by COE 3. 1. 0
18
The next few weeks were the happiest in Felicity’s life.
She could almost forget they were in a doomsday scenario and enjoy being part of a couple with Oliver Greene. And it seemed that they were the only human couple left on Earth. It was like starting over – an Adam and Eve. It would be enervating had it also not been so weird.
They spent their first week fortifying the house. They surrounded the picket fence with more sharpened sticks pointing outwards, so that if a fast mutant was to blindly rush into the yard, it would be impaled. Furthermore, they nailed all the windows shut and planked them with wooden bars, so that a mutant wouldn’t be climb in. They burned the corpses in front of the lake and let the ashes scatter. Disease might set in if they didn’t.
And they made love three times a day. Or night, depending on when the mood would strike them. Oliver found more condom packets in the next house, and the next. There was a cluster of stores they could raid for supplies a little way down the lakeside.
They were bothered by a few more fast mutants, but it was nothing Oliver could not handle.
Maybe it was because the world had gone crazy, but each kiss they shared, each lovemaking session they indulged in, felt extra special. Like a one-in-a-million-lifetimes special. Each nuance was something to be savored. Each caress treasured like it was the last.
She had never been happier.
I love you.
The words were at the tip of her tongue every day.
You are the love of my life.
I have never loved anyone in this way. Ever.
She wanted to say them to him – because she truly meant it. She loved him. She was in love with him. How could she not be in love with him? He was beautiful, brave, strong and smart, and he cared for her. He was so protective of her. He would risk his life for hers, put himself in the face of danger to get her out of harm’s way.
When he was sleeping beside her, she would gaze at him – at the planes of his beautiful face. She would admire the curve of his long lashes and the well-formed blade of his nose. She had to refrain from touching his full lips. It was insane that a man could be that beautiful. But there he was – beside her, and in the flesh.
And he was all hers.
It was remarkable to think that he would never be hers if the world was whole. That he would never look at her twice. But kismet had a strange way of working things out, and in the bleakest of winters, they had found each other.
If only it could last.
But they lived in the most precarious of situations, and any time – any minute – either of them could be killed. She wondered what she would do if Oliver was bitten by a mutant, or if he succumbed a second time – fatally – to the virus which wiped out the whole world, seemingly.
Because they had still not met a single living human being as of now.
Not one.
It was beyond strange. Surely they could not be the only two people in the world to survive the virus intact. Surely there had to be others.
Did they dare venture out?
Perhaps there were other living people out there, and they too were imprisoned by their fears. Perhaps they too were surrounded by fast mutants and they could only closet themselves in their fortified apartments and houses, with no choice but to live out their days precariously.
Like her and Oliver.
But what now?
Should they strike out to find other people like themselves? There was always the ‘what if’. What if they ran out of food? What if the power finally ran out? Should they be growing their own vegetables and trying to start afresh without the trappings of the past?
Felicity didn’t know it then, but they weren’t going to have the luxury of answers.
Because exactly one month into their idyllic bliss, they had a visitor.
19
It was night.
Felicity and Oliver were playing a game of Scrabble. Even though their relationship had taken on a whole new level, Oliver was still competitive. Old habits died hard, she supposed.
“Triple letter,” he announced. “That would be . . . forty-six points.”
“There’s no such word as ZAPPABLE,” she declared.
“Sure there is. Look it up in a dictionary.”
“Wanna bet? There’s a dictionary here somewhere, and we don’t find ‘ZAPPABLE’ there, it doesn’t exist.”
“I don’t mean any old dictionary bound in paperback. I mean a Scrabble thesaurus. You can find them on the Internet and they have words you’ll never find in any dictionary. Words with Z and Q and all sorts of letters you don’t make words out of every day.”
“That’s cheating.”
“No. It’s perfectly legit. I do it all the time when I play Scrabble on my phone against other people online. I type all the letters I have into their Word Scrambler and tada . . . I have a list of all three letter and four letter and five letter words in every permutation.”
She was aghast. “I don’t believe it! My boyfriend is a cheat!”
She liked the sound of it. Boyfriend.
He laughed. “I don’t think of myself as a cheat. I think of it as having a leg up on other people.”
“You mean letters up.”
“Who’s to say they aren’t doing the same?”
They had rigged a warning signal of forks and spoons around the gate, which was also fortified on the outside with stakes. That warning string now tinkled.
Both of them looked up.
“Mutants,” Felicity whispered.
“Sssssh. I’ll kill the lights.”
As Oliver went to turn the lights off, she went to grab one of the ever present guns from the dining table. Her pulse rate had suddenly accelerated.
They both crept to the front window to peer outside. There was the silhouette of a man standing at the gate. A man. He was not moving around or trying to crash through the gate like so many fast mutants did. He was waiting.
As Oliver and Felicity watched, the man’s dark hand reached out and clasped the string of cutlery dangling at the front gate. He tinkled it again.
