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Check out A Warm Place – Prelude!

(This isn’t necessary to enjoy A Warm Place, it’s just a fun bonus novella that helps set the stage for the frozen wasteland Earth has become.)

Table of Contents

ZERO

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

TWENTY SIX

TWENTY SEVEN

EPILOGUE

OTHER TITLES

ABOUT ME

ZERO

I can no longer remember the exact day that the snowfall began.

I know it was in June, two years ago now.

Some days I’m convinced that it was the fifteenth of the month, but other days I seem certain, absolutely certain, that it was twenty first. And then other days, I just don’t know. I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore. A lot of people argue and debate over when the end of the world began, I suppose that’s why I still fixate on it from time to time.

There are those who say it began in this decade or that decade of the previous century. Some even say it began during the Industrial Revolution. They all probably have a good point. It wasn’t any one thing that led us here. It was a lot of little things, a few big things, and mainly just people, rich people, who either didn’t care or actively fought against saving the world.

I mean, I think. I could be wrong.

Shit, it could be aliens for all I know.

But for me the end of the world began when snow fell in June.

I was in Florida when it happened. That was where I had lived my entire life.

There were warning signs. You kept hearing about freakier and freakier weather all up through the 2030s. For me it was ‘out of season’ hurricanes, or ‘unusually strong’ hurricanes that just kept coming. Eventually they wiped Miami completely off the map. And then the news started talking one day about how California was burning again, only this time it didn’t stop.

I remember seeing the Hollywood sign consumed in flames.

I think that’s what finally made it real for a lot people.

Or maybe it was the tornadoes ripping through the Midwest, leveling whole cities.

Or maybe it was the rain. Before the snow, we had rain, and I remember coastal cities just being totally flooded.

They had to evacuate New York City. As far as I know, no one ever went back.

I swear to God, it was like a goddamn disaster movie. Only it didn’t stop.

It just got worse.

Even with all that, I still got floored when it started getting cold, as in cold cold, in the middle of June. I went outside one morning and saw my breath on the air. It felt like stepping into a parallel universe. A few days later, a blizzard hit my town. I think that was when it really clicked home for me that this wasn’t going to just go away. I don’t know why that was the straw the broke the camel’s back for me, but it was.

I still wonder how long the politicians knew. Obviously the scientists knew, but I do wonder how many of them kept silent...or were silenced.

That’s still a really clear memory for me, though.

Stepping out of my apartment building and just stopping as the cold hit me like a hammer. It had been seventy five degrees the day before.

My breath on the air.

My lungs burning in the cold.

Miserably gray clouds overhead.

That was when I knew, somewhere deep, that this was it.

This was the beginning of the end.

ONE

I opened my eyes and was met with confusion and pain.

For several seconds, I had no idea what was happening, what had happened, or even where I was. I tried to move. My body was well on its way to numb, my muscles sluggish and unresponsive. I groaned and shifted again.

I was constrained by something, it was across my chest.

I blinked a few times, looked around, shivering, and finally my brain clicked back on at least part of the way. I was inside my damned car. But something was wrong, deeply, frighteningly wrong. I groaned as a wave of pain rolled through my body. My seatbelt was what was holding me in place. I reached down and fumbled with it, trying desperately to figure out what in the fuck had happened. Because obviously something had happened.

That my jeep, I realized all at once, was tilting slightly to the right. And there was a crack through the windshield, a big one. I hit the release and pulled the seatbelt up. My thoughts came slowly, like they had to crawl to get to where they were going. I knew I had to do something. I just wasn’t sure what the fuck it was.

Jesus, how hard had I hit my head?

Judging by the headache that was being kept at bay by the cold, probably pretty hard.

The cold. That was it. The cold. I had to get out of the cold.

“Come on!” I snapped, and jerked my whole body. A bolt of pain seared through me and I felt several different parts of my body cry out in pain. It hurt like fuck, even through the numbing cold, but it served its purpose.

I was more awake and aware.

Okay, I’d been in a crash. I’d been driving along a highway perched up on a steep incline and...I must’ve gone down over the incline. Why? I was pretty careful with my driving. Especially given how fucking foggy it had been.

Then I remembered.

Someone had appeared out of the fog. I’d been going a little faster than I should have. I’d swerved, gone right through the guard rail and down the incline. Shit. After all I’d gone through to get this damned car, the luck of finding it, and I’d only managed to hold onto it for a freaking month and a week!

I looked around, shivering worse now.

Maybe it wasn’t a total loss. But that could wait. The driver’s side window was broken out, as was the back windshield. I could hear the wind shrieking and knew that meant a storm was on the way. As I looked back out through the cracked windshield, I saw from the big fat snowflakes that were tumbling down from the iron gray skies overhead it was already here. Fuck. If I didn’t find somewhere secure in a hurry I could freeze to death.

I tried the door. It wouldn’t open. Feeling a bit of panic, I shoved against it. It should open if it hadn’t been too damaged in the crash, given that my side was the one that was angled slightly up in the tilted car. I began shoving harder, leaning into it and pushing against whatever I could. The door groaned and suddenly popped open.

I fell out into a drift of snow.

“Fucking-fuck!” I snapped, anger and pain briefly overwhelming me as my whole body cried out in anguish. I struggled back to my feet and automatically reached back into the car, towards the passenger’s seat, where my backpack full of all my most crucial shit was. My heart skipped a beat as I failed to find it. I crawled back into the vehicle, pain momentarily forgotten as fear started to overwhelm me.

No, it had to have just fallen down in the-

I looked on the floor, below the glove compartment, which itself hung open.

It was empty.

“Oh fuck me,” I whispered.

Someone had robbed me. I looked in the back fruitlessly. They had even taken the fucking mattress I’d had back there!

There was nothing left.

I stepped out of the car, my head suddenly clearing, my panic suddenly zeroing out.

In the ensuing months of the apocalypse, I had learned that I was oddly suited for surviving in it. Perhaps even thriving in it. One of the reasons, and this was one I had nurtured once I had recognized it for what it was, was that when the shit went down and fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, it was almost like a circuit breaker was flipped in my head. My panic, my anger, my fear, after a certain threshold they just drained away in a hurry.

Leaving my head clear to act.

I stepped up on the seat I had just been sitting in, getting my head above the car and taking a look around the area. Behind me was the incline I’d crashed down and the highway above. Well, I called it a highway, really it was more of a route through desolate nowhere, not one of those big four-lane jobs everyone thought of when you said highway. Nothing back there for me. There wasn’t much to see to my left because the land rose a good six or seven feet. To the right was a relatively flat stretch of land and I could see some trees scattered about.

Dead ahead, though…

The visibility was shit and getting shittier. But through the blowing snow I saw it: a building. It was small, almost certainly a cabin of some kind, but it was, ideally, four walls and a roof. Even that could mean the difference between life and death. Hopping back down, I immediately set out. Marching around the front of my vehicle, I headed off, kicking my way through the snow, careful as I could be to keep from falling in any holes in the ground. That had happened way too often for my liking since this whole thing had begun.

I paused only once, glancing back at my jeep. It was a lonely sight, and a sad one. I’d found that thing six weeks ago and worked hard to fix it. And now it was probably fucked. Well, that was the way of the world now.

Or I guess it always had been, it was just more obvious now.

Telling myself to get over it, that whining about it, even inside my own head, wouldn’t change shit, I marched on.

The cabin grew closer as the winds picked up. Yes, definitely a blizzard. I fucking hated blizzards. Well, I guess that wasn’t entirely true. Some of the most sex-fueled nights I’d had were during bad blizzards.

I tried to think as I marched across the open space towards the cabin, but it was too hard to think. My head was hurting and that, combined with how fucking cold and in pain I was in other places, and the damned blizzard, made it too hard to think about the before or the after. I guess all I should worry about was the right now.

There wouldn’t be an after if I didn’t get my ass in gear and stay alive.

As I got closer to the cabin, it became obvious that the front door was open. Great. That could mean nothing, and I didn’t notice smoke coming out of the chimney. But someone could’ve just gotten there ahead of me, seen me coming, or maybe heard my crash, (how long had I been out?), and was now laying in wait for me. Fuck, and I didn’t have any weapons on me, either. Or did I? I began checking my pockets patting them down. No, the holster on my hip wasn’t just empty, it was gone. Knife was gone, too.

And my-

A wash of fear broke through my stoic dam as something occurred to me and I reached into my inner pocket.

“No,” I muttered as I began digging deeper into the pocket, even as I knew it was empty. “No, no, no!” I snapped.

My journal!

My fucking journal!

For a moment I was almost overwhelmed by anger, pure, white-hot anger that I hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

I was fucking livid.

But a particularly strong gust of wind almost knocked me over and a throb of pain cut through my body and it was like a dash of cold water across me. I could be angry later. Someone had stolen my journal, but I would deal with that later.

Of all the fucking things that could-

“No,” I muttered as I tromped on towards the cabin. “Fix it later.”

As I approached the open front door, cutting down to maybe twenty feet of space, I realized there was someone inside. They were laying on the floor, apparently passed out. I got a little closer and shifted, trying to get a read on what I was seeing. A woman. An attractive woman. Fuck. I looked around immediately.

This screamed trap.

But I didn’t see or really sense anyone out there. Didn’t mean no one was out there, but normally my instincts were good. Of course, I’d just been in a car wreck, a bad one that I was lucky to walk away from, and in a worsening storm.

And I was unarmed.

Not quite defenseless, but definitely unarmed. I moved forward until I hit the front wall of the cabin and peered cautiously inside. I saw some things: a bed, a kitchen area, a fireplace, but no people other than the unconscious woman. Time to do a perimeter check, see if someone was hiding out back or something.

I considered the possibilities as I walked around, scoping the situation out.

This seemed like a trap because I knew a lot of guys, not every guy, but too many who were out and about nowadays, would find an unconscious woman and do exactly what you think they would do. I wouldn’t, because amazingly, there was more standing between me and doing unforgivable evil than ‘I’ll get away with it’.

The apocalypse didn’t wipe out everyone’s moral compass, in fact, I’d seen some genuinely self-sacrificing, heroic people since the snow started to fall.

But I think most people don’t realize that a shocking number of us don’t really have a moral compass, or maybe even just a shitty one.

And all these cliché tropes about civilization being the only thing keeping us from turning into barbaric savages was way more true than we’d like to admit.

In a way, it was true for me.

Before, I never would have killed someone.

Now? I had killed people. Not many, and I avoided it if at all possible, but sometimes it literally was you or them.

And it wasn’t going to be me.

I moved around the side, tried to peer in one window, but a curtain was pulled over it. So far, no sign of anyone. I kept going.

It was also possible that the woman had been running from someone, and that someone might still be around, looking for her. All the more reason to get inside and get secure. I came around back. Still no one. Just a thick forest about twenty feet away, barely visible now. Hustling along, I quickly completed my circuit and became about as certain as I could, given the circumstances, that I was alone save for the woman.

I carefully moved inside, ready to fight for my life if I had to, making damn sure to check either side of the open door before I got in.

No one was pressed up against the wall with a gun or a knife or something else to smash me in the head with.

Once inside, I closed the door and the howling of the winds quickly became blessedly muted. Working as fast as I could, I checked the building out. It was small, the kind of place people rented out, usually one, maybe a couple, to get away from everyone and everything for a weekend. So the kitchen, living room, bedroom, all one room. There were only two other doors. One led to a narrow closet that was basically empty with no place to hide, the other led to a bathroom with a shower stall that was going to be useless.

I checked the shower, I checked under the sink and under the bed, I checked everywhere a person could conceivably hide.

Finally, satisfied that I wasn’t going to get jumped, I moved over to the woman.

Crouching, I began to assess her.

She was still alive, that much was obvious, and I couldn’t see any blood or wounds. She wasn’t quite dressed for cold weather, wearing just some jeans, hiking boots, and a thin jacket over a shirt. She was very cold to the touch. Chances were, she passed out from exhaustion and being cold. Something I felt close to doing.

But I couldn’t, not yet.

Carefully, I picked her up and crossed the room. I got her situated on the only bed, a double-wide that was just big enough to hold two people. I got her under a blanket, made sure her head was comfortably on the pillow, then went back to the closet and pulled another blanket I’d seen in it down. Throwing it over her, I moved over to the fireplace.

For a moment, I was stymied. Normally I’d have supplies to start a fire, but I’d been motherfucking robbed and…

There. Relief flooded me as I saw a pack of matches peeking out from underneath a nearby footrest. I retrieved them, opened them up. Only six left, but hey, it worked. I pocketed them and then checked around the fireplace for stuff to burn. There was nothing left in the fireplace itself, and there were just a handful of twigs and a single, somewhat more substantial log left in an area that was clearly designated for fuel.

I threw it all in and then hunted around for a bit longer. There was a desk in the corner to the right of fireplace, beneath a window next to the front door. The top was bare, but as I rifled through the drawers, I found some papers. Good tinder. I set some in after ripping them up a bit and adjusted the fuel as best I could.

I’d need more, I didn’t think I was going anywhere for the rest of the day, but this would do for now. Working carefully and diligently, I got to work.

Firs things first: I checked that the chimney was clear. It was.

God fucking forbid I die of carbon monoxide inhalation after all the shit I’d survived.

It took a few minutes and two of the damned matches, but I got a fire going. It was small but growing. I crouched there, tending to it, making little adjustments and just relishing the warmth. Well, sort of.

Warmth meant my body was going to lose the numbness that was acting close enough to a painkiller. All that pain I was in was going to hit me full force. Making myself leave the primal comfort of the fire, I moved back over to the woman and checked on her. She was breathing less shallowly now and her color was coming back.

I wondered who she was. She looked young, maybe late teens or early twenties. Not too much younger than I was, even if I no longer felt twenty five.

I didn’t know what age I felt, other than old, most days.

She was obviously attractive, a redhead who would have easily been a cam model or vlogger or whatever a few years ago, with a lot of subscribers desperate for her attention. Even bedraggled and half-dead her beauty was obvious. I left her in the bed and walked back over to the door. Might as well scavenge for wood while the storm had yet to go into full swing. I opened the door, glanced back one more time at the mystery woman, then I left.

Back into the hungering cold.

TWO

The storm was worse, but the full brunt of it wasn’t here yet.

Based on everything I’d learned over the past few years, I thought I had maybe ten minutes before it got so bad I wouldn’t be able to reliably find my way back to the cabin even ten feet from it. I’d found people frozen to death like five feet from buildings before, that’s how shitty visibility was inside a blizzard.

I’d seen a bin on the back of the cabin and there had been a little firewood there. Not much, but it was a start. Hurrying back, I snagged any sticks I saw poking up out of the snow. Every little bit helped. I had no idea how long I’d be in there. Worst case scenario, I could break down some furniture, I guess.

I had done it often enough in the past.

I got back to the bin, grateful for the cold and the way my pain was retreating now. Warming up when you were in pain was a really double-edged sword, but I could avoid it only for so long. And I still had no painkillers. There were three decent logs in the bin, and a handful of other wood scraps. Seeing them reminded me of the last woman I had been intimate with. She was dozens of miles away now, somewhere back to the south, farther probably. I couldn’t be sure how far I’d managed to travel in the two weeks since I’d left her.

Putting that out of my mind, I finished gathering what I could, finished my circuit of the cabin, grabbed a few more sticks and branches, and then headed back inside. Closing the door with my foot, I dumped the stuff on the floor next to the fireplace and spent a few minutes putting a bit more fuel in the fire. The fact that my journal was missing kept wanting to leap back into the forefront of my awareness, but I wouldn’t let it.

It was theoretically possible, I supposed, that it was back at the jeep. That somehow it had fallen out of my pocket, but I didn’t think it likely. If it had, it was weatherproof, or at least up to a certain point. But I knew there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it right now, and so I might as well ignore it for the moment.

Easier said than done.

I’d never been without my journal since I’d first started writing it.

Once the fire was stable and would burn for at least a few hours, I headed back over to the little kitchen area and started hunting. I would do a more thorough search, a much more thorough search, soon. But life after the apocalypse had taught me something crucial: don’t do one thing if you can be doing two things at the same time.

For example: I could be searching the cabin for supplies and boiling snow into water.

My efforts were rewarded. I found a pot tucked away in a cabinet, walked back outside, packed it mostly full of snow, then came back in and set it by the fire. With that out of the way, I went to the next thing on the little checklist that was in my head.

Security.

In this brave new world of snow and ice, murder was a lot more commonplace than before. That and thievery, although the two seemed to go hand-in-hand too often. The fact that I had been robbed, but not murdered, struck me as incredibly odd. But I’d been passed out, so I guess it made more sense. It was pretty difficult to successfully keep people out of an average building, so the goal wasn’t necessarily to keep them out, but to force them to make a lot of noise if they wanted in. Breaking a window, kicking in a door.

There were ways to do this, but for the moment I thoroughly checked the place over. The front door had a deadbolt, and a chain, which I locked down tight. There were four windows, and they were all thankfully intact and lockable. I made sure they were locked and couldn’t be opened. Too many windows had suffered from neglect and would actually open even though they looked locked because they weren’t actually locked.

I didn’t see any trapdoors in the floor or the ceiling, and there didn’t appear to be any weak points among the structure, so I figured this was as secure as it was going to get. I pulled the curtains over the windows and hoped no one was around. Once the storm settled, the smoke coming out the chimney would be obvious enough.

Then I set to work doing one of the things I actually really liked doing now.

Searching. Exploring.

I don’t know why it appealed to me so much, but it did. Even when I was a kid, I remembered looking at buildings and just wanting to get into them. Not to like break in or steal shit, but just to be inside and see what was in there. Just to explore. Hell of a way to get my wish. Now, I could go into damn near every building I saw.

With the fire crackling and the warmth filling the cabin, I began a thorough search.

I was good at it, for some reason.

There’s a science to it, to be sure. Well, more just a diligence: check everything. You see a desk, check all the drawers. You see some cabinets? Check them all, all the way to the back. Most of it was just persistence more than anything else.

But there was an art to it, I had found.

For some reason, things just occurred to me. I could just look around a room and, given a little bit of time, I’d get an idea of where a person might hide something. Sometimes it was secret compartments, some times it was panels in the walls, sometimes it was taped up under a table, hell I’d found stuff hidden inside of those old boxy TVs some people still had. I started to the right of the front door, where a little dining area was, and a coat rack. Nothing on the coat rack. The dining area was just a long, narrow table pushed against the wall with four chairs around it. Nothing under the table, nothing in the chairs.

