The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  The first few times she’d gone out on her own, Jake had been pissed. He’d insisted that she take along a bodyguard. But eventually, and after she’d come back one day carrying the severed penis of a man who’d unsuccessfully tried to rape her, Jake had relented, realizing that Ava was indeed capable of handling herself when out on her own.

  He’d passed the severed member proudly among his men both as a trophy to show off just how badass his woman was but also as a warning that she was not one to be fucked with should they have any ideas of their own.

  Ava had shown that her silky smooth skin could easily be shed to reveal the venomous asp concealed within.

  Today’s walk wouldn’t be a lengthy one, but she was prepared nonetheless. A razor-sharp, eight-inch knife strapped to her thigh, and her two “lucky” 9 millimeter handguns fit snugly into holsters that were strapped tight against her body and concealed by her black leather jacket would leave anyone who made an attempt on Ava instantly sorry they’d tried.

  This morning, her hike took her to a shabby-looking brick bungalow that most would have thought abandoned. The front windows of the house were broken out. The front door stood wide open. Trash and clothing littered the front lawn.

  Ava walked around to the back of the home where the garage was located. She peered through one of the grime-covered windows. She could just make out a vehicle beneath a beige tarp.

  It was all she needed to tell her what she wanted to know.

  She walked to the back of the house. Here the door was not only shut, but locked. Ava had been here before. This door led directly to the basement of the house where the two individuals for whom she was searching, resided. She looked around, ensuring that nobody was watching and then knocked softly on the door. She waited a few seconds, and then knocked again, louder this time. Several seconds later, she heard some rustling behind the door, several locks click, and then the door creak open.

  An unshaved, yet handsome face peeked from behind the door. “We were hoping it might be you,” said a dark-haired man as he opened the door wider and stepped back to allow Ava inside. “You bring the rest of the stuff?” he asked eagerly.

  “We’ll get to that,” Ava said calmly as she entered the home and followed the man downstairs.

  They entered into a large, yet musty and sparsely furnished basement with a concrete floor. The space was dimly lit by a single overhead light. Just like the last time Ava had been to the home, she caught the hum of a generator concealed somewhere within the basement. A blonde-haired man sat on a couch before a television. He was playing a video game.

  “While things change, somehow they stay the same,” Ava shook her head, smiling sadly. “We still have our grown up boys, playing with toys.”

  The blonde-haired man paused his video game, turning around. Seeing Ava, he stood. His boyish good looks radiated through the poor lighting of the basement. “Ava,” he grinned, approaching her, arms outstretched, “good to see you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ava said, refusing his hug and pushing him back from her. He was obviously high. “Business first…” she paused, smiling at each of the men in turn, “…then pleasure.”

  “So the other half of our stuff?” the dark-haired man asked her again.

  “Yeah, I got it,” said Ava. “How was the trip down south?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Ran into some tough guys outside Jacksonville, but we took care of them. Other than that, everything was cool.”

  “You get the information I asked for?” Ava said.

  “We got it,” the blonde man nodded. “How’d you know those guys would be down there?” he tilted his head, giving her a quizzical look.

  “Call it my female intuition,” Ava said. “They were pretty badass back in the day, so I figured the flu – if they lived through it – would have them thriving after it passed.”

  “Yeah, they seemed to be set up pretty good. Here,” he handed her an envelope. “We wrote down everything you wanted in there.”

  She took the envelope and handed him a half-full baggy of white powder in exchange.

  “We all good?” the man grinned at her.

  “Yeah,” she nodded back. “We’re all good.”

  “You want to stay and party with us?” he asked, looking her up and down as he handed the bag over to his buddy who immediately moved to a nearby table, sprinkled some of it out, tasted it, and then divided it into neat, thin, three-inch-long lines.

  “I’ve got a little extra time to kill. Why not?” she shrugged out of her jacket.

  “Holy shit,” the blonde guy said, staring wide-eyed at the weapons strapped to Ava’s chest.

  “Come prepared or not at all is what I always say,” smiled Ava.

  “I guess,” he said.

  Ava ditched the jacket, but not the guns. She walked over to the table.

  “Ladies first,” the handsome blonde gestured to the lines of cocaine laid out on the table.

  Ava knelt, sniffing a white line up her nose. At the end of it, she twitched, shook her head, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Damn that’s good shit,” she said.

  The two men giggled goofily and then eagerly followed suit.

  “Time for some tunes!” said the blonde, sauntering over to a stereo and flipping it on.

  Soon all three were naked together on the sofa. Ava let each of the men take his turn with her, then both at the same time. Being with them made her remember how nice it was to be with men who focused on her rather than solely upon themselves during sex. She had to admit, it’d been such a long time that she’d nearly forgotten what it was like to truly feel pleasure. She was so used to concentrating on the needs of the other party that she had to remind herself to relax a little bit, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

  After they were done, Ava got dressed while the two men lounged in sex and drug-induced ecstasy. They looked half dead. Ava felt alive, invigorated. As she pulled on her pants and laced up her boots again, she looked over at them, “Thanks boys. Stick around; I might need your services again.”