That’s a doorbell chime if there ever was one, Felicity thought.
“It’s another human being,” she whispered. “The first one we have seen since all this began. What do we do?”
Oliver grasped his gun. “Careful. I’m not sure if he’s friendly.”
“What if it’s someone who needs our help? Or someone who needs medical attention . . . or . . . or who knows someone who needs medical attention?”
Suddenly, she desperately needed to know if there were people still out there. They weren’t alone! Somehow, she had always known it. Not that she didn’t like being alone with Oliver. But there was ‘alone’ alone, and alone alone, if she was making any sense to herself.
“It doesn’t hurt to be cautious,” Oliver said. “I’ll go check this out. You stay here.”
He opened the door a tad. She kept her face pressed to the window. The man stood there, unmoving.
“Yes?” Oliver called out. “Can we help you?”
Felicity held her breath.
The man said in a deep, gravelly voice, “We have been watching you. And we want you to join us.”
20
“Who are you exactly?” Oliver said suspiciously. He still hadn’t left the doorway, and the door was just open to allow a one foot space. His gun was cocked with its safety catch off.
“May I come in?” The man held up his hands. “I’m not armed, I assure you. I won’t hurt you.”
Felicity darted at glance at Oliver.
“What should we do?” she whispered. “Take a chance?”
He debated for a while, and then he nodded. “Just keep your gun trained on him.” To the man, he raised his voice. “I’m coming out.”
“Oliver, be careful,” she said.
“I’m just going to undo the gate.”
Oliver went out, gun in hand. Felicity watched him as he went up to the gates – thank goodness
for picket fences and gates in this community – and exchanged a few more words with the man. Then he unlatched the gate and its padlock, and let the man in. Oliver locked up again.
Felicity jumped to turn on the lights.
The man’s face revealed itself once he stepped into the lounge.
He was a handsome man. Rugged, with a five o’ clock shadow. He was slightly shorter than Oliver, and much older. She would put him in his late thirties. He was built like a gladiator, and he had startling green eyes. He was dressed in a long leather duster which reached down to his mid-calves.
He looked right at her and penetrated her with his green eyes. She wasn’t clear what the message in his eyes was. I want to fuck you, she thought it said. But she couldn’t be sure. Why would he want to fuck her? Only Oliver wanted to fuck her.
The man was so prepossessing that Felicity had to take a step back. A frisson of fear crept up her spine.
The man said, “I’m Will Bennett.”
He held out his hand to Oliver.
After a moment’s hesitation, Oliver took it. “I’m Oliver Greene.” He nodded towards her. “This is my girlfriend, Felicity.”
She was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly super-charged. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on why it was so.
Oliver still had his gun cocked, but she had lowered hers. She couldn’t help contrasting the two men. Oliver was taller, younger and far better-looking. But Will Bennett possessed a streak of underlying danger and menace that many women would find very attractive. It was like you weren’t really sure what lay beneath his surface.
“Would you like to sit down?” Oliver said, motioning to the couch.
“Thank you.” Will Bennett reached for something in the pocket of his duster.
“Uh,” Oliver said, aiming the gun at him. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Relax. I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to hurt either of you. I’m just removing my gun. You can’t travel around these parts without protection these days.”
He clearly had traveled alone, and so he must know how to defend himself.
“Let me remove it for you,” Oliver insisted.
Good call, she thought. Oliver went closer to Will, who still radiated unnerving power, and dipped his hand into his duster pocket. Oliver took out a gleaming silver pistol.
“Nice. Where did you get this?” Oliver asked.
“Fobbed it off a dead millionaire, the same way you did,” said Will.
“How did you know we fobbed our guns off a millionaire?” Oliver said suspiciously.
Felicity watched Will’s face, which did not flinch.
“Lucky guess,” Will said, his eyes darting amusedly to Felicity’s face. Again, she saw the appreciation in them as well as a more primal hunger which both discomfited and strangely excited her.
Why am I excited? I shouldn’t be. I love Oliver.
Confusion swarmed her.
Oliver sat down slowly, facing Will. “You said you wanted us to join you. Who exactly are you?”
Will took in both their young faces. “It is unusual . . . how you both managed to survive.”
“I would say the same about you,” Oliver said.
“Oh, we know why we survived.” Will leaned back into the sofa. He seemed very comfortable, even though Oliver had not stopped pointing the gun at him. “The question is . . . do you know why you both survived?”
Oliver and Felicity exchanged glances.
Oliver lowered her gun. Will smiled.
“Good,” he said. “I was wondering when it was accidentally going to go off and shoot me in the eye.”
“I can use this thing, if that is what you’re implying,” Oliver said calmly.
“It’s OK, Felicity,” Oliver said. “Take a seat . . . please.”
Still, they both sat down opposite Will Bennett.
Will’s eyes flitted from Oliver to her periodically. He steepled his hands. “I would like to ask you both a few fact-finding questions, if it’s all right with you.”
