by Misty Vixen
She was...patient. Which was good, given how busy they both were. He thought it helped that it was her bed that he came to almost every night. They’d finished their project last week, building a custom-made bed frame big enough for her and him, (and one or two others), and then they’d spent a few hours breaking it in. He was glad they hadn’t literally broken it, because they had gone pretty rough. Especially when Cait and Ellie had jumped in at one point. And April. And then Ashley, later on. Such a fuck that had been.
They were getting along well, and mainly she seemed to want to just be around him. It didn’t really matter what they were doing, so long as it was together. Consequently, he found himself happily patrolling outside, chopping firewood, making repairs to the cabins, or taking long walks to check out abandoned buildings in her company. Sometimes they had long, pleasant conversations. Sometimes they walked in lengthy bouts of companionable silence. That sense of intimacy, of connection, had only strengthened over the past few weeks.
He and Evelyn set the table, and the four of them began to dish out food for themselves. Feeling the press of time and knowing that he had a lot of walking ahead of him, David didn’t go too heavy on the food. That, and he was actually pretty eager to get going. It had been several days since his last real excursion beyond the fences that surrounded the campgrounds, and surprisingly, he was itching to go out. Plus, he really wanted to know what was so important that Ellie had to tell him, herself, alone. He wasn’t sure whether to be excited or nervous, though from what Evelyn had said, he didn’t think it was anything to get excited for. Like sex.
They all considered sex important, sure, but probably not in the context she had placed it in. Or maybe he was totally off base and it was something sexual? Maybe she wanted to be in a relationship with him? He was even less sure about that one. It seemed more unlikely. This was the problem with having no fucking information. David just made himself relax, eat, and be patient. He’d find out soon enough.
“So what are you guys actually like doing out there that I can’t come too?” Ashley asked eventually.
“David and I have something important to discuss,” Ellie replied.
“Oh really? Is it serious? Are you two serious now? Boyfriend and girlfriend?” Ashley asked, smirking.
“No,” Ellie replied simply. Well, that answered that. Unless she just didn’t want to admit it to Ashley.
“Yeah, I guess he’s got enough of those, huh?” she asked, still with that smirk.
David sighed. Ashley had a habit of teasing him a lot. He glanced at Evelyn. She winked at him and then turned to Ashley. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of saying you’re interested in taking things to the next level with David?”
“What?” she asked, startled, immediately losing her smirk. “No. That’s not-no. I’m happy with the way things are.”
Both Evie and Ellie laughed.
“Not so fun to be on the other end, huh?” David asked.
She sighed heavily. “Whatever. Just don’t take too long fucking out there in the woods. I want another expedition today.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ellie replied, and finished off her meal. She began to say something else and then her gaze jerked to the side, her eyes widening. “There’s a mouse,” she said.
David looked over and saw a little white mouse scurrying across the floor. “Oh, hey! There you are,” he said, and plucked a piece of bacon off his plate. He tossed it onto the floor in the mouse’s path. The mouse hesitated and put its little nose up in the air. It twitched a few times, then it regarded them cautiously for a few seconds, then it began scurrying over to the bacon.
“You know this mouse?” Ellie asked.
“Yes. This is Frostbite. He lives here,” Evelyn replied.
“He showed up last week. Caught him in the pantry, trying to get into our food. Luckily, we’re adamant about sealing it up, so he didn’t get in, but we feed him now,” David said.
“He’s smart. And brave. He’s learned to come ask for food during mealtimes, usually when I’m preparing. I guess he was outside while I was cooking today,” Evelyn murmured.
“So you’ve got a pet now?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. He lives here and we named him and we feed him. Although he seems pretty independent,” David replied.
“Huh. Well, okay then.”
She sat back and crossed her arms, waiting impatiently for David to finish. So he did, tossing what was left of his meal into his mouth. He kissed Evelyn and then when she complained, went for a kiss with Ashley as well. She grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him into a hard, long kiss on the mouth. Before she fully released him, she looked up at him and said, “We haven’t fucked for two days, David. You’d better fix that soon.”
“Uh...yeah, I can do that,” he replied.
She laughed and released him. “Good.”
Ellie was already on her feet. “We should go.”
“All right, let me get my gear,” David replied, and hurried upstairs.
CHAPTER TWO
“Okay,” David said as they struck out away from the campgrounds, “mind telling me what the big secret is now?”
He’d grabbed his gear, which wasn’t too time-consuming, given he’d already been wearing his cold-weather clothes and had his pistol on him. Really, he’d just needed to snag his backpack, which he made sure to pre-load whenever he was finished with it. He always ensured there was a small supply of emergency medical supplies, food, water, and a change of clothes tucked away in the bottom. He’d also grabbed four spare magazines of ammo. He’d been half-tempted to snag the submachine gun he had hidden away in their makeshift armory, but ultimately figured it’d do better at home, just in case anything happened while he was away.
“We need to talk about your plans for the future,” Ellie replied after a moment, as though she had been considering how to word it.
