The Deadfall

by Lilly Black

  "God, I needed that," Aiden breathed as Liana lay in his arms beneath the sheets.

  "Me too," she cooed, and he kissed her atop the head. Then she turned and looked up at him. "You didn't have to pull out, you know."

  "No?" he asked. "I didn't want to risk getting you pregnant."

  "I can't get pregnant. Well, at least not for five years. I had a new IUD put in just a few months ago," she said. It was something she kept up to date even without a relationship because it made her periods go away. She had about five years before she was going to have to figure out how to use a menstrual cup like the unfortunate women in the compound who didn't have an IUD.

  "I wish you'd told me. You don't know how hard it was to leave you," he said, gazing into her eyes intently.

  "Next time, you won't have to."

  "Next time, I want so much more," he growled as their lips met, and when he kissed her, he swirled his tongue over the tip of hers, clearly indicating what he wanted next time. Liana shuddered at the delicious thought of Aiden La Croix mouth on her clit, but the reality of her situation quickly overtook the fantasy. She knew it wasn't going to happen.

  "Aiden, there's something I have to tell you," she said, her voice small and apologetic as she pulled away from him. "When I said I didn't want you to touch me below the waist...it wasn't really about me being sweaty."

  "I don't understand."

  "This is going to sound crazy, but I'm really shy about sex," she explained, and he gave her an incredulous look because she had just let him fuck her from behind the first time out of the gate. That didn't seem like a woman who was shy to him. She smiled and sighed. "It's not about everything. I just don't like hands down there."

  "I wasn't offering you my hand," he said, licking his lips, and the sight of it was absolute torture. She swallowed hard before spouting her next, agonizing lie.

  "I don't like that either," she said, hating herself for having to do this, and now she just wanted the conversation to end because she had ruined the moment as she lay in the arms of this gorgeous, sated man.

  "Are you sure?" he asked. "I'm pretty good at it."

  "I'm sure," she said, interpreting his determination as a need for reassurance that her dislike for oral didn't extend to blowjobs. "But that doesn't mean I won't go down on you."

  "Of course it does. If I can't do you, you can't do me. It's only fair."

  "And how long are you going to put up with that?" she asked, irritated by his stubbornness, but instead of arguing, he gave her a long, intense kiss.

  "You'd be surprised at what I'd put up with when the pussy is this good," he whispered, offending and praising her in the same breath. It was a heady mix that set off an unexpected rush of excitement between her thighs. She didn't like it when men used the "P" word, but she found herself surprised by what she'd put up with for Aiden LaCroix. And besides, somehow it sounded sexy coming out of his mouth.

  Day 5

  The fifth day of the apocalypse began with a burial. Randy had died in the night, and when he came back, John, who had been standing watch, put a bullet in his head. As Liana comforted his granddaughters, promising that they would be kept safe by the community, several men carried Randy's body to the other side of the fence to dig a grave while Olivia and June cleaned the blood and brains out of the office.

  "I didn't think that would work anyway," Olivia said as she rolled the bedding into a bundle and placed it outside the door to be taken to the laundry room. The entire compound was run on solar and wind power with its own water filtration system and no reliance on utility companies, which made this mess much easier to clean than it would have been if they were among the millions of people who were without utilities as the grids had gone down all over the country.

  "We don't know that it didn't work," June argued. "He could have developed an infection from John cutting off his leg with an old axe from a woodpile." This seemed more reasonable to her because Randy had developed a fever last night, which she attributed to infection. She gave him some of the antibiotics that were in the Right Way truck, but she surmised that either they weren't the right ones for the bacteria or the dose wasn't strong enough.

  "Should that infection really have killed him so quickly?" Olivia asked. "I give John credit for trying. It would have been great if we could have discovered a way to save people who've been bitten, but honestly, even if he had a sanitized axe in his hand at the very second the bite occurred, I don't see how it could've been fast enough to keep whatever it is that causes this out of the blood stream."

  "Your problem is, you're trying to find the science behind this, and I don't think there is any. It's all a product of the witchcraft we dabbled in, and that transcends science."

  "June, we didn't cause this, okay? If you want to believe the spell worked to bring us together with the guys, then fine, knock yourself out, but we didn't do anything to raise the dead."

  "Didn't we? By turning to the witch, we turned away from God and set these wheels in motion. It was an egregious sin, Olivia, and this is our punishment," she said doggedly.

  "Jesus Christ, Tituba! Did I sleep through the part where we danced with the devil and wrote our names in his book?"

  "I just think if everyone in the community worked together to help us atone for our mistake..."

  "There is absolutely no way I'm going to tell the entire camp that this is all happening because God is pissed off that we played a game with a gypsy so Dani could get laid after her divorce. Do you realize how asinine that sounds?"

  "Sure, if you put it that way."

  "It sounds pretty, damn asinine your way too," Olivia said with a roll of her eyes.

  "How can you be so arrogant to think you're somehow above divine punishment?" June indicted her.

  "If this is divine punishment, it's not meant for us, June. You didn't see how many corpses there were at the gun shop yesterday, and that's just a drop in the bucket at some random, little town in the middle of nowhere. I can't imagine what it must be like in the cities. Do you really think the creator of the universe would destroy the entire human race just to teach you a lesson?"

