1ANTICIP8
“You’re almost finished peeling,”F8 remarked. Leaning over in her seat, she reached out. “Got this one leeedle bit still clinging on. Mind if I go for it?”
“Knock yourself out.” G8 looked over at her as she picked a shred of skin from between his shoulder blades and slowly pulled it away. He closed his eyes to enjoy the slight tickling sensation he felt whenever someone helped him slough off his old self. He never quite understood why he never felt the same pleasure when he did it himself.
“When’s your appointment?” K8 asked, holding out the carafe of coffee in mute inquiry.
G8 answered by handing her his mug for a refill. “Ten o’clock. But Sheriff Biggs warned me that if they were called out to handle an emergency, to hang around and wait for him.”
“What if he’s not able to get back to the office?” T8 queried.
G8 shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to reschedule.”
Their attention went to the doorway as N8 entered the dining hall from the back office area where the only telephone was located.
“Well?” P8 asked, beating everyone to the punch.
He grinned at them. It was an honest one, full of relief. “She’s doing better than the doctors expected.”
“Any idea when she’ll be released?” F8 asked.
The grin fell, but they could tell he remained positive. “Not yet. It’s too soon.” The man sniffed. “Is that bacon?”
T8 gestured toward the table. “Yep! Delivered fresh this morning. We divvied it up. Three slices each.”
“You’d better claim your share before we draw straws to see who gets it,” G8 warned with a mock growl.
“In that case…” N8 slid into his chair. As he accepted the platter handed to him, K8 came around his side with a skillet and slid two eggs onto his plate. He thanked her before chomping down on a piece of bacon. “Oh, gosh, that’s good. Nice and crisp, the way I like it.”
“Thanks.” K8 tossed him a smile. “I think I’m getting the hang of this cooking thing.”
“Maybe you’d be better off applying for a job at the diner instead of the newspaper office,” he suggested.
She snorted. “I might as well apply there, too.” The woman gave them all a serious eye. “I know we’ve had this discussion before. But now that we’ve sort of settled in, we need to get employed as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be a glamourous job. We don’t have to impress anybody. Just as long as we start bringing in an income.”
“I agree,” P8 concurred, glancing around the table. “We can’t keep expecting the town to donate whatever they can. Hell, a lot of them are barely scraping by themselves.”
F8 raised her good hand. “Our biggest problem is transportation. If we all get jobs, we’re too far from town to walk.”
“Except for me,” T8 corrected her. “I hiked it down the road to the lumber yard. Only took me about forty minutes.”
“That may work for now, but what are you going to do when the weather starts turning?” F8 pressed.
“The weather?”
The petite woman pointed upward. “Yeah. The weather. Something we’ve never had to deal with before.”
K8 sat back down in her chair as she continued. “You guys haven’t thought about it, have you?”
“About the weather?” T8 clarified.
N8 broke in. “No, we haven’t, and we all know why. Up until now we’ve lived in a controlled environment. A constant seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. When Cydney broke us out of that hell hole, she told me it was late summer, early Fall. I really didn’t pay much attention to it until yesterday when I went to see her, and she commented that we needed to look into getting some warmer clothing.”
G8 glanced down at himself. He was presently dressed in just a pair of jeans. No shoes, no shirt, no briefs. Wearing anything when he was molting was a nuisance. Not only was it irritating as hell, and itched like all get-out, but he believed it also prevented him from shedding his old skin as quickly as when he was practically naked.
F8 saw him checking himself over. “On top of that, most of us only have a couple of changes of clothes. We haven’t paid much attention to getting more to wear because we’ve had to concentrate on feeding ourselves and making sure this place is livable.”
K8 picked up the thread. “It’s going to be a slow process, adjusting to living in the real world. For the time being, let’s just worry about what we need next. Talk to people. Find out from them what we should expect and go from there.”