They’d make good firewood, at least.

Beyond that was the kitchen. Cabinets, a sink, a little narrow dishwasher, an equally small oven, and some counterspace. This was probably going to be the most promising place to search. As I started hunting through the cabinets and the drawers, which had obviously been picked over by prospecting hands already, my body began coming back online and damn was I missing my painkillers. It seemed like everything hurt.

My joints, my back, my limbs, my head, my chest, my jaw, my hands and feet. It was either sore, bruised, or aching.

I’d been in worse pain before, but this was pretty lousy.

My mind went back to the moments before the crash. I had been taking a risk. I knew I should have just stopped, buttoned up, and waited out the bad weather. Especially when the fog had rolled in and the winds had made it worse. But I’d been in a shit mood, and I was pissy, irritated, and maybe feeling a little ‘fuck you’ towards the world in general. Hell, towards the weather itself. I had a lot of patience, but sometimes it wore thin.

And I had paid for it.

That was the lesson: your mood doesn’t matter. Respect reality.

I sighed as I finished searching the kitchen twenty minutes later. There was some old silverware, a few plates and cups, and a little bit of food. Not as much as I would have liked. I set everything I found on the table, then checked on the woman again. She was still breathing, and still out. I left her to it and headed to the next area: the closet. Its door was tucked a little awkwardly against the counterspace.

The closet and the bathroom were pushed up into the corner right next to the kitchen. I opened up the closet and slipped inside. Still narrow, still basically empty. I hunted around anyway, using what light I could, mostly going by feel. There weren’t that many places to put stuff. They’d be either on the floor or on the high-up shelf that ringed the top. Nothing tucked away up there on the shelf, a single t-shirt hanging from a single hanger beneath it, a handful of socks, and nothing else. Wonderful.

Better than nothing, technically.

I dumped it on the table, then moved to the bathroom and checked that. The shower stall was empty, but I looked at it longingly anyway. How long had it been since I’d taken a shower? Since I’d had a bath?

Way too long.

Some places still had working showers, but they were pretty expensive, and ultimately I found that there were other things I wanted more.

Nothing hidden away in the toilet, its tank, or behind it.

The mirror wasn’t the kind you could open up and I ducked down and poked around in the little space under the sink. There was a little basket there, obviously meant to hold stuff, but it didn’t hold anything now. I looked under and behind it, felt around along the edges, trying to find even a single wayward pill.

My body was aching more and more and fuck me what I wouldn’t give for even just a single painkiller.

But no, nothing.

Pushing aside my frustration and anger, which were on tap far more than usual because my journal was missing, I stepped out and checked on the woman again. Her breathing was fully steady now and her color was back. I thought she might wake up soon, but maybe not. I had no idea what her circumstances were.

I considered looking under the bed, but put it off for the moment. Didn’t need her suddenly waking up with some guy right there, looking under the bed. She’d get the drop on me if she was quick enough. I’m a pretty big dude, and it was clear that she was definitely more towards the petite side, but I’d seen some shit and learned not to underestimate damn near anyone. Humans could be downright brutal if they really wanted to be.

Big, small, man, woman, didn’t matter.

We all had the capacity to be absolutely brutal.

I moved on to a little sitting area next to the bed, which was pushed up against the wall that the bathroom created, giving the living room area a sort of illusion of being its own room. I looked under the pair of chairs there and found nothing. I checked along the floor and the mantle above the fireplace. Again, nothing. All that was left after that was the desk. Coming to it, I completed a full circuit of the cabin, as the desk was tucked up against the wall, beneath a window directly to the left of the front door.

I checked out the drawers again, pulling them open and hunting for basically anything at this point. Finally, a bit of luck: a breakfast bar pushed up against the very back of one of the bottom drawers. I pulled it out and then put it with the rest of my meager findings on the table. I looked down at it and frowned.

Not exactly a great situation to find myself in.

The woman shifted in the bed and groaned.

And it wasn’t just myself I had to look after, unless she had a group nearby or a stash somewhere. But I doubted it. She had the look of a person who was ill-suited to being alone and staying alive. I could be wrong, it wasn’t just that she was a petite woman, just something about her, and the fact that her clothes weren’t quite the type a good survivalist would wear. Of course, that might not necessarily be a choice on her part.

I checked the snow I’d set to boil. It was ready. I set it over on the oven to cool, then I took a seat in one of the chairs not far from the fireplace and waited.

It didn’t take long for her to wake up.

She opened her eyes, looked around, confused, wincing, then she rolled over, looked at me, and let out a strange sound of surprise and fear.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She tried to say something, coughed. “Water,” she managed.

“Okay, I’ll get you some. Hold on.” I got up, grabbed one of the two cups I’d found, and carefully poured some of the water into it and walked back over. “I just got done boiling it. It’s still kinda hot.”

“That’s fine, I’m still kinda cold,” she murmured, taking it. I moved back over to the chair, to give her some space, and sat down.

She took a moment drinking the water. When she had finished it, she set the cup down and sat up, putting her feet on the floor.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“You’re welcome.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Chris.”

“I’m Delilah.”

I waited. Neither of us spoke for the next few seconds. Outside, the wind shrieked and howled. She was studying me. She still seemed nervous, but less so now. She began absently rubbing her arm, running her hand slowly up and down it. “It’s really going out there, huh?” she muttered.

“Yeah, it’s a full storm,” I confirmed.

She looked around the cabin, then finally looked back at me. “So...what’s going on?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked.

“I was walking through the snow, freezing, running from some assholes...” That made me tense. Great, and me without a gun or even a knife to my name. “I found this place. I was so close to passing out. I opened the door...”

“You must have passed out,” I said. “I found you right in front of the open door, sprawled out on the floor maybe an hour and a half ago. I put you in the bed, started the fire, got some snow boiling. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” she muttered, “but thanks. You probably saved my life...what about you? You look like hell.”

“Feel like hell,” I replied. “You know the highway not far from here?” She nodded. “I was driving down it.”

“You have a car?” she asked, immediately perking up.

“Had a car. I crashed, got knocked out, got robbed. I think the car is wrecked, but I won’t know until I go check it out later.”

“Shit. That sucks.”

“Yeah, tell me about it...so what’s your story? What are you doing around here?”

A look of disgust passed across her face and she hugged herself. “There’s a group of assholes living in some campgrounds nearby. I escaped from them. I’ve been heading north for awhile, trying to get to a settlement, and I was traveling with a group of people. We came through the area, saw the campgrounds were populated, went to trade.” She sneered. “They ended up trading me.”

“Oh wow...fuck,” I muttered.

“Yeah. Fuckers. The assholes who live at the campgrounds do that. They trade women. That was two days ago. They locked me in a closet to ‘soften me up’. I guess I’m just lucky they didn’t fucking rape me. When they came to get me today, I was ready...sort of. They’d barely fed me anything, but I got the jump on the one that came to get me. I punched him in the eye and kicked him in the nuts and then just ran away. The storm was coming on. I thought I remembered a place like this and I just ran and ran and finally saw it, I got inside and just...passed out.”

“Do you think they’ll come after you? How far away is this place?”

She sighed. “Shit, I don’t know. Maybe a mile? We’re kind of hidden by some trees, but they’ll come looking for me, probably.” She looked at me suddenly, and I saw something in her eyes that I’d seen before.

She was appraising me, probably really taking note of my size and how ‘tough’ I looked, (dunno why, but if I ever wanted to be an actor, before the apocalypse, I probably could’ve gotten roles as a villain, or at least a henchman,) and she was making some calculations. To be honest, I didn’t really mind that she was sizing me up, thinking of how best to use me.

Because what normally followed was something I really liked.

“Would you protect me?” she asked. “I could give you something in return.”

“Doesn’t look like you have much on you,” I replied.

She gave me a smirk, a sultry one, and I had to give it to her: she had some confidence. She looked like the kind of woman who knew how attractive she was, and I could respect that. Arrogance was a turn off on both sides of the gender line, but inversely, confidence was just as big a turn on for men as it was for women.

Or, at least, it was for me.

“Let’s not bullshit each other,” she said, straightening up and focusing on me. “I’ll make you a deal. It’s got two levels to it. I’ll offer you two things in exchange for two things.”

“I’m listening.”

“The first part: you protect me and take care of me, I’ll give you pussy. And head. Whatever you want. Second part of the deal: I think I know who stole your shit. I can help you find them. In exchange, you get me to the settlement I want to go to.”

“Is it the assholes at the campgrounds?” I asked.

“No, not them. I don’t think, anyway. There’s two groups of assholes in this area. They kind of steer clear of each other, I think.”

“Fine. How far away is this settlement? What is it?”

“Last time I saw a sign on the highway, it said it was like ninety miles away. It’s north, called Pine Lake. Kind of a small town near a lake in upper Kansas. Like really small, even back before the apocalypse it had like five hundred people maybe.”

I considered it, looked her up and down.

She stood up suddenly. “Maybe this will help.”

Delilah took off her shirt, took off the shirt under that, and then took off the sports bra she was wearing.

I felt a hot pulse of lust hit me hard as I saw her tits.

She was kinda scrawny, but...fuck me if she didn’t have some great tits. I’m not saying they need to be big to be good, but goddamn.

“What cup size are you?” I asked.

She grinned again. “Double-d.”

“Fuck. All right, I accept your deal. I’ll keep you safe and fed to the best of my ability, and I’m pretty good but I’m not perfect, and I’ll get you to Pine Lake. In exchange, you help me find my stuff and let me fuck you as much as I want.”

“Deal,” she said.

“Good, now put your stuff back on. We need to discuss a few things and it’s going to be too hard to focus with your amazing tits out.”

She still had that confident smirk and she laughed softly. “Okay.”

THREE

She put her clothes back on and joined me at the table.

“Not to rain on our parade, but we’re currently kind of fucked,” I said. I indicated the meager collection of supplies gathered on the table. “At present, this is all we got.”

“Holy shit, that’s it?” she murmured.

“Yep.”

I took inventory of everything we currently had to our name.

A can of baked beans.

Two cans of peaches.

A can of peas.

One breakfast bar.

Two cups, two plates, some silverware.

And that was it.

“I don’t suppose you can offer up anything to help?” I asked.

She sighed. “No, they took everything I had and I didn’t get a chance to grab anything else. Although...” She looked around. “I’m really good at searching places.”

“So am I, actually. I looked the place over, although if you want to have a go ahead at it, be my guest. I’d love to be wrong in thinking that I got everything here,” I replied.

“I will. Um, there’s some other places I know about. They aren’t far away. There’s a little convenience store like a few hundred feet from this place, back towards the campgrounds, which is to the north, on this side of the highway. There’s also an old farmhouse and a barn a bit farther in that direction, but still an appreciable distance from the campgrounds.”

“Why didn’t you end up there?” I asked.

“I wanted to keep going, to get as far away as I could, and I wasn’t sure if the storm was going to get worse or not. It did. I was originally going to cross the highway, I know there’s some buildings on the other side of it, but I ended up here,” she replied.

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll check them out tomorrow,” I said.

“Not today?”

I walked over to the window over the desk and looked out. The skies were darker and the storm was worse than ever. I could hardly see three feet beyond the glass. “No,” I said. “Can’t be sure, but I’m guessing this is going to last all day, maybe even into tomorrow. I also don’t know what time it is, but it was well past noon before I crashed. So we’re in for the night.”

“That makes sense,” she murmured. Her stomach growled. “Fuck, I’m hungry.”

“Same,” I replied. “But we aren’t going to have much of a dinner.” I lined up the cans. “Do you hate any of these?”

“I fucking hate peas, everything else is fine,” she replied.

“All right, I’ll eat the peas,” I said. “Eat one thing. If you can, don’t eat all of it. Save some for tomorrow.”

She stared at me for a moment. “Um...thanks,” she said, taking one of the cans of peaches and beginning to peel it open. Thankfully, all the cans were the kind with peel lids.

“You’re welcome,” I said. I retrieved her cup and grabbed the other, then poured the rest of the water out into them. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any real way to store water besides these three items at the moment. And I guess the cans, as we empty them.” I sighed and spent a moment rubbing my temples. My headache hadn’t gone away yet and I doubted it would. Although an orgasm usually helped.

“I’m getting more water, then I have to break down two of those chairs for wood, then I’m going to fuck you,” I said.

“Okay,” she replied demurely.

I had to admit, I really had a thing for women like her: those who actually liked being ordered around to a certain degree.

Of course, I also liked tough hardass women too.

I guess I just liked women in general.

I grabbed the pot and went to the door.

~

By the time I was actually ready to fuck, the sun was mostly gone.

I boiled up some more water, then ate the breakfast bar. My stomach complained for more, but I ignored it. I then broke down one of the chairs, reducing it to so much firewood, and stacked it with the rest. I then siphoned off the new batch of water into the cups and the empty can Delilah had produced, drank some more, and then went to boil a third pot of snow. I seemed to be right about the storm, it didn’t peter off at all.

I broke down a second chair and then set the water on the stove to cool. I then grabbed two of the socks I had found. They looked clean enough and would serve their purpose as washrags for now. I then started stripping.

It was time to get a look at my body, and see how bad it was.

Delilah watched with interest as I got naked. My clothes came away bit by bit. My black skullcap, my leather coat that I hung up on the rack, followed by my gray hoodie, then the old t-shirt I was wearing under that. I kicked off my boots and peeled off the thick socks I had on. After that came my cargo survival pants with all the pockets, my thermal underwear, and finally the black boxers I had on.

“Wow,” Delilah murmured as I finished.

I looked down over myself. Lots of bruises, a few cuts on my hands, but I was in surprisingly good shape for a car accident.

“Good wow or bad?” I murmured as I finished studying myself.

“Mostly good. You’re hot,” she said.

“Good to know.” I soaked the sock in the can of water, set aside for now to hold the cleaning water, and then began rubbing myself down. I usually had soap, but that was gone now. It wasn’t perfect, but hey, even this felt great.

“I guess I should do that too,” Delilah said, standing up.

I got a chance to see her totally naked as she stripped down.

And damn was she hot.

She was a redhead, with stunning blue eyes. I fucking loved redheads. I’d take any hair color, but I was an absolute sucker for redheads. She was trim, with slim thighs and nice firm little hips. Her vagina was totally bald, no pubic hair, I saw as she took her panties off. She saw me looking and glanced down.

“Oh yeah, I managed to get that laser hair removal thing done before all this shit happened.” She raised her arms. “Under my pits, too. And on my legs. I hated having hair there, but I hated shaving and waxing more.”

“Lucky you,” I said as she walked over.

“Yep.”

She grabbed another sock and began washing up as well. Hot damn was she sexy.

It was time to have the sex talk, to put her mind at ease. Inasmuch as I could, but she already seemed fairly cool about it.

“Did you ever hear about that dick implant guys could get? The Midas Mesh?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did...” She glanced down at my mostly hard cock. “You got it?”

“Yeah. That’s how I got lucky. I was still in debt over it when the snow started to fall. You can actually see it, if you want,” I replied.

She got down onto her knees and reached out, gripping my cock.

That sent a pulse of lust through me.

It had been like a week since a woman had touched my dick, and that may not sound very long, but when the world is a frozen hellscape, a week could be a long time.

“Holy shit,” she said, staring at my dick. “I can see it! That little golden spark just inside your cock. Do you feel that?”

“No, actually. I thought I could in the beginning, but it was just my imagination. I forget it’s there now, mostly.”

“So it actually works? You can’t knock girls up, you can’t get STDs?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, how?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” I admitted. “They explained it. Something to do with nano-fibers, and something coating the inside of my urethrae? All I know is, it works.”

“Very nice.” She looked up at me and there was that confident smirk again. “You know, since I’m down here on my knees already...”

“You might as well get to work,” I replied, glad I’d already washed my cock about as much as I could under the current circumstances.

She didn’t say anything else.

She got to work.

Delilah gripped my dick and wrapped her lips around it, just beyond the head, and then she began to run her tongue along it. Immediately that sent pleasure sparking into me, that wonderfully welcome feeling of a woman’s mouth interacting with my cock. Something I had become a lot more familiar with since the snow began to fall. Not every woman was more willing to fuck in the wake of the apocalypse, but more than ever before were. Especially if you could convince them that STDs and pregnancy weren’t going to be a factor, which I could. I mean, it wasn’t perfect, oral was still a thing, but so far I was in the clear.

My latest partner let out a groan and began bobbing her head smoothly. She clearly knew what she was doing. Either she’d watched a lot of dick-sucking videos before the internet had collapsed, or she’d had a fair amount of practice. I was surprised by how many women told me they’d actually watched videos to get a good idea of how to suck cock. It made me wonder if I should have watched more pussy eating videos, but I apparently was pretty good at it already. I stopped thinking as she really started pleasuring me.

“Fuck, Delilah,” I groaned, putting my hand on top of her head. She looked fantastic sucking my dick, the way her lips slid up and down my shaft, the way she cupped my balls with her free hand, massaging them gently, her skin soft and hot now. The way she wrapped her first two fingers and thumb around my shaft and moved it in tandem with her lips. The way she slowed down, letting her lips glide up and then back down slowly each time she reached the head, going in for maximum pleasure, no doubt trying to make a good first impression. Well, she didn’t have to worry about me kicking her out or giving her up.

Besides the fact that I didn’t do that, I wanted her around.

I didn’t last long.

I’d finally stopped being embarrassed from not lasting long from head. It really depended on who was doing it but I seemed more susceptible to head than the average guy, apparently. It was easier to make me bust and so far, just about every woman I’d been with had been grateful. My cock was thick enough, apparently, that it was annoying to suck for more than a few minutes at a time. But I was especially quick right now because A) she was so fucking hot, B) she was actually really good at it, and C) I hadn’t come in like five days.

Like, I hadn’t even found the time or inclination to jack off.

I groaned loudly, grabbing her head with both hands and forcing my cock deeper into her mouth, down her throat.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Grunting, I started coming down her throat, my cock spasming violently as a huge load of my stuff shot out. She swallowed and I cried out in shocked bliss at all those hot, wet muscles clenching around my orgasming head. She did it twice more and fuck me that just felt so fucking good. I forgot everything as I came down this tight little redhead’s throat, my hands gripping her head, pleasure surging through my body.

