Page 113 of Homebound
“What is this smell?” she asked Simon distractedly.
“Sewage.”
“Eww. Do we have plumbing problems?”
“This place sits atop the City’s sewers,” he explained. “The fermentation processes do smell, but they produce heat. That is why it’s so warm. You like it warm, yes?”
“It’s gross.”
He didn’t react. He never did when she said something too obvious or stupid.
She groped around the bed, collecting her sheet about her. “Are there lights? Electricity?”
“I ran a line to power tools but not the lights. The guy this place belongs to never used any.”
“What guy? Do we have a landlord?”
A slight hesitation. “Sort of.”
Gemma didn’t press. The last few weeks taught her to be grateful for the comforts she could get and ask no questions.
Shrouded in a bedsheet, she used the bathroom and ate another can of pears. Afterward, she started to unenthusiastically sort through her soiled and ruined clothes while Simon loitered around with no apparent function except watching her.
The dilemma of her winter wardrobe needed to be solved soon, or she’d be stuck above the sewers until springtime. She decided to wash her coat for she couldn't stand the smell of it. But washing clothes wrapped in bed linens would be uncomfortable. Even walking around the room caused her to stumble.
“Are there pants and a shirt I could borrow?” she finally asked Simon.
“There are clothes on the other side of the room, behind the curtain. There is more food, too, in case you want something different.”
“Really?” She couldn't believe her luck. “And it’s okay for me to eat some?”
“It’s all yours.”
“Are you sure the landlord wouldn’t mind?”
“He wouldn't,” he said with confidence.
Excited, Gemma hiked up the sheet and headed toward the curtain. Yanking it aside, she beheld a room full of so much stuff it could rival Alladin’s treasure cove. Clothes, canned and dried food, electronic gadgets, weapons - an unimaginable variety of everything was gathered in this one place. Shelves upon shelves lined the walls sagging under the weight of goods, and piles of items were heaped on the floor. A large cast-iron safe stood in the alcove guarding, presumably, money and other valuables.
Mouth gaping in awe, she turned in a circle… and gave a loud squeak of fright. A huge Tana-Tana alien was sitting in a chair by the window.
“I… didn’t know you were here,” Gemma addressed him, her heart thumping against her ribs. Why did Simon not mention that someone else was present just behind the curtain? “How do you do?”
Tana-Tana didn’t respond and continued immobile. Gemma tightened the sheet around her and stepped closer, mindful of the clutter and aware that Simon was just behind her.
“I would like to thank you for your hospitality…” She gasped, the words dying on her lips when she saw why the alien couldn’t hear her.
Whirling, she grasped Simon’s hand. “Simon, he’s… dead!”
“He is.”
Gemma eyeballed the cracked back of Tana-Tana’s head. “Someone killed him!”
“Hmm.”
“Oh my God! We should help him! Let’s do chest compressions, quick, it can revive him.”
“Let’s not revive him.”
