by Misty Vixen
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Takes more than a few bullets to immobilize my big ass,” Vanessa replied. “Come on, Jen.”
A moment later, the front door opened, and David winced. She’d been shot in the leg, the shoulder, and it looked like a bullet had grazed her stomach. Jennifer came out behind her, looking a little shaken, but otherwise all right.
“Come on,” Vanessa growled, and hurried off, still toting her huge weapon. They all began making their way back to camp.
“You’re okay?” Jennifer asked.
“Yeah, we made it through without a problem. You?” David replied.
“I’m good,” Jennifer said. “But Vanessa...”
“I’m fine. Seriously,” Vanessa grunted.
“She’s a fucking force of nature,” Jennifer muttered.
“Goddamn right,” Vanessa replied.
Something groaned from up ahead, and a dark figure stumbled onto the path. David could see the camp ahead of them. He cursed, raised his pistol, and fired. The zombie dropped. A few seconds later, another figure appeared near one of the buildings.
“Identify yourself!” it demanded. David sighed in relief: it was Lara.
“It’s us,” he said. “We found Vanessa and Jennifer.”
“Shit, thank God,” Lara replied, lowering her weapon. She grimaced as they came up to her. “You’re hit.”
“I’m fine,” Vanessa repeated. “We need to fortify this location.”
“Yes,” David agreed. “Lara, I’m giving you a special job. Come with me. Everyone else, get ready.”
They all replied quickly and got to work, and Lara followed him across the camp. “We’ve got two survivors here. They’re scared, but I managed to convince them to let us help. I want you to get in there and make sure nothing happens to them.”
“Understood,” Lara replied, and he was kind of surprised she didn’t argue with him or at least suggest something else, since he was basically giving her a babysitting job. He thought it might be because she was ex-military, but...no. They only respected actual, real chain of command, and there was no way she would ever confuse him with a member of the military. Either way, it was helpful. He walked over to the cabin in question and knocked on the door.
“It’s me, David,” he said, then paused. “Uh, I just realized that I never told you my name, but hopefully you remember my voice. Can you open up?”
There was a pause. “Go to the window,” came the reply through the door.
He and Lara moved over to the window. The pale, haggard face of the knife-wielding woman appeared. She scrutinized the two of them, then nodded and moved back over to the door. They followed, and she opened up.
“This is Lara, she’s with us. She’s going to protect you. Zombies are coming, and probably stalkers. Once we regroup and wipe out any undead that show up, we’ll raid this place for supplies. If you could help us find any hidden caches or point us to the most useful stuff, that would be extremely appreciated. From there, we’ll take you to get checked out by some doctors, and then we’ll get you back to our home,” David said.
The woman stared at him for a few seconds, suspicion obvious on her face. “What do you want in return?” she asked finally.
“What?” he replied, glancing back over his shoulder as he heard another gunshot.
“As payment,” she said, sounding irritated.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing. At all. You’re fucking bullshitting me,” she growled.
“No, we’re not,” Lara said. “I need to come in now.”
“Fine,” she said, and stepped back, making room.
“I’ll keep this building secure,” she said. David nodded tightly and she closed and locked the door once more. He rejoined Evelyn and the others. They were searching bodies, grabbing whatever ammo they could. David checked his. He’d burned through two magazines for the rifle, so not too bad. So far, at least. All around him, he could hear groaning, and suddenly wondered if the assault had been the easy part.
They all tensed as they heard footfalls, drawing closer.
“Who’s there?!” Vanessa snapped.
“It’s us!” Cait said. “We’re coming in.”
Cait, Ruby, and Ellie emerged a moment later from between two of the shacks. Ruby was limping and had a hand thrown over her shoulder, though her face was calm. He saw a bandage wrapped tightly around her right thigh. It was bloody.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Some fucking bodyguard I turned out to be,” Cait muttered.
“They were stray bullets, there was nothing you could have done,” Ruby replied. To David, she said, “I was hit twice, but the bullets went through cleanly and no major arteries were hit. I’ll be fine. I have a high pain threshold. Is that building secure?” she asked, pointing to the hunting lodge.
“Last I checked, but that could have changed by now,” he replied.
“I intend to go up into the second story and provide cover fire,” she said.
“Fine. Cait, go with her,” David replied.
“On it,” Cait said, and they headed off towards the central structure.
“What’s it like out there?” David asked, looking at Ellie.
“Not good. It’s hard to tell, but there’s at least a shitload of zombies coming in, and a lot of stalkers, I think. And-” She froze as something rustled nearby. “Fuck, get ready!” she snapped.
A second later, a stalker burst from between two of the buildings and came shrieking for them. Ellie snapped off a shot, taking it right between the eyes. A general roar went up, seemingly all around them, and then the battle recommenced.
It was chaos.
Stalkers seemed to come from everywhere, in between every building, over the buildings, from every shadow. There were a dozen of them, two dozen. David immediately opened fire, spraying a trio of them as they approached, careful to remember where the shack containing Lara and the two survivors was. He put the stalkers down, shifted aim, shot another three times in the chest, then aimed higher and popped two zombie skulls as they began stumbling out of the forest towards the encampment.
