Not Their Babysitter

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By noon, the group had finished clearing the administration building.

The afternoon went to hauling bodies and giving the first floor a rough cleaning.

Everyone in combat gear carried the corpses out. Once the gate was opened, the others cleaned behind them.

They worked hard, especially after Evan explained that the building would be their home for the next few days at least.

Evan seemed to have more strength than he knew what to do with. Before the others were done, he dug a pit nearly ten feet deep out on the grass and had the bodies thrown inside.

They were not getting back up.

If nothing else, they could become grim fertilizer for the soil.

Rotten or not, there were enough of them to matter.

When the work was done, Evan walked back toward the administration building bare-chested, his muscles cut clean and sharp under a sheen of sweat.

The sun had begun to dip. It was around four-thirty in the afternoon.

The moment he entered the building, he smelled something sweet and sharp drifting from the cafeteria.

"What are we eating?" Evan asked, leaning against the iron doorframe. "Smells good."

Inside the cafeteria came the rolling boil of soup and the livelier sound of people teasing one another.

At Evan's voice, everyone turned.

"Perfect timing, Evan," Carol said, coming out of the kitchen with a steaming metal plate. "Tomato spaghetti."

The scent he had caught was tomato.

"Not fresh tomatoes," she added. "Canned. I heated them down into a sauce and poured it over the pasta."

"Start with this. The venison steaks will be ready soon. You'll like them."

Evan took the plate, breathed in, and his eyes brightened.

Hot food was not something he could count on anymore. He had eaten so many cans and so much mushroom soup lately that the thought of either made him tired.

The prepared meals from the system had useful effects, so he had been saving them for moments that mattered.

The rest of what they had found was mostly snacks and high-calorie emergency food, enough to hold hunger off but not enough to satisfy it.

Now that warm tomato sauce and pasta were in his hands, restraint became a serious test.

He twirled a forkful of spaghetti with practiced ease. Thick, sweet sauce clung to the noodles.

Just as he was about to eat, he stopped.

Evan lifted his eyes.

More than a dozen gazes were fixed on his fork.

Every movement of his hand pulled those eyes with it.

Carl's stomach growled loud enough for half the cafeteria to hear.

Evan looked at the group, then at the plate in his hand.

'So this was only the first plate.'

Carl had been standing guard outside and was already starving.

Everyone else had to be just as hungry, if not worse.

After a moment, Evan still put that first bite into his mouth.

Sweet and sharp tomato, a little black pepper, and warm sauce spread across his tongue all at once.

The bite seemed to slide down his throat and vanish too quickly, leaving only the taste behind.

But Evan did not take a second bite.

He fought down the urge, turned the fork over on the edge of the plate, and nudged the food toward Carl beside him.

Carl stared at the plate and said nothing.

His throat moved.

He took it, copied Evan's motion, twirled a small bite, and put it in his mouth.

His cheeks puffed slightly. He held the bite there, unwilling to swallow it too fast, and his eyes never left the plate.

Then he passed it to the person beside him.

The cafeteria fell quiet except for the light scrape of a metal fork against a metal plate.

No one rushed.

They waited for the plate to reach them, took one careful bite, and passed it on.

Every person controlled how much they took.

After more than a dozen people, there was still a little left.

Shane looked at Evan, then at the others, and accepted the plate without a word.

He wound the last three strands of spaghetti around the fork and ate them.

Then he tilted the plate and drank the remaining sauce.

His shoulders trembled slightly.

For a moment, it felt as if the food had not gone into his stomach at all, but straight into his chest.

In that instant, Shane understood what a team could taste like.

Going it alone was not the best way to survive.

People survived because they had other people.

Shane set the empty plate down and let out a long breath.

It had been no more food than a few crackers.

Somehow, he felt full.

Satisfaction could feed parts of a person hunger never reached.

"Oh!" Carol said as she stepped out of the kitchen and saw the empty plate in front of Evan. "You finished that fast?"

"The venison isn't ready yet. The rest of the tomato spaghetti is done, though. You can have my portion first."

She turned back into the kitchen and came out with two more plates.

Behind her came Andrea, Dale, Otis, and the others who had been helping.

They began handing pasta to everyone.

Carol held the last plate out to Evan.

Was Carol hungry?

Of course she was.

But she seemed to believe Evan was hungrier.

Evan was about to refuse when Carl stood first.

The boy carried his own plate over, crouched carefully, and set it beside Evan's empty one.

Just like before, Carl twirled up a generous forkful and placed it on Evan's plate.

Then he looked up with a bright, boyish smile.

"Here," Carl said. "Paying you back."

He returned to his spot, lowered his head, and started eating in big hungry bites.

Was it childish?

Very.

The gesture was childish, and so were the words.

But it spread through the room like color bleeding into water.

One after another, people stood and put a forkful from their own plates onto Evan's.

The plate that had been empty a moment ago became a small mountain of pasta.

Warm sauce pooled through it, just like the first plate.

Only now, Evan had more than twice as much food as before.

The words Carl had said were too awkward for the adults to repeat.

So they added what they could, silently raised the pile on Evan's plate, and went back to eating.

"Damn," Evan muttered, lifting the plate high enough to hide his face. "Smells pretty good."

His reddened eyes betrayed him anyway.

Carol, still holding her own plate, paused.

Then she smiled softly, sat cross-legged on the floor like everyone else, and began eating in large bites.

They were all starving.

The venison steaks were ready not long after. They tasted milder than lamb and chewier than chicken.

Evan ate one piece and already felt full, so he divided the rest among the others.

'Am I their babysitter?'

The question rose in him as he watched people look up from the food he had helped provide, gratitude and heat plain on their faces.

Then Evan shook his head and rejected the thought without hesitation.

'No.'

A pack protected its weaker and injured members. Even under the rule that the leader ate first, the strongest wolf could pretend to eat and leave food for the pups that needed it.

And as the pack grew, it would support its leader in return, holding together so it could survive.

Which meant...

Evan looked straight ahead, his gaze steadier than it had ever been.

'I'm not their babysitter. I'm their leader.'

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