  "I have a close, personal relationship with God," was June's canned answer, and even though Olivia knew she was talking to a brick wall, she couldn't stop herself.

  "You know what I find hilarious? You go on and on about how arrogant everyone else is. Scientists are arrogant. Atheists are arrogant. But the truth is that you're the most arrogant motherfucker I've ever known if you honestly believe that you're individually that much more important than the other seven billion souls who once lived on this planet! What about all the other people from your church? What about their close, personal relationship with God?"

  "Not everybody who calls themselves godly really is," June snapped back at her with an accusatory glare.

  "You don't say," Olivia hissed, then she had to walk away before something really nasty came out of her mouth. She didn't understand June, and she never would because they had grown into polar opposites. With age, Olivia had become certain that she wasn't an authority on anything, and June seemed to think she was an authority on the one thing that trumped everything. What Olivia didn't realize was how uncertain June really was. The only thing she was sure of in this world was that she was probably going to die, and she was terrified of going to Hell for starting the apocalypse.

  June's Journal

  Day 5

  When Dani gave this thing back to me, I probably should have just burned it. I was embarrassed that I wrote it in the first place and embarrassed for Dani to read it because she was going to find just what Olivia said she'd find. But there's a reason for that. There are a couple of them actually. For one thing, my husband is a selfish man. I don't think it's his fault. I don't think he knows any better. I have a background outside of the closed-off world my parents took me and my brother into when our old church became too progressive. My husband spent his entire life sheltered.

  When I met Jimbo in college, he'd neve
r even been kissed. I pretended I hadn't either because I didn't want him to think I was a slut. I'd done things when I was younger but not too much. Most of my experience came from playing husband and wife with Olivia, Liana, and Dani when we were kids. I was still allowed to hang out with them even after my parents moved me to our church's school in the seventh grade, but they had become interested in real boys and didn't want to practice kissing or anything else anymore. Then came high school, and they started having s-e-x. I remember listening to them talk about it, and I was jealous, but I kept telling myself at least I had something they didn't. I had my virtue.

  I was still a virgin on my wedding night, and so was Jimbo. I figured that's why I wasn't experiencing what the girls always talked about, but it also scared me because I had always been taught that if I was a good girl, married relations would be amazing. It was a confusing time for me, and I didn't have anyone to talk to. I couldn't admit that I wasn't enjoying it to any of my church friends because they'd say it was my fault, and I couldn't admit it to my old friends because they'd never understand. I just kept thinking about how they said things got better with their boyfriends as they learned more about each other, so for a while, I was still hopeful. But it never got any better with Jimbo. All we ever did was straight, missionary position lovemaking anyway because that's all we were supposed to do, and even if I didn't enjoy it, it was my duty as a wife to endure it when he wanted it because men have biological needs that women don't experience. It's not like it took all that long anyway, so I usually just held still and let him do what he wanted.

  The fact that Jimbo couldn't please me wasn't what made me stop loving him. I could have easily gone the rest of my life without good s-e-x. I loved my children. I had a lot of close friends. I had a good life...as long as Jimbo wasn't around. When he was around, that whole "submitting to your husband whenever he wanted it" thing had gotten out of control. If I had been honest in this diary before, I would have mentioned that all that "lovemaking" I talked about wasn't lovemaking at all. Most of the time, I wasn't even a willing participant.

  It all started one night when I told Jimbo no. I had a headache. It was a real headache - a bad one, like a migraine, and it had taken every last bit of energy in me just to get the boys fed and tucked in, but my husband didn't care. When I told him no, he threw me down on the bed and had s-e-x with me anyway. He must have really liked that because a pattern developed - a pattern of him just taking what he wanted. I could be washing dishes, and he would walk into the kitchen, grab me by the arm, drag me into the bedroom, and use my body. Sometimes, he would just push me down on the kitchen floor and do it right there where the kids could come in and see, and sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night and find him on top of me.

  It got to the point that he was doing it as many as five times a day, and he didn't care if I was ready for it. He would just cram it into me, and sometimes it hurt. I cried once when I was so dry he broke the skin, but he just held a pillow over my head, pressing down so hard, I couldn't breathe. And one time he didn't like the look on my face while he was on top of me, and he pulled my hair on both sides of my head so hard trying to force me to smile that some of it came out by the roots. He didn't care. He didn't care if I was bleeding. He didn't care if I had an infection. He didn't even care that the doctors said it wasn't safe for me to have sex until six weeks after giving birth. He let me wait four after Noah was born. By the time Elijah came around, he gave me five days. He was just sticking it in a swollen, bloody mess, but he did it anyway.

  I cannot even begin to express how relieved I was when I couldn't get back to him after we went to Pittsburgh, especially when I couldn't get a hold of him by phone. I didn't realize how bad this was going to be at first, and I expected that when I finally did make it home, things were going to get ugly, but at least for a little while I'd be free.

