Living Amongst The Dead (Book 2): Dark Days

by J. N. Morgan

  “Oh stop…” It was clear that her sexist, feminist beliefs wouldn’t be taken from her, not anytime soon anyways. So her efforts to try and show her the wrongs that Tiff herself had taught this strong woman was not about to be dropped. “Look, I’d like for you to join us, alright? That’s not gonna happen unless you make up for what you did, and considering he’s barely hanging on in there… picking up a few ‘brass cases’ or whatever is the least you can do… but if you’re not willing to even make an effort, Veronica? Maybe it’s best for you to use the little daylight that’s left to go back to Strathcom.”

  “Tiffany…” she said in a pained tone, hearing her friend tell her to go back to the dangerous place from where she came.

  “No, Nicky, don’t. I said it. That’s that. If you’re not willing to make up for what you did then you can’t be staying in this house.” She gestured to the old structure to the southeast of them. “If you can’t do it for him, then please, do it for me… alright?” The tall, proud woman sat rigidly, staring at the flickering flame that burned the branches she’d collected from the woods. There was silence for quite some time before a frustrated sigh. The one with the injured hand got up, brushing her butt off.

  “Wait, Tiff.” she turned back to look at her friend, “Just… give me the night to sleep on it? Just one night… then in the morning either I’ll go look for the casings, or I’ll make my way back… alright?” Watching the sitting young woman for a while… debating… she eventually nodded.

  “Just give me another hour or two to check up on him and when I’m sure he’s asleep, you’ll see me at the door, ok?” The nod was returned, so the woman of the house returned to her man.

  He’d awoken again in a half hour or so, woke up with a start, reliving that frightful moment in his dreams. Lying on the ground, seeing his blood leak from him, legs kicking beneath him, body writhing, tears blurring his vision, and then looking down at himself in this state he seen Tiffany run over to him, lean over him, and suddenly she was grasped. Undead Richard was biting into her neck, blood sprayed everywhere as cold and dead brown eyes stared up where the dreaming man watched as he floated above them.

  “AGH! Fuck… hah… hah… shit…” A jolt of pain from being jolted from sleep, she came to his side, he was breathing heavily, adrenaline seething in him again.

  “What is it, are you ok?”

  “NNGH!... well… besides being… shot… yeah… just fine… God this hurts!” Speaking between clenched teeth his face was twisted from the agony. Eventually, with no small amount of willpower, he forced his body to relax, to lay still, to try not to think of his shoulder and to just look up at the fellow survivor who saved him from bleeding out. “I’m fine… I’m fine…” the sarcasm was gone from him now at least.

  “Do you want something to eat? There’s still plenty of moose left! Water, too! I boiled some more!” Giving her best bedside manners she tried to sound cheerful, upbeat, and optimistic.

  “Yeah… sure… but… I’m gonna have to take a piss soon.” She shook her head violently, bringing her right hand down softly to the blanket over his chest.

  “No-no, it’s ok sweetie, I’ve thought of that. Anytime you want, I’ll help you with it, ok?” She had a big, earnest smile to make him feel as at-ease as possible, even though she knew he’d be struggling with the fact that he, a big masculine man, strong and still fairly young, would need help just to relieve himself.

  “Thank you, Tiff… thanks a lot… this is bloody… embarrassing. One thing… though? Could you… lay off the… ‘sweetie’ stuff?” He gave a weak smile. It was hard enough having to be fed food, water, and now given help to take a leak. Being called something like ‘sweetie’ wasn’t helping matters.

  “Alright, sorry… would you prefer ‘daddy’?” She asked with a sly grin, and he gave a similar one back.

  “Ohhhh, you, devil… no rest for… the wicked. You won’t show… mercy until… I’m balls deep… in you again… will you?” Tiff rubbed the left side of his chest through the blanket.

  “Nnnnnnope!” It was said cheerfully, the grin never fading. She went to the bottle first, which was now full, and fed it to him. One mouthful after another, which he gulped down. After a while she asked if he wanted more to which he replied that he was fine, and then the food came. He finished the jar, and she was happy for it, even heard him comment that he felt full. With a big smile she rubbed his stomach softly, telling him that she was so happy to hear it, and then came the difficult part.

