She strode over to him and slapped his ass, pulling his pants back down. Alex stared at her and sighed. “We probably shouldn’t….”
She stared at him and reached down to grab at him, all the while pulling him to her with her opposite hand and kissing him on the lips. Then she shoved him back and opened her robe to expose her naked body to him. “Just shut up and fuck me.”
“Here?” he asked her, looking around and seeing nothing but the surrounding trees and the wolf, lying beside a tree in the shade.
“Who are we going to offend?!” she asked with a laugh as she dropped her robe. “I’m not sure if it’s appropriate, but I do like to fuck…especially you. I hope that isn’t a problem.”
She shoved him down onto the grass, not waiting for an answer, and sat on top of him. She quickly and deftly worked him over with her hands until he was firm.
“Now, sit cross legged,” she instructed and Alex was quick to comply, as she worked her way on top of him. She wrapped her thighs around Alex, forcing him to lean back and she smiled at him, taking him wholly inside of her.
Alex was so turned on by her aggression that it was not long until he was hard as a rock. One thing was for certain in that moment: she was in charge, and she made him understand that. She altered speeds and depths on him many times to their mutual delight, as this went on for a long time until she fell to the side in exhaustion. He fell over too, the pair lying on her robe facing one another and holding their stares for a long time in silence. Alex again felt a very real bond growing between him and this very unique woman.
“I’m starting to like you quite a bit, Alex,” she admitted, mirroring his own thoughts in the moment.
It wasn’t long after their lovemaking session that the two of them were discussing Jill, Olivia theorizing as to where her sister and the others could have even gotten to by now.
Alex closely listened to her, walked slowly over to, and inspected the cucumber vines, listening to a past tale of Olivia’s childhood, fond memories spent with Jill.
“Hmmm,” Alex said as Olivia’s story ended and silence ensued. He was more than disappointed to find that as he inspected the patch, all of the cucumbers seemed to have fallen victim to the ravaging of some sort of insect or worm. He couldn’t even salvage one more.
“Dammit…they’re all gone,” he said, holding up a wilted cucumber leaf for her to see.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, holding his cheeks in her hand and shaking her head.
“Let’s go find your sister so we can get outta here and try something new,” he said as he tossed the leaf aside. He stood, not looking at Olivia’s expression, and made his way into the cabin crawl space and retrieved the bow and quiver. He snatched up other supplies, including the Beretta, and strode directly to her with the weapon in hand and stared into her eyes. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.”
He tossed them, along with his shotgun, over his shoulder, placed the knife in his belt sheath, hooked the canteen to his key chain, handed her the pistol, and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
She smiled at him, tucking the gun in her belt, and shook her head disbelievingly. “All right, Alex. I can see I’m not going to win any arguments today. Let’s go.” She started down the trail and Shadow followed her. “Well ain’t that some shit?” Alex whispered, moving to follow them and a bit surprised that Shadow had plainly accepted Olivia in their pack.
Alex followed her, passing through their abandoned campsite, and she paused for a moment, probably reminiscing about people she once knew, while Shadow marked his territory.
“Real nice,” Olivia said sarcastically as she looked after the wolf.
“He’s doing his thing. Where is the meeting point?” Alex asked. He really didn’t pry into her business, and she hadn’t divulged much information either to this point. But, curiosity got the better of him in this case.
“it’s an hour or so northwest, along the highway. Or just south of it, rather.” She looked back at him and then to Shadow, who was still sniffing around the campsite.
They continued along, following behind Olivia as she picked her way through the woods and along a trail, perhaps worn by her and her group when searching for Jill. That was a real possibility.
Suddenly, they heard a sound in the distance, getting closer very quickly and they both froze. Alex looked all about and saw nothing but a tree nearby that they might be able to get to if a pack of undead were coming. Shadow growled and bared his fangs in the direction of the sound as Alex nocked an arrow. They waited for whatever it was to present itself from around the corner.
A man came into view and Olivia’s face went pale.
“Justin?!” the man froze at hearing his name and at seeing the wolf who stood before him, snarling.
“Jesus!” he said, holding a bat defensively. He looked very haggard and sweaty, and his clothes were stained with blood.
“Down,” Alex said to Shadow as he relaxed the grip on his arrow and lowered the bow, listening to their interaction closely.
“Where is Jill!!?” Olivia asked impatiently, rushing to stand before the man. He looked exhausted at best, Alex thought. The man stood in silence and shook his head, trying to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry, Liv. She didn’t make it,” he explained, falling to a knee. Olivia began to cry and then pounded his chest and cried out, “No!”
He waited a minute for her to come under control of her emotions and continued, staring nervously at Alex and Shadow.
“We were holed up for weeks. We got overrun by zombies and we escaped into a deli next to the hardware store, locked the doors, boarded up the windows and we waited,” he said, looking up at Olivia with a pained expression of his own. “Eventually we had to make a run for it, but…. I’m the only one who made it, I think….”
It was then that Alex heard another rustling behind the man and realized that someone…or something…was chasing him. “Were you followed!?”
