Not Enough Time

After leaving the cafeteria area, Grant immediately headed towards the third floor of the building.

It had been an hour or so since Grant had left Ethan the task of getting the people up there fed, and he wanted to check in on the progress.

As Grant passed by the reception desk, he noticed that the young lady that him and the kids had met, was still sitting at the desk. By Grant's estimation, the young lady couldn't be more than a few years younger than Grant was, she had a deep black hair color and blue eyes, and a cute baby face. She had a small petite body with no more than a B cup to match.

Before The Path's emergence Grant would have thought about hitting on her, but at this point, he was too busy to waste time on every girl that he thought was cute.

However, perplexed by the fact that the young lady was still there, Grant decided to take a momentary detour and talk to her for a few minutes.

When the young lady saw Grant approaching, a light that was reminiscent of what you would see in that of a teenager looking at their idol, appeared in her eyes.

Surprisingly however, she retained her calm demeanor and waited until Grant reached the counter before she began speaking.

"Welcome back sir. What can I help you with today?"

Grant couldn't help but smile at how polite she was, "Well nothing really. I'm more curious about something. Why are you still here?"

The girl tilted her head to the side, as if she didn't understand why Grant would ask something like that, so Grant decided to elaborate.

"I don't mean why are you here, in the camp, I meant why are you still working here at the counter? Shouldn't you be out celebrating your freedom with your family or friends?"

For the first time since Grant had met her, the girls smile faltered ever so slightly, but she quickly regained her composure, "I do not have a family or any friends to celebrate with. My mother was the only family I had left when The Path emerged, and she did not survive our trip here to the hospital.

As for friends, I have not found any of my friends from before The Path's emergence. And since I worked for Andrew, everyone here always despised me. But I needed food and a place to stay, so I had no choice."

Grant felt a tinge of sympathy for the young lady.

It was likely that she was only allowed to work for Andrew because she was a cute young lady but if she had to take advantage of that to keep herself fed, why shouldn't she?

Most likely, more than the fact that she worked for Andrew, the reason people despised her was because they were jealous of her good looks and ability to take advantage of them.

Grant knew that in order to survive in this world, you would have to take advantage of everything at your disposal, so he did not detest the lady for working for Andrew. In fact, he admired her for doing what needed to be done to keep herself alive.

"I see... I am sorry if I have caused you any grief."

"It's alright, I've had time to come to terms with the world and where my place is in it. To answer your question though, I'm here at the counter because this is the only place where I feel like I can make a difference and help people.

Considering I am weak and incapable of much else, this was all I could do."

Grant couldn't help but admire the girl and her pure personality, "Well I am glad that you have found something that brings you some peace in this chaos.

I don't think I got your name though?

Oh, my name is Grant, by the way."

The young lady chuckled at the fact that Grant actually introduced himself before saying, "I know who you are sir. You are the talk of the camp right now. I apologize for not introducing myself earlier.

My name is Aubry Woods, it's a pleasure to meet you formally sir."

Grant spent the next few minutes having small talk with Aubry before he decided that it was time to move on.

After thanking Aubry for her time and making sure to let her know that she didn't have to work at the reception desk any more if she didn't want too, but was more than welcome to continue if she enjoyed it, he bade farewell and headed towards the stairwell.

After scaling the steps and reaching the third floor, Grant noticed that there was a hustle and bustle that was in stark contrast to how the floor was just hours earlier.

He could see people coming in and out of every room.

Some of them were holding trays with a hot porridge or soup of some sort and others were carrying out empty bowls and cups.

Finding Ethan conversing with a middle aged man that appeared to be wearing a stethoscope around his neck, Grant approached to get a rundown on the situation.

As it turned out, the man that Ethan had been talking too, whose name was Luke, was once the head of the Emergency Room department and had intimate knowledge of how to handle situations such as what they faced now.

Ethan continued to explain that most of the individuals that were present on the floor were originally part of the hospital staff and most of them were either doctors or nurses of some sort that had managed to survive until now.

Grant gave Ethan a few pats on the back to express his happiness at how efficiently he had handled the issue.

Ethan however, just grumbled, "I didn't even do anything... After you finished your speech and disappeared, these people immediately came up to me and asked if their was anything they could do to help.

These aren't even all of them! There were like a hundred and fifty people who volunteered. Since Luke was the highest ranking staff member, I asked him to distribute the volunteers throughout the camp.

Luke did all the work, I just stood here being useless!"

Luke, who had been standing quietly next to Ethan this whole time, finally raised his hand in an awkward wave, "It's nice to meet you Grant. Ethan is being modest. He directed us to the problem areas and I simply assigned the people most qualified to help in those areas."

Grant couldn't help but laugh at Ethan and Luke for their unwillingness to accept the praise for a job well done.

"You two do know that being useful is a good thing yes? Why are you trying to pass credit off onto each other?

And besides, Luke, don't doctors, especially high ranking ones, have massive ego's and god complexes?

That's what I've been told at least."

It was Luke's turn to laugh this time, "You would be right if this was before the apocalypse happened. The end of the world and the subsequent suffering that follows has a way of humbling you.

Turns out the idea that we could control life and death was just a joke and seems so trivial with everything going on now."

Grant was actually caught off guard by the man's honesty but he couldn't agree more, "You are correct about that good sir.

That being said, your skills are still a necessity for me and the people. Ethan seems to trust you, so can I count on you from now on to handle our medical related issues?

I'll even promote you to an official position once we get back to our camp.

The only downside, we don't have the same facilities where we are located and I doubt any of your medical knowledge would even apply to me any more. Other than my anatomy, of course."

It was Luke's turn to be caught off guard by Grant this time. But he quickly gathered himself and replied, "I would be honored. We can discuss those details more in detail at some point in the future. If you don't mind, I would like to get back to making my rounds and checking on the people?"

"Ah yes, my apologies for keeping you. Feel free to continue with your work. Thank you again for stepping up and volunteering to help."

Luke gave a curt nod towards Grant's words before turning around and heading off down the hallway.

After walking him walk away, Grant turned towards Ethan and asked, "You have faith in him? He seems like a good guy. But it's hard to tell these days..."

Ethan was hesitant to give his stamp of approval after only knowing the man for such a short amount of time, but he seemed fairly confident that he was worth trusting.

Grant decided that he would just defer to Ethan's judgement on this issue. If worst comes to worst, he could always replace the man later.

"Alright, well now that that's settled. Onto the main topic at hand, I found the food storage for Andrew and his goons.

I need you to go down to the cafeteria and make an inventory of what is stored there. When you are finished, store all the dried goods in my pack and then bring me the list.

The frozen and refrigerated goods can be left in there storage locations until we move.

Any questions?"

Ethan just stared at Grant incredulously, before raising a question, "I have one question. When the heck do you expect me to do all of that?!"

"Soon hopefully. We don't have time to waste! In 7 days time, we will be leaving here. We have a lot of work to do and not enough time to do it!"