by Erin R Flynn
And then we found cherry and apricot trees.
“Rhubarb makes a good barbeque sauce,” Jaxon told me as he brought some over.
“We don’t have that much room,” Darius reminded us.
“Yeah, but this is worth coming back for, and we’re already picking,” I argued.
“Right, or we could find another farm closer to Knoxville,” he countered.
Fair enough, but it really didn’t take us long to fill the back of the golf cart. We headed back to the van and with a bit of work and maneuvering, we were able to get it all to fit with the trailer that we hadn’t fully filled. Plus, we were going to upgrade.
Once back on the road, we were happily snacking on apples.
Not five minutes later we saw a sign for another farm from the expressway. I told Darius he was right, and he just shrugged, not someone who would make that a thing. I appreciated it, but I could also admit when I didn’t know as much as someone or they were right.
“Let’s try for an area with a lot of vehicles to find a GPS—”
“Wait, could being in a hot car in summer melt those?” I cut in, both of them groaning. “So like a Best Buy where they weren’t in the sun? They should give us something even if they’d want updates?”
Even better, we found a Walmart Supercenter with a few that had been opened and updated and were the display ones, so we grabbed them all. Except I’d never used one, so I handed them to Jaxon after I got them all going. I had no doubt I could figure them out, but might as well be efficient, and I could learn from watching him use them.
We’d seen the signs for the Walmart Supercenter from the expressway, but the area with the dealerships was on the other side of the city.
“Wait, do we want dealerships?” I interjected. “I lucked out finding this electric van that way, and yeah, the electric UPS truck was there but not on the lot for sale. It was parked in front like it was abandoned during whatever.”
“She’s right, we should be looking for truck depots, shipping stations, or like freight lines,” Jaxon agreed. “Or maybe we should check Nashville. Wasn’t that a huge shipping hub?”
Darius gave me a worried look. “That’s not the direct route to Fort Knox and past it even to go north. Will you be okay?”
“Wait, why wouldn’t she be?” Jaxon asked.
“Yes, I’ll be fine as we’re still heading there,” I answered Darius first before Jaxon. “I get ill if I skip a location I’m supposed to go to. It’s like a stomach ache I get with cramps but sort of like a feeling of wrongness.” I shrugged, not sure how else to explain it. “It gets better when I circle back, but yeah, there’s definitely like an order to them.”
They were still debating the best plan as we drove along the highway, able to easily travel until we got nearer to a city where cars would be all over from when traffic had died or people fleeing when the problems had started. Raleigh had a lot pushed or plowed off the roads, but that wasn’t everywhere.
And then there were the places that had been bombed, and vehicles all over was the last of their problems.
“Wait, stop,” I called out, wincing when Darius immediately slammed on the brakes, Jaxon’s quick reflexes keeping me to him and not getting hurt. “Sorry, shouldn’t have yelled.”
“Are you okay?” Darius worried.
“Yeah, um, I think I’m really going to get shot or chomped on today.” I pointed out the window past him to what had startled me.
Namely the electric semi that was on the other side of the highway.
“Okay, we need to find you a tactical vest,” Jaxon muttered. “Shit, the Goddess must really like your plan or something, Inez.”
“Yeah, but you know how it is that once you’re looking for something you see them everywhere,” Darius argued, not sounding all that convincing.
“Yeah, after you don’t need it anymore,” I drawled. “We still wanted it.”
“They did start making more and rolling them out the year it all started,” he defended. “But I agree on getting you the tactical vest or we should really put down a lot of corrupted to balance this one out.”
“Maybe it won’t work?” Jaxon offered.
“Wait, we’re hoping it won’t now?” I chuckled, realizing how far we were going into the crazy. I burst out laughing. “Do any of us know how to drive a semi? Did we skip that because it really shouldn’t be me. I’ve crashed too many vehicles to get in one that can do so much damage.”
“I can drive one,” Jaxon promised, Darius nodding as well. “Goof.” He looked up towards the sky. “Should we keep making requests?”
“We still want the freezer trailer, and I was thinking one of those charging trucks I saw in the UK if we can,” I joked.
“That’s a great idea,” Jaxon agreed. “I was thinking we find some solar panels and affix them to the roofs and our story is I’m an engineer who was able to find some work arounds.”
“I like it,” Darius complimented, smiling at us. “We really do make a good team.”
“Yeah, we do,” I agreed, Jaxon nodding as well.
We were all smiles as we drove over to the other side of the expressway and checked out our find. The trailer was in great condition, and it was already empty so nothing rotted in it. Really it was an awesome find.
That I couldn’t charge up. I’d never tried for something as big as a semi, and I’d charged up the van and other stuff recently.
“I think I now know how men who can’t perform in the moment feel,” I muttered as I thunked my forehead against the side of the semi. “Crap, I have one job—”
“You have a lot more than one job,” Darius chastised from behind me, hugging me tightly. “You can do it, you just need our help. Let me feed you, Inez.”
I shivered, thinking of how good that would feel and what would come after.
“Let us feed you,” Jaxon added, turning us so I was sandwiched between them.
I pulled away, shaking my head. “Wait, we’re not having—we can’t just have sex all the time.”