  It was an awkward process, but she just wanted to help him. The blanket was moved to reveal him from the waist down. Belt undone, pulled off, holster removed, button undone, zipper pulled down, his pubic area was immediately revealed to her due to the lack of underwear which she rather liked. The lack of underwear that is, the pubes not so much, but at the same time she had gotten quite used to it. Happily so. He managed to bring up his legs, slowly, until his feet was down on the cushion which then skimmed away as he relaxed the legs. He cursed, she laughed, until he groaned from the shudder of his body sending pain to his shoulder.

  Moving the cushion away, she helped him plant his feet, and then carefully, slowly, pulled the loosened pants out from under him. Once they were out from under his butt, which like his legs looked even paler than usual, almost making his body hair seem darker than it already was, the pants were slipped off completely. She helped him part his legs, looking at the heavy hanging scrotum and the uncut cock on top of it. It was rather amazing to her… he was a ‘grower’, as he put it, and though at this moment his dick was perhaps 2” at most, a generous amount of foreskin at the end of it as well, she learned first-hand that when he got good and hard it expanding to about 3x that length. If not 6 full inches, then damn close to it, and she loved it.

  A large glass was fetched and she found that it helped to have removed the bottom cushion for his member was a fair ways off the ground right now, so the base of the glass which was big enough to almost be a pint glass, sat on the carpet, the top tipped towards his crotch. She lifted the flaccid member, he was blushing from how terrible this situation was for him, or at least his body was trying to blush, but all it really managed to do was temporarily give his pale face the complexion it had before losing all that blood. He told her that his stream was more ‘controllable’ with the foreskin pulled back and also told her that it was very easy to pull it back while soft. She listened, and then did so, pulling it back.

  “Be sure that you’ve… got a good hold… on it, and that… it’s kept back… alright? If it slips… from your grip… and the foreski-… foreskin springs… back on… it might make a… a mess.” All this was terribly embarrassing for him, she could see and hear it in him, and did all she could to comfort him, telling him it’s ok, even lied and said she’d taken nursing courses in College. Considering she fainted at the sight of blood when she cut herself he doubted it was true, but for now was happy to believe it. She told him she thought she was ready, and so he tried to relax, as difficult as that was. “This is… hard…” She struggled not to make a joke about ‘hardness’, “… can’t go… very easily…” They stayed like that for a while, she changed her position where she sat, lightly moving his dick in the grasp of her middle and pointer fingers and thumb.

  “Try not to… move it… makes it… more difficult…” this was getting rather tedious for her, but she continued, holding it as steady as possible, trying to keep the ‘hole’ at the end of it pointed at the far wall of the large glass. He couldn’t give warning, to say something would be to break his concentration, to ruin everything he’d been trying to do for the past couple minutes; the stream came.

  “O-OH!” She stuttered, leaning forward, eyes wide while trying to control the dick which just gave her some resistance as the stream surged out. The movement made him tense, the stream stopped for a moment then started again. The start of the first stream had launched to the kitchen floor, but she pointed it back down, pressing it down against the balls a lit
tle; the second stream started well enough. He kept his eyes clothes she noted, this was clearly extremely difficult for him.

  The liquid was rather bright, quite yellow, and when he seen the nearly full glass when all was said and done as she was taking it to the back door to pour out onto the ground though away from the grave, he knew what it meant. She returned, the blanket already having been pulled down over his pale legs, the cushion returned for them to lie on, lower half left naked just like his top half save for the bandages. “I need… more water…” he said weakly, still evidently ‘blushing’ from what happened.

  “Sure!” Tiffany said, first splashing some onto her hands to clean off what got onto them as he pissed.

  “Sorry…” this was said not just weakly, but defeatedly, and she could see how it pained him. Not the shoulder, but his pride, his ego. It hurt her to see him like that.

  “Nooo, it’s fine, baby… in fact to be honest… I was kind of looking forward to handling you again…” This made him smile and she was glad to see it.

  “I’m going… to make you feel… so good… after all this.”