I drained my nuts into her mouth and when I was done, let go. She slowly extracted my cock from her mouth, keeping her lips pressed together and sucking whatever was left as she did, and then it was out and she was looking up at me.

“Wow,” she said.

I looked down at her, panting. “What?”

“You came a lot. Like so much,” she replied, grinning.

“It’s been awhile,” I said.

She stood up and rinsed her mouth out with some of the water, swishing and spitting into the sink, then taking a few drinks. “I could tell.” She looked down at my cock, which had softened somewhat, but not by much. “Wow, you’re still horny.”

“Yeah, get in bed,” I replied.

I saw a little flash in her eyes, a mix of excitement and lust, and felt grateful: she was certainly one of those women who got off on being told what to do.

I could work with that.

“Yes, sir,” she murmured demurely, and then walked over to the bed. I finally got a good look at her ass and oh wow, it was really great. Pleasantly padded, given her somewhat skinny frame, and it was going to look great doggystyle.

Lust was still coursing through me, so I didn’t think of much else as I walked after her. She laid down on the bed and looked up at me, nude and beautiful and so incredibly seductive. I laid down beside her and began kissing her.

I didn’t want to think about anything else, just for a little while.

My body still ached, less so thanks to the orgasm, which was a great natural painkiller, and I could do with a second dose. It had been awhile since I’d been so thoroughly fucked and without resources, and I knew I was going to have to do a lot of hard work over the next several days to keep not only my ass alive, but hers as well.

But for right now, I could just focus on her, and enjoy this gift she was offering to me.

Her wonderful body.

I ran my hands over her, finding her skin hot and soft and smooth. I groped one of her large breasts right away. People always went on about if you were an ass person or a breast person. I was what you might call on a sliding scale. It really depended on the woman, and right now, right here with Delilah, I was really into her tits.

They felt fantastic to touch, and her lips were wonderful to kiss. We made out as I groped her, running my hand all over her body, down to her firm thighs and her smooth hip, back around to the pleasant swell of her ass. Her hand was on my cock, massaging it. As she started jacking me off, I decided to return the favor.

My hand came back around and slipped in between her thighs. She gasped as my fingertip found her clit and began to rub it.

“Oh fuck...” she groaned.

For a few moments I just kissed her and listened to the sounds she made. There was a particular satisfaction to hearing a woman make sexually pleasured sounds. I’m sure it had a lot to do with how we evolved to respond to those sounds and our brain rewarded us each time we did, especially if we knew we were the ones making them happen. But I wasn’t complaining. When the world was nothing but snow and cold and ice and misery, you took what you could get.

Delilah pushed her slim, pale body against my own, and that skin-on-skin contact was electrifying. It hadn’t just been about a week since I’d orgasmed, it had been that long since I’d fucking touched a woman in any real capacity. Being a traveler now meant you could go a really long time without seeing even a single other human, let alone interacting with one.

It took a toll, even if you often preferred to be alone.

Feeling her hands running across my body, her skin rubbing against my own, her lips against mine, it was overwhelmingly wonderful.

I had a theory that because we spent so much more time without being overstimulated now, thanks to the fact that power was roughly a thousand times harder to come across and the internet and cell phone networks didn’t exist anymore, and we spent so much time just surviving, everything we did took on a more powerful meaning in our minds. I’d noticed that even bland food tasted better, getting a drink of water was just phenomenal.

And sex?

I mean, I’d had sex before the snow fell. Not a lot, I’m not going to pretend like I was some kind of player, I wasn’t, but I’d at least found some women who were interested. And it had been great. But sex after the apocalypse? Sex you had after enduring a week in snowy isolation with no TV, no internet, no games or smartphone or even other people?

It was a fucking event.

I was utterly focused on Delilah as I continued simulating her. She was panting now, groaning loudly, her legs as wide as they could go in the bed.

“Fuck, Chris...fuck...” she groaned loudly, inarticulate with the bliss I was giving her. “That’s just-oh! Shit!” she yelled, and suddenly she bucked, hard, as I put my finger inside of her and began rapidly pressing up into her most sensitive spot.

That was enough to make her come, apparently.

I’d found her sweet little orgasm button.

Some women had them, some didn’t.

Some women needed a lot of priming, some didn’t.

I tried hard to make them all come, regardless.

Delilah let out a low moan somewhere deep in her throat as she began to twitch and writhe and spasm. The orgasm tore through her body, no doubt consuming her as it had me just a few minutes ago. I felt her coming around my finger, a hot spray of sex juices getting onto her thighs and my wrist. We were gonna have to deal with that before going to sleep. The bed wasn’t quite big enough to avoid the wet spot. Another irritating problem with not having enough stuff.

When she was finished coming, she fell back against the bed, panting, her eyes open wide, staring up at the ceiling.

Suddenly, they cut my way, locking onto my own eyes.

“Fuck me,” she groaned. “Please. Now.”

I just grinned and got on top of her. I was careful not to crush her, given she was almost a foot shorter than me and probably about a hundred pounds lighter. There was a particular satisfaction to fucking petite women when you were a big guy. Again, probably just that stupid old caveman part of my brain responding to something about that situation, or maybe just my particular personality. I knew it wasn’t universal.

But I fucking loved banging shorter chicks.

Of course, I also had a real thing for banging tall women too, taller than me if I could manage it, which was hard, given I was over six foot, and it was rare to find women taller than that. Not impossible, but rare.

I felt her fingers on my cock and she had me lined up with her slick, hot, wet opening. As soon as I was, I began pushing inside of her. She moaned loudly, accepting my length into her. I worked it inside carefully. It was honestly a fucking a dice roll, I had found, as to who could handle what. I’d found women Delilah’s size who didn’t have too much problem taking my dick, and then I’d run into women nearly as tall as I was and not super skinny either who had trouble with it. And I wasn’t so sure it was a matter of how sexually experienced or active they were as opposed to something a bit more biological. I could be wrong, but it was just one of those things.

Delilah seemed quite capable of handling my cock.

She groaned loudly as I finished getting inside of her, and I groaned too.

Holy fucking God was her vagina amazing.

She was just stunningly tight, that was probably the best part of her: how goddamned tight she was. But then there was that intense wetness to her from her orgasm and arousal. She was so fucking wet right now. And the heat of her, being inside of her, raw…

Fucking hot pussy had taken on a completely new meaning in a frozen apocalypse of a world.

“Oh my fucking God, Chris, you’re so fucking big...” she moaned, putting her legs in the air and spreading them open wide.

“You are really fucking goddamn tight,” I grunted in reply as I stroked into her.

I hated to admit it, but I was not lasting long.

This was exactly what I tried very hard to make chicks come before I stuck my cock in them. I’d gotten decent at lasting, but sometimes the pussy was just too fucking good and it was looking like this was one of those times.

“You okay up there?” Delilah asked. I looked down, she was staring up at me with a knowing smirk. Fuck, she knew exactly how I was doing.

“Yeah,” I grunted. I was holding myself up on my hands, again as not to crush her, and fuck, just that body of hers. Her fucking tits bouncing as I thrust into her again and again, her slim waistline and relatively flat stomach, (I didn’t give a shit if women had a bit of a gut, I knew how fucking next to impossible it was to have a completely flat stomach), my cock slamming into her smooth, pale pussy between her trim thighs.

“You’re really tight,” I managed, looking back up at her. She had such a beautiful face, like goddamn.

It was the kind of face you’d see in ads or on billboards.

“It’s all right,” she said, panting, “you can come.”

“Oh, it’s all right, huh?” I asked. I reached down, grabbed her legs, and just about folded her in half. She gasped in surprise as I grabbed her ankles and damn near pushed them into the pillow on either side of her head, readjusted myself, and then started really hammering that fucking sweet pussy of hers.

“HOLY FUCK!” she screamed.

I was nailing her right in her g-spot. If I wasn’t lasting long, neither was she.

“You like that?” I snapped at her. “You fucking like that, Delilah!?”

“I LOVE IT!” she shrieked wildly.

Staring down at this tight, pale redhead with big tits as I slammed my cock into her again and again as the pleasure burned into me, building and building, was about as close to heaven on Earth as I’d ever gotten.

Listening to her screaming incoherently with bliss as I rammed the fuck out of her, I managed to get her to orgasm a second time right before I triggered.

When I did, it zeroed everything else out.

It was just me, draining my nuts into her, feeling that explosion of absolute ecstasy. I grunted and cried out as my cock kicked hard inside of her fantastically tight pussy, the first of my second load jetting into her, and immediately a second pulse of bliss shot out into me as a second spurt of my seed shot out into her.

I fucking pumped her pussy full of it over the next however long.

It was absolute rapture.

When I was done, I stared down at her and released her legs.

“Good thing I’m flexible,” she murmured with a small and surprised grin on her face, putting her legs back down.

“Yeah, sorry,” I replied. “I figured-”

“It’s fine,” she said. She laughed. “This is what I agreed to. I don’t mind. Use me how you see fit. I can take it.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I think I’m going to like you.”

“Good.”

“Go wash your pussy, I’m going to want more in the middle of the night,” I said as I got up off her and stood up.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, getting up.

While she cleaned up, I stripped the mattress, tossed the sheet onto the floor, then flipped the mattress, and laid both blankets and pillows back down.

“One of the things I’ll want you doing is cleaning the bedding while I’m out.”

“Can do,” she replied as she washed up.

I checked on the fire, putting more of the wood I’d broken down in and making sure it would burn for several hours, then I got into bed. A moment later, she climbed in with me and I wrapped my arms around her slim, nude body.

“You’ll protect me?” she asked.

“I’ll protect you,” I replied quietly in her ear.

She shivered. “Good. I like you.”

“I like you, too. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

FOUR

I fucked her twice in the night.

The first time I woke up, I wasn’t sure what had woken me up, but I looked around. The fire was lower, but still steady, everything seemed secure.

And I had a throbbing erection.

I was still up against her. I pushed her over onto her back, pushed her legs open, got in between them, and slipped myself into her.

She was still wet.

“Wha...fuck...oh...” she groaned as I began fucking her.

“Shut up,” I grunted as I slid smoothly into her, just hitting it hard and fast. I was so fucking horny I couldn’t stand it.

“Oh fuck, Chris,” she moaned.

“Shut the fuck up, Delilah,” I growled and fucked her harder.

She grabbed me and held me and let me screw her brains out. I lasted maybe sixty seconds hammering away at that sweet pussy of hers and then I was coming again, groaning, grunting as I came inside of her, emptying my cock into her again.

It was totally mind-blowing pleasure.

When I was finished, I pulled out of her and fell onto my side.

“Clean up,” I murmured.

“Yes, sir,” she replied sleepily, getting up.

I fell back asleep before she came back.

The second time I woke up, the fire was low. The wind was still howling, but not quite as strongly, and I hauled myself up out of bed and moved over to the fire. Blearily, I tossed more fuel into it, adjusted it, then went back.

I had a throbbing erection again. I’d been having some kind of sex dream.

I rolled Delilah onto her stomach this time, made sure her head was laying on its side, so she could breathe and wasn’t facedown in the pillow, then I looked at her sweet ass and got onto her. Slipping my cock into her pussy, I started hitting it from the back. She groaned but she didn’t say anything. I kept fucking, grunting, feeling as much as hearing the bed shake under our weight. My cock felt like it was being consumed by pure, hot, wet bliss. I groaned as I pounded her into the mattress, utterly satisfied.

I managed to fuck her, come inside of her, and pull out apparently without waking her up. I checked on her after I finished.

She was fine, just passed out.

I laughed softly, surprised that she could sleep through that, then fell back asleep myself.

~

I woke up to sunlight and someone moving.

Opening my eyes, I caught sight of Delilah’s sweet ass as she walked over to where the water was. “You came in me again last night,” she said as she began to clean up.

“Yeah, I did,” I replied. “I’m surprised you didn’t wake up.”

“Me too,” she murmured.

“Hurry up, you’re going to ride my dick until it explodes inside you,” I said, laying on my back and stretching, popping my neck.

“Good fucking lord you are goddamn insatiable,” she muttered as she finished up and then came back over.

“Yep,” I agreed.

She pulled the blanket back, revealing my naked body and my morning wood. “That’s going to be the biggest part of your job. And definitely expect to take care of the morning wood every morning,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied as she climbed on top of me.

She looked exceptionally good as she began working my cock into her glistening vagina. “I get morning wetness myself,” she murmured, then moaned as she pushed me deeper into herself. “I get really fucking slutty in the morning, so, lucky you.”

“Lucky me,” I said, putting my hands behind my head and watching her work.

She was an excellent fucktoy and she knew it.

I laid there and watched her big, pale tits bouncing in rhythm with her as she rode my cock, slipping it into herself again and again, the pleasure washing over me in waves. I could tell from the look on her face that was using me as much as I was using her, fucking herself with my dick. To be honest, I didn’t mind being used as a living sextoy either. Maybe I was weird but, to a certain degree, not always, I wasn’t really upset at the idea of someone not ‘liking me for who I am’, and instead was just using me for sex.

As long as they were being respectful and honest about it and had a vested interest in getting me off, too.

It’d be different if they were pretending to like me.

It sounds painfully ‘edgy’, but I don’t deal with posers, or fakers, or whatever the fuck you want to call them. I’m not interested in liars. I never have been, I never will be. I’m not sure why, I mean I know that lying has its place, not that I always or even often agree with the reasoning, but one hundred percent truth one hundred percent of the time is kind of stupid. But I don’t know, I can tell, usually, when someone’s faking and it just pisses me off on a basic level. Like smelling shit or getting hit with a jump scare, it was just an automatic reaction.

But more than that, I respected people who were consistently honest.

It didn’t take much longer for either of us to come. Apparently, like me, Delilah was extra horny in the morning.

My morning fuck sessions didn’t last long when they happened.

I managed to hold on long enough for her to start to get off. She let out a strange, strangled sound of pure sexual release as she stopped bouncing and instead grabbed me and started furiously grinding, stirring my cock around inside of her and rubbing her clit against me. She panted and grunted as she orgasmed, and I felt her sex juices coming out onto me.

Then I was coming, busting my load into her, draining my nuts into that sweet, tight pussy of hers. I groaned loudly, my voice joining hers as I grabbed her hips and thrust up into her hard enough to make her cry out in surprise and almost throw her off. I pulled her down hard against me, shoving my cock as deep into her as it could go, jetting my seed out into her as she orgasmed along with me. For some uncertain length of time we were locked together in a blissful union of climax and gratification, lost among it all.

And then we were finished, the pleasure receding, ebbing away, leaving us panting and sweaty, staring at each other, flushed, smiling that feral smile of pure, naked sexual satisfaction.

“Wow,” she said, brushing some of her hair off her face. “You are...really good.”

“So are you,” I replied. “Up. I’ve got work to do.”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a demure smirk, and she got up off me, my softening cock falling out of her.

I stood and stretched for a minute, taking a bit to work my stiff joints and aching body. There was a lot to do today and without any painkillers, (besides the natural one I’d just been hit with), it was going to be a bitch.

There was no more wind screaming outside, at least, and the sun looked bright, peeking in around the curtains of the cabin.

I popped my back and neck and shoulders after stretching for a bit, then joined her by the water, which I’d set by the fireplace. The wood I’d gathered was almost gone, and I tossed what was left into the dwindling embers before grabbing the can and refilling it with whatever water was left. I’d left the water by the fireplace so that it would be warm when we needed it in the morning. Using my sock, I started washing up.

Delilah joined me.

“Delilah,” I said as something occurred to me. Something that really should have occurred to me last night, before all the ‘activities’.

“Yeah?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty two...why?”

“I’m just curious. I’ve met older people who look younger, and younger people who look way older.”

She laughed. “It’s not like there’s laws anymore.”

“I’m still not interested in breaking that one,” I replied.

“Wow. That’s...weird. I mean hey, bravo, just weird. Unless you’re lying. But why would you?” she said.

“I don’t lie...usually. Not to people I’m working with, anyway.”

“Huh. Well, let’s just say, I’ve seen a lot of shit since this all went down.”

“Me too,” I muttered. I tried to steer the conversation back towards more pleasant topics as both the fact that my journal was gone and there were sex-trafficking assholes nearby tried to crowd in on me. “So who were you before all this?”

“No one special, really. I was a waitress through high school and after I graduated. I had no idea what I was going to do. I still don’t have any real idea of what to do, but that means something different now. I mean, at least the answer is clearer: stay alive. That’s hard enough on its own now. I don’t need to worry about finding a ‘real job’ or buying a house or how many fucking followers I have or how economically viable I am. Because none of that shit matters anymore.” She sighed unhappily. “But I’m still bad at this world, too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m shit at survival. I can barely build a fire. I don’t know how to hunt, or mend wounds beyond really basic shit. All I know how to do is look good, and I don’t even know how to do that, I just do. People are nice to me...” she hesitated, then looked at me with an oddly shy expression. “This is the first time I’ve actually done this.”

“Done...what?” I replied.

“Traded sex for something.” I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was lying, because that didn’t seem true. “Seriously!” she added.

“That’s a little hard to believe,” I admitted.

She sighed. “I know, I can walk the walk and talk the talk, but I’ve never outright traded pussy for something.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Do you...not want to?”

“No, I actually am having a great time with you,” she replied, laughing a little. “I thought it’d be worse, but you’re great. What we’ve done so far feels like...how I think people fantasize about it. I mean, I think that’s the basis for a lot of fantasies, and books sometimes. Not just guys, I mean I know a lot of guys would love to be in your position. But you’d be surprised by how many women I’ve come across who like the idea of being in the position I’m in right now.” She paused, frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning what those fuckheads over there tried to do to me. I never will. But, for whatever reason, I like this particular setup we have.”

I felt a bit more comfortable with that. “You like it because you don’t really have to give anything up. You want to have sex with me. It’d be different if I was more unattractive to you or not as useful,” I said.

She frowned again. “Yeah...that’s true,” she admitted. “Whatever. Point is: I like what we have going. I was worried I might not, but I do. And that’s great.”

“It is great,” I agreed.

We finished washing up and started pulling our clothes on. As soon as I was dressed, I drained what was left in my cup of water and had her do the same, then poured what was left in the pot I’d left on the stove that hadn’t evaporated last night and drained that, too. We were going to have to be as efficient as possible with our water, given I didn’t have many places to store it. I picked up the pot and the can we used for cleaning water and set them on the desk by the front door, then I took a moment to make a quick circuit of the cabin’s interior, looking carefully out of every window that was available to me at the moment.

