He walked to the galley. As Roger passed other rooms people looked up quickly but when they saw him and not Elliott they just as quickly went back to what they were doing. They didn’t think he was an escape risk. They should. In his heart of hearts, he wanted be out of here even worse than Elliott did. The difference was, he wasn’t sure where to go.
Yet.
He didn’t like the thought, that when decided to leave, he might be doing it alone. Elliott would escape with him, sure. But then the nut job would go after that blasted Irish harlot. He wasn’t sure what Junie would do, but then no one ever knew what Junie would do. He could only think she’d head for Columbia where she could teach the zombies how to pick the perfect coffee beans. The one he would hurt the most was Aubrey. She was completely content to stay in captivity here and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. When he brought it up she’d said that it was a organized version of the beer festival… only with far less beer.
There was a point in that, but just like every other place they’d found themselves in, how long could this place last?
The galley, or the “mess hall” as most of the people here called it, wasn’t that large. Other than the coffee bar that Junie had carved out in one corner, the kitchen was run in shifts twenty-four hours a day. It had three different cooking teams working hard to feed everyone. Each shift made breakfast, lunch and dinner every few hours to cover every person whether they worked day or night. To pass the time he once sat around for a whole day just to watch them work like a well-oiled clock. It was something to do since they’d been relieved of any type of work or duty.
That was another reason why he wanted to leave: he hated how they kept treating them like fools that couldn’t take care of themselves.
When drinking one night he did come up with an alternative thought: this was punishment. Perhaps they thought they were all to blame for the loss of Umatilla Army Depot in Oregon. In their own mischief they’d been its downfall and leaders here couldn’t afford to take chances. The loss of this safe house would be catastrophic.
He tried to explain it to Aubrey once and she’d dismissed the whole idea. “There is no way they are thinking that,” she’d said. “They would have locked us up if that was the case.”
But why would they lock them up? There wasn’t any place for them to go. All they had to do was keep them from anything that might be considered dangerous and there wouldn’t be any problems. He’d seen other civilians that had been given jobs and responsibilities. It can’t be expected they’d never do anything here. How would that work?
On the far side of the mess hall, Junie was cleaning the coffee bar. He had to hand it to the airhead, she was meticulous in what she did.
“Bob doesn’t think much of what you’re planning,” Junie said, ringing out her cleaning rag.
“Uh-huh.” He picked up the already prepared coffee sitting next to the machine waiting for him. He took a sip. How did she know he was coming? Had he become that predictable? More importantly… “Holy crap! Is that actually Irish cream in there?”
“Always with the tone of surprise,” Junie said unable to find anything else to clean.
“You should get used to that.”
“Predictably unpredictable, why has no one figured that out?”
Roger blinked. “You mean, you know how crazy you are?”
Junie blinked. “Wait, are we talking about me?”
“Never mind, lass.”