Sawyer chuckled. "I think dinner is just about ready. Why don't you go get Roark? I'm sure he's hungry."
Sam was muttering to himself as he got up and headed out of the room, but Sawyer could still hear him. "Real food, not something out of a tube. I've died and gone to prepper heaven."
Sawyer chuckled as he walked back to the kitchen area. He turned off the stove, grabbed some pot holders and took the pan off the stove, then carried it back into the main room. Roark and Sam walked in just as he set the large pan down in the middle of the table.
He pointed to the pan then sat down next to Stefan. "Dig in."
"What's the white stuff?" Frankie asked.
"Sour cream."
"Oh, cool."
Frankie hadn't gone years without sour cream, so he didn't have the same reaction as everyone else. They all paused then slowly panned to look at Sawyer.
"You have sour cream?" Roark asked.
Sawyer nodded. "Well, it was powdered so I had to mix it up, but yeah."
His eyes rounded and he leaned back from the table when there was a mad scramble to get plates filled then drop large dollops of sour cream on the taco casserole. The next thing he heard was the loud groans as people started eating.
"Oh man," Sam groaned. "I can't believe this stuff was here all this time."
The others nodded, but didn't stop eating.
Sawyer chuckled as he watched them. They were acting as if they hadn't eaten in days. "I can make more, you know." It wasn't like it was that hard. It basically took opening a few cans, mixing everything together, then throwing it into a pan over an open flame. It wasn't rocket science.
Sam stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and glanced up. "You can make more of this?"
Sawyer nodded.
Sam swallowed hard. "Is there…can you make anything else?"
"Oh yeah, there's a whole recipe book back there full of different things you can make with this stuff. Everything from desserts to main meals."
"How much of this stuff do you think is in that storage room, Sawyer?" Dahl asked.
"Well, from what I've seen of the bunker, it was set up to house around a hundred people for a period of five years. There's a manifest of all the stuff that backs that up. How much that actually is, I have no idea."
He chuckled when Dahl's jaw dropped.
"A hundred people for five years? Do you know how much that is?"
"Uh, yeah, I've seen it." They'd seen it, too, when Sawyer took them to the storage room.
"You said the bunker was set up for a hundred people to live in it for five years?" Sam asked.
"Yes," Sawyer replied.
"I assume since they would be sealed inside the bunker, that means everything, food, personal hygiene supplies, toilet paper, the works."
"Yes."
"Damn." Sam blinked wildly. "We could live down here for years and never have to deal with another mech again."
As attractive as that idea sounded, Sawyer was more interested in trying to take the mechs down than he was hiding out from them. "We have too many people depending on us to save them."
Sam snorted. "Kind looks like we've been backing the wrong horse, if what Roark suspects is actually true."