  “YES! Oh God yes, baby, I can’t wait. I want you good and healthy again, I want you to take me upstairs and… MMPH!” Not wanting to get into detail, she just gave a close-mouthed moan of desire as she unscrewed the bottle, and his face went serious, wishing he could do it right now. Tiff was just happy to hear him talking about getting better rather than preparations for if he died.

  “I will… I’ll give you… my everything… but I need… water… for now. My urine… my piss… very bright… it means I’m… dee-high-dray… tid.” She nodded, mouth going to an ‘O’ in understanding; he was dehydrated. He needed all the water he can get, needed to get back his blood! If only she had orange juice, apparently orange juice was good for getting back blood, the dyed brunette had no idea where she heard it but she recalled hearing it somewhere. Couldn’t check the fridge; he had already written on it with black marker ‘DO NOT OPEN’ because of the fear that it might have spoiled contents. It was even taped shut so that if gases built up in it, it hopefully wouldn’t open itself and fill the house with wreaking odour that would drive them out and force them to leave. He had told her a story of such an event, and she gagged at the thought of it.

  So she fed him water, lots of water, and when she asked if he had enough he said he could probably drink some more so continued until he shook his head after a gulp, satisfied. “Thank you… Tiffany… thank you so much… for everything.” The voice was breaking, tears coming to his eyes, “I’ve… never been… this close to…” he was going to say ‘death’, but she fancied he meant ‘somebody’, and it melted her heart, lowering to carefully hug him again, kissing his cheek, then his neck, and he gave a slight sob. “I’m glad… you’re here… glad… I stayed…”

  “Never leave me, Richard…” now she was tearing up, looking down at him, at his pale face, his sad features. “Please, never leave m-“

  “Never… never… how could I… after all… you’ve done for me? Never… I’ll never, baby… never…”

  “Never never never…” she wept into his neck, kissing him, hugging him, hard, too hard… he hissed in pain and she brought her body hastily away from him. “I’m sorry!” Her hands were down over his chest, hovering above him, eyes bleeding apology. He smiled up at her through the pain, shaking his head.

  “I-It’s ok… mmph…” the body shuddered, he lay his head back, eyes shut tight, trying to will the pain away. “God this… sucks…” at least he didn’t appear as tired as he was before, the nap must have been good for him; he’d slept for most of the day. She didn’t know what to do or say but thought that she should be honest with him, as painful as it might be to hear.

  “Richard? I’ve been… talking to Veronica…” his eyes opened, face suddenly reflecting anger at those last 4 syllables. He looked at her warningly; this wasn’t what he had wanted to hear. “She’s trying to make things right… I lived with her for years an-“

  “She… shot… me…” he said slowly and as clearly as he could, body shuddering now in both anger and pain, staring at her intimidatingly.

  “I know, and I’m angry at her for it too, I told her that if she’s not willing to try and make amends, then sh-“

  “She SHOT me…” more forcefully it had come out this time, it made him twitch in pain, head bucking lightly from it, but the gaze returned; anger.

  “Please… she’s my friend… just one night? She even said that in the morning either she’ll leave or go out and track down your cases-” He looked at her funny when she said that, then his features normalized when he realized she meant casings. “-so she’s giving serious thought to helping out. I mean she did drag away all those walkers you killed, and she mentioned that she heard about the thing you did with making cases into bullets.”

  “Casings into… cartridges…” She nodded quickly, smiling broadly, trying to win him over to give her a chance just as she had tried to get her friend to give him one.

  “Yeah! Yeah that! Exactly! You know she’d probably want to learn how to do that and would probably like to help, maybe she could even check out Strathcom from time to time for us, to look for anything we might need. I mean, she’s lived there for a lot longer than I did, grew up there even; she knows the ins and outs, did A LOT more scavenging than I did, wouldn’t even let me go out there alone! She looked after me a lot!” Tiffany was putting up quite a compelling argument in making him consider her. He kept thinking of her face, the look she gave as he looked down the barrel of her rifle just before a bullet screamed out of it. That look was heartlessness, he seen death there, seen that she was about to shoot him. A moment’s relief, a brief moment when he heard Tiff’s muffled voice through his ear plugs, seen the woman look to her left towards his lover and then ‘boom’… he shuddered from the thought.

