Hollowland
Page 17

“A shower is all we really need right now,” Blue said, and even he was excited about the prospect. Showers were pretty magical things.
“Let’s show them around and introduce them to the rest of the family, then they can get settled in for the night.” Korech looked back at us to see if we agreed, but there was nothing we could really do except nod.
The next room was a dining room with a very long table that could easily seat twenty or thirty people. Korech gestured vaguely to two bedrooms, referring to one as his, and saying nothing about the second.
He opened the door to the bathroom, and I almost salivated at the sight of the shower and working toilet, but then he moved us along to show us the downstairs.
The basement instantly freaked me out. It was obviously fairly new, with clean slate bricks lining the wall and a simple cement floor. While it was very large for a basement, it had only two rooms.
The first was a “bedroom” containing twenty single mattresses that were little more than cots. In the corner, there was a sewing machine. That explained the bag-like quality of Nevaeh’s dress; they made their own clothes.
What disturbed me were the fifteen or so girls who inhabited the basement. They heard us coming, so they all sat awake in their beds, wearing matching white nightgowns. Most of them had long hair tied back in braids, and they were all thin and pale.
They ranged in age from four to around twenty-four. Nevaeh was the oldest female here, and most of the girls looked between fifteen to twenty. From the bump on the belly of a girl in the back, I guessed she was pregnant.
Nevaeh introduced us to all the girls, but I barely heard their names. Nausea rushed over me, and I wanted to leave. Harlow met the situation without any concern, but this was how we had lived in the quarantine. All the young girls had been kept together, separate from the boys.
But somehow, this felt different.
The girls sat on their beds, staring at us as we stood by the steps leading upstairs, but strangely, none of them seemed to recognize Lazlo. He was incredibly famous, especially for people in their age group, but they showed no recognition.
The other room in the basement was the bathroom, and it was more like a shower room from prison movies. Two toilets and four shower heads in one giant room with a drain in the middle. Privacy clearly wasn’t an issue here.
After seeing the showers, Harlow tuned everything out. She stared at them longingly.
Blue kept his expression neutral, smiling at the appropriate times, but I couldn’t imagine that this scene sat well with him either. Lazlo’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and his face glistened with nervous sweat. He stayed incredibly close to me, to the point where I bumped into him every time I moved.
“And all the emergency food is in there,” Nevaeh gestured to a closet off the bedroom. “We can just close that door leading upstairs, and this a bomb shelter. We can survive anything.”
“This all looks really nice and fairly new,” Blue commented, looking around. “Was this all built after the… infection spread?” He chose his words carefully, afraid that saying the wrong thing would offend them.
“Oh no, this was built several years ago,” Nevaeh smiled. “We all lived here before End Times descended upon us. That’s how we’ve been able to survive it all so well.”
“So you’ve lived here for years?” Lazlo’s voice had a tight shakiness he couldn’t completely hide.
“God called upon me to build a safe place, and I did.” Korech gestured widely to the room, and all of the girls looked on him with reverence. “He allowed me to keep all these people safe, and now He is allowing me to help you.”
This was met with the girls saying things like “Amen” and “Praise be to God.”
“We truly appreciate it,” Blue said, and his smile had begun to waver.
“I’m sure you’re all exhausted. The sinful world out there is wearying,” Korech said.
I almost pointed out that the sin quite as exhausting as the zombies, but technically I supposed, zombies were sinful.
“Um, well…” I tried to form an excuse to leave, but I couldn’t come up with one.
“I’d like to shower,” Harlow said. Even as strange and somewhat creepy as this was becoming, she was completely unfazed
“Yes, of course,” Korech smiled wider. “You can shower and make yourselves at home in the beds down here. The girls will be happy to help you.” He turned his attention to Blue and Lazlo, and Lazlo moved closer to me, so his arm pressed up against mine. “You two are more than welcome to shower as well. You can use the showers upstairs, and sleep in the boys’ room next to mine.”
“There’s a boys’ room?” Lazlo asked.
“Yes, of course,” Korech laughed. “We like to keep unmarried men and women separate. It’s written in the scripture.”
“Oh, right,” Lazlo smiled, relieved.
He probably thought Korech might lead him off to kill him or something, but what Korech said actually made sense. Maybe we were all just overreacting.
Korech bid us good night, then led Blue and Lazlo up the stairs. Lazlo shot a worried a look back down at me, and I tried to give him a reassuring smile.
“Oh, all our clothes are in the car,” I realized.
“We have things down here.” Nevaeh put a hand on my arm to prevent me from going further up the stairs. “All our clothes are new and untainted. I’m sure they would be more comfortable than the clothes you currently have.”
“Well…” I wanted to go up and get my things so I could get a gun, check on Ripley, and make sure the boys were really going to another room.
“You can get your things in the morning, if you still want them.” Nevaeh moved her hand to the small of my back and ushered me further in the room. “But I’m sure you’ll find our things to be much more comfortable.”
“I would like some new clothes,” Harlow said, and I would’ve glared at her if everyone wasn’t watching us. She had just stolen tons of new clothes from that house, and they looked much better than the silly bag dresses they made here.
“Lia, will you get them some things?” Nevaeh asked a girl with long, red hair.
“Yes, of course.” Lia jumped off her bed and went to the back of the room, where all the matching outfits were kept neatly folded on several shelves.