The Virus Within (Original rough draft)

Chapter 28

The room was quite light by the time that Marissa came out of her room blinking sleepily. I turned my head slightly as she entered the room, letting her know that I was awake. With my sunglasses, they really had no way to tell.

She yawned, "How did we sleep so late?"

I spoke quietly, "Our mystery guest managed to drug the soup water with melatonin in an attempt to steal our supplies. He didn't realize that there were two zombies present who were immune to such sleep aids."

Nicky grumbled as she sat up, "Is that what that ruckus was about last night?"

It looked like our non-morning bird was ready to rise. I didn't have any coffee ready either. Nicky looked around with a scowl as she realized the same thing. She stood up as she wrapped her sleeping bag around her. She stomped off toward the kitchen.

I sighed and glanced toward Daniel, "This is going to be an interesting day. It looks like Nicky is about to take another trip to the dark side. You may want to shake Nina awake."

He gave me a confused look, "Why?"

A large bang resounded from the kitchen as Nicky dropped a huge metal pot upside down on the useless stove. She grabbed a metal spatula and a large whisk before she started beating on the pot like a deranged drummer.

Nina jumped as she propped herself up on her elbow at the sudden racket, "What the..." She blinked drowsily at the world around her while trying to figure out if the noise was an emergency alarm or something more mundane.

I sighed from my corner, "It is just Nicky, you can go back to sleep."

She sent a look of sleepy disbelief in my direction, "I don't think that is even remotely possible."

Considering that everyone else had sat upright in alarm, her observation was valid. I stood up with another sigh. I headed toward a still drumming Nicky and glanced at a surprised looking Marissa as I passed her, "I will distract her for as long as I can, but try to get the coffee going before she returns."

She nodded her understanding. With one swift move, I disarmed Nicky and threw her over my shoulder before heading for the door. She struggled in my strong grasp. "Hey! If you want to join the band, you can be the soloist or play the guitar! I call the drums!"

I managed to get her out of the doorway despite her trying to use her feet to stop my progress. I finally came to a pond in the forest that I had found yesterday and put her down, "Here, why don't we grab a bath before the boys get here and dirty up all the water? Look how warm it is."

The water was quite warm in comparison to the chilly morning air and bits of steam drifted above it. Nicky was successfully distracted as she paused to examine the water, "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I haven't been able to really clean up since the Stronghold got overrun. Did you bring the towels?"

Thankfully I had put two in my backpack earlier just in case she bought my odd excuse. "I didn't mention it because the boys would have tried to beat us here. Yes, I brought towels. Here they are."

"Ohhh... I call the green one. I can't believe we got here first. Those guys would have hogged all of the hot water for themselves and our shower would be cold by the time we got in. They did it all the time at the old Stronghold."

She was really off her rocker if she was comparing a shower to a small pond. She tested the water before unceremoniously stripping to her birthday suit and diving in, "The water is great! Come on in!"

I guess I had to pay the piper too. With a grumble I took off my pants and shirt to enter the warm water in my undergarments. I wasn't about to go skinny dipping, so my undergarments acted like an impromptu bikini. I had clean underwear in my backpack so it didn't matter if I got these wet. It had been a while since I had a bath, so being clean managed to improve my mood.