by Lilly Black
"The driver pulled over and I got out to help him," he said in a southern accent that sounded almost forced. "Then all these drug-crazed maniacs just came out of nowhere, attacking us. We got back in the car, but we couldn't get the doors closed in time, and they just came in on us. I noticed that the sunroof was still half open from when my wife wanted some fresh air earlier, so I climbed through it. I was just about to pull her up when I realized they had a hold of her. What was I supposed to do? I could sit up there quietly until they went away and maybe live or I could die trying to save her when she was already gone." As he said it, he held his hands up like he was weighing the options, and something about him made Olivia feel sick as she remembered the Bible verses June had been quoting since the trip began. Olivia knew those verses too.
"Behold," she said sarcastically as she looked directly into June's eyes in the rearview. "A black horse, and he who sat upon it held scales and foretold great suffering."
"Excuse me?" Jobe demanded, taking the comment as personally as it was intended, but in a very different way.
"A joke," June said dismissively. "She thinks this is the apocalypse."
Suddenly, Olivia was fuming at the hypocrisy. It was all "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" when she perceived that their time with the gypsy has resulted in Alek and Jax being in their midst, but now that Jobe Stricklan was there, it was just a joke? To Olivia, it wasn't one damn bit funny, and Jobe was clearly an asshole. From the things he had already said, it was evident that he didn't even know that the people who had attacked them were dead, and he didn't know that their bite was going to kill his wife and make her one of them. All he knew was that his wife had been bitten by some "drug-crazed maniacs", and when he had weighed his options, he decided to save his own skin rather than trying to help her. Olivia made a mental note never to allow him any role of responsibility when it came to anyone's life but his own.
The mood in the Right Way semi was very different from the limo. The cab had a bed in the back just like Jax had hoped, and he wasted no time ushering Dani into it, suggesting with a wink that she get some rest while he kept Ravi company. He sat in the passenger seat and watched for a few minutes to see how the young, quiet man handled the big rig, and impressed, he stretched and yawned.
"I've been up for more than twenty-four hours," he lied. "Will you be okay alone if I lie down in the back for a while."
"No problem," Ravi said with an amused grin. He knew who Jax was, and he knew what he was up to. Jax Bonham was the one person in this entire party who would not surprise him with this behavior. He was well known for his womanizing, and Ravi had met more than a couple girls in college who were as taken with the older man as they would have been if he was still in his twenties. Jax was a sex god, but Ravi wasn't jealous. Of course, sex was on his mind. At his age, it always was, and it was certainly something he would have been doing if the opportunity presented itself given the fact that the whole damn world appeared to be ending, but his priority right now was getting this truck to the refuge Olivia had promised. It was the only thing that mattered because he felt like he owed it to his parents to survive. If this plague was happening in Kolkata, he believed it was a safe bet that he was already the last of that particular branch of the Chatterjee family. Kolkata was one of the most densely populated places on the planet, and if the plague hit, his brothers and his beautiful, promised bride were on borrowed time if they still lived at all.
Ravi turned on the radio to drown out any sounds that might come from his "sleeping" companions. Many stations had switched to an all news format, reporting on the plague, and he skipped past a couple with preachers shouting about the end times to find that there were still at least a few channels on autopilot, playing the same twelve popular songs every hour over and over again. He kept tuning until he found a song on a classic rock station that made him laugh. It was ParraJax's In My Arms. He heard Dani giggle from behind the curtain, and he turned it up.
Dani's Journal
The Absolute, Most Fucking Amazing Sex Anybody Ever Had
The first thing Jax said was, "Finally," as he lay down with me. The rig's bed wasn't even as wide as a twin mattress, and there was only a curtain separating us from Ravi, but we didn't care.
"Finally," I repeated, our eyes gradually closing as our lips met. Then, even though I think we both had intended to take it slow and savor it, we had to laugh when we immediately began pulling off each other's clothes like a couple of teenagers with only ten minutes to get it on before mom came back from the store. It took about thirty seconds for us both to be completely naked, and...