  And with that she left.

  The two men looked at one another, unsure when Ava said “services” exactly what she meant. Either way, they were fine with it.

  * * *

  Back at the pump station later that afternoon, after Jake and the boys had returned from their raid and stashed their accumulated loot, the men gradually filtered upstairs to the building’s makeshift lounge.

  “Hang tight before you start celebrating,” Jake told the men who had already selected their choice bottles of booze for the evening’s consumption. “We need to go over some stuff.”

  While the men sat, booze in hand, impatiently awaiting their leader’s speech, Ava spent five minutes reviewing their next move with Jake in private before they rejoined the men.

  Jake of course started the meeting, talking big and taking all the credit for Ava’s ideas. Then he turned it over to Ava to handle the specifics. This had become their usual routine, mainly because Jake either didn’t know or couldn’t remember all the details and intricacies of the plans. But Jake didn’t care since he figured his men didn’t know any different. They thought he was calling all the shots, and that’s all that mattered. Plus, Jake liked having Ava by his side. That sweet little piece of ass helped remind his men of who he was, what he had, and why he had it.

  Ava had noticed something lately though when she was addressing the organization. When they’d first started having these sorts of gatherings, Jake’s men tended to leer lecherously at her. They seemed to see her as little more than a sex object, her sole purpose to serve their master and be devoured with their eyes. Lately however, things seemed to have changed. Ava could sense a difference in how the men looked at her and how they responded to her presence. While she could still see the lustful looks in their eyes – that sexual appetite that men had difficulty hiding – she could also see something else, something new, something different, something growing. She could feel it in the room. Before
, when she talked, the men would often talk over her, make lewd comments, drink or smoke; but now they listened, and listened closely. While Jake might have been too blind or too ignorant to notice it, Ava wasn’t. She could feel the men’s respect, her position and her power within the organization slowly and silently growing – and she liked it.

  CHAPTER 5

  While there weren’t many homes in Olsten, it took us a good hour to make a sweep of all of them. We wanted to err on the side of caution to ensure our stay in the town would remain a safe one.

  Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of our group and gave them a brief and very general rundown of what we’d seen and found. After this, we took a vote to decide upon our living location, selecting the general store as the best place for us to settle down.

  Our first order of business after this was to unload our supplies and then move the pickup and trailer so they weren’t sitting conspicuously out in the open where potential passers-by might notice them and get suspicious. While Olsten appeared to be a true ghost town, and was far enough from any major roads or highways not to draw much if any notice from other travelers, after our previous experiences, we weren’t taking any chances.

  After getting everything unloaded and inside the store, and the truck and trailer safely stashed behind the building, it was nearly dark out. We ate a bare-bones dinner and crashed out, making ourselves comfortable upon the available beds and sofas scattered throughout the two finished upstairs apartments. Due to her still-healing burns, we kept Emily resting downstairs in the store area to minimize the pain and discomfort both to her as well as ourselves by trying to maneuver her up the stairs on her stretcher. She was fine with this, and we used a bundle of pillows and blankets to make her as comfortable as possible. Dad said he’d stay downstairs with her to keep her company and ensure she had whatever she needed.

  The rest of us decided that since we were in a new environment, to be on the safe side, we’d set up a night watch. We split the night into two-hour shifts, splitting them between Ray, Will, Joanna, Claire, and me. We found a rocking chair up in the second-floor apartment and hauled it down to the front porch. I felt like Pa Kettle sitting outside on the porch, rocking away, my gun laid across my lap. It was actually kind of nice. I had the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. shift, and the peace, solitude, and complete stillness of the early morning was kind of soothing. I listened to the crickets chirp and the wind rustle leaves or pieces of paper and trash down the town’s deserted central thoroughfare. It was all very relaxing. I would have been happy to comfortably nod off in my rocker like the old timers before me who had probably done so in the exact same spot. I’m sure plenty of old fellers had whiled away many a summer afternoon sitting here rocking on the general store’s wood-plank front porch in days gone by.

  At around ten minutes to four, Joanna came out and joined me in the darkness.

  “You’re early,” I said after she’d pushed through the storefront’s screen door, closing the main door behind her and coming to stand beside me as I rocked. “Still got ten minutes until your shift.”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  “How’s Shane doing?” I asked.

  “Fine…I guess.” She paused, “How are any of us doing, really?”

  “Guess you’re right,” I agreed. “But maybe we can call this place home for a while…maybe longer.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound confident.

  “How are you doing?” I asked after an awkward silence.

  “Same,” she said shortly.

