by SD Tanner
He looked down at the old and scarred table and thought his Mom had barely seen them together and even she could see how they both felt. Wondering how he could have been so blind, he looked back at Mom and said, ‘Thanks, Mom.’ Standing up from the table, her kissed her cheek and said, ‘You’re one wise woman and I love ya.’
She kissed his cheek and said, ‘Goodnight, honey.’
Walking into to his old room on the second floor, he saw Ip wasn’t there and he figured she was probably washing herself. She was fastidiously clean, always wore perfume and insisted on clean clothes daily. More than once, she’d made it clear to him he smelled bad and he either washed or she would huff at him and sleep elsewhere for the night. Smiling, he thought, she could certainly make her point when she wanted to. He stripped down to his ACU pants and was relaxing on the bed when Ip returned from the bathroom wearing one of his t-shirts, which hung like a dress on her. Her presence filled the room with perfume and he stood up and called to her softly. Dropping her wash bag on the other bed, she turned to him with a questioning expression on her face.
As he smiled down at her, he reached out and slowly ran his hands down her body, pressing gently into the curves under her t-shirt. Ip remained passive and relaxed under his touch, and he pulled the t-shirt over her head and tossed it on the other bed with her wash bag. She looked curious, but unconcerned by his action and, now naked, he admired her soft curves and smooth hairless body. He again ran his hands slowly over her body, feeling each curve and enjoying the touch of her soft skin. His hand stopped to cup her warm, rounded and full breast. Massaging it gently, he firmly pinched her hardening nipple and Ip gasped in surprise. She looked down at his hand on her breast and then looked up at him, while he continued to tease her nipple and it grew even harder under his touch. Slowly her confused expression cleared, and she smiled up at him clearly delighted by the new sensations in her body.
He gently placed his hand on her face and ran his calloused thumb over her smiling mouth. Ip tilted her head into the palm of his hand, and he leant down and kissed her. As he ran his tongue across her lips, her tongue gently enquired his and he kissed her more deeply as she leaned closer into his body to take his full embrace. Feeling his rational mind leave, he allowed his body and his instinct to lead them where they both wanted to go.
After they were done, Ip lay on top of him and he had his arms wrapped tightly around her. He was content and he could tell she was too. It was the most intense sexual experience he’d ever had and she’d responded with a fierce and almost primal energy that unleashed his own. As he lay there reliving the pleasure and the joy, he felt her mouth and hands begin to explore his chest and stomach.
Chuckling softly, he said, ‘Honey, I’m not a young man and I’m gonna need a little time.’
Ip pushed herself onto her hands and knees and still straddling his body, she gave him a naughty smile. Tipping her head onto his chest, he felt her mouth and tongue on him as she started to explore and taste his body. He closed his eyes and set his rational mind free again, letting her explore his entire body with her mouth and it wasn’t long before he was ready for her again. Once they both exhausted their long held back needs, they curled into one another and slept deeply.
***
Ip thinks: I wake to whispers for they are back. The ruler and his foolish bald pack.
Ip speaks: What do you want I ask you back?
Super hunter: We bring the pack for your humans. Come with us or we will kill them.
Ip speaks: I will kill the pack and then you too. I will make your bald pack lack and that is true.
Super hunter: You are not human you are like us. Why do you stay with what is less? We are rulers and so are you.
Ip thinks: I hear the danger of what they say. They rule the bald ones and the humans are prey. Why do these rulers intend to kill? They hate the humans they must hate me too. The bald ones were foolish, but that is no longer true. Controlled by rulers they are dangerous too. This is a fight to rule the earth. With the rulers and the bald pack they run. Do my three men understand they plan to kill every human? I am human I will kill my enemy through. I will not let them have their fill.
***
Waking abruptly, he felt Ip leap from the bed and watched as she started pulling on her clothes. Instantly alert, he began pulling on his own clothes. Ip was snarling at the wall and he didn’t understand why, but he recognized the fierce look in her eyes and grabbing his gun and vest, he roared, ‘Hunters!’
