Fallen Angels

Chapter Five

When Katie came back into the living room after pounding on Olivia's door until she got a response, Jason was gone. She shrugged, thinking he might've gone to the bathroom, and went to repeat the process with Linda. She was pleasantly surprised however, when she received an oddly coherent response on the second knock. She went back up to the kitchen and put some more pancakes on the griddle and some bacon in the pan she had used to make the eggs. She had just flipped the cakes when Linda came up, dressed immaculately in clothes that somehow didn't have a single wrinkle.
"'Morning Linda." She said as she checked the bacon. In the corner of her eye, she saw Linda stiffen, almost as if coming to attention, and heard her reply,
"Good morning ma-err, I mean, good morning Katie." Linda visibly winced, probably hoping the other girl hadn't noticed her slip-up. Katie had in fact noticed it, but she put it to nerves about the upcoming day and elected to ignore it.
"I hope you like pancakes, bacon, and eggs," she said, "'cause that's what you're getting."
Linda blinked twice,
"You're... cooking." she said, sounding shocked. "for me?" It came out sounding somewhere between a disbelieving statement and a question.
"Well, I'm certainly not going to eat all this on my own, so that would seem to be the case, wouldn't it?"

Linda smiled and sat down at the bar as Olivia staggered out of her room. At least, Katie presumed it was Olivia. If she were to believe her eyes though, she might think it was a zombie, or perhaps a banshee of some sort. Olivia's hair was a mess, and she rubbed at her eyes as she shambled to take a seat at the bar. She sat down, crossed her arms on the bar, put her head down, and looked to be about three seconds away from going back to sleep when Katie slipped a plate of sizzling bacon in front of her.

"Wakey wakey, sleepyhead. I didn't make this for you to use as a pillow, so eat up."
Olivia sat up and stretched, shook her head, and blinked a couple of times. She looked at the plate for a minute and then gobbled down both of the large pieces of bacon in well under halfa minute. The other girls stared in shock, amazed by the sudden transition from shambling zombie to voracious monster.
Olivia blushed,
"Sorry, I was really hungry. Is there any coffee?" She sighed disappointedly as Katie shook her head.
"No, I spent some time trying to find a coffee maker, but if there's one here it must be really well hidden. You know, I bet some of those stores we saw yesterday would sell them. Maybe we can go take a look around later and see if we can't buy one."

That was the end of the talking, as the first round of cakes finished and Katie served them up. She kept up a steady stream of food going to them until she ran out of batter and the two sitting at the bar were stuffed.
"I don't think I could eat another bite. In fact, I think I shouldn't have eaten that last bite." Linda groaned, holding her stomach.
"Well, you have fifteen minutes before you get to walk off what you've eaten, so if you need to get ready, I suggest you do it now." The clock on the oven now read 7:15, and Olivia, apparently used to downing copious amounts of food, squeaked, hopped off her stool, and ran to her room, babbling about clothes. Linda also went to her room, though at a much slower rate, and Katie did the same.

She didn't really need to do anything, but she brushed her teeth, brushed her hair and put it in a simple ponytail, and made sure there wasn't any food on her clothes before heading back out. She looked at the clock and realized it was already 7:25. She suddenly realized she hadn't seen Jason since she went to wake up Olivia. She went to his door and knocked a few times. She heard a muffled voice say, "Come in!" and the door opened to reveal Jason sitting cross-legged and straight-backed on the floor with his eyes closed.

"What are you doing?"
Jason's eyes remained closed as he answered with only a hint of amusement,
"Sitting, waiting, answering questions."
She scowled at his sarcastic answer,
"In that case, why don't you switch to standing, walking, and getting ready? We leave in five minutes." She waited impatiently as he nodded slowly.
"Understood."