Damn! Jax's body was the most amazing I'd ever seen!
I knew he had a well-toned chest and core because I'd seen him shirtless on stage, but now I knew every part of him was perfect, including 7" of steely, pink perfection that I couldn't wait to feel inside me - everywhere inside me. I pushed him onto his back and kissed my way down his body, running my tongue along the outline of his six pack, and he flinched and laughed as I came to his navel.
"Ticklish?" I teased, and up front, Ravi turned up the music a little more, which made us both laugh but not for long. I had serious work to do. I moved downward, wetting my lips and slipping the head of his dick between them. I felt myself shudder at the idea of finally having this nearly twenty year fantasy come to life, and he shuddered when I sucked him all the way into my mouth, swishing my tongue from side to side as I went. His hands found my head, sliding into my hair, but when I thought he was going to push me down, he lifted me up.
"Come here," he whispered, and though I didn't want to let go of his dick, I couldn't refuse him any request. I moved on top of him, and as he kissed me deeply, he rolled us over.
"Ladies first," he said as his lips made a path to my neck, sending chills all over my body. It was surreal. I was having sex with Jax Bonham. I mean, an army of the dead had risen up outside to eat us and all, which was also pretty surreal, but I was having sex with Jax fucking Bonham, y'all!
He was kissing my neck. Then he moved to my breasts, his sensual, pink lips closing around my nipple, and oh, my God! I was suddenly so wet, I felt it pouring out of me, and all I could think about was feeling him inside.
"Fuck the foreplay," I whispered, pulling him back up and wrapping my legs around his hips, prodding him with my heels.
"Dani, I don't have a condom," he said, looking into my eyes apologetically, and I was confused.
"Word on the street is; you had a vasectomy," I said, sure I read that somewhere.
"I did, but aren't you concerned about..." he paused, looking down at me sheepishly "...my past?"
"Should I be?" I asked. Maybe if things were different, if I had met him backstage at a show, it would have crossed my mind, but after the time we'd spent together tonight, I felt, perhaps naively, like I could trust him.
"I swear I've never been with a groupie without a condom, and I get tested all the...."
"Shut up and fuck me, Jax," I said.
"Fuck you, Dani? No, I'm not going to fuck you," he insisted, confusing me yet again, but when he kissed me softly and eased his dick inside me, I understood what he meant. Slowly and gently, he made love to me, looking into my eyes in the dim moonlight shining through the windows, and even though I began this with visions of back-clawing, teeth-gnashing fucking, those ideas became alien to me as the intensity between us began to grow on an emotional level, the orgasms building inside us giving life to a connection deeper than I'd ever experienced in ten years of marriage .
He took my hands in his, our fingers laced together tightly, and my lips began to quiver at the raw power of the moment. My body was on the verge of a cataclysmic explosion as I felt him gliding over my clit with each thrust, and my mind was completely overtaken by emotion with his eyes never leaving mine for a second. Then it happened. I felt the subtle shift as Jax stiffened inside me just before he was about to come, and that tiny detail struck my clit like lightning, taking me with him so suddenly, I fo
rgot everything for one brief, devastating moment as a forceful cry began deep in my throat. Quickly, Jax silenced me with his mouth over mine, and as we breathed our ecstasy into each other, a tear escaped, streaming down the side of my face into my hairline.
"You're so beautiful, Dani," he whispered in a long, satisfied exhale as he looked down at me, wiping the water away with his thumb.
"You're beautiful," I said back to him, and he grinned modestly.
But he knows it's true.
He's beautiful. He's amazing. He's absolutely fucking perfect.