Pulling the curtain away from the window, he looked out and saw hunters running into the lit perimeter, undeterred by the bright light. He could hear Fuzz was barking madly somewhere in the house. He thought, what the hell are they doing? Jordy had left the perimeter lights blazing into the night, but the hunters were running towards the house as if they could see in the bright light.
Bursting into the room behind him, Max breathlessly asked, ‘What’s happening?’
Still watching the hunters running through their bright lights, he said tersely, ‘Hunters are breaching the perimeter.’
To prove his point, he heard the dull thudding as the hunters threw themselves against the doors and boarded up windows downstairs. Ip had already left the room, but he didn’t know where she was. Turning to Max, he ordered, ‘Take up position here and start shooting, but watch out for Ip. Don’t shoot too close to her. She can move real fast.’
He headed out the room and ran into Dave, Jay, Anna and Jordy on the landing. He could hear gunfire from Mom and Pop’s room and assumed his father was already in position.
Directing the combat, he ordered, ‘Max has the window at the back of the house. Dave, take the West side window. Jay, take the East window. Jordy, buddy up with Dave. Do not shoot too close to Ip. Anna get Christine and the kids into the storm shelter.’
Anna’s faced creased with fury and she said angrily, ‘Stop treating me like shit! I can use a gun.’
Ignoring her tantrum, he continued giving orders, ‘When ya have ‘em secured in the storm shelter, get the ammo and keep everyone supplied.’ Pausing, he thrust his face into Anna’s, and said in a low, but steady voice, ‘Get it done, Anna.’
Anna blinked at him and then pulled away from his face and he saw her turn and head into the room Christine and the kids used. Satisfied she would do as ordered, he turned and walked into his parent’s room. He found Pop positioned at one of their bedroom windows firing repeatedly and Mom was at the other window, also firing. Mom briefly turned to him and calmly asked, ‘Have you got those kids into the storm shelter, honey?’
‘Anna’s on it,’ he replied. ‘Have ya seen Ip out there?’
Pop replied, ‘Yeah, she went out the landin’ window onto the porch roof and jumped down. I watched her kill a bunch, then she disappeared round the other side of the house.’
Relieved to know where she was, he worried with so many shooters, she could get shot and said, ‘Okay, thanks, but don’t shoot her.’
Quickly turning to face him, Pop said sarcastically, ‘Thanks for the heads up, son.’
Dismissively flicking his hand at his father, he headed to the window on the landing. Climbing out onto the roof of the porch, he could see at least a dozen dead hunters on the ground in front of the house and a trail of dead hunters made it clear which direction Ip had taken. All around him, he could hear continuous gunfire from every corner of the house. With their heads vibrating manically, hunters were continuing to emerge from the dark, but at least the perimeter lights were making them easy targets for the shooters. Beneath him, the hunters out of the line of sight of the shooters, were hammering their bodies against the doors and boarded windows. He’d never seen so many hunters attacking at once, and still more came out of the darkness beyond the perimeter lights. Already there were at least 100 or more hunters, either dead or still attacking the house.
He quickly realized they were in an impossible situation. They didn’t have enough ammo to deal with this level of assault and he reasone
d the hunters would break through the doors and windows soon. When the hunters breached the ground floor, they’d be trapped upstairs without enough ammo to survive the ongoing assault. He decided retreat was their best chance for survival. If they retreated, they could still get into the storm shelter and leave Ip to guard the door, but he didn’t like it. If the hunters breached the storm shelter door, they’d be trapped in the shelter and face certain death. Hunters usually avoided Ip, but he’d never seen her try to kill this many hunters. The hunters were also behaving out of character and they weren’t staying away from the bright lights. They were attacking as a pack, and he couldn’t predict what else the hunters might do. They almost seemed to be organized, as if they were directed and willing to sacrifice themselves for some greater purpose.
