Daryl's Angel (10th Anniversary Edition)

Chapter 6: Death

"Soap, water, and scrub. It's tedious but it's all we've got."

The quarry is bright and warm and the water is so inviting that I wish it was me getting a good scrubbing and not a bunch of clothes. I'm already planning to nab a bar of soap and sneak back down here when it gets a little later and give myself a good wash.

I sit next to Carol with my feet in the water, washboard straddled between my thighs while I mimic her movements. There's a lot of rubbing soap against the clothes, then scrubbing the soapy part against the washboard until all the dirt is mostly gone. It's not the cleanest but considering the situation, it's pretty good.

Shane and Carl splash around further down the beach, laughing and hollering about frogs, bucket and net in hand. Andrea, Jacqui, and Amy unload more laundry from the back of Carol's car while Ed, the guy who butted heads with Shane last night, sits on the tailgate and smokes.

"I'm starting to question the division of labour here," Jacqui mutters.

Shane and Carl are still laughing, trying to dig up their bucket from the water. Andrea and Amy settle down on either side of Carol and me while Jacqui rolls up her pant legs, getting to work.

"Seriously, can someone explain to me how the women wound up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?" Jacqui continues.

"The world ended. Didn't you get the memo?" Amy asks.

Carol glances over her shoulder at her husband, then swallows as she says, "It's just the way it is." She hands off a shirt to Jacqui to put on the temporary drying rack.

We settle into a bit of an assembly line. Andrea and Amy dunk the shirts and scrub at the notable stains with brushes, then hand them off to Carol and me for more scrubbing, then Jacqui wrings them out and hangs them to dry. I dub it the wash cycle, the rinse cycle, and the dry cycle.

"Geez, Hope, how many clothes do you have?" Amy asks as she digs into my backpack. She hesitates. "A lot of tank tops."

"They're not all mine," I admit. "Some are Daryl's...and Merle's."

Amy holds the bag away from her, nose wrinkling, and Jacqui's head snaps up. "Oh, hell no. I'm drawing the line," she says. "Brand new to camp and he's asking you to do his laundry? I oughta—"

"He didn't ask. I offered and he accepted," I say.

Jacqui gawks at me and Carol huffs out a tiny, barely there laugh. "I know. I'm shocked too," she whispers.

"What are you? Some kind of redneck whisperer?" Andrea asks, a good-natured smile on her face.

I chuckle. "Please. All he's done is glare and squint at me. I'm just extending an olive branch." I pause, staring at the brown plaid button-down pressed against the washboard. "Is he...always like that?"

"Yes." A resounding answer from all four women.

"Ah, I see." I scrub the shirt a little harder, grunting. "Man, this sucks..."

"I do miss my Maytag," Carol says.

Andrea thinks over her words for a second before chiming in, "I miss my Benz. My sat nav."

"I miss my coffeemaker," Jacqui says, wringing water from a shirt, "with that dual-drip filter and built-in grinder, honey."

"My computer...and texting," Amy sighs.

"Music," I add. I groan a little. "I still can't believe the one day I left my MP3 at home, the world ended."

Amy lets out an agreeing groan. "Oh my god, that's the worst luck."