It was clear out there, at least as far as I could see.

No people. No animals. No snowstorm.

I ended up back at the front door and opened it up. Grabbing the can, I tossed out the dirty water we’d used to clean up with and then set the can upside down in front of the fireplace, then I grabbed the pot and headed out.

Packing it with snow while I took another look around, I saw that I could see my car from here. It didn’t look good and my hopes of ever driving it again fell further. Oh well. I finished gathering the snow and came back inside, then placed the pot in front of the fireplace.

“So, um, what’s the plan for today?” Delilah asked.

“First, I’m going to go gather more wood. Then I’m going to check my car. Finally, I’m going to go investigate the buildings you told me about and scout the campgrounds. I want you to stay here and not leave at all, keep the door locked. I’m almost positive they’ll be looking for you and unfortunately, I’m in a very poor situation to defend us at the moment. While I’m gone, I’d like you to search the place again, see if you can find anything I missed. Sound good?”

“Yeah, it sounds good,” she replied.

“Good.”

With the pot set to boil, I headed for the front door.

~

It was clear but cold out today.

I made sure to take a good, long look around as I hunted for firewood. I could see the general store Delilah had mentioned, though there were trees beyond it, with just a narrow road between the edge of the incline next to the highway and the forest, so this place was decently hidden. Or, at least until you came walking down the road.

I moved fast and thankfully didn’t see any sign of people or animals hanging around. That could change in an instant, though. There were woods behind the property, right up to the narrow strip of backyard that the cabin was afforded, so that was good at least. More firewood would be pretty freely available.

In the end, I gathered up two big bundles of wood, sticks, and scraps, whatever I could find, and piled it all by the fireplace. It should get us through the day and the night. Probably. I was reluctant to let the fire go out simply because we had so little in the way of matches. Right now, our fuel far outweighed our capacity to restart the fire.

Delilah was hard at work already, poking through the kitchen.

She was down on her haunches and I had a great view of her ass. It was really tempting to hang around and nail her again. I really wanted to fucking slam her doggystyle, but that would have to wait. I made myself focus on the job.

“I’m heading out now,” I said, getting her attention. “Lock the door behind me, and don’t answer unless you hear my knock. My knock is three slow, two fast. Understand?”

“I got it,” she replied.

“Hide as best you can otherwise which...I know isn’t a great option in here.”

“Hopefully no one will come,” she replied.

I nodded, then walked over and kissed her. She kissed me back, deepening it and using a bit of tongue, then smiled at me as she pulled back. “Good luck out there.”

“Thanks,” I said, unable to keep from smiling.

Then left I left. I waited until I heard her lock the door, deadbolt and chain, then I started heading off towards my car.

I began thinking about my deal with Delilah.

For as long as I’ve thought about it, I’ve been comfortable, (for the most part), with the idea of prostitution. If we could sell our bodies for hard labor, or to science, or to protect others, or another hundred thousand types of jobs, then why couldn’t we sell them for sex? I understood that there were a lot of instances of abuse, and I had tried my best not to take advantage of anyone. If it really came down to it, I’d help a woman who had nothing, and nothing to offer, for free. But I was fully comfortable accepting sexual favors if women were okay with offering them and they didn’t feel like they were being pressured into it.

There were some jobs I hated to do, but I was willing to do them if it meant I had a place to get in out of the cold between my wanderlust phases.

So if women were willing to put up with letting me fuck them in exchange for something else, then I respected that.

I sighed heavily as I got closer to my car, my breath foaming heavily on the air. What a waste. The frame was dented and bent and all fucked up, including the area around the engine. The hood was partially popped and I pulled it open as I got close enough. My questions about whether or not it might be salvageable in the immediate sense died right then and there as I saw the battery I’d worked so hard to get was missing.

Whoever had robbed me must’ve taken it.

I set to work after that, checking in, around, and beneath the vehicle for anything at all that might have been dropped or missed.

I’d found the jeep six weeks ago at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere Kansas. I’d been walking and surviving for five or six days at that point after having been run out of the town I was staying in thanks to some assholes not liking me for no reason. They had guns and numbers, so I’d been forced to flee without being able to get back to the apartment I was living in. So I’d had to leave like eighty percent of my stuff.

At the gas station I’d also found a really pretty girl named Mary, a brown-haired beauty who’d tossed me the same deal Delilah was now: pussy for protection. And ultimately to get her to civilization. She’d been a really sweet woman, if a bit disheartened. Then again, who wasn’t in this day and age?

I’d fucked her, fought some wolves, and ultimately salvaged a battery and some snow tires for the vehicle. Then I’d made it to the settlement she was trying to get to. We’d lived together for almost a month there. I hunted and did odd-jobs around the place, she did a few odd-jobs herself and had started doing some woodworking, something she cared about. In the end, the same thing happened that always seems to happen to me now.

I got the wanderlust again and left her behind.

Not like I literally just up and left her one night. She knew it was coming, I had warned her. She’d been sad, and so had I. She had really liked me, and I’d liked her a lot to be honest. But I didn’t like her more than I liked just wandering.

I have no idea why I want so desperately to wander, to be out and free.

I just do.

In the end, I didn’t find jack shit among my vehicle. They’d cleaned it out. Nothing under it, nothing under the seats, nothing in the little compartments. They hadn’t taken my mattress I’d found. No, they’d just tossed it out the back and cut it open, shredding it and probably looking for stuff hidden inside it.

Something I hadn’t bothered with.

Disgruntled and cold, I left my jeep for the last time, my sights set on the general store.

FIVE

The general store looked old, like it had been built in the eighties or maybe even the seventies. It just had that old and dated feel to it.

It was probably heightened by the fact that it had sat, largely untouched, for two years in a frozen wasteland.

Possibly longer, if it had been derelict before that.

I kept on a constant surveillance as I approached the store. Most places were abandoned, but it was a complete dice roll as to whether or not one or more people might be inside, either hoping you’d go away or looking to jump you.

And I was in no damned position to defend myself.

I mean, if it came down to it, I could fistfight, but damn near everyone had guns or at least knives nowadays. America had fucking jacked off to guns for so long that there were probably five times as many guns as there were people, and that was before like three quarters of the population had died off. But I didn’t think there was anyone in the store.

I walked through the parking lot, seeing no cars, unfortunately, and made a quick circuit around the outside of the store. Always a good idea. I looked in all the windows I could. The place wasn’t very big. It seemed to be one big room and probably a handful of back rooms. The side door I found was locked, as was the back door. Some windows were broken, but I’d only go in through there if I had to. Too much risk of slicing your hand open on a shard of glass and God fucking help you if you slashed a tendon or an artery or something.

The front door, at least, was open.

I walked in after finishing my perimeter sweep and looked around.

A single checkout area to the right, and a lot of shelves attached to the floor took up most of the open space in the building. I did an interior check, looking behind the counter, along the shelves, and then checking out the four doors I found along the back. One led to a small ass bathroom, another to what must have been a narrow, miserable break room, another to the manager’s office, and finally, what took up the most space, the storeroom.

I didn’t like the looks of the place in terms of resources, it seemed as if people had already been by and depleted it. Given the fact that Delilah said there were two groups of shitheads in the area, combined with two years of wandering survivors, I didn’t doubt that this place had been picked over more than once.

But that didn’t mean they’d gotten it all.

Settling in for the long haul of searching this whole place as much as I could, I began ruminating on things.

Namely: the immediate future.

Even if it had taken me awhile to realize it, I was always a goal-oriented person. It wasn’t until after I’d given up trying to live in the shambles of my old life and headed out into the great white unknown that I’d really learned that, and capitalized on it. Setting goals, figuring out how to do them, and keeping that shit clear and clean in your head was a great way to actually get shit done. Also, being adaptable and not sitting there trying to argue with the world when it didn’t go your way, like a lot of rich, upper-class douche-bags I’d run into over the course of my life, tried to do. So I knew I needed to set some goals.

Before anything else, I had to get some more supplies. Gear, food, something to protect myself with. That last one could be hard to find, despite how many guns existed. All the obvious places had already been picked over.

But after that?

I didn’t intend to let the sex-trafficking fucksticks keep on going. True, at the moment all I had was Delilah’s word, but I didn’t have much reason to doubt her. At the very least I fully intended to scope them out and if it was as she said, I might end up killing some people. I tried to avoid it, I tried to give people second chances.

I’m not a fan of playing judge, jury, and executioner.

But sometimes…

Some people were just evil. And if you let them go, they’d just keep doing it. And I just could not abide that.

So, find supplies, keep Delilah safe and fed and warm, scope out and probably take out the assholes living just north of here, and get my shit back. It all felt so distant and I knew I was lucky to still be walking around, and that one false move, one bad turn of luck, and I could be just another frozen corpse out here.

I had to take it slowly and carefully.

Gradually, the old general store gave up its secrets.

My first find was my most significant find, and I wondered how everyone who’d been through here had missed it. Shoved in the very back of a shelf, beneath the counter that held the cash register, was an old .22 six-shot revolver. I looked it over, carefully inspecting it for any obvious signs of damage, but it seemed in good condition. I pulled the trigger. Except for the fact that it was completely empty of bullets, it seemed to work.

I stuffed it in my pocket and then intensified my search for ammo.

Unfortunately, there was none.

Not one single, solitary, motherfucking bullet.

Disheartened, but still determined, I pressed on.

Here and there, scattered across the store, I found some food. Two cans of tuna. Another can of peaches. A can of shredded beef. A can of green beans. Two more breakfast bars. Not a lot, but hey, it just tripled our food supply, maybe even quadrupled if we were careful. The bathroom was empty, and so was the break room. Nothing but furniture and dust and trash in there. In the manager’s office, I found some paper and a paperback novel. The paper would be good to burn, the novel I intended to keep if at all possible.

I took a moment to look it over. It was one I’d already read at some point, a sci-fi adventure, the fourth part in a series, but hey, reading material was reading material.

The final two crucial things I found were in the storage room. Judging by the barrel in the middle of the room and the trash, it was obvious someone had used this place as their home base at one point or another. Or multiple someones, likely. Next to the barrel, abandoned almost certainly in error, I found a small bottle of basic painkillers.

Picking it up, I rattled it. Still some inside.

Popping the top, I looked in. Six left.

“Thank fucking God,” I muttered, pulling one out and dry-swallowing it.

Better than nothing. Pocketing the rest, I kept my search up. Ultimately, the fruit it yielded came in the form of a small backpack tucked up in between a wall and a table pushed almost up against it. I pulled it out and looked inside.

There was nothing within, but I didn’t care. A backpack was its own treasure.

After finishing my sweep, I loaded up everything I’d found into the pack and headed back outside, then pressed on, towards the other two structures Delilah had told me about. I stayed away from the road, what little I could see of it under all the snow, and instead headed for the collection of trees. Even through them, I got an impression of the structures I was heading for, dark against the endless white of the snow.

She’d said they were a barn and a farmhouse.

As I cleared the trees, I saw the barn was closest. The doors were wide open, so that wasn’t a great sign. I waited for several minutes just behind the treeline, trying to catch movement of any kind that wasn’t natural or just the wind. I didn’t see anything and set off, heading towards the barn first. My boots crunched in the snow and as I approached the barn, I realized I was already starting to feel better. Some of it was probably psychological, given that I was now in the company of my favorite kind of person: an attractive woman who was willing to fuck me. And I’d consummated that fucking more than once now.

But some of it had to be the painkiller. It had been awhile since I’d had any. I tried to keep use of them to a minimum, not just because they made for excellent trade or because they were rare, but also because it also made them more powerful. Your body got used to painkillers if you used them too much, same as everything else. You needed more to get the same effect. Or maybe I was wrong and that was just in my head too.

Either way, it worked in my favor, and I was feeling better right now.

I was also getting angrier. My fucking journal.

I felt a little stupid for being so pissed about it. I mean, it was a journal. Shit, I didn’t even really write much down in there that I wouldn’t tell anyone else. It was more that was mine and if I was being completely honest about it, I think it had taken on extra meaning. I’d talked to a few therapists and psychologists and they all said, in different words, that people had to figure out ways of dealing with what had happened.

Even if you didn’t have it all that bad, or if you were a normally stoic person, a change of this magnitude affected you.

And you might not realize it at first, maybe not for weeks or even months.

But it had affected you, and you had to deal with it, eventually.

I didn’t really know what they meant until I started seeing a few psychotic breaks. I mean, some of them were from people who you’d expect. Businessmen who’d been on top because they’d spent years perfecting and implementing the craft of fucking people out of money, and suddenly money meant jack shit. Technologists who’d relied on the internet like it was their blood. Or people who suffered from severe anxiety problems.

But some of them adapted, remarkably well, too.

No, sometimes it was just average people who seemed to be doing fine. Sure, they’d suffered through the upset of the snowy apocalypse like we all had, but they’d come out the other side basically intact and had found a new place to live, a new life to live.

There was one guy, I’d lived with him for three months after I resettled to northern Florida in the wake of the snowfall. When it became obvious this wasn’t just going to go away, and that the people who used to be in charge were either dead or gone, and we were stuck with what we had, society kind of reorganized into something vaguely resembling what it had been before. At least, it had for me and my town.

You had a place to live. You worked a job in exchange for the shelter and the food and the protection, but also to make sure it happened. I took on a job as a hunter since I knew how to do it. So I’d pretty much settled in. I’d traveled north with some people and one of the guys I’d met was a few years older than me, and he seemed pretty cool. Pretty chill, at least. We ended up being roommates in a little apartment. He took a job as a cook down at one of the restaurants that was still running. And so it went for like three months.

He always seemed chill. But then one day I came home and found the apartment trashed. At first I thought we’d been robbed, and I found my roommate passed out in the bathroom. I thought he’d been attacked, but he seemed fine other than being passed out. I got some help and when he came to he just started freaking out and screaming. Eventually we got him to calm down and I kept thinking something must have happened to provoke such a response, and shit, I don’t know, maybe something did and I just never found out.

But eventually it became clear that he’d just...lost it.

There was a lot of incoherent ranting and raving and something about his eyes...it was like he wasn’t actually there anymore, not really, like he wasn’t checked in. He reminded me more of someone sleepwalking than anything else.

They ended up bringing him to the little clinic in town that was serving as a hospital. I went to see him a few times, but fuck, I don’t know. It’s like he went away somewhere in his head and never fully came back.

Eventually he just stopped eating and finally he went to sleep one day and never woke up.

That really scared the shit out of me, because it made me wonder: could that happen to me? Could I just think I’m doing fine, but actually I’m headed towards a psychotic break like that? I started trying stuff out after that. Stuff I thought I’d like. It was a weird process, but after awhile, I finally settled on writing in a journal.

It just felt…

Good.

Right.

I’d been writing in it for over a year now and it wasn’t even like I poured my heart and soul into it. It probably read like a military journal. Short, blunt, to the point. Maybe more personal than that. And I also kept a list of the women I’d hooked up with since this whole thing started. Maybe that was narcissistic, or sexist in some way I don’t know about? I didn’t brag about it, and no one had ever seen the journal so far. I always wrote in private. I hadn’t ever mentioned it to anyone. And it’s not like I obsessed over this collection of women I’d fucked. I just...felt like maintaining the list for some reason. And I thought it was fair to do.

Sometimes, wanting to do something is enough of an excuse to do it.

Sometimes, not if it results in you being a fucking asshole to someone. More like, not everything we do needs to be fucking justified in a cost-benefit analysis. Sometimes you can just relax or do something fun because it makes you feel good.

I sighed and tried to keep myself from getting frustrated as I entered the barn and looked around. Damn near empty, just like I thought. There was hay scattered around, a broken ladder, some empty forty-gallon drums, a scattering of other stuff. I moved around on the ground floor, checking in any of the places where something might be hidden, but it only took me ten minutes in the cold to finish my sweep. There was nothing.

I looked at the loft and the not-broken ladder leading up to it. Not in the best condition, and I wasn’t exactly a light guy, but…

Something made me feel like something might be up there.

Figuring I should just chance it, I grabbed the ladder and started climbing. It groaned, but held. I poked my head up over the top of the loft’s floor and immediately was greeted by a dead body. I felt a moment of pure fear at seeing the figure of a man up against the back wall, almost directly across from me, but relaxed as I saw it was just a body. Frozen. I hauled myself up and checked around the area. Nothing up here, which meant that either this guy hadn’t had anything but the clothes on his back, or someone had already been through and grabbed his extra shit.

I took a moment to check around his corpse, in his pockets, which was no easy task when everything was frozen. As I hunted, I looked at him.

He looked maybe around my age, he had long, dark hair and a heavy beard, a scar down the right side of his face. He seemed made of compact muscle, not bulky but lean, under the clothes. He’d been wearing snow pants and a heavy jacket, but it hadn’t done him enough good, in the end. I couldn’t help but wonder: who was he?

How had he ended up here?

Were people out there, looking for him? Had they given him up for dead? How long had he been here in this barn?

Ice and cold preserved things so well.

And as I finished, finding nothing, I sat on my haunches and looked at him for a few seconds longer. At his cracked, iced-over skin, his closed eyes, his stiff, unnatural form. He looked less like a human and more like a prop on a movie set.

And I saw myself in him.

How many dead bodies were out there now? How many people went to sleep thinking they’ll probably be fine, and never wake up?

I think human life is one of the biggest contradictions ever, at once both shockingly fragile and insanely resilient.

I’d seen people die who, by all accounts, should have lived.

I’d seen people survive absolutely brutal encounters and absurdly long odds.

It did well to remember that you weren’t special. You could wind up a body just as easily as everyone else if you weren’t careful.

With a soft sigh, I stood up and left the loft, then the barn altogether. Nothing but nothing in there. At least I could check it off my mental list. I took another look around and began heading for the farmhouse itself. That would certainly be more promising. Listening to my feet crunching in the snow again, I made it about halfway there before I froze.

Something had changed.

I looked around, hand falling to where my gun should be and then growling in frustration at my lack of defense.

Nothing to the left, nothing behind me or ahead of me, to the right…

“Oh fuck me,” I whispered.

A wolf, slipping out of the trees that I’d come through not all that long ago. Fuck! I began running as fast and as hard as I could manage through the snow. It was tough going, but I’d gotten better at managing it over the last two years.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I snapped as I heard the thing growl and start running towards me.