In the end, he concluded it didn’t matter. If they stayed fighting as they were, they were going to die. If they got into the storm shelter and Ip couldn’t hold the hunters back, they were going to die. The only option he had was to get everyone into the storm shelter and assume Ip could hold the door safe. Having made his decision, he climbed back through the window to issue his new orders.
He walked into the nearest room where Mom and Pop were continuing to shoot out of their windows. Pop was no longer shooting into the distance, but was aiming downward. Moving into position next to Pop, he looked down and saw there were so many hunters, they were piling on top of one another and forming an untidy pyramid. The hunters at the top of the pyramid were reaching to pull themselves up through the window. Using his M4A1, he fired into the rapidly moving heads of the hunters below, which temporarily brought the pyramid down, but he knew it would only take a moment before the constant surge of hunters would create another pyramid.
Still firing, he shouted, ‘Take Mom and get to the storm shelter.’
Pop didn’t question him and he grabbed Mom and headed out of the door. He followed them out, pulling the door closed behind him, hoping it might buy them even a few seconds of time. Swiftly moving to each shooter, he issued the same order. In every room, he looked outside for Ip and below each window, a pyramid of hunters was forming. As the shooters left each room and headed for the storm shelter, the sound of gunfire gradually ceased and he could hear wood splintering as the downstairs doors and windows were breaking under the weight of the attack. He could still hear one gun repeatedly firing and the sound was coming from Christine’s room.
Lurching into the room, he saw Anna was still firing and he shouted, ‘What the hell are ya still doin’ here? Get to the storm shelter now!’
Anna glared at him and her expression made clear what she thought of him. Taking her M4 with her, she stormed past him and ran down the stairs towards the shelter. While he watched her run down the stairs, he saw Ip run around her and up the stairs. She looked wild and he saw she was bleeding from her right shoulder. Shit, he thought, somebody must have shot her. He tried to grab her to check the wound, but she pulled out of his grasp, took a handful of his shirt and pulled him down the stairs towards the shelter. Clearly, she knew there was no way they could defend the house.
It was an old house and it didn’t have a basement, but it did have a small cellar under the kitchen floor. The cellar was originally used to store food, but Pop extended the space and he now used it as a storm shelter. The entry to the shelter was a hatch over the floor with a pull ring. Below the hatch was a steep set of stairs that led into a large brick-lined hole in the floor. He thought squeezing eight adults plus two kids into the small space was going to be a tight fit. The hatch was open, but before he was willing to crush himself into the shelter, he wanted to check Ip’s injury.
Grabbing Ip’s arm, he said firmly, ‘Stand still. I need to see that wound.’
He pulled down the shoulder of her t-shirt and saw she had a through and through at the top of her shoulder. It was still bleeding, but not profusely and he called down to the shelter, ‘Max, bring me a med kit.’
Appearing at his side with a med kit and a flashlight, they quickly bandaged the wound tightly to stop the flow of blood. While they finished the makeshift bandage, he heard the sound of wood and glass breaking, followed by the sound of scrabbling and growling. Ip snarled, pulled away from his grasp and headed in the direction of the sound. Max was staring after Ip in surprise and he guessed she’d never seen the hunter in Ip before.
Pulling her by the arm, he said abruptly, ‘Come on, Max, we gotta go.’
Still looking stunned, Max asked, ‘What is she?’
Pushing Max down the stairs into the shelter, he said, ‘She’s the woman who’s gonna keep us alive tonight.’
Climbing down the steep stairs after Max, he pulled the hatch closed and turned to face the group standing or slumped around the shelter. Christine was sitting in the corner with an arm around each of the kids, holding them tightly to her body. Fuzz had clearly decided the kids were his responsibility and he was sitting at their feet guarding them.
He thought the kids looked terrified and, nodding to them, he said reassuringly, ‘It’s gonna be okay.’
