by COE 3. 1. 0
Maybe that was why a chill descended when she looked at it.
It’s OK. We can leave if we don’t like it.
But what if they were not allowed to leave?
A pair of wrought-iron gates swung open to the approaching vehicles.
With trepidation, Olive and Felicity entered.
*
The mansion – could it be anything else? – was a literal castle. There were turrets, alcoves, towers. Whoever built it was channeling the Queen of England. Felicity supposed this place didn’t need guards because the walls were barriers in themselves.
Will parked his Hummer. Oliver and Felicity did the same and got off the Kawasaki. Felicity knew Oliver had gotten very attached to that bike, and she would be sorry if anything happened to it.
The front doors opened. Two men waited at the doorway for the three of them to enter.
“Oliver, Felicity . . . these are Jim and Harry.”
Very all-round ‘normal’ names, Felicity thought, except that these men had bodies that were ripped under their clothes. They were also quite fearsome looking, as though they were commandos. She suppressed a shudder. Both men were eyeing her as though they had not seen a woman in a long, long time. Or maybe she was mistaking their lust in their eyes for something else, but it was decidedly unnerving. And kind of creepy.
No man except Oliver had ever eyed her that way before.
“Hello,” said Jim. Or was it Harry?
“Hello,” said Harry.
They shook hands all around, though Felicity could sense some frostiness when they took Oliver’s hand. They were sizing him up. Checking him out in a completely different way.
She felt the undercurrents of danger again. Or was she imagining it? After all, this world had changed everyone. It would have definitely changed Will and these men.
“Come, let me show you to your room,” Will said.
It was all prepared? Felicity wondered. They certainly would have plenty of rooms in this house.
“How many people you said lived here again?” she asked.
“About twenty.”
They followed him upstairs. The staircase was a sweeping semi-circular one. The entire house was decorated with chandeliers and marble busts, though Felicity could see that no one had dusted for a long, long time. There was a layer of dust coating the tables and paintings. At least she kept house where she and Oliver lived, and Oliver helped too.
“This way, please,” Will said.
He opened the door to the fourth room on the left.
Oliver and Felicity entered. The room was large, spacious, with a huge king-sized bed and tastefully decorated furniture. A step up from where they were on the lake, definitely, but not as nice as the penthouse.
“It’s very late,” Will said. “I’ll let you both have a good rest. Tomorrow morning, I will introduce you to the rest of the survivors. They’ll be very happy to meet you.”
He closed the door. They heard his footsteps padding away.
Oliver tried the doorknob. The door opened easily.
“See?” he said lightly. “We’re free to leave anytime.”
“Free to explore?”
He paused. “I don’t know. I don’t feel like violating our host’s hospitality at this moment. What do you think?”
She thought for a moment, and then she shrugged. “Then we won’t.”
“Great. Besides, we don’t know what prowls around the house at night. They could have a Doberman down there.” He looked significantly at the bed and grinned. “Care to christen it?”
22
Will Bennett watched the monitors. Beside him were Jim and Harry. Everyman names for extraordinary men.
The monitors showed several angles of Oliver and Felicity’s bedroom. The light were all off except for one bedside table lamp. They were tearing each other’s clothes off, and Oliver shoved Felicity onto the bed. Will’s eyes roamed over the curvy girl’s creamy tits and luscious hips. He felt his cock going hard as he glimpsed the triangle between her legs.
The frat boy was spectacular-looking himself. His muscles were hard and he looked as if he could give someone a serious beating. Will had long learned not to underestimate college athletes. But the boy was in lover boy mode now. He turned the girl so that she was on all fours on the bed. He put on a condom. Will noted that little fact.
So the boy was adamant in not making a baby for this world. A totally different philosophy.
Then the boy penetrated her from behind.
Will’s cock was so hard that it felt as though it would burst out of its skin. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see the crotches of Jim and Harry bulging as well.
It had certainly been too long.
“What do we do about the boy?” Jim asked.
“Give him to Erasmus.” Harry guffawed. “He’d work that kid over in twenty minutes and the kid will be begging for seconds.”
“No. Not yet. Just follow my lead,” Will said, never taking his eyes off the monitors.
23
Felicity was in the throes of orgasm.
Oliver’s cock rammed into her, more frenetically than she remembered for a long time. It was as if he was supercharged by the situation. An exciting new place. A sense of danger. And God help her, but she was just as excited by it too.
“What if we make too much noise?” she had asked Oliver before he started.
“Don’t worry. It’s a big house.”
And so it was. She cried out again and again as he pounded into her, determined to christen this new room of theirs. It was a thing she and Oliver had. They had christened every room of the lake house with their lovemaking. That was what she loved about Oliver, among other things – his determination to live out each day as if it were his last.
Her entire body shuddered as the waves of orgasm washed through her. Oliver’s cock spasmed inside her and he came too. She imagined his semen ejaculating into the condom, and wished – just for once – she could feel its hot wetness inside her womb.