“Why not?” Darius chuckled, giving me a wink. “It’s the apocalypse, Inez. Fuck it. Let’s have sex all over the place as we survive.”
Well, when he put it like that…
“We also want to push you,” Jaxon explained. He nodded towards the truck. “We don’t need the truck. Yes, it would be cool, but we’re already doing pretty damn good. We don’t need it.”
“We want your power to grow,” Darius elaborated. “Think of it like a baby just starting out to feed. They need a lot of little bottles and they grow, learn, and get stronger. You’re in the baby stage and need sips and to grow in this area. Control will come. It won’t always be crazy and desperate for having sex.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Unless you want to.”
I realized there was something under their teasing and gentle way of handling this, glancing between them. “You’re scared people will come for me.”
“Yeah, we are,” Jaxon confessed after a few moments. “Not just vampires who would want your power, humans and everyone would want what you can do to survive the post-apocalyptic world.”
“Wait, are we post apocalypse or in it?” I wondered, frowning. “Or is this dystopian now?” They both gave me amused looks, and I batted away the thoughts. “Not the point, whatever. Just didn’t know when the line of the disaster and after the disaster is, as there’s still corrupted.”
Darius cleared his throat. “You also have to think of what you are in terms of like those Bible thumpers clinging to their end of days doctrine and how strongly they react to any not with them.” He waited until I nodded, having seen a few hangings and craziness over the years when people saw signs of the devil or whatever. “A new house, a house of Aether maybe, would freak a lot out.”
“And what people can’t control, they tend to hunt,” Jaxon murmured. “We want you stronger so you’re safe, Inez. We will do whatever we have to to protect you, but you didn’t get the normal baby steps time. We need some leaps
and to push you. The better your control, the faster you get control, the more together you will seem, and you can present that front no matter what’s really going on.”
“Fake it till you make it,” I accepted, having heard that before as how some kept moving like we’d survive. Keep going as if we would and one day, maybe we just would. “Okay.” Then I waved my hands in front of me, realizing something else. “Wait, don’t you guys need to feed? If I keep having blood from you… In vampire fiction they’re always exchanging blood, which never seems to add up.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t, and that’s some creative licenses,” Darius chuckled. “We as nobles don’t need all that much blood really. We eat a ton more and get a lot more from the food we eat, but not as much blood. A couple of pints a month, more if we’re injured, but we store the rest somehow.”
“We store it all for our princess,” Jaxon took over. “Yes, we need fresh blood if injured, as we use what’s in it, but when our bodies process and compact it for you, we can’t access that. We’ve been drinking all these years for you, Inez, for when we found the princess we knew was the right one to serve.”
“No one else, never?” I whispered, giving them wide eyes as I thought about how long they’d lived.
Jaxon shrugged. “I fed my sister after the coven took damage, as she lost a few of her nobles and was a bit adrift, knew she could trust me, but no one other than that.”
“I’ve fed family as well but not much,” Darius echoed. “And I’ve not only fed when I needed to.” He sighed, scratching his cheek. “We’re sort of wired to be the law, the word of our princess and coven’s morality. It’s not compulsion, but like those humans I found, it was the right thing to do to suck them dry. That’s how we feel, what we’re pulled to do when we find people committing heinous crimes.”
“And we’ve found a lot over our hundreds of years,” Jaxon chuckled. “We’ll still feed, but I promise you, it will take a while until you could take all we’ve stored up. If we find one of those lawless camps of thugs and animals, we’ll drink them all down, knowing that blood will be for you, our princess.”
Fuck flowers, that sounded sort of awesome. Not that they had no problem killing, but I saw it in their eyes that they also liked making the world safer because that meant safer for me. And I didn’t think the lines were blurry as yeah, people who held women captive and forced them to be sex slaves while pretending to be religious should die. It wasn’t someone swiping food or even getting into a fight.
“Let us feed you, My Princess,” Darius whispered, snapping me out of my thoughts. He moved his arms around me and another hand slipped into the back of my pants, pushing them slightly off my hips.
“Let us please you,” Jaxon murmured from behind me, kissing my neck.
“Okay, but wait, we should try something first,” I muttered, thinking of what they’d said. “If I need control, then we should test ideas and how this works, push like you said.”
“What are you thinking?” Jaxon asked as his hands massaged my ass. “Take blood and try the semi before you get all hot inside?”
“Yes, like if I let the itchy feeling out and that charge, am I in better control of the rest.”
“That’s smart,” Darius agreed.
“Fine, but I’m still touching your pert little ass,” Jaxon grumbled as he pulled his hands away from me.
Okay then.
He bit into his wrist and held it to my face, moaning as I latched onto him and drank his blood. I still felt squeamish about doing it, wanting it so much, but nothing would be worse than wasting it when it was so good and power packed.
“Do you want more?” Darius asked when the wound closed. He shook his head when I opened my mouth. “It’s not being greedy or—listen to your body. You said before you felt full, you need to like expand your ability to drink like a baby grows in how much they can eat.”
That made sense, but was also seriously messed up. I thought about it as the burning started, the itching feeling, and nodded. Yeah, I wanted more.