  “… I don’t want… to see her… when you’re not around…” he said it demandingly and he had every right to make demands right now. She nodded quickly and listened further. “Lock the… doors… to the house… so she can only… get in… when you’re with… her…” more quick nods along with a big smile, happy that he was going to give her a chance. “If I… go… don’t give her… any of my things…” a slower nod, not liking the dark and somewhat greedy turn. “I don’t want… to see her… nor do I want her… to look at… or talk to… me.”

  “I already told her not to look at or talk to you, we’ll make this work, if she talks again like that then she is out of here.” He nodded, looking at her seriously. “Out of here!” Tiff reinforced it, saying it loudly and harshly. She didn’t want to kick out her friend but if she didn’t watch it, if she didn’t live by their rules, under their roof, or at least the roof they were claiming for the time being, then that’s it. It’s done, she would have to leave.

  His head fell back onto the cushion and he rolled it left, towards the corner of the room. She left to get her friend…

  “Like I said before, don’t even look at him, alright?” They had left the smoldering campsite where the smooth flat rock was left empty, the rest of the doe had been finished and its boney carcass with head still attached lay by the forest.

  “I know, I know! Geez, you’re like a broken record.” Tiff turned, putting a hand to her torso just below her chest.

  “I’m serious; you have one chance, right now you have the choice to stay or to leave come morning but if you mess up again, you won’t have any choice. I’ll lose a friend, as will you, and you’ll lose a warm, safe home. A lot cozier than that duplex we were in, isn’t it.” The taller woman nodded begrudgingly; there were no fireplaces there; when it got cold they just had to bundle up. Neither were looking forward to when the Canadian Winter came there in Ontario.

  Veronica motioned to her mouth with her right hand; zipping up her lips, to which her ex-roommate nodded though it would seem they were roommates once more. They went inside. He was still looking left in the dim light of the corne
r of the living room, the Sun almost completely down; he seen them faintly in his peripherals. Nick kept her eyes down… for the most part… however couldn’t help but to glance her brown eyes over to him briefly. Even in the lacking light she could see his paleness, far more pale than he had looked outside. ‘Ma’am’, she thought, mockingly, the thing he had called her. Only did that after she got the jump on him! If that cracker would have got the jump on her, he’d be calling her a filthy nigger, and would probably have shot her far more quickly than she did him! If he didn’t rape her first! Disgusting pig… a grimace came to her face as she passed him, he didn’t see, didn’t watch, as the two passed his lowly bed. Upstairs they went.

  “Alright, you stay here until I come get you-”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know…” it was said more in defeat than in defence of her own memory and knowledge. Tiff didn’t reprove her for the backtalk, simply watched as the woman kicked off her hiking boots and then sat on the bed, watching disapprovingly at her friend who was still in the doorway, holding onto the door, looking in. “What? Did you want my rifle?...” it was said in a somewhat offensive manner, as though she were being so harsh on the young woman for no reason.

  “No, Nicky… I just want to say that… it’s good to see you again. I’m glad you’re still alive. Goodnight, I hope you sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning… ok?” The black woman, the youngest person in the house, softened her featured. Even smiled at the touching words.

  “Thank you, Tiffy. Goodnight… and I’ll expect my bacon and eggs to be sitting by the door in the morning.” It was said jokingly, and the plump woman laughed quietly, her smile broadening.

  “Yes, massa Veronica, mistress Veronica, ma’am. Anythin’ mah babygirl want, mah babygirl get.” It was Nick’s turn to laugh now, and it was nice to hear that old familiar joke. She turned around in the blankets, facing away from the door which was then quietly shut, and though the last couple days have been absolute Hell she felt that at least now it seemed like things were slowly improving. Overnight she kept the stove stocked to keep Richard warm, gave him water once when he woke up thirsty, and so had another night of broken sleep. She did everything she could to try and make him content, comfortable, and relaxed, even though it was clear that every waking moment he was dealing with that pain.