It was going to be close.

I listened to the furred fucker catching up on me as I ran for all I was worth. I hit the back door, grabbed the knob, prayed it wasn’t locked, and twisted. The door opened. I rushed through and slammed it shut.

The wolf slammed into it and let out a loud yelp.

That still made me feel bad. I fucking hate hurting animals. Even ones that are trying to kill me. I locked the door and looked around the room I was in. I’d come into a kitchen. I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the wolf begin walking away. Though as I looked out the nearest window, I saw that it didn’t go far.

Instead, it began to circle. Like a shark that smelled blood in the water.

Great.

SIX

I took a moment to let my heart calm the fuck down, just looking around the kitchen.

After a bit, I got to work, letting the adrenaline wear off. Although it didn’t go away completely, not when I could look out the window and see that fucker still hanging out in the snow. Looking at me. Wolves were fucking scary.

I know people used to be all ‘um, actually, wolves usually don’t attack people’, but that wasn’t true anymore. I’m guessing the shift in environment, the general retreat of mankind and advance (sort of) of nature, combined with the overall death that the cold shrouded everything in, had made the animals either bolder or more desperate. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, shit even stray dogs, I’d seen people attacked by them all.

And not rarely. It was common now.

I did a sweep of the inside of the house, checking the first floor, making sure there were no broken windows the bastard could jump in through, and that the front door wasn’t open. It wasn’t, and the windows were intact. I checked upstairs for people, but this place had a dead feel to it. The only thing I ran into was a locked door at the end of the hall upstairs. I tried it, pushed on it, but it would have to be kicked in.

Great.

I went back downstairs for the moment, back to the kitchen.

I tried to put the stupid wolf out of my mind as I began opening drawers, opening cabinets, probing their depths for stuff that would keep me and Delilah alive. It was slow but soothing work. Like almost everywhere else I poked through, this place had clearly been ransacked. But it wasn’t a total waste of time.

I guess technically nothing was, at least in my head. Even if the thing you had just searched turned up empty, you could safely mark it off the list.

There were three candles in the very back of one of the bottom drawers. They weren’t really big or of fantastic quality, but they were candles, useful in their own right. I added them to my growing collection in my pack, finished my search of the kitchen, and then moved on. There wasn’t as much as I hoped to see on the ground floor.

A living room, a dining room, a small office, a bathroom.

Most empty.

The minutes drifted by in the cold solitude of the farmhouse. Every window I passed I glanced out of, seeing mostly trees and snow. For the most part, it had faded into the background, my awareness of the fact that every time I looked outside, I was gonna see snow or ice. But sometimes it bugged me. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes I was just so sick of it.

But sometimes…

Sometimes I was in just the right mood, or maybe I saw something just the right way, and it struck me as remarkably beautiful.

Even now, after two years in the miserable cold, I could generally appreciate the fact that there was a lot of beauty in winter desolation.

I marched up the stairs, back to the second story, after I’d done my sweep. The first floor hadn’t yielded much, but it was more than I’d hoped for, honestly. In the bathroom I’d found a few errant band-aids, and those were always useful.

Upstairs turned out to be a bit more fruitful.

First door led to a bedroom that looked like it had belonged to a kid. I stopped in the doorway, looking around, feeling my heart ache and my gut twist. What had happened to the human race was absolutely brutal, and the amount of suffering it must have caused, was still causing, would go on to cause…

It was staggering beyond imagination.

But it was worse for kids. The only small solace I took from that particular situation was that when they grew up, they would be shockingly adept at survival. Although how tough did you want your kid to have to be? Good parents didn’t want their kid to have to suffer enough to be a hardass. And it brought up the question: was it worth surviving?

Sometimes, I envied the dead.

But the world was what it was, and it probably wasn’t going to change. We were stuck with this. I sighed softly and began my searching, stuffing my feelings back and down and away. I didn’t want to think about what awful things might have happened to this family. Where they might be now. I didn’t find much of anything in the room beyond some pens and pencils and some more paper in a little desk. I stuffed it all into my pack and moved on.

I found a closet that was empty, and a second bathroom.

Sorted through it and found a whole lot more nothing.

Finally, I came to stand before the final door. The one that was locked. I tried the knob again, still nothing. I put my ear to the door, waited, listened for several minutes. I didn’t hear anything. Finally, I straightened up and cleared my throat.

“If someone is in there, could you let me know?” I asked, trying to sound neutral. I waited and listened. Still nothing, no indication that I wasn’t alone. I sighed softly. “Look, I’m gonna kick the door in, because I want to the search that room. But if someone’s in there and they want me to go away, just tell me and I’ll go away.”

Reasonable enough, I thought.

Still nothing. Not a cough or a creaking of floorboards or anything at all.

“Okay, I’m coming in,” I said.

I kicked the door in. It took two hard kicks, but the door flew in and banged against the wall. It came most of the way back, then fell back into place. I didn’t see anyone in what view I had. I waited again, to see if there was some kind of reaction, but still nothing.

Carefully, I stepped up and looked inside, scoping out the situation.

I saw a desk, a dresser, some chairs, a bed-

“Shit,” I muttered as I saw a figure lying in the bed. I prepared to run, just in case, but they hadn’t moved at all. Looking closer, I saw why: they were frozen solid. So, another corpse. Great. I took the time to carefully check the room out, make sure no one was hiding under the bed, under the desk, or inside the closet.

My instincts were right: I was alone.

I took a moment to study the body. Just another corpse, I told myself. I’d sure seen enough of them. It still freaked me out at least a little. This one was a middle-aged woman. She’d died curled up on her side and with a small smile on her face.

I’d seen more than one corpse with a smile and I always wondered: why? Had they been having a good dream? Did they know they were gonna die and they were relieved? Did they think they were going to go see their dead loved ones?

Did they see it as some final victory over this frozen Armageddon?

Were they delirious?

Or were they just glad to finally be done with it all?

They were all possible, I guess. I wondered how long she’d been there. Again, it was hard to tell, but I thought maybe she’d been here awhile. Then again, maybe not, since the door had stayed locked and shut. Or had people come here searching, like me, only unlike me they’d left it closed. Maybe out of some strange sense of respect for a locked door in someone’s home? Or had they perhaps rightly guessed what lay beyond?

Who was she? Who had she been?

Again the questions. I sighed and searched the body. Nothing on it, nothing in the pockets, nothing in the bed with it.

But the room, however, held some useful stuff.

I found a thermos, a quality one in good shape, in the dresser of all places. I checked it out, sniffed the inside. No smell, so it had probably been used for water. It was empty now. I stuffed it and the clothing I found a few drawers down into my pack. A shirt that looked like it’d fit me, a pair of jeans that was in pretty good condition in roughly my size, some socks and boxers, a few pairs of panties, some leggings.

All good stuff. The last thing I found was in the desk. A collection of three double-A batteries that may or may not have a charge. I scooped them up and secured them in my backpack. Those were good damned trades...if they worked. Even if they had a little juice left in them, which they probably would. People fucking flipped their shit for batteries.

After one more sweep of the area, I left, closing the door as best I could. I guess out of a sense of respect for the dead, and began looking out windows. I didn’t have to look long. Exactly what I was worried about was still out there, still circling the house like a fucking furred land shark. That wolf was limping slightly as it walked, always looking at the house.

Looking for me.

Waiting.

At least it didn’t have any friends. With a sigh, I sat down in the middle of the hallway in the second story, put my back to a wall, and waited.

I wish I had my fucking journal.

~

It took another hour before the fucking wolf finally left.

I finally saw it wander off into the woods, thankfully to the back of the area, not back towards home, or the way I had to go.

While sitting there, I had decided to take a chance and scope out the campgrounds for myself. From a distance. I checked around the house one more time after I’d come downstairs, didn’t see the stupid wolf, and went out the front door. It was a chance, a stupid one to be sure, but I was here now and I wanted to get a feel for the land. If it was much farther than she said it was, I’d just head back and do it later.

I hurried across the front yard until I was in the next treeline, heading north. Stopping there, I turned and looked, surveying the area one more time. No sign of the wolf. I kept going. Keeping a decently steady pace through the trees, I pressed northbound for about five minutes before I saw a rise in the land up ahead. I went with it, looking behind me and to the sides periodically. I could hear sounds now.

Voices. Someone hammering.

Someone yelling.

They sounded really pissed, whoever they were. I carefully edged on my belly up the incline to the top and cautiously poked my eyes up over it. Judging from the sounds, it seemed like they were at least somewhat far off, and I was right. The campgrounds lay about a football field’s length from where I currently was. The trees continued down the incline’s other side and extended maybe twenty meters before cutting off into what had once been a big parking lot and now only held the rusting skeletons of a few vehicles.

I studied what I could. There was a row of cabins along the right side, six of them. At the head of the camp area stood what might have been a central office. There were two more cabins to the left, then an old brick building that looked like a public bathroom, and finally a pair of sheds just beyond it. I saw a few people moving about the central courtyard of open space, and saw one guy with a pistol on top of one of the cabins.

I counted four people altogether, but who knew how many more there might be hanging around in the buildings?

There was a solid fence around the whole thing, something that might have holes or weak points in it. The more I listened to the shouting, the more I thought it was a woman. Suddenly, one of the guys picked something up, walked over to one of the sheds at the back, and screamed “Shut the fuck up!” while hurling the rock at the shed.

The shouting stopped.

Well, that was pretty bad. I fell back behind the rise in the earth, scooted down a few feet, and then turned around, putting my back to the snow. I did it mostly to keep an eye on the other direction, in case the wolf had decided to follow, and also to think. I had to do something. The longer you left someone in captivity, especially in a situation like this, the more likely it became that the captors would do something brutal.

If they hadn’t already.

Well, fuck. This fucking sucked.

I had to do something.

For the moment, that something involved going back home to think and get more information out of Delilah about the place and the people. As I began making my way back, I paused as something caught my eye. To the right, maybe a hundred feet away, I just caught sight of what might have been the remains of a campfire. It might also be nothing, but right now, I couldn’t afford to let any stone go unturned.

Moving quickly, thanks both to the threat of the wolf possibly still lurking in the area and the assholes just over the ridge, I slipped between the trees, trying to keep my steps light. Basically impossible to walk in snow without it crunching to some capacity. I saw a rabbit dash away to my left, and farther on caught movement that almost certainly was a deer. Just another frustration: I could be hunting. Our food situation was only going to get worse and worse as time went on, and it would be a hell of a lot easier to slow that situation if I could hunt. But there was no point in wishing for things to be better.

You had to make things better, or get lucky.

And you couldn’t really count on luck.

I got to the area I was heading towards and found that yes, indeed, it was a campsite. And someone had left in a hurry, apparently. The site couldn’t be more than a week old, though whoever it was could be long gone by now. Maybe they’d hit the highway and headed that direction, or gone deeper into the woods.

Either way, they’d left stuff behind, stuff I could use.

No guns, no bullets, but I poked around in the snow and managed to find two extremely useful items: a knife, like an actual, decent hunting knife, complete with a leather sheath, and a book of matches. They were half gone, but ten matches were better than none. I looked around for a bit longer, not just for stuff but for clues as to what had happened, but there wasn’t much point. The snowstorm had covered everything, and it wasn’t like I was some amazing forensics analyst. I took another look around, saw nothing worthwhile, and started going home.

~

As far as homes went, the cabin wasn’t so bad.

I’d had a lot of homes over the past year.

Some gas stations.

A lookout tower.

A maintenance shed.

A few caves.

Sometimes just a tent in the middle of nowhere. Well, maybe more than sometimes. I liked camping as much as the next outdoorsman, but it had certainly lost a shitload of its appeal thanks to the motherfucking snow and ice everywhere.

So yeah, as far as homes went, this cabin was pretty great. Especially considering the fact that I had Delilah waiting for me. I got up to the front door and did my knock, then waited. She opened it right away, like she was waiting for me. Probably had seen me coming through the window next to the fireplace.

Her genuine smile as she opened the door and saw me actually warmed my heart.

Sometimes I forgot how goddamn good it could feel to have someone who was actually glad to see you, actually waiting for your return.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“Okay,” I replied as I kicked snow from my boots and then walked in. I shut and locked the door behind me, then walked over to the table and began emptying all the stuff out. “I managed to find some supplies. Including a gun. No bullets, unfortunately. Though I also found a knife.”

“Well that’s good at least,” she murmured.

“Did anything happen while I was gone?” I asked.

“No, nothing.”

I finished pulling everything out and stared at it for a few seconds. It was a decent stockpile, I guess, compared to what I’d had yesterday. Although fucking anything looks better than nothing, to be honest.

“What about your car?” she asked hopefully.

I shook my head. “It’s fucked. Even if it wasn’t, whoever robbed me took the damn battery. So that’s out.”

“Oh...shit.”

“Yep. Now, what about you? Did you find anything?” I asked.

She regained her smile. “Yes.” She walked over to the desk, where she’d collected two items, and came back. She presented me with a silver key and a tiny, unopened bottle of vodka. What they called an airplane bottle.

“Wow, shit,” I said, taking them both. “Where were they?”

“The vodka was under the bed, the key was in one of the drawers, kind of hidden because it was stuck in a crack at the back.”

“Well, you’ve sold me,” I said. I was sure I’d swept that desk firmly. “Your skills probably exceed my own. Certainly you’re good.”

“Thank you,” she replied, practically beaming. “I think it goes to the cabin,” she said, indicating the key, “but I couldn’t check because you said not to open the door at all.”

“Thank you for listening,” I replied. “We can find out right now.”

I unlocked and opened the door, then tried the key. It worked. “Thank God,” I muttered, closing and locking the door again, then pocketing the key in my inner pocket. “The ability to lock this place from the outside is pretty crucial.”

“What now?” she asked.

“Now you are coming with me,” I replied.

“Where?”

“To that general store. I’m going to watch your ass while you do your search, because we’re close enough to trouble in terms of resources that I think it’ll be worth the risk to head back out there,” I said.

She hesitated, but only briefly, to her credit. “Okay,” she said.

“Let me get ready, then we can go.”

SEVEN

I put out the fire since we had more methods of restarting it now, and because I was nervous to leave it completely untended. Not to mention, with people around, it would be more dangerous to be on their radar and give ourselves away via chimney smoke. Once that was done, I hid everything in the back of the closet, high up on the shelf as best I could. Everything that I wasn’t taking with me. I already had a plan for how to deal with the assholes, or at least how to begin to deal with them, but first I needed more info.

I made sure to warn her about the wolf as we left the cabin. Again, it made her hesitate, though not much. And I had to admit I wasn’t sure if it was because she was very brave, or because she had more faith in me than maybe she should have. But right now it was a time to gamble, unfortunately. Playing it safe was usually the right course of action in this snowy wasteland, but sometimes a situation forced your hand to do otherwise.

“Tell me everything you can think of about the people at the campgrounds and the campgrounds themselves,” I said as we began walking.

“All right, but again, I didn’t see much,” she replied.

“Anything will be helpful.”

“Okay...”

I listened to her talk as we walked to the general store, my eyes continually scanning the area. That wolf had me on edge. It was just as likely gone as it was lurking still. Given that I’d seen wildlife around, maybe it’d be busy stalking bunnies and deer.

Between what she’d already told me and what I’d managed to get a glimpse of, I didn’t learn a whole lot. There’d be at least six of them, maybe one or two more. I knew there could be a whole lot more I might be missing hanging out inside those buildings, but something told me that wasn’t the case. I’d seen operations like this before and they preferred to keep it lean, especially in a location like this. They had some guns, but probably not a whole lot. She described the meeting between her group and theirs, and normally when you had a group of unknowns rolling up, you wanted to put on a show of force.

Not everything, but damn near.

She’d seen two pistols, a rifle, and a shotgun between them. Probably more, but they might not even have enough to all be armed.

These were all assumptions, and those could be deadly, but I didn’t have a lot else to go off of at the moment.

“How are you gonna deal with them?” Delilah asked uncertainly as we came to the store and walked inside.

“In the long run? I’m not sure beyond ‘violently’. But in the short run? I’m going to bluff them,” I replied quietly. Anyone could’ve shown up in the store since I’d last been here.

“How?” she asked.

“Let’s search this place real quick, make sure we’re alone,” I replied.

We did that and five minutes later, we were in the small office I’d been in not all that long ago, confident we were still alone.

“I’m going to try and purchase the woman they have,” I explained.

“Seriously?” Delilah asked.

“Yes. It’s the only thing I can think of right now. I can’t outgun them, I don’t have any bullets and that’s stupid dangerous anyway. I don’t want to wait until night to sneak in there, even if that was an option, which it kind of isn’t because I’m not great at sneaking, to be honest. So I’m going to appeal to their business sense and try to buy her off them.”

“I don’t think we have enough stuff for a trade...” Delilah murmured.

“I don’t either, but I might be able to work something out.”

“Why do you think that?”

I sighed and looked away for a moment. “People respond certain ways to me, I’ve noticed. It was subtle before the snow, but now it’s super obvious. Women, like you, either get really interested or really frightened. Guys either get really intimidated and, as a result, puff out their chest and try to act hard, or they want to be buddy-buddy with me. And it’s always the pieces of shit who want me to be buddy-buddy, because they look at me and see one of their own. I look like a guy who breaks thumbs to collect payments or an asshole bouncer or a piece of human shit who’d run an operation like what they’re running.”

“You aren’t, though,” Delilah said, her voice surprisingly kind. I looked at her. “You don’t get to choose how you look, but you do get to choose what you do,” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah...I know. I mean, it’s an asset, a tool I use whenever I can for the good. I just...hate that fuckheads look at me and their first reaction is ‘ah, a fellow fuckhead!’, you know? It sucks sometimes.”

“I understand that,” she murmured. She offered me a small, unhappy smile. “Lots of guys look at me and think ‘a great piece of fuckmeat’.” I shifted uncomfortably. “Not that I think that about you. I mean, I know, our arrangement, but I offered to let you fuck me like a slut, obviously you’re gonna. But you’ve been really nice to me, and you didn’t have to be.”

“I like being nice,” I said after a moment.

She smiled. “That’s good. Don’t lose that.”

“I hope not to. Now...” I looked around. “Show me your skills, because I scoured this place over earlier. I want to be wrong and there to be more shit here.”

“I’ll get to it, but I’ll need time,” she replied.