This was looking bad.
Didn’t matter. They only had a single choice and that was fucking fight for their lives. David emptied his assault rifle putting down another half dozen zombies and a pair of stalkers. He quickly reloaded and kept firing. Overhead, he heard two guns going off: Ruby’s rifle and, presumably, Cait’s pistol. Beside and behind him, Evelyn, Vanessa, Jennifer, and Ellie opened fire with everything they had. Bullets flew, undead bodies fell, blood splashed onto the buildings and the ground and pretty much everywhere.
David didn’t know how long he spent mowing down zombies and stalkers as they popped up, but it felt like way, way too long. He soon ran out of ammo for his assault rifle and dropped it almost without thinking about it. In one smooth motion he pulled out his pistol and resumed fire. Despite everything, all his fears and anxiety, he felt clear and smooth and so in the moment. During that battle, he actually felt the weeks, months, and years of practice he’d had at surviving and fighting and shooting undead monsters.
He wouldn’t say he felt good, but he felt competent and alive and fucking wired, and that was pretty close to good.
Though he faltered as he reached for what he realized was his last magazine and slipped it into the pistol. How many of these fucking things were there?! There were so many bodies. He’d probably killed three dozen so far, and who knew how many the others had killed. More zombies were coming, at least they were easy to deal with. He raised his pistol once more and opened fire. One down, two down, three, four…
Five. And then he didn’t see any more.
David waited, and listened as the others slowly stopped firing, and a long silence settled over the hunting lodge encampment.
After a solid minute, Jennifer said, “Is it over?”
“I think so,” Ellie muttered. She let out a long sigh. “Or at least it’s the eye of the storm. Come on, people! Let’s gr
ab what we can while we’ve got this chance!”
David took several deep breaths and let them out, trembling now as the adrenaline high passed, and watched his breath foam on the air.
Then he got to work.
EPILOGUE
David sat in an armchair on the ground floor of the main office and felt content.
And fucking exhausted.
They’d done it. They’d actually managed to pull it off. He drained the rest of his water and watched everyone in the room and thought back. It was hard to believe it had been just three hours since finishing off the last of the zombies. It felt like three fucking days given all they’d had to do. Fifteen minutes was all they had been willing to spare gathering supplies from the hunting grounds. The two women who they’d found and had agreed to help, Chloe and Lena, were very helpful, and pointed them towards a large stash of food and another stash of guns and ammo. They also agreed to carry their own load. And so they’d gathered.
After packing as much as they could, they’d finally decided to get out of there after having to kill first the occasional stray zombie, then a stalker, then several zombies that showed up in a group. They booked it out of the hunting grounds and began making their way back to the hospital. The trek seemed to take forever, partially because they had wounded, partially because they kept running into zombies and the occasionally stalker. But they did make it back, and the doctors were ready for them, and they immediately set to work patching up Ruby and Vanessa. They checked over the others, and patched up a few scrapes and cuts, and took a look at David’s shoulder. In all the chaos, his wound had reopened and he’d bled a fair amount.
Vanessa had told them she’d catch up with them later, after she had a few days to rest, and Ruby opted to spend the night at the hospital. They agreed to let each woman keep the haul she’d gathered as payment for helping out, and then the rest of them had thanked them once more, bid them goodnight, and headed off again.
The walk back to the campgrounds seemed to take even longer. Everyone was tense, afraid of some new threat that might attack them now that they were so close to home. Like tripping at the finish line. But no, they made it to the finish line and beyond. As they drew closer, Chloe and Lena spoke a little with Cait and Evelyn. Mainly they asked questions about where they were going. They seemed to relax bit by bit as they drew closer to the campgrounds. When they had finally returned, he found Ashley waiting for him with a shotgun by the front entrance. The look of relief and happiness on her face was more than a wonderful welcome home. She had hugged and kissed him, then Cait, then Evelyn and Ellie.
From there, they had dropped everything off upstairs to be sorted out later and let everyone know that everything was okay, it had gone about as well as could be expected. And, naturally, Ashley suggested they have a party.
So they’d thrown a party.
Booze was broken out, big meals were cooked, and people had been coming and going all night long. David had talked with just about everyone and eventually he’d become so exhausted that he needed to just sit down and re-hydrate.
Jennifer and Lara had opted to at least spend the night, because trying to go home in the middle of the frozen night after all this was something neither of them wanted to do. And they seemed to be mixing and mingling pretty well. Some people seemed a little wary of Jennifer, but no one was rude to her, as far as he’d been able to tell. Lara had come to talk to him for almost forty minutes, mostly asking him about himself. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was enamored with him, but that seemed unlikely. She had to be a good decade older than him, plus she was ex-military with no doubt very high standards.
Then again, maybe he was wrong.
Right now, he looked out across the group of people hanging out in the main room of the ground floor, and he spied Lara talking with Cait. They were having what appeared to be a rather serious discussion. Cait asked Lara a question, he thought. Lara shook her head firmly, like she was very certain of her answer as she replied, and Cait looked...relieved? Grateful? He wasn’t sure. Lara asked a question. Cait adopted a small, almost shy smile and nodded. Lara’s eyes widened and she smiled and touched her arm.