Pop kept emergency food and water in the shelter and Mom was handing out drinks to everyone. With so many heavily sweating and panicked people, the shelter was already starting to warm up. He couldn’t hear the sound of anything against the hatch door, but there muffled banging sounds coming from within the house. He realized the shelter was almost soundproof. Taking a bottle of water from Mom, he sat down heavily on the steps and, with his gun across his knees, he prepared to wait the rest of the night out. Looking at his watch, he saw it was 4am and dawn was only a few hours away. He remembered the first night when Ip guarded the door to the basement they’d been trapped in, and he was annoyed to find himself back where he started. Actually, he thought, it’s depressing. All this work and we don’t seem to be getting any further ahead than when we started. Running his hand over his face, he tried to erase the tiredness that suddenly swept over him.
He was jolted out of his reflection by a sudden loud thump against the hatch followed by screeching and howling above them. There was a scrabbling against the hatch and he aimed his M4A1 at the small wooden entranceway.
Watching the hatch warily, he said, ‘Nobody fire. Ip may be above the hatch.’
***
Ip speaks: You are bald beneath your skin if you think I will let you win. You hide behind your foolish beasts. How can you be ruler when you are so weak?
Super hunter: Why do you defend your enemy true? If I am fool so are you. You are us and we are you. We are your future and that is true.
Ip speaks: Nothing is true until it is done. You have not proven that I am one. You hide behind your bald beasts. You are shamed and you should retreat.
Super hunter: We come for you. You belong to us. It is not humans that you should trust.
Ip speaks: Go away and leave me be. I belong to no one for I belong to me.
***
Crouched at the top of the stairs, directly under the hatch, he listened to the growing noise above them. He hoped Ip was on the other side of the hatch and it comforted him to think she might be near. If he had to, he would open the hatch, pull her in and start shooting anything that moved.
Jordy broke the silence of the group and said dourly, ‘Little bastards. I spent all day on those lights.’
Dave snorted and said sarcastically, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the thing to focus on in a shitstorm.’
‘How did they get through the lights?’ Max asked. ‘It was as if they could see.’
He didn’t understand that either and replied, ‘Dunno, never seen ‘em do that before.’
‘They’re making a mess of my home,’ Mom complained.
Pop was sitting hunched on a wooden crate and he said miserably, ‘We doan have a home no more. The Ranch is gone. I’m guessin’ the horses too.’
The little girl cuddled up to Christine began to sob and Christine pulled the child closer, whispering something comforting in her ear.
Mom took Pop’s hand an
d she said pragmatically, ‘We have the boys and that’s enough. Besides, I’d rather be with them than here. This just means we can leave and be with our family.’ She added brightly, ‘And Bob has a cruise ship, and you know I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise.’
Pop chuckled and said dryly, ‘Bob has a cruise ship, is not something I ever expected to hear.’
‘See, you never know what tomorrow is gonna bring,’ she replied, smiling at her husband.
The noise and the banging above them continued unabated for several hours and given the hunters ignored the perimeter lights, he wasn’t even sure dawn was going to bring them any safety. At around 6am, the house became silent and he assumed it was light outside. He pushed the hatch to open it, but it didn’t budge. Dave and Jay joined him and the three of them heaved at the hatch, but something was weighing it down and it was too heavy to be Ip. The three of them braced their legs on the steps and heaved in unison, but it still didn’t budge.
Dave muttered, ‘What the hell?’
Pop appeared at the bottom of the steps with a saw and said, ‘Cut through the hinge.’
He took the saw from his father and awkwardly jammed it into the gap between the hatch and the floor. Sawing from that angle wasn’t easy, but his bulk paid off and he put his muscle into the sawing motion. He’d only cleared through one hinge when the hatch bulged downward into the shelter. He and Dave got their hands around the thick wood and pulled it the rest of the way down. As the hatch door gave way, dead hunters tumbled onto them and they both fell down the stairs under the momentum of the corpses. The stench of vomit filled his nose and he pushed the bodies away from him and looked up through the hatch. Hanging with her head upside down and her shaggy blonde hair in tangles, was Ip. Seeing him, she squeaked happily. Feeling relieved, he thought, some things never change and sometimes that’s a good thing.