October 18th

"Well, hello " I heard Louise say.

She was in the kitchen taking inventory of the remaining food while I was drying off in the bathroom nearest the den. Instead of Michael replying, I heard another female's voice.

"Hello."

Who in the world could it be? I tried hopping into my pants, but only succeeded in falling to the floor. My fall was loud and Louise called to me:

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" I yelled.

Murmurs from the stranger followed my answer. Dressed and flustered, I hurried into the kitchen. What I saw when I got there were two women. They were dirty, tired, and scared, the three things we must have looked like after escaping The Basement. In the older woman's eyes, there was fear and another emotion I didn't know. Seeing the strange shift in her eyes made me feel uneasy.

The second, shorter woman wasn't a woman at all. She was a girl, but I couldn't guess her actual age as she stared at the floor.

"Wow, how many people do you have here?" the woman asked Louise.

"Me, Michael, and the boy." Louise looked at our new arrivals. "Well, and now you two."

The woman smiled. Even through the dirt, her smile was pretty. That was, until she pulled her lips back to reveal a set of yellowed teeth. I recoiled as much from her ugly teeth as from the demeanor she emitted.

To cover up the awkward moment, she said, "Hello. This is my daughter, True. And I'm Gloria."

Thankfully, she didn't hold out her hand for me to shake because I wouldn't have taken it. She could sense that, I think.

I focused on her daughter. "Hi, True."

She ignored me as I had done to her mother.

Louise glossed over the silence. "I'm sure you two ladies would like to clean up before joining us for dinner. I can take you to the bathroom and get you some clean clothes."

Pre-Hell Dimension, Louise's hostess abilities would have been the norm. However, we live in a new world, a harsher world, and the two women took Louise's words as if they were Gospel.

"Bathroom? Clean clothes? Dinner?" For each question the woman asked of her, Louise gave a nod. "You have running water?"

"Uh-huh. And electricity. Thanks to our solar-powered generator." Louise showed off by switching on the kitchen light.

Even the mute girl was impressed, and raised her head to stare at the light. With her face in view, I could see that she was beautiful. And not Ashley Heard beautiful or Jennifer Connolly beautiful (I had looked at the cover of the movie Labyrinth to find out the actress's name) but freakin' gorgeous. Her eyes were big and blue, the same as the swimming pool in daylight. Covered in dirt as she was, she was even more beautiful. No amount of mud could conceal her soft pink lips or perfect skin. The one flaw she had was her mop of tangled dark hair. It was out of place with the rest of her. True caught me staring at her and looked down at the floor again.

"...Stay in the guest room." Louise's voice came through to me slowly.

Gloria and True followed her out of the kitchen.

I turned to Michael. "Where did they come from?"

He shrugged.

~*~