But he was adamant they would not make a baby in this terrible new world. And he would be right.
Oliver pulled out, panting. He stripped off the sodden condom and threw himself onto the bed beside her.
“Come here,” he said, rolling her into his arms so that he could hold her.
She loved this aftermath – this cuddling. She rested her head on his well-formed chest and let her hair fan out upon it.
I love you, Oliver.
He murmured, “You know I will never let anything bad happen to you, right?”
“I know. I won’t let anything bad happen to you too.”
“Do you like it here so far?”
“I like the present company.”
He laughed. “Me too. Let’s see what this is all about tomorrow, and then we decide together if we like the deal, OK?”
“OK.” She kissed his chest.
He kissed the top of her head. Like love.
“Now let’s go to sleep,” he said.
She was exhausted. From his heavier breathing, she knew that he had drifted off to sleep the moment he closed his eyes. But she lay awake for a long, long time, wondering if they were being spied upon.
24
The next morning came without incident. Oliver and Felicity dressed in some fresh clothes they brought from the lake house. From the strange stares she received last night, she made sure she covered up nicely, with no hint of any cleavage in the top she chose. Still, her curves stood out prominently. With all this rigor, she was definitely getting thinner and more shapely by the day.
“You look nice.” Oliver came from behind her and kissed her on the neck while putting his arms around her waist.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to look too nice.”
His eyes met her in the mirror. “If it gets bad, we’ll get out of here.”
“What if they won’t let us?”
“We’ll get out anyhow.”
They went downstairs to the hall. There were
sounds of cutlery on plates in the next room, which Felicity assumed was a dining hall. They went in. A long table had been set for two dozen people. It was full except for two places.
Everyone in the dining room looked up.
Felicity’s mouth went dry.
They were all men. There was not a single woman among them. This fact was not lost on Oliver as well. Nor the men. Every single one of them looked up from their breakfast. Every single one of their gazes was riveted to her. Maybe except for one huge, hulking guy in the middle. His eyes were transfixed by Oliver.
Felicity felt a hot flush coming in all the wrong places.
OK. She was uncomfortable and creeped out, but at the same time, it was terribly, terribly flattering. It was a situation that she had never thought she would be in a thousand years – unanimously desired by all the men in a room. All but one, of course.
Was it only her imagination, but did the temperature in the room turn up several notches?
Will Bennett was at the head of the table. He stood up.
“Please,” he gestured to two empty chairs beside him. “Come. Sit and join us. We have enough food for an army.”
Funny he should say that, but Felicity reckoned they were really an army. There was nothing to do but go to the two empty chairs and sit. As she walked, she was quite conscious of all the open stares she was receiving.
“You’ll forgive my men,” Will said. “They haven’t seen a beautiful woman in quite a while, as you can imagine.”
Two things struck her about the way he said that. ‘My men’. In a proprietary, general-like military sense. She would not be surprised if Will was ex-military. And he called her ‘beautiful’, like he meant it. Here she was, thinking that Oliver was the only man in the world to ever find her beautiful.
The thing was to be nonchalant about it. Act like it didn’t really affect her. Oliver and she should find out why they survived, and then say ‘Thank you, but no thank you. We’ll be off now’.
There were platters of bacon and eggs and ham and some salad greens. Felicity suddenly realized how hungry she was.
“We’ll introduce everyone eventually, though I suppose you will take a little while to absorb everyone’s names,” Will said. “But please, you must be famished. Help yourselves.”
As they ate, Oliver asked, “How come there are no women here?”
Will said, “When the virus struck, it would appear that the females of our species were more susceptible than the males. I had a m— . . . wife. Unfortunately, she did not make it.”
Jim said, “Worse off still were our daughters and young ones. Children had it bad in the initial outbreak. None of our children survived.”
“Surely there must be some survivors,” Felicity said. “We just haven’t found them yet.”
“An optimistic view,” Will conceded. “We have combed the city and the countryside. So far, you are the only survivors we have found.”
The lump in Felicity’s throat prevented her from gulping down her coffee.
“So, tell us, how did you manage to survive?” Oliver said.
“Jim and I were friends before this. When we didn’t succumb to the virus, we buried our loved ones.” Will paused. “It was a very difficult time. But we had to continue. Together, we sought out other survivors.”
He swept his hand across the dining table. “You see them all here. Unity brings strength. We have been putting the fast mutants – any we can find – out of their obvious misery before they can undermine any of us.”
Was that why there were so few fast mutants? Felicity gazed at all the faces of the men. Many of them still had not taken their eyes off her as they ate. So these men had killed. Just like Oliver had.
Oliver said, “We came here to find out why we survived. You were dangling that carrot in front of us all the way. Now tell us why.”
Will smiled. “Finish your breakfast. Then follow me.”
25
They followed Will to a chamber on the ground floor. Will opened the door.
“Step in, please,” he said.