“I mean...okay? Why? Is there something specific you want to talk about?”
Ellie sighed after another few seconds. “David, you and Evelyn, and now Cait, to a certain degree, are responsible for people now. I don’t question your motives. By now, I feel fairly confident that I know you and Evelyn, and that the things you do...you do to help, and for no other reason. And that’s good. That’s great. It’s very rare, and it should be cherished, when people do things like that,” she said.
He noticed she wasn’t looking at him as they walked on, and her tail was twitching intensely. “So what’s the other shoe to this, then?” he asked.
“I’m worried that you don’t appreciate the severity of the task you have decided to tackle, nor the reality of your situation,” she replied, her voice growing firm.
David felt an instinctual response in him, one leaping to his own defense, that he goddamned well knew what he was doing, as did Evelyn, but he kept his mouth shut and waited for that initial fire to pass. Ellie wouldn’t being saying this to his face without a good reason. During their time together, he’d learned that she was blunt, but not cruel, and rarely was she flat out wrong. He thought he had a decent handle on things at the campground, but sometimes he wondered, and he did know he could be doing more.
“Okay,” he said eventually, “elaborate.”
Ellie seemed relieved. “You’ve been doing a good job so far, watching out for people, setting a watch, maintaining the basic supplies, working out a deal with the farmers. It’s good. You’ve been doing great.”
He felt a flash of irritation. “I don’t need my ego stroked, Ellie.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing,” she replied firmly, looking over at him now, staring hard into his eyes.
Now he felt a flash of remorse. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“It’s fine. This isn’t the most fun conversation. I just wanted to let you know that you’re on the right path. You have the right idea. You and Evie both. But I think you aren’t looking far enough into the future, nor are you steeling yourselves enough. When something happens like w
hat happened at River View, I think people typically have one of two responses. They’re terrified it’s going to happen again, or they tell themselves they got through the worst of it and relax. And unfortunately, in the world we live in now, that first response is the healthier one. It pays to be paranoid.”
“So we’re not being paranoid enough?” he asked.
“I think so. Not to mention the fact that more people are going to come, David. A safe place that isn’t run by a fucking asshole and you don’t have to make huge sacrifices for? That’s so rare. People will want to live there with you. Too many, probably. There’s a lot of people scattered across the region, and more could arrive at any moment, given how many people are mobile nowadays. And you would be downright shocked at how fast food goes. Even for the amount of people you have right now. I think you need to be more desperate.”
“Desperate?”
“Yes. You need to be treating your situation more desperately. I think you’re distracted by all the pussy you’re getting, and that you don’t fully appreciate what it means to run a village, and yes, I acknowledge that I’m contributing to the distraction. It’s just...I like you. That’s why I’m telling you all this. For your sake, but also because I am a fan of helping people, and I know that you really do want what’s best for everyone.”
“I like you too, and...this is appreciated,” David murmured.
“Good, I’m glad. And that’s not even the worst part.”
“What is the worst part?” he asked cautiously.
“You have the right idea, going after those thieving assholes, but they aren’t the only ones we’ll have to worry about. I mean, there’s always the threat of more like them showing up, trying to shake us down, or just kill us and take what we’ve got. I’m always paranoid about Stern and his group of military assholes. They aren’t all bad, but...enough of them are that I’m worried. They’ve got access to some serious firepower. Then there’s the fact that there’s so many stalkers. You remember how many nearly ripped us to shreds when we were recovering those solar panels.”
“Yeah...” he whispered. He still had nightmares.
“That amount of stalkers is unheard of, David. I mean, they’re dead now, but that still bugs me, and there’s a lot of stalkers in the region. That could develop into something someday.” She sighed. “And that’s just what we know about. I think you all could afford to be more...aggressive, in your planning and preparation.”
“Aggressive in what way?” he asked.
“Don’t get me wrong. I am in no way suggesting you attack people. But, for example, how much water do you have stored?”
“Maybe twenty gallons,” he replied.
“You could easily have five times that. You should be filling a basement with stored, purified water. This snow isn’t going to last forever, and yeah, we’ve got a river and a lake, but we’ve got no idea what might happen in the future. The point is, we have snow, a lot of snow, right now, and we can one hundred percent for sure melt a shitload of snow and store a shitload of water. I took a peek at your food supply, nowhere near enough. And your firewood is depleted. It should never be depleted. And there’s still holes in your fences.”
He sighed heavily. “I know, I know.”
“These are just examples.”
“So what should I do, then?” he asked. “Go after the thieves now or start hardcore stocking up on shit?”
“Thieves first,” she replied immediately. “If you have something actively threatening you while you’re trying to do something, you always eliminate the threat first, otherwise it just has that many more opportunities to fuck you and your shit up. But I think you should set up some kind of schedule today, get the people there more involved.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Paul wasn’t the only one getting a little antsy about not having enough to do. They were all grateful to have a safe place to lay their heads, but people usually didn’t like to idle for too long.
This would be good for everyone.
“Will you help?” he asked finally.
