Apocalyptic Pirates 4, page 15
“Kemelia?” Ray shouted. “Is Kemelia there?”
“I’m Kemelia,” the woman replied with a narrowing of her eyebrows that implied she was less than thrilled at having to introduce herself to a crowd of strangers at the hotel door. “Who are you?”
“It’s Ray,” the old man shouted. “Ray and Valerie from The Grand Flamingo on Isla Providencia. We’ve spoken to you on the radio before.”
“Ray and Valerie?” Kemelia’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I recognize your voice, Ray. What on earth are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” he shouted.
“Who are all these other people?” Kemelia’s head craned around as she stared at the rest of us.
“This is Drew and his crew,” Ray explained. “They helped us get away from Isla Providencia. We traveled here on their yacht. It’s docked in the harbor, but we figured what with the storm, we should try and find shelter on land.”
“Please can we come in?” Ally begged. “I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s a bit wet out here.”
Kemelia hesitated for a second, but her expression softened as she took in everybody’s bedraggled state.
She reached over and unlocked the door. The two men with her hurried forward and helped her drag the piano back just enough to open the door a few feet.
“You’ll have to duck down and crawl in,” Kemelia explained.
As barricades went, it was pretty effective at discouraging casual visitors.
We all managed to crawl inside, and then the hotel staff locked the door again and pushed the piano back into place.
“I’m sorry about all that,” Kemelia said. “But we can’t be too careful.”
“Have you had any trouble here?” I asked. “I thought there weren’t any dragons on San Andres?”
“So far there aren’t,” Kemelia told me. “We’ve been lucky in that regard. It’s the humans we have to worry about.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, one of the men said, “Are those guns?”
His eyes popped out of his head as he took in our combined weaponry.
“Holy shit,” the other guy muttered.
“We’ve been lucky, too,” I said as I craned my neck to look out the front window. I was relieved to find that I had a view of the yacht from up here. “We’ve managed to make some good trades in our travels.”
“Do you feel like trading for one of those?” the guy asked with his eyes still fixed on the rifle slung on my back.
“Sure,” I replied. “For the right exchange. In fact, that’s partly why we’re here. We need more fuel and fresh food for our yacht, and we’ve got some good stuff to trade in exchange.”
“What do you think, Kemelia?” the guy asked with a glance at his boss.
“Sounds good to me.” Kemelia was nodding. “The hotel’s become a bit of a hub for everyone who’s still on the island, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of folk here who’d be happy to trade with you. Lord knows we’ll take whatever help we can get here.”
Valerie suddenly let out an enormous sneeze, and then gave a little gasp and clutched at her side as the sneeze must have twinged her ribs. Ray rushed to her side, and she held tightly onto his arm as she struggled to catch her breath.
Kemelia looked at them with concern.
“Can we stay the night here?” I asked. “I don’t like leaving the boat unattended, but it didn’t seem like the brightest idea to stay there during the storm.”
“Which dock did you use?” Kemelia asked.
“It’s only a little way from here.” I pointed through the glass door back the way we’d come. “You can just about see the boat from here.”
“You’ll be fine there,” Kemelia assured me. “That’s such a small dock barely anyone knows about it, so it’s basically only the hotel staff who uses it, and we’re all here at the hotel, so there won’t be anyone out tonight who’ll bother your boat while it’s moored there.”
“That’s a relief,” I said.
“You did the right thing by coming ashore,” Kemelia continued. “It’s far safer to be on land rather than on the water when the weather’s like this.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m Drew, by the way. And this is Ally, Shannon, Letty, and Dia.”
The women all waved hello, and Kemelia gestured to one of the men with her.
“Go ahead and ask Stella to put on a kettle of hot water,” she instructed. “Valerie, are you hurt?”
“Just a twinge.” Valerie shook her head. “I’ll be okay once I can sit down.”
“We have a change of spare clothes in our bags,” I said. “Is there somewhere we could change and hang our wet things up to dry?”
“Yes, of course.” Kemelia immediately snapped into hotel manager mode. “We have downstairs toilet cubicles over there where you can change, and if you give me your wet things I’ll take them down to the laundry room.”
“Thank you,” I said gratefully. “We appreciate this.”
“No bother at all,” Kemelia replied with a smile. She went to Ray and Valerie. “I’m really pleased to finally meet you both.”
“Oh, same here,” Ray told her.
“We knew you were good people here,” Valerie said.
Kemelia smiled and put her hands briefly on both their shoulders before she ushered us all into the lobby and showed us where we could change our clothes.
Once we were in dry things, Kemelia met us outside the cubicles and showed the way into the lounge, which was a big room at the end of the lobby. A bar stretched along the right-hand wall, and the room was filled with comfortable-looking couches and easy chairs all upholstered in the same soft, tawny-brown corduroy. The left-hand wall had long windows that I guessed in the daytime would offer a view of the hotel gardens. There were two widescreen TVs on the front and back wall, and a couple of low wooden bookcases and cabinets dotted around the room. The floor was covered in a faded orange carpet that matched the color of the chenille curtains that covered the windows.