I thought about it. “Two hours,” I said.

“Okay, I can work with that.”

She got right to work.

I left her to it, heading back out into the main area. I walked over to the counter, standing on the customer side of it and, tracking down a chair, plopping it down and taking a load off. To be honest, I fucking hated every single minute that ticked by without me directly acting to get that woman out of there. I’d never actually been locked up in any real capacity before, at least not by a person, by a storm? Yeah. Tons of times. But it was different, I imagined, when it was a person intentionally locking you away.

I think a lot of people would look at what I was doing and start immediately hunting for a reason as to why I was such a fucking ‘do-gooder’. Why I wanted to help people. I’d heard all the usual stuff so far. I wanted to be a hero, I wanted respect, I wanted pussy, I was fucking ‘white knighting’ or...shit what had they been calling it? Virtue signaling. God, what a stupid fucking phrase. I mean yeah, obviously there were going to be people who lie through their fucking teeth and try to claim the moral high ground while not, in the real world, actually doing anything moral. Just paying lip service to it. Fuck them.

But as for me? Why did I help people?

Maybe I’m stupid, or simple, but I had two reasons.

The first was that it’s the right thing to do.

The second was that it feels good. Even if no one else knows, even if I get nothing for it, (which is often the case), shit, even if I have to give something up, it felt good.

In an honest, genuine, no-bullshit way, I actually believe that a good deed is its own reward.

It’s not like I’d fucking die for a stranger, but I do feel like how far I’d be willing to go to help someone out was a lot more than the average person.

Did that make me better? Shit, I don’t know. I tried not to think like that. I just wanted to help people. And, okay, yeah, sometimes to fucking punish shitty people.

That, too, was its own reward. One that I was admittedly somewhat uncomfortable with how comfortable I already was with.

But I needed to rest up, mentally and physically, and probably get laid one more time before doing this. Because I could die, but also it’d keep me limber, both in my body and my head. I might need to think on my feet. Or just run. I listened to Delilah moving behind me, the sounds carrying easily enough in the otherwise dead silent store. There was another thing that I was really lucky with regards to: silence.

It didn’t get to me.

I knew a lot of people who were bugged by silence. I think a lot of it was just being constantly stimulated like all the time. Music or TV shows or vlogs or audiobooks or podcasts running in the background, combined with the hum of heating or cooling and electricity in general, it had gotten us really used to having some kind of noise all the time. And some people even damaged their hearing and developed something called tinnitus, which I’d heard was basically a subtle ringing sound you always heard, but only when it was silent.

And damn but was this world silent.

Sure there were storms and wind, but snow absorbed noise otherwise. It was like the blanket of snow that always covered everything consumed sound.

I liked it, or at least was neutral towards it, that’s why I was lucky.

An hour and a half went by. Delilah searched all three rooms in the back, and some of the rear area of the main section. I called her up.

“Find anything?” I asked as she joined me by the counter.

“Yeah, actually,” she replied, and pulled out a magnifying glass.

“Holy shit, where was this?” I asked.

“Way back up under the desk in the manager’s office,” she replied.

“Well fuck, good job,” I replied. “I think-”

I froze as I heard something.

“What?” Delilah whispered. I held up my hand, waited, listening…

Conversation. Footsteps. Outside. Getting closer.

I grabbed her and pulled her down behind the counter, still on the customer side. The voices drew closer. Hot damn was I glad I’d thought to put the fire out. Even with the treeline hiding the cabin, it’d be pretty damn obvious if I hadn’t.

Suddenly they were right there, probably not more than a few feet beyond the plate glass, with just it and the counter standing between us.

Delilah stared at me, her eyes wide, face paler than usual, obviously terrified. I tried to keep my own expression neutral, not too tense, not too worried, to keep her from freaking out.

“Do you think she went in there?” a voice asked suddenly, and it was close enough that I could easily envision someone pressing their face against the glass, staring in.

“Shit, I don’t know. We already looked here, remember? She’s probably up on the fucking highway, long gone by now,” another voice growled. “If I find that bitch-”

“You know we’re supposed to bring her back without hurting her.” A pause, then, more frustrated, “Or sampling.”

“I don’t give a shit,” the second voice muttered. “We find her, I’m sampling her for a fucking hour before bringing her sweet ass back. She fucking deserves it. Kicked me in the fucking nuts.”

“We should talk with Tanner, see if he’s seen her. Maybe she ran to him.”

“Maybe. For now we’ve got that other bitch, although she’s even more of a fucking handful than the first one.” Another pause. “You know, a lot of bitches say they’ll bite your dick off if you stick in their mouth, but I think this chick is the first one I actually believe.”

A snicker. “Why don’t you go find out.”

“Fuck you, you find out-”

They both stopped talking as a gunshot cracked off, what sounded like a pistol. Then another one. And then several more.

“Shit! It’s gotta be those fucking wolves again, come on!”

Then running footsteps, going away, back towards the campground. I sighed softly in relief. Delilah kept staring at me. I held up one finger and mouthed wait. We waited. The footsteps disappeared. There were more gunshots.

After about five minutes, I got up.

“Stay here,” I said.

“Okay,” she replied.

I headed for the door, opened it up, poked my head out. I saw footprints in the snow, first coming, then going. I didn’t see any movement among the trees.

“Okay, come on, let’s go,” I said without taking my eyes off the direction of the campgrounds.

She joined me a moment later and we started hurrying back home.

~

“What are we going to do? They’re looking for me...” Delilah asked quietly.

“I’m going to figure out a way to deal with this,” I replied as I sorted through everything we’d found so far. I’d already put a bare minimum of stuff in the backpack, what I called my ‘survival minimum’ sometimes. Basically, enough food and water to last at least two days, (though really the bare minimum for water I could carry now was that thermos), a bit of medical supplies, and the lighter I’d found. After that, I put in everything I was willing to potentially part with.

“How?” Delilah asked. She’d been pacing ever since we’d gotten back, obviously shaken up. She finally looked at me, seemed to noticed I was actually doing something.

“First, I’m going to try and trade for that woman,” I replied. “I doubt even if I gave everything we own it’d be enough, but you never know. At the very least I need a pretense to get in there and get a feel for their setup. I’ll also try to give them a false trail, make them think you’re gone already,” I explained.

“You think that will work?” she murmured.

“I hope so,” I replied.

I put in most of the spare clothes, the magnifying glass, a few cans of food, and the batteries where I could get to them easily. Not a lot to trade with, unfortunately. I also made sure that the hunting knife was on my hip, fixed to my belt in its sheath, and the pistol, empty as it was, was tucked down the front of my pants, both clearly visible.

Sometimes bluffing actually worked pretty well.

I pulled the backpack on and made sure everything was secure, then I turned and looked squarely at Delilah. “If I don’t come back by tonight, then I want you to gather up everything you can carry, hit the highway, and head north. Just get out of here. It’s your best shot, unfortunately.”

She looked scared, but she nodded. “I will.”

“Good.” I stepped up to her and opened my arms. She immediately leaned against me, hugging me, and I encircled her with my own, much larger arms. I’ve been told by several women, especially much smaller women, that being hugged by me like this felt extremely comforting. It made them feel safe, they said.

I hoped it was working for Delilah.

It seemed to. By the time she stepped back, she looked calmer. I gave her a long kiss on the mouth, and she grabbed me and deepened it.

“Good luck,” she said.

“You too, remember the knock,” I replied.

She nodded. “Three slow, two fast.”

“Good girl.”

I gave her one more kiss, then I left the cabin.

~

This was getting complicated.

I had the weather and the snow to worry about killing me.

I had wolves to worry about killing me.

I now also had two groups of assholes to worry about killing me.

I wondered who Tanner was, but I figured there was an extremely good chance that it was the other group Delilah had mentioned. I felt a swell of some strange mixture of anger and excitement as I realized that Tanner was almost certainly the man who had robbed me. But I forced myself to focus, because he would wait for later.

For right now, I needed to be one hundred percent here and now.

The first thing I did was walk to the general store and scope the situation out. No more guns or people around, but I thought I heard a few distant voices. I then walked to the back of the store and into the woods behind it. Keeping the campground’s position roughly in mind, I walked deeper. Eventually, I got to a depth I felt like I couldn’t be seen from from their perspective, then I started heading north again, towards the camp.

My plan was to make it look like I wasn’t coming from the direction of the cabin. I needed whatever tricks I could think of to get them to believe no one was that way. Although a lot of people that were survivors had more discipline than the average person in the past, a lot of them were still living like fucking outlaws during the Wild West. Probably there was one guy in charge who was actually halfway smart, and everyone else was an idiot looking to live the high life. Or whatever high life they could manage during the icy apocalypse.

I spent the time getting into character as much as I could. I never liked playing a douche-bro, nor did I like that I was apparently effective at it.

After a bit, I emerged from the trees at the edge of the parking lot in front of the campgrounds. I looked around and caught eyes with someone standing on the roof of one of the cabins about the same time he caught eyes with me.

“Freeze!” he shouted, pointing the pistol at me.

I put my hands up. “Whoa! Not looking for trouble!” I called back.

“Just stay there!” he yelled.

I stayed put. The guy walked to the edge of the roof, looked down, said something I was too far away to catch, probably just telling other people in the camp relevant details. Finally, he turned his attention back to me, covering me with the pistol. A moment later, three figures came into the parking lot and one of them waved at me.

“What do you want?!” he called.

“Trade!” I called back.

“Come on over then, nice and easy!”

Okay…

Showtime.

EIGHT

I was surprised by how good I’d gotten at keeping my cool.

I’d always been half decent at keeping anxiety off my face and mostly out of my body language. At least, I thought so. But after all the shit I’d been through, it was even easier now to actually calm my own internal self. My stomach was calm, my breathing was normal, my pulse felt a little elevated, but not much.

I could die, but I had at least some level of control over that.

I walked over, not too fast, not too slow, studying the men I saw as I did. The one in the middle was about average height and weight, wearing a heavy fur coat, with what might be considered a ‘fashionable’ amount of scruffy dark hair and beard. The two guys flanking him looked like opposites, and I sized them up quickly.

One guy had more tan skin and dark eyes. He was smaller in frame and had a kind of flightiness about him, like he couldn’t quite stand still. He was going to be the brains, I decided. The man in the middle was the leader, the decision-maker, but the brains was there to let him know if he’d missed something or was getting fucked over somehow.

Then there was the other guy. Huge, blonde-haired, taller even than me, and built. He was muscle. Pure intimidation. But I could just see it in his gaze that wasn’t too bright. Perfect muscle: intimidating, but easy to control.

“Welcome to my home,” the man in the middle said with an at least somewhat not-fake smile. “My name is Ryan.”

“Chris,” I replied, stopping an appreciable distance away.

“You have things to trade?” he asked.

“Some things,” I said, then chuckled ruefully. “Not as much as I’d like.”

“I think we’ve all been there,” Ryan replied. “Come on inside the camp.”

He gave me an appraising sort of look, although I couldn’t exactly figure out why. Maybe it was just the ‘how likely is it that I can fuck this guy over?’ look, but I thought maybe there was another reason. Either way, so far, so good.

I followed him and his two cronies inside.

There was a bit of an art to intensely studying every detail you could, but making it look like you weren’t doing exactly that.

I’d like to think I was half decent at it. Naturally, curiosity would get most people, so I looked around, counting people. So far there were the three who’d come to see me, the lookout on the roof, and I caught movement inside one of the buildings. Another guy, I saw through a window, pacing around.

“So is this, like, really your home?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ryan replied. “We moved in here months ago. We’ve got a decent setup here. There’s game around to hunt, places to search that might have supplies, and people come through the highway to trade.”

“Looks nice,” I said. “Where were you, when it happened?”

An ice-breaker if there was one nowadays.

He laughed. “Chicago,” he said. “I was living a great life. I was a drug dealer,” he said. “Imported coke from South America, sold it in Chicago, down in Miami, over in Hollywood, New York, shit, I had the good life. A mansion and a few bitches in every one of those cities.”

I was almost sure he was lying, just something about the way he was saying it.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I was down in Florida,” I replied. “Not much special. I was,” I laughed, “I broke thumbs.” He glanced at me as we approached the main office at the back of the campgrounds. It was an older reference, I guess. “I helped collect money,” I said. “People didn’t pay what they owed, I’d break their thumbs. You know how it goes.”

He grinned fiercely. It was an ugly grin. “I do exactly,” he agreed. “Everyone’s got a fucking story. Everyone’s got a fucking excuse. Everyone wants drugs, no one wants to pay. The shit I had to put up with...come on. Let’s get in out of the cold.”

We went inside. It wasn’t what I’d call a fancy setup, but it was decent. The entrance lobby of the campgrounds had been set up like a living room. Some nice couches, a few bookshelves, coffee tables, some bottles of booze on the tables, a few packs of cigarettes, I even saw some weed and a few porn mags. Extremely valuable commodities nowadays.

As I sat down, I heard some distant banging, and then the woman shout something angrily.

I glanced at Ryan. “What was that?”

He chuckled. “Just a problem that we’re in the process of solving,” he replied cryptically.

“Problem? Sounds like you got someone locked up,” I replied.

The two cronies, who sat down on their own couch, glanced at Ryan, something like apprehension on their faces. Otherwise, they’d been silent. Ryan didn’t look at them. He was staring at me, sizing me up again.

“You were involved in the shadier things,” he said after a moment.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Tell me...would you be interested in some companionship?”

I leaned back, playing it cool. “What does that mean, exactly?” I replied.

“You seem like a man who has no illusions about how fucking awful the world is, so I’ll level with you. I’ve got a girl locked up out there. Found her wandering yesterday. She’s not exactly the best-looking woman, I’ll admit, but hey...hot pussy is hot pussy, right? She’s fiery. I’d be willing to part with her in exchange for something,” he said.

I made a show of considering it, keeping my outright contempt off my face. Jesus fucking Christ, he didn’t even hesitate to sell her to me like a fucking cigarette. I could see it in his face: that woman out there was no more than fucking livestock to him.

“What kind of price?” I asked.

“What do you have?” he replied.

I sighed. “Honestly? Not enough for a whole woman.”

“Well...I could loan her to you for a time. We’ve got rope and a spare bed. I can knock her out and you can have some fun with her and be on your way. Or...”

“Or?” I asked.

“Do a job for me, and I’ll give her to you.”

“What job?” I replied.

He grinned. He thought he had me. In a way, I had him. “Across the highway, roughly opposite of where we are now, is a church on a hill. Inside the church is a cache of supplies. A black suitcase. There’s supposed to be guns and ammo and medicine and booze inside. You find that, you bring it back to me, and I’ll give you the girl.”

I made another show of considering it. “Why haven’t you gotten it?” I asked.

“We tried.” He chuckled ruefully and looked at the large man. “Tony here tangled with some wolves. There are a lot of them in the region, unfortunately. But a big, tough guy like you, I imagine, properly motivated, could get it.”

I thought about it some more. “You’re sure it’s there?”

“Yes. We learned about it from a traveler who found a map. Someone left it there, drew a map for a friend to find, I guess. Someone else found it, sold it to us.”

“Okay, but I have two conditions,” I said.

Big Tony shifted and locked eyes with me, but Ryan leaned froward easily. “I’m listening.”

“The first is, I’ll need something stronger than a twenty-two to go up against some wolves. A gun and some ammo. A nine millimeter or something. I’ll give it back when I’m done.”

“You can have a nine millimeter and two magazines, but you have to leave some stuff here as collateral,” Ryan replied.

“Deal.”

“The second thing?”

“I want to see this chick and get a minute alone with her,” I replied.

He grinned. “That’s fair. I’d want to see the merchandise too.” He stood up suddenly. “Come along, I’ll show you. Tony, go get the pistol and two magazines.”

“Right, boss,” Tony replied. His voice was deep.

The other guy, the weaselly-looking bastard who had yet to speak but started grinning the moment we started talking about the woman, joined us.

We headed back outside.

“By the way, I have a question for you. On your way in, by chance, did you come across a woman? A beautiful, young, pale redheaded woman?” Ryan asked.

My heart skipped a beat but I kept calm. “Actually yeah,” I said.

He stopped and turned to look at me directly. “Where was she? Was she alone?”

“Yeah, she was by herself.” I turned and pointed in the direction I’d come from, off to the west, into the forest. “That way. Maybe two miles away was when I saw her, earlier today. I was gonna grab her and, you know, have some fun with her, but she had a gun and she looked wicked pissed, so I just left her alone. She ran off.”

“Damn,” he snapped. “Where’d she get a gun?”

“One of yours?” I asked as we resumed walking.

“Yes. That little slut...we traded for her not too long ago and she got out. I thought she went up to the highway...dammit. Well, if you see her again, and you recapture her and bring her to me, I would be willing to give you a lot of compensation.”

“I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” I replied.

We got up to the shed, where I heard heavy breathing.

“Okay, so,” Ryan said, laying his hand on the knob, “you can feel her up, sniff her hair, get a look at her tits or her ass, whatever. But no trying it before you buy it, got it?”

“Fair enough,” I replied.

“Two minutes,” he said, and opened the door.

It was dark and smoky inside the shed. There was hardly anything in it, just a tiny wood-burning device someone had cobbled together at some point, probably to keep her from freezing to death. No windows, the only light coming in from the door behind him and the hole cut in the roof that the exhaust pipe was shoved through. There was a small table next to the woman with a jug of water and an empty can.

The woman herself was chained to the wall, ankles and wrists.

“Two minutes,” Ryan repeated, then shut the door behind me.

I walked over to her.

“You fucking touch me and I rip your fucking throat out with my teeth,” she growled. She looked almost feral in her anger, but she also looked exhausted. She had somewhat tan skin and dark hair, which was a wild mess. She had a lean build and was maybe five nine or five ten. She wore a ripped brown sweater and some jeans with some hiking boots.

She looked awful. She smelled awful.

“I’m going to save you,” I said quietly as I got close to her.

That seemed to catch her completely off-guard, but it didn’t last long.

“Bullshit,” she snarled.

“I don’t have long, so just listen. My name is Chris. I’m trying to get them to sell you to me. They agreed if I went and retrieved something for them. I’m trying to save you from them. Once I have you, I can get you somewhere safe and if you want we can part ways.”

She looked at me with naked distrust, but beneath it I could see a wretched sort of hope. She wanted very badly to believe me.