“Then more our princess shall have,” Jaxon moaned, biting his wrist again. “Think of when you feel full, Inez. Pay attention. Just as Aether guides you as you need, your power will guide you in this.”
I nodded as I drank, sticking my tongue in the wound so it didn’t close up as fast. When I started to feel full, I licked the bite so I didn’t waste blood, and it closed right up. I turned and put my hand on the input plug and let out the charge, whatever power this was knowing the limit or how to let it out so I didn’t fry anything. I’d never so much as blown out a flashlight as my body became in tune with what I was charging.
“How do you feel?” Darius checked when I was done, leaning against the semi and panting.
I opened my mouth to tell him I was a bit wiped but fine, except the fire roared inside of me from nil to surface of the sun hot. I pushed off the truck and jumped at him, wrapping myself around his strong body as he easily caught me. Kissing him became more important than air, his hands on my body giving me everything in that moment.
They moved fast, turned on as well, and I blinked and I was naked, their hands all over me. Darius turned me so I was facing Jaxon, his lips finding mine instantly. I slid my hand in his pants and touched him, giving him a hand job as we made out while Darius pushed his thick dick in me. And right there on the side of the desolate highway we did what we would have been arrested for years ago.
So, yeah, there were some perks to living in the apocalypse. Post-apocalypse? Maybe I would think it was post once I’d survived long enough to move on from it, find a home, and rebuild. That sounded fair.
13
They were a lot more afraid for my safety than they were letting on, as the first thing they wanted to do was raid police stations and fill the trailer with as many weapons and ammunition as we could. I gave them a pointed look, and Jaxon shrugged.
“More in our hands also means less in the hands of people who won’t be our friends,” he explained. “Now we can think and plot ahead, so yeah, let’s be smart.”
Darius agreed, and they even took plotting a step further and used their crazy speed to scout the city while the other helped me loot. Jaxon had found a hardcover notebook and was jotting down what he found.
“So your opinion?” Darius asked as we sat down for lunch.
“Not a lot of manufacturing, so not much we should load up and keep safe,” he answered. “There’s a lot of shopping, so clothes and whatnot, but there might be other places. We know it’s in good condition here, and I’ve listed places to hit if we come back with help or to send help later, but I think it’s not worth the time now until we have more settled.”
It sounded like a lot of planning for a possible future, but I realized they both needed it. They’d lived hundreds of years, and this was unlike anything they’d seen, so that seemed to make it harder for them. Maybe? Either way, it wasn’t like it was slowing us down when they were so fast.
They were also smart as to where we hid what we’d want later. They loaded a whole other trailer of weapons, and we stashed it at a pool supply company and warehouse. Yeah, I didn’t think many people would think to look there or make searching there a priority. But we marked the trailer, and Jaxon logged what was inside of it along with the GPS coordinates of where it was.
To make up for the weapons we were hiding, we also did a lot of clearing of corrupted. Darius actually helped me up onto one of the trailers, and I was using the rifle to snipe into buildings for any I found to give the others someone to chomp on later.
Or bring them all out because if I shot one, not long later every corrupted in the building would be on them, since it wasn’t in the sun and they could move then. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and there would be a lot of ghosts tomorrow for sure.
And a lot of ghosts that day, so I wasn’t just sitting around and doing nothing while they worked hard. Not at all. They did work well together, lifting up the large shipping crates into the trailer. We�
�d found a huge stash of them at a truck depot that Jaxon also marked down.
But with their speed and now good plotting with the GPS navigators, we managed to clean out what was left and usable in all the police stations, gun stores, sporting goods, and more. The best stuff they loaded in our trailer—taking up about ten feet of the back of it—and the rest went in the two trailers we hid. Wow, the people of Tennessee liked their guns.
And we found a freezer trailer. I came up with the idea we should actually stop for the night at one of the farms north of the city and we could start doing better prep. I shrugged when they gave me confused looks. “We can get more meat, now we’ve got veggies and a way to freeze it. We could make huge bags of meals we just have to cook when we camp.”
“Shit, yeah, that would be awesome,” Darius agreed. “Sugar doesn’t go bad, but if we get more honey, we could cook some jams. Even those lame toaster pastries would be better with jam.”
Which was how we raided another grocery store for what we needed and significantly upgraded our grill and smoker along with everything cooking. We found freezer bags galore and one of those vacuum sealers since we had the electricity.
And not just from me. They’d found solar panels for the trailer and lots we would have to set up later, plus more large electric batteries to store it up given I could fix it.
“I still really like the jerky,” I promised Jaxon as we plotted for bigger and better meals.
“I still think you’re sweeter than the honey I used to marinade it.”
They really liked making me blush.
We actually found a bee and honey farm not far out of the city that had stores of what we needed and a lot of veggies. Jaxon didn’t like it for staying for the night, as it was too close to the city, even if the lake was great and there was a forest full of animals.
“As soon as you feel them, I’ll hop up on the trailer and sniper only, I promise,” I offered. “I don’t want to get chomped either. I’ve never been stupid about my safety.”
“Fine, we got you the vest,” he grumbled when Darius agreed that would make them happy.