What were they talking about?
He realized that Cait still needed to tell him her secret, but then she looked over at him, caught his eyes, and smiled sweetly at him. She said something to Lara, who looked over at him as well. She, too, smiled, but it was very shy. Surprisingly shy. It didn’t fit the calm, smooth, at times grim competence that he’d seen her display tonight. She looked back at Cait uncertainly, and she said something that he thought was encouraging, and nodded, and gave Lara a tiny push in his direction, then smirked at him and watched her cross the room. He sat up straighter, deeply curious now. She came to stand before him.
“Hi, David,” she said evenly.
“Hello, Lara. You did really well out there tonight,” he replied.
“Thanks,” she murmured. She hesitated, opened her mouth to say something, then cleared her throat and looked embarrassed. “Could I speak with you? Uh...alone? Upstairs?”
“Uh...yeah. What about?” he replied, standing.
“It’s personal,” she whispered.
“All right. Although first I need to speak to Cait about something,” he replied.
“Wait,” she said, reaching out and grabbing his wrist. He glanced down, and she quickly let go of him. “Sorry...um...Cait told me that the, uh...the thing you need to talk about, it can wait until after we...talk.”
“Oh. Well, all right then.”
He’d waited this long, and he was really interested to see what Lara had to say. As he began making his way for the stairs, he saw that Ellie and Evie had joined Cait. Cait was whispering in Ellie’s ear, and when she finished, Ellie flashed him a fierce grin, as did Evie. What the fuck did they know that he didn’t?
He supposed he’d find out in a few minutes.
“My room’s at the top,” he said, and led her up. The way was lit mostly by moonlight, and a few candles they left out in the hallways some nights. He got them up to his bedroom and lit a few candles, then pulled back one of the curtains to let more moonlight in. It was bright tonight, reflecting off all the snow.
“So, what’s up?” he asked, looking at her.
She lingered in the doorway, looking uncertain, which, again, looked so alien on her. She was still wearing her uniform, and he still thought it looked so fucking sexy. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“Well, um, first of all, I wanted to say you did very well out there. I was very impressed,” she said.
“Thank you. Same to you, although I figured you were going to do great.”
“Thanks,” she murmured. She looked around the room, her eyes darting to and fro. She cleared her throat twice.
“Lara,” he said. “Whatever it is, whatever you want to talk about, you can just...talk to me. I’m very easy to get along with. You’d have to say something pretty overtly awful to get a bad reaction out of me.”
She laughed softly. “I suppose so. You’re...quite an anomaly, I must admit. I was so confused tonight. About your relationships, I mean. I could tell there was something between you and Cait the first time we met. Just the way she looked at you. But it also seemed like there was something there with you and Jennifer, though that was less certain. Then I saw the way you were with Evelyn. And the way Ashley kissed you...I’ve spoken to almost everyone here, during the party, so I have a much clearer picture now. I must admit, I didn’t exactly expect a warm reception. I know my group has done much to tarnish the good reputation we spent a year and a half building here. I don’t like that, but there’s only so much I can do. But I’m very grateful. All of you have been so kind to me. I was expecting...respect, I suppose, professionalism, I guess is closer, but not kindness.”
“Well...we’re kind people,” David replied.
“So I’m learning. I guess I’m not helping. I’m just dancing around the matter...” She chewed on
her lower lip for a moment, reaching up and rubbing the back of her neck. “Traditionally, I’m bad with things like this.” She paused again, then laughed, a mixture of anxiety and frustration. “Cait told me I should just come out with it, and I should. It’s just...hard to actually say, you know?”
“I can understand that,” he replied. “Take your time.”
“Thanks.” She paused once more, staring at him, and he stared back at her, waiting. He really studied her, now that he had time, and found an interesting woman looking at him. She was tall, he saw, about as tall as he was, nearly six feet. She had a solid build, her thighs and her hips really filled out her pants, he found it hard to ignore that fact. Her skin was pale, her brown hair was down, framing her face, chin-length. Her eyes were bright and blue. She looked...a little haunted, even now. She had a scar on her chin, and another on her forehead. He hadn’t noticed them before. She didn’t look mature or middle-aged, but she didn’t look young, either.
Finally, she sighed. “No way to do it but to do it, I might as well just come out with it,” she said. “I...want to have sex with you.”
“Oh,” he said. He’d...not expected her to say that, more hoped than expected. “I enthusiastically accept your offer.”
She laughed. “Well...that was easy.”
“Did you honestly think it wasn’t going to be?” he asked.
“I mean...I don’t know. I thought it might be like flipping a coin. Maybe yes, but just as likely maybe no. You’re with Cait for God’s sake. She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life. And Ellie. And Evelyn, she is gorgeous. And I’m...me. A lot of men, especially younger, non-military men, are intimidated by the uniform, the lifestyle, the attitude. But I suppose I can see now why you wouldn’t be intimidated.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” David replied. “I’m very intimidated by you. That just...doesn’t stop me.” He chuckled. “Vanessa told me the same thing yesterday.”
“You had sex with Vanessa?” she asked, her eyes wide.