***
My commotion must have snapped Haley out of her weird trance. She and Fred came running into the men’s room, social convention be damned.
“What the hell? What happened?”
“Fucking shower,” I growled, presence of a child be damned.
Haley ran to the men’s shower room, while Fred looked at me slack-jawed. I stripped and pulled a new shirt from my backpack. I threw the old one in the garbage can and tried wiping my jeans with paper towels, which proved equally ineffective.
I heard the shower turn off and Haley emerged from the shower room. I spotted dark wet spots on the sleeves of her shirt, but otherwise it appeared she had avoided too much contact with the sludge. She had been more careful than I had.
“Ugh. What the hell is that?” She said as she washed her hands.
“No idea. But I think showers are out,” I answered.
“I’ll check the ladies’.”
The women’s restroom was no better. A strange black gunk came through the shower heads. The sinks produced grimy water, but it was still identifiably water.
It was a mystery, but I didn’t want to think about it too hard. We’d have to live with being dirty for the time being. The plumbing was somebody else’s problem. Which I guess means it was nobody’s problem.