The Hatching (The Hatching #1)(22)

Gordo took a seat at the bar and ordered his pizza, shooting the shit with Shotgun while he drank his beer. Turned out Fred was feeling under the weather, same as Amy, and had sent Shotgun on a pizza run of his own.

“We should just put Fred and Amy on a couch together so they can be miserable with company, and you and I can be nerds together,” Gordo said.

“Speaking of which, I wanted to show you this.” Shotgun had been working on a new sort of water filter, and he pulled out one of the drawings of a piece he’d come up with to bypass some of the constriction in the pump design. It was an elegant solution, and Gordo suggested a small modification. They were going back and forth, ignoring the television and the table behind them as Patty and Ken Grimsby tried to feed their eleven children. It wasn’t until the young woman behind them had spoken twice that they stopped talking and looked up.

“I said, do either of you know anybody looking to rent out a piece of land around here? We’re new to Desperation,” she said, as if the fact that Gordo and Shotgun had never seen her or her boyfriend before wasn’t enough of a clue. She was young, barely twenty, if that, and the young man standing behind her was only a few years older. Gordo didn’t have to glance for more than a second to take a dislike to the guy. He recognized his type. Angry hippie. Pretending to be in it for love of the environment and all that sort of stuff, but really he was just too scared to give real life a go. Plus, angry hippie men always ended up with idealistic hippie girls like this. And sure enough, her name?

“Flower,” she said. “And this is Baywolf. Spelled like it sounds.”

“Ah,” Shotgun said. “The kings who ruled them had courage and greatness . . .”

“No,” the man said, cutting Shotgun off. “Not like the poem.”

Gordo tried to smile, but he could feel that his face had turned sour. He’d had to read Beowulf for a class when he was an undergraduate at Columbia, and it had immediately turned him off English lit, but still, there was something undeniably dickish about this guy. “So, like bay and wolf,” Gordo said. “You come up with that on your own?”

“My parents named me Flower,” the girl said. “They were hippies.” She smiled and had the good sense to be embarrassed about it, even though she’d clearly had to explain it her whole life.

“They aren’t hippies anymore?”

She shook her head at Gordo. “No. Mom’s an investment banker and Dad’s a tax attorney. They aren’t exactly thrilled that I dropped out of school, but you know, they did it and then went back, so they don’t have a lot to really complain about.”

Gordo decided Flower might be okay. And then, when Baywolf spoke, it reinforced his opinion of the young man.

“The old man’s an *. Won’t help us out with cash at all.”

“You try working?” Shotgun said. “That tends to help out with the cash situation.”

“Hey, f*ck you,” Baywolf said, and he grabbed Flower’s wrist. “Come on.”

She shook him off and looked at Gordo again. “So, you know any places to rent?”

Gordo finished his beer and glanced at LuAnne. She flicked her hands twice. He’d already been there for twenty minutes, and it was going to be twenty minutes more for the pizza. Her husband was slow as shit in the kitchen, but particularly since it was the only restaurant in fifty miles, the pizza wasn’t bad. He nodded for another beer then looked at the couple. Baywolf was glowering, but it was clear he was going to follow Flower’s lead. Fair enough, Gordo thought. She was cute and this airhead thing seemed like it was a bit of an act.

“What brought you and Mr. Wolf to Desperation?”

Baywolf scowled harder, but Flower didn’t seem to mind the question. “Same as all of you, I guess. Just wanted to get away from the cities and camp out for a while somewhere that seemed like it might not bear the brunt of things.”

Shotgun raised an eyebrow. Gordo couldn’t tell if Shotgun was trying to be funny or if he was actually attempting to display skepticism, but it was amusing either way. For a man who had carved out a virtual doomsday palace, Shotgun was surprisingly critical of most of the other survivalists.

“Let me guess,” Shotgun said. “Vampires?”

“Of course not,” Flower said, patting Shotgun on the arm. “Vampires aren’t real. It’s zombies we’re worried about.” She paused for a second and then smiled. “Just kidding.” She waited a minute for Shotgun to smile back then made her face look dead serious and said, “I believe in vampires.”

Gordo decided he liked this girl. She had some nice spirit, and if she was already willing to tweak Shotgun, she might do okay out in Desperation. Her boyfriend was another matter, but that wasn’t much his problem. “Shotgun is more of the nuclear apocalypse school of thought,” he said.

“Shotgun?” Flower’s boyfriend said with a scoff. “That’s your name?”

Gordo had known Shotgun long enough that he recognized the curve of Shotgun’s lips as something other than a smile. “Yes, Baywolf, my name is Shotgun.”

Gordo stuck out his hand to Flower. “Gordon Lightfoot, but everybody calls me Gordo.”

“Gordon Lightfoot? Like the singer?” Flower shook his hand. She had a firm grip.

“Yep, like the singer,” Gordo said. “But no relation. You might want to ask Burly over at the Lead Saloon if you need a place to stay. His brother’s place has been empty for a while. He’d probably let you rent it cheap. An old trailer over by the Grimsby homestead. Not much to look at from the outside, but if I know Burly, it will be clean and weatherproof.”