  I couldn't believe he let me come here in the first place, but I did do a very crafty job when making the arrangements. We planned it on the same weekend that he was hosting a retreat with our church so he wouldn't be able to get out of it, then I told him Liana was getting married and asked me to be a bridesmaid. I still didn't think he'd go for it, but by some miracle, he did. Of course, I had to lie to the kids, which I hated. I suspected that Noah knew something was up, but if he did, he didn't say anything to me about it. He's such a good kid. At least my prayers have been answered when it comes to my boys. I used to pray every day that they didn't grow up to be like their father. The best thing for them would have been to get them away from him, but I knew if I tried to leave Jimbo, the entire community would rally around him and I'd lose those boys.

  Now I just hope Jimbo's dead.

  I know that sounds awful, but when I heard Dani tell the gypsy that the men we loved couldn't die, it made me smile inside. I haven't loved Jimbo in a long, long time, and since I had already set the condition that anything I did with Jobe would not be cheating, I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if Jimbo just died? He isn't a godly man anyway. He can't possibly be.

  Then there's Jobe. I know the others don't think too highly of him, but they don't know anything about him. I've watched his ministry for ten years, and I know he's a good man. I didn't pick him because I really wanted to be with him. I don't have fantasies about him or anything. I don't have those kind of fantasies at all. I just thought he'd be safe. He'd respect me, and he seems like the kind of man who would want me to be pleased if we did make love.

  I can't do it though. I don't know that Jimbo's dead, and as long as he's alive, I'm a married woman. Jobe says he understands, but I know his biological needs are making it hard on him. I have to be careful around him. I watch how I dress so as not to tempt him even though it's hard to do since we're all borrowing clothes from Olivia. Thank God it's fall because all of her shorts are way too short, and her summer blouses show too much skin. The same is true of the clothing her daughter and the other girls wear. I see how the boys look at them, and well, it makes me glad I have sons and not daughters. Olivia doesn't seem to notice, but I know if I open my mouth, she'll say the same thing she always says. Shut the f-u-c-k up, June.

  I pray for her soul.

  Day 12

  While continuing to loot the surrounding area for stone to add to their wall, back at the compound, every day they worked on digging a deep trench around the five acre inner ring on the other side of the chain link fence. They were building the stone wall inside the fence, but since the community was growing as the teams they sent out found other survivors in need of a safe place, the lodge had become too full. Now the trench was finally complete, and they felt safe assigning cabins. June and Jobe were given the largest so they could keep her four boys with them and give her a separate bed from Jobe since she, as a married woman, was more afraid of Hell than cannibal corpses. Though Olivia considered it a waste of available space, she had learned to pick her battles with June, and at the moment, while she was handing out the keys to the cabins, it was more important for her to put her foot down on a different issue.

  "Jobe just wants a place to minister to the group and comfort people," June pleaded her case as she tried to persuade Olivia to let her and Jobe start a church inside the compound.

  "I don't think that's a good idea right now," Olivia said.

  "What's so wrong with it?"

  "What's wrong with it is that we need every able body working for our protection," Olivia said because right now they didn't need a preacher. They needed him to roll up his sleeves and help build the wall.

  "He can do it in the evenings after the work is finished," June argued.

  "No," Olivia said flatly, then she sighed, compelled to clarify her position. "Look, June, we're a small community, and we all depend on each other for survival. We can't start a club that automatically excludes some of our people."

  "So you're going to deny a church to forty people for one Muslim?" June demanded, referring to Ravi. It infuriated Olivia, but she refused to set her straigh
t. June's opinion of Ravi needed to change because he was a good person not because she learned he practiced a different religion than the one she misguidedly considered inherently evil.

  "It's not about Muslims, June. Do you know what everyone's religion is? Liana is Catholic. You know that. And the little girls from the toll plaza? The oldest told me their parents weren't raising them in any particular religion so they could make their own decisions when they were old enough. Do we have the right to change that when we know their parents' wishes? Then there's John and his family. They're agnostic, and Penny is a Wiccan. I know your heart's in the right place, but at this early stage, we can't focus on anything that divides us. Surely you can understand that."

  "I understand, alright. It's religious persecution!" June charged, and Olivia groaned as her palm met her forehead, slowly dragging its way down her face.

  "No, June. What you're asking for is called preferential treatment," she explained. "My decision is to treat everyone with the same consideration. It doesn't matter if 99.9% of us worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The one guy standing there without a colander on his head still deserves to feel like he belongs here just as much as anyone else."

  June narrowed her eyes at Olivia. "May God have mercy on your soul, Olivia Anders," she snapped, grabbing her key off the counter and storming out the door.

  "R'amen!" Olivia called after her in frustration. There was no way she was ever going to place June in any position of religious authority because she was terrified of June's convoluted ideas about sex seeping into Savannah's consciousness. June was a victim of purity culture, and Olivia found it repugnant that girls raised like her ended up tying their entire self worth to their virginity. She wanted her daughter to have sex. Not today; she was only fourteen, but when she was emotionally ready to handle it, Olivia wanted her to experiment, to find out what she liked and what she didn't, so someday when she was ready to settle down and get married, she'd know if she and her future husband were compatible before committing to each other for a lifetime. She wanted Savannah to have a marriage like hers and Reid's...or at least like it was before they got separated by a hundred miles of hungry corpses.