It was a far cry from the tacky Cheesecake Factory decor of the hotel we’d seen on Isla Providencia, and I had to say that even though the corduroy cushions looked a little faded, and the wooden bookcases looked like they were at least fifty years old, I liked the atmosphere of this hotel a lot better.
There were about twenty people installed in the lounge. Some were reading, a few were playing chess, and there was a group of about five people who were all busily huddled around a Monopoly board, and as we came into the lounge, someone evidently had just swiped some prime real estate as a chorus of despairing groans rose up from the group.
“As you can see, this is where people have mostly been hanging out,” Kemelia informed us. “We’ll sort you out with rooms a bit later, but for now, enjoy yourselves. There’s books and board games, and if you want a drink, just go and ask James.”
She waved her hand toward the bar, where a young guy was leaning against the shiny countertop and doodling on a napkin.
“Free bar?” I remarked.
“It’s mostly diet soda,” she said. “But if you ask James nicely, I’m sure he’ll crack open the Macallan for you. Stella’s our cook, and she should have a kettle ready to go if any of you want tea or coffee.”
“It’s a nice setup you have here,” I noted in admiration. “And the lights are still on.”
“Only for about another hour, and then we’ll switch to candles,” Kemelia explained. “We have a backup generator and barrels of fuel to keep us going, but it makes sense to ration it now rather than be forced to ration it later.”
“Good call.” I nodded.
“Well.” She clapped her hands together lightly. “Go mingle. I’ll take your wet clothes down to the laundry, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. Firstly, though, would anyone like tea or coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Valerie said vehemently.
I put up my hand along with the women.
“I think that’s a unanimous yes to hot drinks,” I said with a chuckle. “We’re all pretty chilled from the storm.”
“No problem.” Kemelia went around and found out what drinks we wanted. She didn’t write them down, but she seemed to have no problem at all remembering them, and then she left the lounge.
Valerie sank down onto the nearest couch with a little sigh of relief. Ray sat down next to her.
“Are you okay, darlin’?” he asked her in a low voice.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, and she raised her hand to gently pat his cheek. “Soon as I have a hot tea and get some of this chill out of my bones, I’ll be right as rain.”
“I’ll see if I can find you a blanket.” I looked around the lounge to try and see if there were any throws lying around.
“Oh, please, Drew, no,” Valerie protested. “Sit down and take a breather.”
“I will once you’re tended to,” I told her.
Valerie looked so pale, and her hair was still wet and messy from being in the storm outside. I guessed that her ribs were causing her too much pain for her to redo her hair, and the sight of her with her hair mussed when she was normally so pristine sent a jolt of worry through my heart. I might have only known Ray and Valerie for a day or two, but it felt like a lot longer than that, and I was surprised by how important the old couple had become to me.
The rest of the people in the lounge had raised their heads to stare at us when we came in, and now a few of them hesitantly approached us.
“Where did you come from?” a middle-aged man with bronzed skin and tight black curls asked. “You didn’t travel here in this weather, did you?”
“We were dropping off some friends of ours,” I explained.
“Friends?” another man said in tones of disbelief. He was about my age, suntanned to an inch of his life, and with hair so black it was hard to believe it hadn’t come out of a bottle. He flashed unnaturally white teeth at me. “Surely that’s an outdated word these days.”
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “Why would it be?”
The guy just smirked, and then raised his eyebrows as his gaze roamed over the rest of the party.
“Hel-lo,” he murmured. “And are these lovely creatures also your… friends?”
The women stared at him in disbelief.
“What the fu–” Dia began.
“Yes,” I interrupted. “They are my friends.”
I took a step closer to him and was gratified to see him blink as he realized that I was both taller and bigger than he was. He cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said. “It’s good to have friends.”
“Yes,” I said in a level voice. “It is.”
He shrugged and gave an awkward laugh, then retreated to the other end of the room and threw himself down on one of the empty chairs.
“What a fucking creep,” Dia muttered.
“You’d have thought the apocalypse would be enough to stop creepy guys,” Ally huffed.
“I don’t think anything’s enough to stop douchebags like that,” I said.
“That’s Daryl,” the curly-haired man said in apologetic tones. He had an accent quite like Dia’s, and I reckoned he must have been a local. “He’s harmless, he can just be a bit… difficult at times. We’ve all been finding it hard here.”
“I’m sure he’s a real dreamboat in the right circumstances,” Letty muttered.
“Anyway,” the man continued. “I’m Atticus. Do you folks want a hot drink?”
“I think Kemelia is already taking care of that,” I said. “But if you have any spare blankets for my friends, we’d be very grateful.”
“Of course.” Atticus hurried out of the room and was back in a moment with his arms piled high with blankets. “Help yourself.”
I took the thickest one and tucked it around Valerie’s knees.
“I’m not an invalid,” she insisted, but she patted my hand and smiled as she spoke, and I could tell she was grateful for the blanket all the same.
Kemelia came back into the lounge carrying an enormous tray of teacups and coffee mugs which she put down on the table in front of the couch.
“Sit down, sit down,” she insisted. “Now, who wanted what?”
