Free Forsaken World:Coming of Age by Thomas A Watson Page B

you?”
    “No, but we were close to passing out, and that would’ve caused damage,” Ian said, staring at his laptop.
    “We’ll get some respirators out of the bunker so we don’t make that mistake again,” Lance said, finally looking up at Jennifer. “I hate to ask, but can you get us something to eat?”
    Jennifer’s jaw hit her chest. “What part of ‘I’m part of this’ don’t you understand?” Lance and Ian looked at each other and then at her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you two think me and the girls don’t think we should pull our weight like do stuff you can’t or take care of our group when others are hurt?”
    “Er, no, we just didn’t want you guys to think we were imposing,” Ian said hesitantly.
    “Good,” Jennifer said, spinning around. “Carrie, Allie, let’s get food ready.”
    When the girls left, Ian leaned over to Lance. “You notice girls are high strung.”
    “High strung,” Lance snorted. “Shit, I’m starting to get scared to try talking to her, afraid I’ll set her ass off.”
    Ian turned back to his laptop. “Yeah, but she’s still great.”
    “If she’s not biting our heads off,” Lance said, grinning at Ian. “Just wait till you marry her; she’ll beat you down with words and looks like  our moms do to our dads.”
    Ian shrugged as he studied the laptop. “Don’t care,” he said with a smirk. “What a woman.”
    “I’m going to get my notebook and printouts,” Lance said, getting up. As he walked through the kitchen to the basement, Jennifer spun around.
    “Where are you going?”
    “To get my notebook,” Lance said, stopping when he saw Jennifer’s hands go to her hips, and her eyes narrowed. “Ah, Allie, would you go and get my notebook and bring it to me?”
    Turning around with a smile, Allie jumped off the stool she was standing on so she could work on the counter. “Yes,” she said, running past him. With a nervous smile, Lance headed back to the sectional and dropped down beside Ian.
    “You asked for that, bro,” Ian said, chuckling quietly.
    Picking up his laptop, Lance mumbled, “I feel cowed down like a bitch.”
    “Lance,” Ian said, looking over at him. “She wants us to see her like we see each other.”
    “Dude, if you would’ve done that to me, we would be in the yard.”
    “You’re right,” Ian laughed. “If you had been hurt, I would just get shit for you like you would for me.”
    “Point taken,” Lance said as Allie ran over and handed him his notebook. He gave her a hug and took the notebook, and she took off to the kitchen. “Now I just have to find the file I had the chat boards downloaded to.”
    When the food was ready, Jennifer gave both looks as they walked to the table. She could tell they were moving better, and neither was holding their chest as they breathed, so she let it go. “I can’t wait for real eggs. Powdered sucks,” she said, pouring glasses of tea.
    “If I have to eat powdered eggs much more, I’m just going to snort the damn things,” Lance said, sitting down.
    “I’m leaning more to smoking mine,” Ian laughed. “Find anyone else that almost passed out from stinkers?”
    Lance opened his notebook and nodded. “Yes, on the last day of downloads, several on the survival site said you had to get rid of dead stinkers fast because they really put off bad smells, making it hard to breathe. Later down in the blog, someone tells them it’s hydrogen sulfide. When you kill a stinker, it starts to really put out hydrogen sulfide for twenty-four hours. One person said they saw a group die inside an RV after they killed a bunch of stinkers around them. Seems they were trapped, and others showed up, and they couldn’t leave.”
    Helping Allie and Carrie into their chairs, Jennifer looked up. “Any word on stinkers following other stinkers by smell?”
    “Oh yeah,” Lance said, turning pages. “If one shows up, others will follow eventually; but they really show up after you