“Shit! Here they come!” Justin said, standing and making to run, but Shadow growled at him again.
“How many?” Alex asked him.
“I dunno! There was a bunch! They been following us for hours, man.”
“Us?” Olivia asked him suspiciously.
“Yeah, me, Gwen and Robert. We made it out of the shopping center together. But when we made it into the woods, we ran right smack dab into another mob of them zombie fuckers! They overran Gwen and I turned back to see ‘em tearing the flesh from her bones,” he paused, doubling over in obvious emotional pain. “I couldn’t do nothin’! One chased after me, but I beat the brains out of it and the rest of ‘em went in the opposite direction after Rob. I’m sorry, but I ran! I had no choice!”
“We make a stand here,” Alex said grimly as he climbed a tree to get a better vantage. He could see a half dozen zombies coming. And they were moving swiftly.
They’d recently fed and wanted more, no doubt. He climbed down, set his feet, and nocked an arrow.
“Get ready to fight, Justin. If you run, I’ll put an arrow in you myself.”
With that, a zombie came around the corner and Alex let fly, catching it straight in the eye and sending it backward. The arrow pierced the skull of the first one and the arrow continued along and into the one behind it, putting that one down, too. Another tripped over that one and Justin moved toward it, clubbing it wildly, smashing in its skull with the bat repeatedly.
Another two of the living dead came through the clearing and Olivia fired the Beretta, hitting it clean in the head, taking it down, and then repeated her action on the next one. Alex nocked another arrow and let fly, killing yet another.
One more zombie appeared on Olivia’s left flank, bursting through the thickets, but Shadow was there, biting at its legs and tripping the thing. Justin brained that one too.
Alex turned to take down two more with his bow as Olivia made her way to stand beside him, shooting another in the head with the pistol.
However, when they looked back, Justin was overrun, a pair of undead clawing, biting and puking blood all over him. Shadow snapped his jaws, clamping his teeth down on its arm, but that did not slow it down. Alex drew back and accurately put that shaft through its ear and skull, stopping it completely. But, the second one had torn the flesh from his neck and the man grabbed at the side of his throat, trying to stem the blood flow.
“This one’s for Jill.” Olivia shot the zombie attacker in the head, point blank.
The damage was done; Justin was dying. It was only a matter of time before he became one of them, too.
“Fuck!” Justin screamed in frustration, hands still wrapped around a gaping wound on the left side of his throat as blood trickled out through his fingers. He was sobbing angrily. “I made it all this way and now…. Goddammit!”
Alex allowed Olivia the chance to speak with him as he retrieved his valuable arrows, careful not to break them as he yanked them out of their fleshy lodgings.
“I’m so sorry, Justin,” Olivia said, truly sympathetic at her friend’s plight.
“It won’t be long now,” he said, looking Olivia in the eyes, his face streaked with a combination of blood and tears. “Kill me, please, before I become one of them.”
Olivia held the gun to his head as he stared pleadingly at her, clutching his throat. Alex could see the life draining from his eyes and he looked to Olivia and nodded ever so slightly.
She closed her eyes, turned her head and pulled the trigger. Justin’s corpse fell limply to the grass before her.
“We need to get moving,” Alex said after a moment of silence. “I’m sorry, but there will be more of them. Keep going to the road, so I can see what we’re up against on the highway.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“We need a car,” Alex stated bluntly. He turned to face Shadow and knelt, staring him in the eyes, “c’mon, boy.”
Alex stood and waited for Olivia to take the lead, and she did so eventually, staring back toward the dead man. Alex felt like an ass after she killed a friend and he did not even offer to bury him or perform any kind of ceremony.
“You were close to him?” Alex asked. She nodded. “Maybe we can go back and—“
“No, we can’t. You know it and I know it,” Olivia refuted. “It’s too dangerous.”
They encountered one or two more of the zombies along the way, Alex taking them down quickly with a well-placed arrow, as they eventually made it to the edge of the forest, overlooking the highway.
“My neighborhood is twenty or thirty miles to the east. But it was overrun last time I was there.”
Olivia nodded and turned a sympathetic look his way, nodding her understanding. There were dozens of cars in various states of disrepair, abandoned along the side of the road. Some were in better shape than others were, and the highway seemed passable in both directions.
“At least the highway looks clear,” Alex said, pointing east and west. “That’s the direction of the Ren Faire,” he said, pointing west. “We should go back, pack up some things and make our way there. If it’s overrun with the undead, at least we can make our way back to the cabin.”
“I don’t really care, Alex,” Olivia admitted resignedly. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”
“Hey,” Alex said, forcing her eyes up to meet his and staring back into troubled pools of blue. “I know that what happened here was pretty bad. And I’m really sorry about your sister. I truly am. But, we need to keep on going…keep surviving. Would she want you to give up? I’m sure she wouldn’t, right? Look, even though I didn’t know Jill, I’m sure you have great memories to…ah, I’m no good at this.”
“It’s okay, Alex. At least you are trying. That means a lot.”
“I know this isn’t easy, but at least you know…well, you know what happened to her,” was all he could manage to get out.