Route 19
From Route 19, Olivia took the limo onto Interstate 77 South - the West Virginia Turnpike. Route 19 dropped them off past two of the three toll booths on the turnpike, but as they made their way toward the last one heading south, Olivia started to feel anxious. There could be dozens of people congregated here - employees, police, all of the motorists who had to come to a stop in order to pay. The toll plaza was always more congested than the roads, and with no headlights in the rearview and no taillights up ahead, the last mile before they arrived was surreal. Then they came out of a slight curve and saw it glowing in the darkness up ahead, and everyone was seized by a feeling of impending doom. Without even thinking, Alek reached for Olivia's hand as it rested on the seat between them, and when he squeezed tightly, she felt a sense of comfort that was quickly eradicated by the scene ahead.
There were cars everywhere. Unattended. Ignitions running. Doors open. Crashed into guardrails. Flashers flashing. Headlights illuminating hellish scenes. A bus on its side. A dozen abandoned motorcycles. Some knocked over. Some wrecked into one of the booths.
Then there were the dead. Groups of them voraciously dining on human flesh as the limo rolled past at a glacial pace, the headlights killed beneath the bright plaza. The sound lured a few corpses away from their feast, but nowhere was there evidence that anyone remained alive. Even the attendants in the toll booths were dead and banging against the glass, unable to figure out how to get through the half open windows despite that it's how most of them were bitten in the first place when they were rapidly overtaken after a motorcycle wreck that initially resulted in a single death.
Olivia drove to the far left lane, the one with the fewest cars blocking it because there wasn't any route that would allow them to continue. She looked up at Alek with a defeated sigh, knowing they would have to clear the path. She was toying with the idea of taking route 19 all the way home when they noticed something that made the decision for her. There were living people here. They were hidden in cars, and now with hope that the limo and semi might be their rescue, they were starting to pop their heads up.
"Well, fuck," Olivia said, knowing they had no other option even as a small group of walking corpses meandered around the limo, unable to see what was inside the tinted windows.
"You're not thinking of going out there, are you?" Jobe asked.
"What choice do we have?" she countered.
"Maybe we could find a path through the median," he suggested. "Or we could turn around and use another road."
"The only other option is to go back and take Route 19 right through Beckley, which could be crawling with infected. I think this is still the safest route."
"You know what else is going to keep us safe?" Liana asked. "Numbers. The more people we have with us, the more people we can count on to protect us. Look at that bus. If any passengers survived, how many are so far away from home they just need a safe place to go?"
"Yeah, and how many of them are dead and just want to eat us? How many bullets do you have, lady?" Jobe scowled at her.
"Enough that we won't abandon the living if we can save them," Olivia hissed before Liana could respond, then she reached across Alek and opened the glove box to see that there was half a box of bullets for the hand gun. She knew they were set for bullets for the rifles, most of which were stacked up on the floor in the back of the limo, which Liana pointed to, smirking at Jobe as Olivia started barking out orders.
"Alright, we need to load every gun we have. Jobe, you and June can stay in the limo with the girls, and crack the window so you can hand us fresh guns when we need them," she said as Alek rolled his down about half an inch and aimed his rifle at the head of a dead woman standing there. He fired, and down she went.
"Let's get the ones we can from here," he said, and after they all lowered their windows just enough to slip the barrels out, Olivia turned off the engine and put the keys in her pocket. Until now, she had been leaving them in the ignition for the safety of the group, but she had an uneasy feeling this time.
The first shot had drawn more dead, but Alek's plan worked well. Penny and Brittani had terrible aim, so June taught them how to do the reloads, and that became their contribution while the rest fired from the safety of the limo. Through the driver's side window, Olivia could see a group of people heading north fighting the dead with sticks and tire irons as they tried to move vehicles to clear a path, and behind them she could see Jax and Dani climbing on top of the rig with their rifles. While Jax shot at the immediate threat on the southbound side, Dani was helping to cover the group headed north as Ravi shot from the passenger side window.
