though,” Blake responded.
    “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to lock myself in here and hide away from the world. I’m good to go.”
    “Good, ‘cause I want to know you’ve still got my back if this shit gets worse before it gets better,” he said coolly.
    “Those are about the only two things I can guarantee will happen.”
     

Chapter 9
     
    “You have a cup holder in your shower,” Danielle informed me as she closed the door to the second story and came down the stairs, still drying her hair with a bath towel.
    “I like to drink beer in the shower… it’s the nicest one I could find. You think I should have gone for a tiled inset one to match the rest of the backsplash don’t you? I knew I should have sprung for the extra!” I played up the dejection.  
    “Boys are weird,” she proclaimed and went over to stand by the fire.
    "So what's on the agenda?" Blake came around the corner with a plastic spoon sticking out from the cup of oatmeal he was eating.
    After finally falling asleep, I had woken up after all the others and was still nursing my first cup of coffee of the day.
    "Anything on the net?" I asked Clint, who was jotting notes on a clipboard at the makeshift radio desk he had set up.
    "Nothing for us, some bad local stuff, weather from Canada, still trying to jump between channels," he yawned and went back to listening to the ear piece.
    An hour later we were no further along than before and everyone was starting to get restless.
    “What else can we do to get news and information besides the radios?” Danielle prompted.
    “I guess we should look at this from a different angle.” Clint sighed.
    “Boots on the ground?” I perked up, happy with the idea of getting back out into the woods instead of sitting around my unfinished house, plugging in wires. “It won’t give us much, but I can hit the roads and see what the locals are doing. We’ll get an idea of our immediate security if nothing else.”
    “Yep, I didn’t really want to suggest it, but besides getting the other radios hooked up, it looks like that’s the best course of action right now. Probably don’t need to go too far out or for too long, just a half a day doing a good circle of the road traffic within five miles or so of here,” he advised.
    “Great, you three should be all set up by the time I get back.”
    Apparently I was getting a head of myself as both Blake and Danielle immediately protested the idea. It happened quickly enough that a question of their protests’ motivation started creeping into my head.
    “There’s no reason for you to go out on your own and us to all stay here,” Danielle attempted to say in a gentle way. It was too late and I wasn’t buying it.
    “Yeah man, this is your place... you know where stuff is at,” Blake backed her up.
    Yeah, I knew where stuff was at.
    “I also know the area around here better than even Clint, but that’s not the point is it, so let's have it out. Do you two not want to stay here where you can be of some use, or is it that you don’t know if you can trust me without a babysitter?”
    “It’s not like that. There’s just no reason someone shouldn’t come with you,” Danielle again tried to explain.
    There absolutely was no reason we shouldn’t split up into two pairs, but they missed the mark in presentation if they were going to try to keep their concerns about me hidden.
    “Look guys, I get it. But you also better know right damn now that even if you don’t believe I can handle all this on top of everything else, you had better not treat me like a ten year old. You want me pissed off, depressed