She nodded and he hugged her tight. Alex took note of Shadow as he remained near the tree line, not venturing out into the clearing still. Perhaps he was waiting on orders from him?
“At least we have each other,” Alex said with a half-smile. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”
“Yep. And I’m actually growing attached to that stupid wolf, too,” she admitted as they made their way back to the cabin, avoiding their old camp and where Justin was put down. She asked Alex to avoid that route as she admitted that she did not want to see either again.
It was dusk by the time they made it back to the cabin and they were both famished. After a quick sharing of a meal, the two of them lay on the couch while Shadow remained outside.
They talked for a long while after, and Alex mostly listened. He allowed Olivia to vent and to share some of her happier memories about Jill with him. She seemed to be happy when she finally fell asleep.
Alex considered the real possibility that he might be falling in love with this woman. He cared for her a great deal, he thought, but he wasn’t sure if it was a real emotion, or simply that he did not want to be alone any longer.
Again, his thoughts shifted to his beloved wife of two years, and significant other for five more, Sara. He understood that nothing he did from this point forward would tarnish the feelings or memories he shared with her, as they were all from a different, much better time. He also knew that she would want nothing more than for him to be happy, which in this case meant for him to move on. These thoughts were something he gave serious attention to over the next few hours until he eventually succumbed to fatigue and fell asleep.
***
Alex awoke to the sound of moaning. He shot up, grabbed his hunting knife from the table, and made his way slowly toward the source, unsure as to what he might find. Thoughts of what might be inside the room flooded his mind’s eye as he crept closer. The sounds were coming from the back bedroom, a place that he hardly ever ventured. It was still dark outside, but the sun was threatening to break through, hints of light coming in through the windows, allowing the slightest of illumination inside the cabin.
How could one of the undead gotten in?! he wondered as his heart rate intensified and he padded softly down the hall toward the source of the sound.
He peeked around the corner and saw Olivia lying on the floor on top of some blankets. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t glanced at the sofa to see if she had been there or not.
As he closed the distance between them quietly, it seemed as though she was in pain.
She was moaning and clutching at her abdomen…or her leg? He could not tell, but he was worried, hoping beyond hope that she wasn’t dying or becoming one of the damnable undead.
Alex swallowed hard and looked to his blade, shaking his head and clenching his jaw tightly.
I don’t want to have to kill another one, he thought over and over in his mind as he strode forward another step.
He was about to burst in on her to check her condition when he finally—and disconcertingly—understood the fact that she was in the thralls of pleasuring herself. She was completely naked, he noted, as the blankets fell away a bit to reveal more of her, and he could not help but admit that she looked quite beautiful in the dim lighting.
He felt both incredibly foolish in that instant and relieved at the same time that she was unharmed.
She tweaked a nipple that suddenly presented in the dim lighting, her left working it gently, while her right hand was lost between her legs. He immediately felt uncomfortable and yet, remained frozen, completely dumbfounded by the whole experience. He realized in that moment that she really was truthful in her earlier boastings to him about her enjoying sex. He also guessed that she was quite bold in the time before the zombie plague, and in just about every way.
And it wasn’t like he didn’t do this on occasion, too, he thought with a laugh.
And why not? he thought. What the hell else do we have for comfort these days?
As he remained riveted to the floor, wanting to remain unseen and not wanting to disturb Olivia, he felt hims
elf swelling beneath his jeans. He was more than a little ashamed at his own self-indulgent voyeurism to this point. She moaned a bit louder and then louder still, and so, under the veil of those moans, he turned quietly and began to slink away.
“Alex?”
His heart skipped a beat and froze at hearing her voice. He was mortified that she had even seen him. He turned to regard her through the crack of the door, grimacing at her, but instead of showing any hint of anger, she smiled invitingly.
“Why don’t you join me?” Olivia said, as he noted that she was breathing heavily after clearly having reached an intense orgasm herself only seconds ago.
“You’re insatiable,” he accused jokingly, a smile creeping across his face.
“You have no idea,” she said, raising one eyebrow and matching his smirk.
He stood there, again taking in her lithe frame and appreciating her beauty for what it was. She kept herself in very good shape, sporting an athletic frame, firm breasts and a trim tummy that still held a diamond piercing. He threw open the door wider, his mouth turning up with an even wider grin.
“You really are beautiful.”
She held his stare for a bit and said nothing for a moment. “I only came in here so I didn’t wake you,” she said frankly. “I can be loud with my moaning. And you guys think it’s only you who can blow off steam this way, eh?” He merely held his smile and strode in, stiffening a bit more as he stood before her.
“Speaking of blowing….”
She sat up, fell onto all fours and bade him to come closer to her, gesturing with her left pointer. He moved closer and stood looking down on her, her blue eyes staring back longingly up at him, as her blonde hair cascaded down her bare back.
She unzipped his jeans slowly and reached inside, her warm hand wrapping around him tightly. She rubbed her hand over him a few times and gently tugged down his jeans, exposing him fully as her mouth moved over him. She moaned upon tasting him and he breathed deeply, allowing the sensation to overwhelm him.
Wake the Dead Page 9