  Ever since the mountains of Tennessee, where Joanna had revealed that she had feelings for me, things had been slightly strained between us. It’s not that I didn’t find her attractive – just the opposite in fact. Maybe that’s what made things feel so uncomfortable. I didn’t fully trust myself around her and therefore tried to act more innocent than I was actually feeling. I think she knew there was something there, but it was something that would never be realized as long as Claire was in the picture. And I guess that maybe my understanding of this made me even more uncomfortable. I had to trust everyone in our group not just with my life but with the lives of my family. And while I trusted Joanna, it made me slightly nervous knowing that she had feelings for me that would go unrequited while Claire was by my side. It wasn’t that I thought Joanna would ever do something intentionally to get Claire out of the way, but when faced with life or death decisions that could affect Claire or her well-being, I’m afraid that a decision – consciously or not – might be made by Joanna that could allow Claire to be removed from the picture and in turn open the door for her to take a place by my side. I of course would never voice these concerns to her, as I guessed that doing so would only make things worse, but they were there nonetheless.

  “We should pull a few extra mattresses and bedding from the houses around town tomorrow and bring them over here,” she said in the blackness. She slowly walked over to the porch’s front steps and took a seat. I watched her, my eyes having adjusted to the darkness so that I could make out her blackened silhouette.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “We can take the trailer from house to house, loading up anything we need. This time we can take our time and make more thorough searches too. See if we can find any more food. I’m going to talk to Sharron tomorrow too. I’m hoping that once Paul’s better, she could start working on a garden. If we’re planning on being here for a while, we should start getting the ground ready for planting.”

  “I wouldn’t mind finding a bottle of whiskey or beer or anything to drink for that matter,” Joanna added.

  “You’re telling me,” I chuckled. “I could go for a stiff drink myself.” I fished in my pocket for one of the packs of stale cigarettes I’d found in a house we’d searched yesterday. I stood from the rocker, walked over and bent. “Cigarette?” I asked, nudging Joanna’s shoulder in the darkness to alert her that I was offering her one.

  “Thanks,” she took it and waited as I lit it for her and then lit one for myself.

  I sat down on the steps beside her where we continued to smoke largely in silence. Occasionally, one of us would offer a brief observation on the night or the town, but neither of us seemed to want to get into anything deeper, and certainly not anything regarding each other.

  After I’d finished my cigarette, I flicked the butt away out onto Main Street and stood.

  “I think I’m going to try to get a bit more sleep,” I said. “You got everything covered here?”

  “I’ve got it,” she said.

  I turned and walked up the steps, “See you in a few hours.”

  “See you,” she said.

  * * *

  I awoke later that morning to the sun blasting through the open blinds of a nearby window. We’d slept – Claire, Jason and I – in a queen-sized bed in one of the second-floor apartment’s bedrooms. Cashmere was curled up between Jason and me. She eyed me sleepily, watching as I yawned and stretched, and then following suit.

  I rolled quietly off the bed, doing my best not to wake Claire or Jason in the process, and walked out into the apartment’s living space. Joanna had slept on one living room sofa and had left Shane sleeping on the adjoining love seat when she came out to relieve me on night watch. Will and his family slept together in the master bedroom, all four of them squeezed into a king-sized bed. It seemed that little Paul was on the mend – as was Dad – and we hoped that the medications we were administering were doing the job. Meanwhile, we gave the upstairs apartment to Ray and Pam so that they could enjoy a little privacy together and pregnant Pam could get some much-needed rest.

  I got a drink of water from a bottle I’d left on the kitchen counter, grabbed the pack of cigarettes I’d left beside it when I came in earlier from watch, and made my way downstairs and back out to the front porch to make sure Joanna was doing okay.

  I was surprised to find when I arrived that she wasn’t at her post.

  I looked at my watch. It was a quarter t
o seven. Technically, she was only on watch until six, but I’d assumed she’d stick around out front or come back upstairs to rest with Shane afterward.

  Something was up with her, but I didn’t know exactly what. It bothered me, and while it wasn’t my business, at the same time, it kind of was since she was now a part of our family. I wanted to be there for her if she needed it, but I also didn’t want to become overly intrusive so that it appeared that I cared in a way that was inappropriate to our current situation.

  I leaned against one of the porch’s support pillars and lit my cigarette, bothered by it all, but determined to do my best not to be. After a moment, I pushed off the pillar and strolled slowly across the porch.

  I inspected the old soda machine, making a mental note to break it open later and search its interior for forgotten sodas. Just past the soda machine there was a newspaper dispenser. The dispenser contained copies of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

  Such an item was now completely useless to us, but for some reason, I paused before it. Looking down, I could see newspapers still inside. The headline on the lead paper’s front page blared, “PANDEMIC WREAKS HAVOC WORLDWIDE!”

  The date above the headline was September 12th.

  It suddenly hit me that this was the last newspaper ever delivered here…maybe the last edition ever printed by this particular publisher.

  I found myself instantly curious.

  I realized that we actually knew very little about society’s final days and how things developed with the spread of the flu. Since we’d been down in the vast forests of southern Illinois, and cut off from the data-dependant world during the nation’s death throws, we’d largely isolated ourselves not just from the effects of the flu itself but from the last days of the world as we knew it. Now I found myself with a sort of morbid curiosity about how things had played out.