I received my mug of coffee and sat back in one of the lazy chairs. The springs creaked, and the seat groaned under my weight, and with that and the familiar smell of Folgers in my nostrils, I had a weird moment of surreality. The chair underneath me could have been in the doctor’s waiting room back home, and the coffee could have been brewed by one of the moms at a PTA meeting.
I took a sip of the dark brew and sighed as the caffeine surged through me.
“So, what’s your story?” Atticus dragged another chair up to the table and sat down in it with his hands on his knees and an expectant look on his face. “Where were you when the meteorites fell?”
It didn’t take long for Atticus to get the story of our entire journey out of us, and soon we were surrounded by the other people in the lounge who listened with wide eyes and open mouths as we regaled them with the tale of our adventures.
I hadn’t fully grasped what an adventure it had been. Of course I knew there had been moments of excitement, but it wasn’t until I was listening to Dia describe her escape from the airport, and Shannon demonstrate exactly how she’d taken out the parent dragon on the yacht that it clicked in my brain, and I realized that actually these past few weeks had been a pretty fucking wild ride.
Kemelia had come back into the lounge at some point, and she was standing by the circle of chairs and listening to the stories with her eyebrows raised to almost touch her hairline.
When we got to the part of the story where we met Ray and Valerie, she leaned forward and listened intently.
“So what brought the two of you here to San Andres?” she asked the old couple in a gap in the story.
“Well.” Ray paused and looked awkwardly at Valerie.
“We basically bullied them into coming with us,” Letty supplied with a chuckle.
“We hoped that they could stay here for a little while,” Ally said hopefully. “It’ll give Valerie a chance to heal.”
“But you just say the word if there’s not enough room here,” Valerie cut in. “We ain’t about to be a burden on you, Kemelia, and we know you must be stretched right thin what with all these folk still living here.”
I internally sighed at the very likely scenario where Valerie would go right back to Isla Providencia if she thought she was inconveniencing anyone.
But Kemelia was shaking her head very firmly.
“No way,” she said. “I’m glad the two of you are here. Lord knows I was worried at the thought of the two of you all alone on Providencia trying to make it there by yourselves. I’m very grateful to you, Drew, for bringing them here.”
“Bullying them here,” I said with a smile and a wink at Ray and Valerie.
“Bringing, bullying.” Kemelia smiled. “I’m just glad they’re here.”
“We’re not about to be idle,” Ray insisted. “We’ll be earning our keep.”
“This isn’t about charity, Ray,” Kemelia said in a voice that was both firm and gentle. “This is about us all surviving. We’re stronger together.”
The corner of Ray’s mouth twitched in a reluctant smile.
“Well, thank you,” he said.
“See,” Valerie told me, as though I were about to disagree with her. “We told you they was good people in here.”
“I can see that for sure,” I said, and Kemelia met my eye and smiled.
The people in the lounge were made up of a mixture of hotel staff and guests that hadn’t been able to make it on the last flights out. The staff had abandoned their uniforms, and now they mingled together with the guests as one big group of people. I was glad to see it, and I was glad to find out that the majority of the guests– the overly tanned Daryl being an exception– were very pleasant and ready to throw themselves into surviving the apocalypse on an equal footing.
The Monopoly players invited the women to join them in a new game, and I hastily detached myself from the group before I could be roped in. Out of habit and a desire for the familiar, I ended up heading to the bar.
The guy behind the counter glanced up as I approached.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied and took a seat on one of the faded bar stools. The cushion was worn thin in places, but the bar was polished to within an inch of itself, and even now there were no smears or stains on the shiny bartop. “James, right?”
“That’s right.” The bartender was about my age, maybe a few years younger, and he had smooth dark hair that swept to the side like an Old Hollywood movie star. He had a strong Cuban accent that I reckoned must make him pretty popular with women. “And it’s Drew, isn’t it? I couldn’t help overhearing your story.”
“Oh, yeah.” I glanced back over my shoulder to where the women were already crowding around the Monopoly board and arguing over who got to be the top hat.
“Board games not your thing?” James inquired.
“Monopoly? Definitely not.” I shook my head. “I’ve seen too many good times descend into violence over the perils of Monopoly.”
The bartender laughed. “What are you having?”
“What have you got?” I blew out my breath and examined the row of bottles behind the bar. “Kemelia mentioned a Macallan.”
“Oh, did she?” James chuckled. “I’m not surprised, though. I know she was worried about the old couple. She would radio them every day to make sure they were okay.”
“That was nice of her,” I said. “They’re a really sweet couple, so it’s nice to hear that they had people looking out for them.”
“Yeah, Kemelia’s a good sort.” James nodded. “She owns this hotel, you know. It’s not as fancy as some of the others on the island, but you can tell how much she loves this place.”
“It makes a difference when you’ve got a boss who works alongside you,” I said. “It gives you some faith in the management style.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” James pushed a glass over to me and poured in three fingers of whiskey. “Do you want a shot in your drink? Irish coffee?”
“Hell, why not?” I held out my mug for him to splash a generous amount of alcohol into my coffee, and then I took a deep sip. “Oh, yep.”