The chamber beyond was a lab. There were rows of tables and shelves decked with scattered lab paraphernalia. Felicity was surprised to see so many of them, though she supposed Will’s men (funny how she had come to refer to them as that) would have combed the hospitals for them. A bespectacled man looked up as they entered. He stared at Felicity in particular. A warmth began to spread through her cheeks again.
Get used to it. You are the last woman left on Earth.
“We are very lucky to have Dr. Ivan Ferguson still with us,” Will said, “though there was a time he almost died. Didn’t you, Ivan?”
The Adam’s apple in Ivan’s throat moved. His eyes took in Oliver and there was a kind of fear in them.
What’s with this guy? Felicity wondered. She glanced at Oliver, who flashed her a guarded look.
Ivan said, “Please sit down, both of you. I will need a sample of your blood and a smear from your cheek.”
He was going to test for DNA, Felicity knew.
Oliver sat down on a stool and flexed his arm so that the vein in his elbow would stand out prominently. “I’ll go first.”
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Ivan had two phials of their blood and two buccal mucosa smears on two slides of glass.
“I will need a few hours for the spectro-analysis,” he said, darting a frightened glance at Will.
“I thought these kind of things usually takes weeks,” Oliver said, bending his arm to stem the bleeding from the needle puncture mark.
“It’s our own lab and we specialize.” Will held out his hand to the doorway. “I’ll give you a tour of our sanctuary while we wait.”
The mansion was indeed huge. There were four wings altogether, and as they toured the place, Felicity could see courtyards in which a few of the men were practicing archery and knife throwing and combat. They were amazingly good.
“We believe in being ready for anything,” Will explained.
“We believe in that too,” Oliver said. “That’s why we trained every day, both Felicity and I.” His blue eyes were steady but firm. We are not total pushovers, he was saying.
“Have you killed?” Will said. He said it lightly, but there was a challenge in it all the same.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost count. What about you?”
“I’ve lost count too.”
Will smiled and clapped Oliver on the back. “You’ll be getting plenty of that here.”
“What about guns?”
“What about guns? We all have guns here.”
“I could use some gun training.”
“You’ll have that, and more. We make periodic raids to the city for supplies. Weapons come in handy.”
Oliver said, “Why don’t you tell us now what all this is about now? You’ve been teasing us long enough. We gave our DNA samples. What exactly are you trying to find out about us?”
Yeah, Felicity agreed. Enough about it already. “If I have a rare chromosome disorder,” she said, “I’d like to know about it.”
Funny. If she had a rare chromosome disorder, she never had symptoms from it. Neither did her mother.
They heard footsteps. It was Dr. Ivan. He waved a printout.
“I have your results,” he said.
The look on his face was conflicted and more than a little scared.
26
Felicity stared at her printout.
They were back in the lab. Oliver was staring at his printout as well, trying to make sense of it. Well, forgive them if they didn’t major in genetics. The printout was raw data, filled with pictures of numbered chromosome pairs. There were twenty-three pairs altogether. This was followed by other pages of analysis – raw genetic data which meant as much as Ancient Egyptian.
“What does this mean?” Felicity asked Dr. Ivan. Boy, but was the man skittish.
Dr. Ivan turned to Oliver. “If you look at Chromosom
e 16, you will notice a slight aberration in Location 32.”
Oliver peered.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“There is,” Dr. Ivan insisted. “If you look carefully at this translocation – ”
“Dispense with the gobbledygook, Ivan, and get on with it,” growled Will.
Ivan swallowed. He glanced at Oliver. Felicity felt her breath being throttled. There’s nothing wrong with Oliver, she told herself. He’s alive! He made it so far. Still, the atmosphere in the lab felt stilted and charged, as if the air was being choked by invisible fumes.
Ivan said to Oliver, “Your chromosomes suggest that you have latent shifter genes.”
“What?” Oliver furrowed his brow.
Yeah, what? Felicity was equally perplexed.
Will did not seem surprised at all. Rather, it appeared that he had anticipated this.
Ivan said, “It means you are a shifter.”
“What the hell is that?” Oliver said.
Felicity’s heart stopped at the moment. The memory of the wolves which had saved her flashed through her mind. Oh my God.
She looked up at Will, whose green eyes gleamed.
“It means you have the ability to transform into an animal,” Ivan said.
Oliver was speechless for all of thirty seconds. Which had to be a record for him.
Finally, he said, “I’ve been accused of being a party animal, yes, but I can assure you . . . nothing like Teen Wolf has ever happened to me, not even when I was stoned. And trust me, I have been stoned a lot.”
Will said, “There are many shifters who have a recessive gene, which results in them never displaying their latent abilities. You are one of them.”
“No way.”
Will tapped his data sheet. “Your genetics don’t lie.”
“What about my parents then?” Oliver demanded, standing up. “None of them are shifters . . . or werewolves. Or whatever you call them.”