“Yes,” Ellie replied. “I will help you take down the thieves. Although I’m going to admit, I’m not as good with manual labor.”
“I think eliminating those assholes will be more than sufficient, and I definitely appreciate the assistance.” He frowned. “I still want to get those fuckers. Evie’s leg is doing fine now, but...goddamnit. That was too close.”
“Yeah, I’m with you there.” She pointed. “There’s the building I was talking about. We haven’t been there yet, I think.”
He could just make it out off in the distance, through the trees.
He and the others had been making a slowly widening circle out away from the campgrounds over the past two weeks, when they could get out. Like he and Ashley had done when they’d first had sex. There were a number of abandoned houses, cabins, and other structures littering the land. Though most of them were picked clean by decades of scavengers, some still held the occasional lost treasure or tucked-away cache some unknown person had hidden months or even years ago and never came back for.
They had been adding to their map, marking off structures one by one.
From what he had gathered, there weren’t too many left to search. Which would put them in a tough spot, potentially. A cold wind blew and he shivered as they continued, making their way between the trees and keeping an eye out for hostiles. So far, the zombies hanging around hadn’t taken notice of them, and he’d tended not to fire his gun if he could manage it. Not only did he want to save the bullets, given how hard they were to produce nowadays, but it also paid to be quieter. Although zombies could occasionally be their own resources, given sometimes, and it was rare but it did happen, they died with backpacks or crucial things in their pockets.
Neither spoke as they made their final approach on the building, which turned out to be a simple two-story house. Most of the windows were broken out and the back door was bashed in. The withered remnants of vines crept up across the back of the structure. Inside, he thought he could see something moving, shuffling about. Ellie drew her combat knife, and he did the same. If it was just zombies, they could probably save ammo.
Ellie indicated she wanted to go in first as they approached the back door. He nodded and let her, given she was the more capable and experienced fighter of the two. She stepped up to the door, paused, then slipped inside. He stepped up to the back door and watched as she moved swiftly through a little transition room with three doors. The left door was closed, but the right door was just a doorway that led into the kitchen, same with the one dead ahead, but it led into a hallway. It was dark in the hall. Ellie went into the kitchen and he stepped into the first room, knife ready. A few seconds of silence passed, and then he heard a quiet grunt of exertion, followed by a shallow thump. Then the two noises were repeated. David began to head in after her when he heard a groan.
There was movement from ahead of him, in the darkened hallway. He waited as footsteps started coming his way, and then a zombie appeared in the daylight streaming in from behind him. It was a badly decayed man in ripped, bloodied traveling clothes that were barely hanging on him anymore. His flesh looked loose, like it, too, was barely hanging on him anymore, giving him a sickening look. His eyes were cloudy with blood and vacant. He reached for David with filthy hands and broken fingernails, coming forward and groaning.
David readied himself. He knew how to do this, he’d done it hundreds of times before, but still, each time he had to actually face one of these things, it freaked him out. Not nearly as much as it used to, but still, something about them, several somethings probably, activated the fear center of his brain with a goddamned lightning bolt. As the zombie came up to him, within arm’s length, he drove his blade forward and stabbed the decaying, rotting thing in the eye. The blade punched through, right into its brain, and killed it in an instant.
He yanked the knife back and the body dropped.
That’s when he heard shuffling from beh
ind him and another low groan. Shit, one of them must have been hanging out around the other side of the house. He stepped back, out of the doorway, right next to it, and waited. The footsteps drew closer. Something clattered deeper in the house. A shadow fell across the floor and the awful stench of rotting flesh began to fill the room. The zombie stepped inside and walked past him.
Perfect.
David drove the blade into the base of its skull, severing its brain stem and killing it instantly. He slipped the knife back out as it dropped to join its brother. As that happened, Ellie appeared in the hallway ahead of him.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“We’re clear down here. Let’s head upstairs.”
David nodded and followed after her after poking his head back outside and making sure nothing else was sneaking up on him. He found it hard not to stare at her wonderfully toned ass as she walked up ahead of him. She was right about that: he was getting distracted by sex. But it seemed impossible not to be distracted by it when he was around as many women as he was, all of whom wanted to sleep with him.
He really fucking hoped Ellie was willing to fuck during this trip.
They reached the top of the stairs. Ellie pointed to one door and then headed for another. David went towards the door she’d indicated and opened it open. It creaked in the still quiet and he winced slightly, waiting. The room beyond was lit, at least, with winter sunlight coming in through a dirty window. A bedroom waited for him, a silent testament to whoever had once lived here, everything covered in dust. It looked undisturbed, but David took the time to do a quick hunt in any places something might be hiding.
He cleared it, and another bedroom, and a closet, and Ellie cleared the rest. After that, they headed back downstairs. David opened up the closed door by the back entrance, hoping that it didn’t lead to a basement. Thankfully, it didn’t, just a closet that was almost totally barren. With the house clear, the pair began to move through it, now performing a far more thorough search for supplies. This had become such a common thing in David’s life: picking through the derelict, wrecked remains of the lives of those long gone.