“Why should I believe you?” she asked finally, at least keeping her voice down.

“You won’t truly know one way or the other until I have you. I’m just letting you know now. I’ll be back in a few hours. Now, headbutt me.”

She blinked in surprise. “What?”

“You heard me, headbutt me, in the forehead. Now. Otherwise they might get suspicious.”

She nodded suddenly. I leaned in. “Fuck you!” she screamed and headbutted me.

Stars washed across my vision as I stumbled back. Goddamn she didn’t pull her punches at all! “Fuck!” I shouted, hand going to my head.

Behind me, light flooded the room as the door opened.

I heard laughter. “What happened?” Ryan asked.

I laughed. “Fucking bitch headbutted me!”

“You wanna sock her one? I think that’s fair.”

I made a show of considering it, then shook my head and joined them at the door. “Nah, I’ll save it for later. Be seeing you soon, you fucking slut. You’d better get used to the idea of choking on my fat cock from now on,” I said, standing in the doorway.

“I’ll fucking bite it off, you fucking prick,” she snarled.

“Like we’ve never heard that before,” Ryan said, slamming the door. She screamed a stream of obscenities at us, but Ryan ignored her. I glanced over as I heard footsteps in the snow. Tony was coming back, a black and silver pistol in his hand.

“It’s loaded,” he said, offering it and a single spare magazine to me.

“Thanks,” I replied, checking it out and then tucking it down the back of my pants after pocketing the magazine. I looked at the shed. “Man am I looking forward to breaking that bitch in. I’m gonna beat the fucking shit out of her, and no fucking cops to stop me anymore.”

Ryan laughed darkly. “Yep. It’s a new world, my friend.”

I ended up handing over damn near all my supply of stuff on me as collateral after that.

“I’ll be back with the suitcase today,” I said, and started walking.

“We’ll be here,” Ryan replied.

NINE

I shook off the shitty feelings as I made my way away from the campgrounds, towards the rise in the land that would take me up to the highway.

Or tried to, anyway.

I felt like an asshole. It didn’t seem to matter that I was just acting, that I was actually doing something good. They were so easily convinced. Were they that gullible or was I that convincing? I’d never know.

As I found my way to the only moderately steep embankment and started trudging my way up it, other, more practical thoughts began to crowd in on me. I was doing something pretty dangerous. The most likely thing that could go wrong was I’d get the stuff, go back, and they’d just blow me away and rob my corpse.

In my experience, there was rarely actual honor among thieves.

It was also possible that I might get the woman away, offer to let her stay in the cabin with me and Delilah for however long she felt like she needed, and she could decide to kill me, or us, in our sleep. I didn’t think it was likely, but this kind of thing was always, to some degree, Russian Roulette. But that was life now.

Or my life, anyway.

And this wasn’t even counting the danger I could run into out here. I could run into wolves, or some other dangerous thing. I could fall down and break my neck. I could run into other humans happy to donate some lead to me at high velocity for no other reason than the fact that they get a brutal rush out of killing people.

I’d seen that before.

More than once.

I’m still shocked by just how accurate that whole idea of ‘the thin veneer of civilization is the only thing keeping most people civil’ shit was. It was pretty fucked up that there were a lot of people out there who are or have done or will do shitty, unforgivable things to other people. These people who literally the only thing holding them back from raping or murdering or torturing was the fact that they would probably get caught.

How many unspeakable evils had been committed out in the middle of nowhere?

I reached the top of the steep, snowy ground and found myself standing atop the highway I’d been driving along not too long ago. There were a handful of long-abandoned cars stretched along its length, dirty and gray, covered in snow. Looking at them gave me a chill, and not of the cold variety. When I thought back to movie posters and book covers and concept art of the apocalypse, something that became a trope, and thus an intensely recognizable image, was abandoned cars. Normally it would show hundreds, even thousands of them, packed in bumper-to-bumper on some anonymous highway. But even now…

I’d had two years to get used to the idea that we might actually be seeing the end of the world, and I’d like to think I’d handled it better than most people, but sometimes…

Fuck.

Sometimes the enormity of it, the sheer, mind-numbing immensity of Armageddon would come crashing down on me like the weight of a sun.

And sometimes all it took to remind me that probably ninety percent of the world’s population was dead was some small little thing.

Like gazing at a few abandoned cars.

But, thankfully, my more practical side kicked in and I turned away from them. When I was finished with this mess, I’d have to come back and search them. You never knew what you might find hidden inside of a car.

I marched forward and got over the guardrail, then moved across the highway that served as a decent dividing line in this region. As I walked over to the opposite side, I had, for the first time, an unobstructed view.

It was beautiful.

The only time I’d been able to have a look over this part of the region was when I was in my vehicle, and visibility had been absolutely shit then.

I took in the beauty, but also surveyed what I saw.

Back to the south, the way I’d initially come, I made out the off-ramp, and I could just see a little cluster of buildings that sat basically on the opposite side of where my car had crashed. One of them might be a gas station from the looks of it. Almost certainly was, given its positioning. I saw a lot more trees, a whole forest spread out across that whole side of the region. Within the trees, maybe a mile, mile and a half distant, I saw a frozen lake with a few cabins or lake houses around it. More places to check out.

Directly across from me, on another rise that seemed to overlook the land, I saw my destination: the church.

I looked down.

The incline on this side was even steeper. I looked back to the south, the way I’d come in, where the off-ramp was. I could go walk down that way and have a safer time of it, and if I wasn’t to the point where I was feeling every second, I would have. But there was an invisible clock ticking, and I needed to be done with my task sooner instead of later.

Incline it was then.

As I got over the second guardrail and began carefully making my way down, I kept an eye out for wolves. For the next several minutes, I worked my way down the incline, careful not to fall on my ass. So far, I hadn’t broken anything, and the most pain I’d endured was when I got the stomach flu last year.

Good. Fucking. God.

The stomach flu.

I hoped I’d never have to put up with it again. Before the apocalypse it was bad enough, but after? Jesus. Being miserable and uncomfortable was worse enough on its own without the crippling pain of a stomach flu.

But I fully intended to keep myself in prime shape, which meant avoiding breaking anything. Plus, I had to make it back now. Besides the whole point of getting that woman out of there, I hadn’t managed to get a chance to put it in Delilah again before running off. I guess that was a pretty good motivator.

Although I had to admit, if I had to go out, her being the last lay I’d gotten would make me closer to okay with it.

Finally, after what felt like too long, I reached the bottom. There was a sort of gully between the edge of the highway and the hill the church resided on. It was pretty sheer at the back of the church, so I ignored it and instead began heading around, looking for a better way up. My breath fogged on the air, my lungs burned with the cold, and my face stung, but I was feeling good. Whenever I was doing something, whenever I had a clear goal in mind and I was progressing toward it in an obvious fashion, it was so much easier to feel good.

That was one of the perks of this new lifestyle.

I had goals every single damned day. Find food. Find firewood. Find shelter. Hunt for resources among the abandoned buildings and cars I came across.

Try to get laid.

That one was more abstract and a bonus more than anything.

I marched through the snow, moving around the right side of the hill, and continually scanned the treeline a ways ahead of me for movement. There wasn’t anything yet. I wanted to keep it that way. After several minutes of kicking my way through the snow, huffing and puffing, I finally found the road that was supposed to lead up to the church.

Getting onto it, I kept on going.

The higher I got, the more land was revealed to me. As I finally reached the top of the somewhat more shallow incline leading up to the church from this side, I got a better view of the forest between here and the frozen lake. It was pretty sprawling, but now I could make out a few clearings with other buildings in them. Likely houses or cabins. This was definitely the kind of place where people came to get away from it all.

I only saw smoke coming out of two of them, though.

One in a house by the lake’s edge.

Another in a house much deeper into the forest.

One of them had to be Tanner, but which one? I sighed. I could ideally pry more information out of Ryan once I got back. Speaking of getting back...I turned my full focus on the church. Just a little parking lot out front, no cars, and the front doors were closed. I walked across the lot, listening closely, hearing only the occasional gust of wind, a distant bird calling every now and then, and nothing else. I walked up the steps, careful of an icy buildup under the layer of snow, and pulled out the pistol they’d given me.

I had to admit, I felt so much better with a working pistol.

Trying the knob, I found it wasn’t locked. Turning it, I pushed inward, pistol at the ready. The door creaked as it opened up, an ominous sound in the quiet. Beyond I saw a simple entry room where people could gather, maybe talk after a sermon, or grab a cup of water, or maybe take their noisy kids for a few moments to quiet them. The place was mostly empty. Just a chair, a broken water-cooler in the corner, a pair of tables.

There was a cork board mounted on the wall with a dozen different pieces of paper pinned to it. Mostly they were religious sayings, a few schedules, some help wanted ads. I ignored them for the moment and tried the first of four doors I found. It led to a small bathroom that was empty. Same with the one next to it. As I headed for the single door in the right-hand side of the room, I considered closing the initial door I’d come in through. Unfortunately, what windows there were in this part of the church were too dirty to provide adequate light and I didn’t have any kind of flashlight on me, nor did I want to waste lighter fluid.

The next door led to a little supply room that would normally be locked up, but someone had long ago kicked the door in and raided it. There wasn’t much left inside, and certainly no places to hide. I then turned my attention to the last door. Opening it led to the church proper. I was met by what I had expected to be met by: twin rows of pews all aimed at a stage with a pulpit front and center on it. I could easily imagine a priest giving a sermon to anyone who felt willing to show up. As I began hunting around, I wondered.

A lot of people had a lot of theories about why we found ourselves in a winter wasteland. But I’d certainly heard tons of tiny variations on ‘God did it’. I didn’t believe it, but I was admittedly a little surprised by how many people I found who did believe it. Then again, I guess religion is what you fall back on when you’re really frightened.

And the end of the world was pretty frightening.

There was another door at the back of the room. I moved around the large preaching area, looking around to see if I could find the suitcase. I was surprised he’d told me what was in it, but not where it was. Maybe he’d forgotten, or maybe the note hadn’t specified beyond ‘the church on the hill’. Shit, it could be outside, for all I knew.

I went around the exterior part of the room, making sure no one was hiding. Call me paranoid, but I’d had too many situations where I’d come into a place, thinking it was empty, and then it turns out someone’s in the fucking closet or under a bed or something. But no, I was alone so far. I didn’t see any footprints in the light layer of dust that had gathered on the floor. From there, I went through the final door at the back of the room.

Priest’s quarters and office. So the godly man or woman had lived here, at the church. Talk about no work-life balance. I saw a little single-wide bed shoved up in the corner besides a little fireplace, a desk that was totally clear of stuff, a dresser that had all its drawers yanked out and emptied. One was actually on the floor, cracked from the impact of when some overzealous survivor had torn through them, looking for goodies.

Just one more door at the back of the room. I opened it up and looked inside. Another bathroom, this one more personal, small. Just a shower stall and a sink and a toilet wedged between them. Finally, I was alone for sure.

With that clock still ticking, I began my search.

This time around, I got lucky.

I found the suitcase in question shoved as far back under the bed as it could go. Given it was black, it was pretty easy to hide in the shadows. I hauled the bed aside, grabbed the suitcase, and carried it over to the desk. No locks, thank God. I hit the latches and propped it open, and lo and behold, the note they’d found had been right on the money. I saw two pistols, I saw several magazines of ammo and two boxes of bullets. I saw a pair of first aid kits that were intact and full. I saw a stash of breakfast bars, several books of matches, a thing of lighter fluid, and yeah, there was even an unopened bottle of some fancy expensive booze.

I laughed. This would be a hell of a find under any other circumstances. It’d be the motherlode, a total jackpot.

And I had to give it up.

I frowned, considering it for a moment. Maybe I should be smart and take something. That box of bullets. One was of three fifty sevens, the other was full of twenty twos. Did they have like a general idea or an actual, annotated list?

If I got caught skimming off the top, how bad would that go?

Time to roll the dice again.

I grabbed the box of twenty two caliber bullets and opened it up. There were thirty six rounds inside. I took out my revolver and loaded it up, one chamber at a time. It felt good to load it and snapping the chamber back into place after I put the last one in released a bit of tension in me I’d been holding ever since the realization that I was weaponless hit me. I’d have to give back the nine millimeter, but now I had a gun and bullets of my own. I put the box in my backpack, made sure it was secure, then closed the suitcase up.

It was time to shift to the next leg of this journey.

Hefting the suitcase, I frowned at how heavy it was. I considered transferring everything to my backpack, but something about that told me they might not react well to it. They might think I’d skimmed, which I had, if they didn’t see the suitcase. I suppose I could transfer most of the stuff to my pack, carry the suitcase, and then transfer it back once I got up to the highway. But it was hard to tell what kind of visibility they might have, and if they saw me fucking around with it, they might decide to just cap me right away.

If they hadn’t already decided that.

No, it’d make the most sense to just muscle through it like I did most other things. Honestly, that was the advantage of being the big, dumb type. You got used to just workhorse-ing your way through stuff. Tightening my grip on the suitcase, I headed out of the church, passing between the rows of pews and looking around as I did. I knew a lot of people felt a lot of things when they came into a place of worship, but I never did.

I wondered if that was something in me. I guess it had to be, but I’d never been able to fully determine if it was a failing or nor.

On the one hand, I’d seen way, way, way too many fuckheads use religion as an excuse and a shield to do and say fucking awful things. Like, every day. Even in the 2030s there had been stupid shits mouthing off about how gay marriage and casual sex were immoral, while at the same time hiding all the nasty shit their own priests did behind closed doors, or covering up the fact that they beat their spouses or their kids, or fucked people out of money.

They’ll drone on and on about how abortion is an unforgivable sin...right up until the point their little mistress on the side needs one.

Yeah, religious people clearly had a superior moral compass.

But on the other hand, I’d seen actual, good people who used religion like it was supposed to be used: a means of strength and comfort in times of pain and terror. And I mean if it worked, and you weren’t also fucking other people over, then hey, it worked.

I just didn’t think it’d ever work for me.

Heading back out into the cold, I prepared for another long walk and miserable struggle down and then up and then down some snowy inclines. I fucking hated snowy inclines. Way too easy to fall on your ass.

I began making my way back down the side hill, prepared to retrace my route. I made it about halfway back down the hill before I became aware of the fact that something was wrong. Like, really fucking wrong.

A growl to my left.

Paws beating the snow.

I jerked my head that way and saw three wolves coming at me from out of the woods in that direction, making a beeline right for the road I was on.

“Fuck!” I hissed, almost dropping the suitcase.

I pulled out my pistol with my free hand and fired off two shots in rapid succession. One went wide, into the forest, the other sent a plume of snow shooting up right in their path. The wolves skidded to a halt and I took the opportunity to start booking it away. Hopefully I could make it away while they were considering whether or not to follow me. Sometimes they ran when you fired at them, but not always.

I hit the bottom and started booking it for the steep incline.

I admit, I was panicking a little.

The last time I’d tangled with wolves, it had given me a fresh scar, and I had been lucky to get away with only that. I kept going and almost made it to the incline when I heard more growling and more pounding paws.

Shit.

They had decided to come after me.

Time to stand my ground, which this place would be better to do so in, given I wasn’t on an incline. I dropped the suitcase as close to the ground as I could manage, the spun around and raised the pistol. Taking aim with both hands, I saw the three wolves spreading out as they came for me over the hill the road was built into.

My hands were thankfully steady, and when I pulled the trigger the first time, it was a dead-on shot, nailing the lead, middle wolf right in the head and killing it in an instant. It dropped like a rock, skidding along the snow, limbs flopping. That seemed to give the other two some pause. I twisted and fired a second time. The shot just barely missed another one. I think I actually shot some fur off. That did it.

They turned tail and sprinted away.

I stood there for a few seconds, waiting, and then slowly lowered the pistol.

Staring at the dead wolf, I sighed heavily and began walking over to it. It was going to be an extra bitch and a half to haul that fucking thing around in addition to the suitcase, but that was at least a few days’ worth of food for three people, (providing I got the woman safely out of there and she felt like sticking around), plus some fur to trade.

I holstered my pistol and began gathering it up.

TEN

“So, you did run into some trouble,” Ryan said as I walked up.

I had the suitcase in one hand, the wolf in the other, slung over my shoulder. It was a bit lean, and a fuck and a half to manage, but I’d done it. I’d just made it up the hill, took a five minute break to get my wind back, then resumed my journey.

“Yep,” I said. “But I nailed this fucker.”

“Whoa...headshot. Nice,” Ryan said. His eyes dropped to the suitcase. “So that’s it?”

“Yeah. Everything’s in there that you said. Guns, bullets, some meds and booze,” I replied. I held it up and Tony, who was standing to the right and slightly behind Ryan, stepped forward and accepted it. He hefted its weight easily, staring at me in something that wasn’t quite a glare. Maybe he was pissed at me for doing what he couldn’t, threatened by me. I felt for him...or I would if he wasn’t attached to a goddamned outfit like this. Sometimes shit just went wrong no matter what you did. But again, fuck this guy.

Fuck them all.

“Come inside,” Ryan said, and turned away.

We walked back across the camp. I saw a new face, a grinning frat-house asshole type who looked like he got off on ‘pranks’ that involved brutal public humiliation that could lead people to blowing their brains out. And they’d fucking laugh over it. I’d seen the types before. There was a lot to hate about the old world, and I wasn’t happy to see that some of the shittiest elements had survived and in some cases even thrived.

I dumped the wolf carcass in the snow outside and we went back into the main office and Tony set the suitcase down on one of the tables and opened it up.

“Whoa, nice,” Ryan murmured, looking through it.

“Yep,” I replied, pulling out the nine millimeter.

Tony’s hand immediately went to the gun on his hip as he tensed up.

“I’m just giving it back,” I said, keeping my movements slow.

“You can relax, Tony,” Ryan said.

I set the gun and the ammo on the table. The heavy sounds they made getting set down seemed loud in the following silence.

“So, we all good?” I asked.

“Yes, but...” Ryan turned to look at me. I tried not to tense. “I wanted to offer you something more.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. We’ve been considering making our way to the north. There’s apparently a small settlement a ways on. We’re considering either setting up near it and maybe running a brothel, or, if it’s small and weak enough...taking it over. With a guy like you, I think we could manage it. I could definitely use another enforcer.”