“We will answer them if they are appropriate,” Oliver said.
Felicity was proud of him. Oliver was so commanding, so sure of himself, even though she knew he had to have doubts. He was giving her the impression that he could stand up to Will, if needed be, though she suspected Will had the upper hand when it came to experience in fighting.
Will said to Oliver, “Do you know if your parents are still alive?”
“My father isn’t. I don’t think my mother made it either,” Oliver said.
“My mother never answered her phone,” Felicity said.
“Are you sure both your mothers didn’t make it?” Will’s eyes were piercing.
Oliver paused.
“No,” he admitted.
“No,” Felicity echoed. It was in the back of her mind that she would look for her mother one day, unlikely scenario though it might be.
Will said, “Growing up, have you ever been told there was something different about you both?”
Oliver exchanged glances with Felicity.
“No,” he said. “Other than the fact that I’ve been told I’m better-looking and smarter than ninety-nine percent of the population?”
He said it tongue-in-cheek, and she had to suppress a laugh. He was so much like the Oliver she once knew when he said that – the Oliver who was ultra-confident and smart and larger than life. Not the more sober but loving version he was now.
Sometimes, she missed that Oliver.
Will grinned. It was a wolfish grin.
“Yes, I can believe that,” he said. He turned to Felicity. “What about you?”
“Other than I’m fatter than most of the population? No.”
“Oh, come now. You have gone much slimmer, I am certain,” Will said.
The way he said it had an undercurrent. It was not the first time he had seen them both, she was sure. Maybe he and his people had been studying them from afar, sizing the both of them up before making this approach.
“I would like to confirm these differences, if I may, in our enclave,” Will said. “The discovery of survivors in this apocalypse is always an epiphany and an event to be celebrated.”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us what these differences are?” Oliver challenged.
“Unfortunately, it will be something which will have to be revealed only once it is confirmed you are one of us.”
“That’s convenient,” Felicity said. “So you want us to come with you. How do we know you’re not a serial killer or something, trying to lure us away from our haven?”
Will stared at her, and then he laughed. It was a big belly laugh, and he threw his head back and guffawed loudly.
“If I wanted you dead, girl, you’d have been dead long ago. Trust me on this.”
“So you have been watching us?” Oliver said.
“That we have. I won’t deny that. We have to scope you out first to decide if you are dangerous to us.” The way he said it held a trace of mirth. Like ‘we can take you down anytime’ mirth.
“And who are you? How many are there of you?”
“About twenty survivors.”
“How many men and women?”
Will smiled. “You are curious. Why don’t you come and see for yourself? No obligations. Have a look at our sanctuary, learn more about yourselves in the process, and see if you want to stay.”
Felicity darted a glance at Oliver, who nodded.
“Let me confer with my girlfriend, and we’ll let you know.”
As Will sat in the lounge, Oliver shepherded Felicity to the kitchen.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s all hogwash or . . . as he said . . . there’s something about us that makes us special to survive all this.”
“Maybe I’m less special than you are. I almost died.”
“But you didn’t. I don’t really trust him, Oliver.”
&n
bsp; “I know what you mean. They’ve been spying on us. But – ”
He hesitated.
“What?”
“Sooner or later, we’re going to run in trouble on our own. We have survived this far . . . but our supplies might run out. The power might fail on us again. We will have to be on the move. Or we might be attacked by a phalanx of fast mutants. I can’t help thinking that we’d be better off with a group of people.”
She knew what he was saying was absolutely correct.
“You’re not getting bored of me, are you?” she said jokingly, though she was really afraid he would say ‘yes’.
He laughed. “Never.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her.
When their lips parted, she said, “Careful, we have company.”
“Let’s just check it out. If we don’t like it, we can always leave.”
“True.”
He put his arm around her shoulders as they trooped into the lounge again, and she knew it was a proprietary message to Will Bennett – This is my girlfriend, so hands off.
Will had not moved from the couch.
Oliver said, “We’ll check out your place. But we’re free to go if we don’t like it, right?”
“Of course,” Will said. He beamed. “You have made a wise choice.”
“But we’re bringing along our weapons.”
“I would have it no other way.”
Oliver nodded. “Fine then. Give us thirty minutes to pack, and then we’ll be on our way.”
21
Oliver and Felicity followed Will Bennett on their motorcycle so that they would not be dependent on someone else for a ride. Will drove a Hummer. They used the side roads, which were relatively empty of cars out here in the country. Some mutants came out to give chase, but both vehicles were too fast for them.
They finally arrived at a large, walled estate.
“Welcome to the Bat Cave,” Oliver remarked, though Felicity knew he was really checking out the perimeter.
The six foot high walls were impressive. The top of the walls were decked with barbed wire, and a sentry tower rose a little way above the gates. There was no sentry there, however. Nevertheless, this was a true fort. But what kept the fast mutants out would also keep anything and anyone in.