A small mountain of bodies grew outside the limo, and the dead on the southbound side began to lose interest in the limousine, drawn instead to the food sources they could actually see - the group on the opposite side of the road and the shooters atop the rig, which gave Olivia and Alek the opportunity to try to clear their path ahead. Olivia asked Liana to come with them, and she climbed over the seat into the front so they could all sneak out through one door - less sound, less eye candy for the hungry dead.
"Cover us," Olivia said with a stern look, and June nodded, knowing exactly what she was implying. Olivia didn't trust Jobe, but June didn't believe he was as bad as she thought. He was shell shocked. He had just lost his wife and been told that those crazed people who killed her were actually reanimated corpses. That would make anyone act out of character, and she was certain that he was not the coward Olivia was mistaking him for. Why would a preacher fear death? Heaven sounded like a much better place than Earth, especially now.
After Olivia, Alek, and Liana slipped out the door, they closed it as quietly as possible then hunkered down so the dead wouldn't notice them, and they practically crawled to the front car in the blockade. When they found the four door sedan empty, Olivia put it in neutral, and they went to the second car - a compact convertible where a woman sat motionless in the driver's seat beneath a shredded ragtop. She had so many bites on her, they were sure she was completely dead, but when Alek grabbed her arm to drag her out of the vehicle, her eyes flew open and she groaned, lunging at him. Olivia pulled her back by the hair, holding her while he released the seat belt, then they dragged her to the ground. She was thrashing and fighting against them, but she was much weaker than the others they'd encountered, many of her muscles not even working with so much of their flesh now in the bellies of the dead. As Alek held her face to the pavement, Olivia took out the dull knife from her waistband and shoved it in at the base of the skull, and the struggle was over. Liana knocked the car's stick shift out of gear, and they moved on to the third and last obstacle.
It was a van, and the driver's side was locked.
"Shit!" Olivia hissed, knowing they'd either have to sneak around to the try the other side or break a window. Either way, they would attract attention. The dead man in the nearest toll booth had already become wound up when he noticed them at the convertible, and behind them on the berm, a man and woman sandwiched between two crashed cars were growling and struggling as they reached toward the living. It was the only thing that seemed to excite them, and there was a clear line of sight between the congregation around the rig and limo and the passenger side of the van where the door could easily be locked as well.
"I have an idea," Liana said, and she turned to Alek. "Watch Dani. If you hit the window with the butt of your rifle at the same time she fires, the noi
se of the gunshot might keep their attention away from the sound of breaking glass." He nodded, and with his gun in position, he waited for Dani to fire then brought it down hard. The glass shattered, and as the women looked around, it seemed they had gotten away with it. Alek opened the door, and slipped inside. The plan was for him to use the van to push the two cars out of the way while Olivia and Liana got back in the limo to follow and pick him up on the other side of the toll booth.
But there was a problem.
Cowering in the back of the van were three little girls, their long hair tangled, their eyelashes stuck together with tears. The oldest of them couldn't have been more than nine, but she tried to be brave.
"You better get out of here, mister," she said. "My mommy and daddy will be back in a minute, and he's a policeman."
"Where did your mommy and daddy go, sweetheart?" he asked.
"To see why the cars weren't moving," she said. "They're coming back, so you better go because Daddy has a gun."
But Alek knew they weren't coming back. The man trapped by the wreck that prevented them from using the shoulder to get through was wearing a cop's uniform.
"Was your daddy dressed like a police officer?" he asked, and the little girl nodded. "He had an emergency, and your mommy had to help. They asked us to take you somewhere safe until they come for you." He lied because he didn't know what else to do.
"My daddy would never do that," she said firmly.
"Let me try," Liana suggested, trading places with him and leaning into the van. "I'm going to be honest with you girls. Some really bad things are happening right now, and we're in the middle of it. We could all die if we're not careful, and I know your parents have told you not to trust strangers. They were right about that, but in this situation, you have to just use your best judgment. Do you think I want to hurt you?" The girls shook their heads. "Of course I don't. I want to help you. Now, I need you to be big girls and come with us so we can keep you safe for your mommy and daddy, okay?"