I kept my face mostly passive. “That could be interesting,” I said after a moment. Finally, I gave my head a small, indecisive shake. “Maybe. It’s intriguing. But I need to sleep on it first. And now that I’m going to have that bitch to break in all night, it’ll be a good sleep.”

Ryan grinned an ugly, mean grin. “Yep. Okay, cool. You know where we are. Let’s get you your stuff back and the girl, and you get it figured out.”

“Okay. It’ll probably be a yes,” I said.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

I got my stuff back, put it in my pack, and we headed back outside. I grabbed the wolf and slung it over my shoulder. It had bled down the back of my coat a little, but I could deal with that. This was going surprisingly well.

I just had to keep it going a bit longer…

Then, you know, figure out the rest of the plan on how to deal with these fuckheads. I’d counted six for sure.

“So if you’re really thinking about doing this, how many people you got already?” I asked casually as we walked over.

“Six,” he said, and I felt at least some relief. None of them looked terribly intimidating, besides Tony, and if I got really lucky I might be able to get my hands on a rifle somehow and pick them off from a distance.

Some would call it gutless, I’d call it smart.

“If the town’s small enough, we might be able to pull it off with seven of us,” I said as we approached the shed.

“That’s the spirit.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some handcuffs and a small metal key, handing them both to me. “For your new whore,” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied.

I had to get out of here, I was gonna lose my shit.

We got inside and the woman stared at us angrily.

“Consider yourself lucky, girly,” Ryan said as he walked over to her and began undoing her restraints. Tony walked in and pointed a pistol directly at her head. She froze, all her emotion replaced by fear when that happened. “You’ve been bought. Chris here looks like he knows how to show the ladies a good time, you should be so lucky.”

She made like she was going to say something, but whatever it was died in her throat.

As the last of the bindings came off, I walked up to her and clapped her wrists together with the handcuffs. “Walk,” I said, giving her a little shove towards the door. She walked out into the light and we followed her.

“Where are you gonna take me?” she asked quietly.

“You’ll see,” I replied. I turned to Ryan. “I’ll be back tomorrow if there isn’t a fucking blizzard or something.”

“Perfect!” he said, grinning and offering me his hand.

I made myself shake it, then started walking out of there with the woman, giving her a little shove. “You try and run and I’ll shoot you in the fucking knee, you understand me?” I asked. “And I’ll fucking do it, too. The only thing I need your legs to do is spread, you stupid fucking bitch. Do you understand me?!” I snapped.

“Y-yes,” she said.

“Good. Hurry up.”

We headed out of the campgrounds and to the west, into the forest, back in the misdirection I’d originally come from.

~

“Hey, I’m really sorry about all that,” I said as we stopped in a clearing.

We’d walked in silence for about five solid minutes until I was sure we were out of sight of them and none of them had followed.

She didn’t say anything, just turned to stare at me. She looked defiant, and defensive, and afraid. Mostly, she just looked tired.

“I can get your cuffs off now,” I said.

Slowly, she raised her hands. I walked up, fishing the key out of my pocket, and dropped the wolf onto the ground. She jumped slightly as it hit, still staring at me. I unlocked the cuffs. “Now, I think-” I began as I took the cuffs away.

That was when she reached out in a flash and snatched the six-shooter out of the front of my pants. I made a grab for her but she backed up and aimed it at me, both arms extended, eyes wide, chest heaving as her body no doubt flooded with adrenaline.

Well, shit.

I put my hands up. “Please don’t,” I said.

“How the fuck do you know that I can trust you?” she snarled.

I sighed, keeping my hands up. “For one, I wouldn’t have done exactly what I’d said I do when we first met. For two, I wouldn’t have gotten you safely away from them. You know they offered to tie you down and let me just fuck you there in the camp? For three, I took your fucking cuffs off, for Christ’s sake,” I growled.

She hesitated and I made myself relax.

“Look, you’re terrified, and livid, and tired. I get it. I really do. I’m not going to try and make you do anything you don’t want to do. Honestly, if you want, you can just leave right now, if you have somewhere to go. Although I will want my gun back, it’s my only one. But if not, I can take you to a cabin I have nearby. It’s shelter, and food, and some security.”

She kept staring at me, keeping the gun trained on me, though it was wavering now.

I waited.

Our breaths foamed on the air.

Somewhere distant, a wolf howled, long and lonely.

Finally, she lowered the pistol, her hands trembling. She kept staring at me, her lips pressed together in a firm line, and then finally she took a step closer to me, handing the pistol to me grip-first. “My name is Megan...thank you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome. I’m Chris,” I replied, accepting the gun and tucking it back down my pants, this time down the back.

She looked around. “Where, uh, where are we going?”

“This way,” I said, and began heading back to the south again.

She followed after me. For another few minutes, we just walked in silence.

Until suddenly she spoke up again. “There was another girl,” she said suddenly, like it had just come back to her. “I heard them talking about another girl who was giving them trouble...I think. I’m not sure.”

“There was another girl,” I said. “But she got away, and we found each other. Don’t worry, I took care of her.”

Megan stopped in her tracks. “What the fuck do you mean ‘took care of her’?” she snapped.

I put up my hands. “I’m sorry, poor choice of words. She’s back at the cabin that we’re going to. She’s safe and sound, and happy.”

Although I had no intention of telling her right now that we’d worked out a deal where she sucked my cock and I protected her.

Let Delilah be the one to explain that.

“...all right,” Megan murmured, and we started walking again.

“I am sorry,” I said after another minute of walking through the snow, between the tall, dead trees that loomed all around us. “For the things I said. It had to look real.”

“No, I get it,” she said, and now she just sounded a bit weary, no longer wary. She adopted the tone of someone who was used to putting up with having to do bullshit they hated. “You did the right thing. I mean, provided you don’t rape and kill me later.”

“I’m not going to,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed.

Words were cheap as hell now. Only time could prove trust.

“I guess we’ll see, it’s not like I have much choice,” she muttered. “I’ve got nothing on me, no one waiting for me, nowhere to go.” She sighed heavily.

“You can stay with me until you figure something out,” I said.

“What do you want in return?” she asked, almost automatically.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “We’ll figure something out. Right now, I just want to get in out of the cold and start dealing with this wolf. I’m fucking starving.”

“God, me too,” she groaned.

We walked through the trees some more. I looked for wolves or dangerous people while I considered how to proceed. I mean, at this point, I knew I was gonna risk my life taking those guys down. At least Ryan needed to go, but probably all of them. There’s a lot to debate on murder, I’ll grant. I believe in redemption, but…

I also believe that there’s a lot of people out there who, if caught and forced to face what they did, will smile and try to say all the right things, promising, swearing to God and on their mother’s life that they’ll never do it again and they’re so sorry, when in reality they’re just sorry they got caught, and in their head they’re thinking I’m gonna do it again the first fucking chance I get. Ryan and Tony and the other guy I’d seen up close struck me as those kind of guys. The kind of pieces of human waste who would rape and rob and murder without batting an eyelash. They’d have a fucking laugh over it. They got off on it.

I didn’t have a problem putting down people like that, beyond the visceral reaction of actually taking a human life. Mentally I was pretty okay with killing monsters, but physically? I wasn’t stone cold, and the people I had killed so far still haunted me sometimes. I looked at Megan as we drew closer to the cabin.

Her face was brooding, cloudy with sullen rage.

“Megan,” I said.

She looked over at me, startled, tensing. “What?”

“I’m gonna kill them, just so you know. At the very least I’m gonna put down Ryan and Tony and his other crony.”

“He calls himself Dice,” she said, and offered me a really wicked smile.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course he does,” I muttered.

“I want to help,” she said.

“Did they do anything to you? I mean, beyond kidnapping you and chaining you up?”

“Not really,” she replied. “They punched me a few times, slapped me a few times, but I’ve been knocked around before. That’s nothing new. Tony wanted to ‘break me in’ but Ryan said something about ‘damaged goods’ and told him no.” She shuddered. “Fucking psychos. Make me so angry I want to fucking puke.”

“I know,” I muttered. “Me too.”

“I wanna knife them,” she growled.

“No,” I said, and she looked at me, curious. “You remember all those movies, where someone wants to get revenge, and instead of just fucking killing the person, they waste time trying to get their nice and slow revenge? And then they fucking die?”

She frowned, staring at me hard for a moment, like she wanted to argue, then she sighed. “Yeah,” she said.

“Let’s not be those idiots,” I said. “When you mean to kill someone, I mean really mean to kill them, like you’ve made the decision, you do it fast and don’t fuck around.”

“You killed a lot of people?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not a killer.” I paused. “I mean, not really, honestly. I’ve had to do it before, but I don’t really go out of my way to do it. Not unless I run into some monsters like that. Otherwise, I mostly keep to myself.”

“Hmm,” she said, and that was it.

We made it back to the cabin and I did my knock after having a look around and dropping the dead wolf in the snow next to the front door. The door opened up right away and Delilah began saying something, then stopped, looking at Megan, surprised. Had she forgotten? Or maybe hadn’t expected me to succeed?

“You did it,” she said.

“I did,” I replied, coming in. She backed up as Megan and I walked in. “Delilah, Megan. Megan, meet Delilah.” I shut and locked the door, then went over to the fireplace to get the fire going. It was fucking freezing.

“Did you get hurt? I see blood,” Delilah asked uncertainly.

“I’m fine. Shot a wolf, carried it all over the damn place, bled on me,” I replied as I adjusted the firewood. “So we’ll have food,” I added.

“Thank God,” she muttered.

After I finished getting the fire going, I stood up, turned, and regarded the two women now sharing a cabin with me.

For a moment, I just looked at Megan.

I don’t know what the hell Ryan was talking about, Megan was plenty beautiful. Light tan skin, messy black hair, beautiful brown eyes, good body from what I could tell. Even scowling she was pretty, though in a way that I guess you wouldn’t see on any billboards. Maybe it was a racist thing? She looked biracial, maybe one Mexican parent? Ryan seemed stupid enough for the fact that she wasn’t white to bug him.

“So...” I said, taking off my backpack and stretching. I groaned as I popped my back and neck, relieving a lot of tension. “There’s something we need to discuss, because I’m admittedly not polite enough to stop doing it just because someone new is around, and you aren’t going to be able to avoid knowing about it. So we need to address it and maybe figure something out.”

“...what the fuck are you talking about?” Megan replied, but Delilah was blushing slightly and smiling. When I glanced at her, Megan looked at Delilah, then right back at me. Understanding hit her pretty quick. “Oh, you two are fucking,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Delilah, you should tell her the specifics of our, uh, relationship. I think it would make her less angry...or maybe not...to hear it from you.”

“What specifics?” she growled, crossing her arms.

“I offered him pussy in exchange for keeping me safe and eventually getting me to a settlement I’m trying to get to,” she replied.

Megan glared at me, then at Delilah. “You were the one they had locked up earlier?” she asked. Delilah nodded. “And so the first thing you, after escaping from people who were going to fucking sell you for your pussy, is to sell your pussy?!” she snapped.

Delilah shrugged. “It’s mine to sell, and I like him. He’s really nice.”

Megan looked angry and I waited. She looked at me again. I’d faced stuff like this before. “Look,” I said, “I didn’t force it out of her. I’m not extorting her. She offered it first. I accepted. I’m not making her. I understand why it seems shitty, but I’m of the opinion that if you want to, you can sell yourself for sex, and you shouldn’t be shamed for that.”

Megan kept staring at me, and I could see her mind churning. She was mad, but probably for personal reasons, and she didn’t really have a logical outlet for the anger, and she was probably trying to find something to latch onto, some way to express it without sounding like an idiot. I felt for her, honestly. I had no idea what she might have had to go through. Even just being kidnapped and locked up like that was fucked up enough as it was. I didn’t want to fuck with her, I didn’t want to piss her off or humiliate her or anything like that.

“Well I’m not selling you my fucking pussy!” she snapped finally.

“Okay,” I said, raising my hands. “Although I’m gonna be honest, you’re gonna need to pull your weight-”

“I can fucking pull my own weight!” she snapped, like I’d just insulted her to her face. Maybe I had. She seemed really on edge, and maybe not necessarily because of what had just happened or the fact that we were living in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world. Some people were just really defensive and confrontational. She looked between me and Delilah again and then growled angrily. “Whatever, I’m going to go get firewood. You two get your fucking done and out of your system because I don’t want to have to put up with it.”

“That...might be a problem,” I admitted.

She heaved a sigh and started walking towards the door.

“Megan.”

“What?!” she snapped, whirling back on me.

“We aren’t that far from the campgrounds,” I warned, “so please be careful and be vigilant out there. We’re basically playing hide and seek with them. All it will take is one of those idiots to come this way and see the smoke coming out of the chimney or one of us out there and our gambit’s up. So just...be careful, okay?”

Her features relaxed a little, at least. “Yeah, I’ll be careful,” she said, and then left.

ELEVEN

I sighed softly, looking at the door.

“She’s...angry,” Delilah murmured after a moment.

I laughed. “Yeah. I mean, she’s been through a lot.”

“She’s gonna be even angrier when she realizes the only good place to sleep in this cabin is the bed.”

I looked around, and all I saw in terms of another place to sleep was the semi-comfortable chair not far from the fireplace. Great. I wondered if I could talk her into sharing a bed with two naked, horny people, but it seemed pretty unlikely. Especially considering how small the bed was. A thought occurred to me.

“Delilah...if I ever was to convince her to get freaky, would you fuck her?”

“Oh yeah,” Delilah replied immediately. “She’s really hot.”

“She is,” I agreed. “Cool. Now, take your clothes off.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

After all that, I needed a good fuck. We both stripped naked. I was fucking horny. Part of me felt a little guilty because a lot of the horniness was a result of Megan. Something about her really got to me in that way, and I felt bad partially because I was gonna fuck one woman and might be thinking about another, but also because Megan had just gone through a lot. But whatever, I told myself what I always told myself.

Stuff that happens in your head stays in your head.

Everyone has shitty thoughts, that doesn’t make them a shitty person.

It was what you did that mattered.

And what I did was push Delilah onto the bed the second she had her clothes off. She let out a delighted little yell of surprise.

“Hands and knees,” I said as I got my boxers off.

“Yes, sir,” she replied enthusiastically.

I had to say, there was a tremendous satisfaction and joy to doing it with a woman who wasn’t just into you, wasn’t just horny, but was enthusiastic about the encounter. Delilah was good at projecting that. I hoped she wasn’t faking it, but I didn’t think she was, and not just because of my ego. I’d gotten pretty decent at reading people.

The second I laid eyes on that fantastic pale ass of hers and the smooth, glistening pink slit of her vagina as she got onto her hands and knees, everything else was catapulted out of my head. I hopped onto the bed with her, got up against her, and began working my way inside. She moaned loudly, hanging her head.

“Oh my fucking God, you are wet, Delilah...” I groaned as I slipped into her.

Seriously, she was fucking slippery and slick.

“You make me really went...” she moaned as she pushed against me, forcing me deeper into her. Fuck me this felt way too good.

I grabbed her hips, stared down at her ass and my cock disappearing into her vagina, and started just fucking pounding her.

The pleasure was unreal and it was probably that adrenaline high you get from doing stupid, dangerous, or crazy things.

Like I’d just done over the past few hours.

I kept pounding her good and hard, just drilling that pussy, listening to her moan and cry out and sometimes just yell in pure ecstasy.

Something caught my attention.

Even in my sex-addled state, my senses didn’t take a vacation, not entirely. There was a window directly across from me, to my right, next to the fireplace. The curtain was drawn, but, I saw as I, without turning my head, just using my peripheral vision, it wasn’t completely covering the window. There was a slit of space between its edge and the edge of the window. And right now a brown eye peeked through that crack.

A certain someone was spying on me and Delilah, naked and fucking furiously.

I had to admit, that only made it hotter.

Of course it’d be different if I was being spied on by someone I didn’t want to fuck. But damn did I want to fuck Megan. There was something about grim survivalist chicks who weren’t afraid to punch me in the face, even though I probably had over half a foot and hundred pounds on them, that really fucking turned me on.

So I didn’t clue her in that I knew she was watching in secret. Instead, I just reached forward and gave Delilah’s hair a yank.

“Oh yes!” she cried.

Hell, maybe this would make her want to fuck me. That’d be pretty great.

“You fucking like that?” I growled at Delilah.

“Yes! Fuck! Yes! I love it!” she cried as I kept tugging on her hair and hammering away at that fantastically wet vagina of hers. I let go and smacked her ass hard, making her moan loudly. “Again, please...” she begged.

I smacked her harder.

That got her. She began to orgasm almost right away and I groaned, hunching over her, humping her wonderful pussy, shoving my whole cock in there again and again. I started going faster and harder as she screamed into a pillow. Pretty quickly I started letting off. I groaned loudly, letting my voice join hers, and the orgasm felt even more intense than I thought it would. Probably because a hot chick was watching me fuck another hot chick. It rolled over me in waves, hit me in pulses, nothing but pure hot pleasure radiating out from my core as I busted a huge nut inside of her. Fuck, I just filled that pussy up as my stuff blasted out of me and blinding ecstasy rolled through me. It was like being in another world, even if only for a short time.

When I was done busting inside of her, I stayed there like that for a moment, both of us did, getting our breaths back.

“God, you fucking come so much,” Delilah murmured as I started pulling out.

“Yeah. You want it on your or in you?” I asked.

“It’s easier to clean on me...but it’s so much hotter when it’s in me,” she replied as she fell forward, holding a hand over her pussy.

I laughed. “Yeah, it is. It really is.”

We took several minutes to get cleaned up and then I pulled my clothes back on and sat down at the table. “I have good news,” I said.

“What?” she asked.

I picked my gun up and raised it. “I found bullets.”

“Oh thank fucking God,” she muttered, looking deeply relieved as she sat back down on the bed. “How many? Like a few or...”

“Thirty six,” I replied.

She looked even more relieved. “Well, that’s good at least.” She frowned. “What about...them? Are you gonna, like, kill them?”

“Probably. Megan really wants to. I need to think about it first, but it should be sooner instead of later. The longer we stay here, the more of a chance they have of stumbling across us, and we’ll be well and truly fucked if that happens.”

“You’ll keep me safe...right?” Delilah murmured in a voice so soft that it surprised me.

I looked over at her. “Yes,” I said.

She smiled, and there was something very genuine in it. “I don’t just fuck you because we made a deal, you know.”

“I know,” I said. Then I got up and stretched. “I’m going to get started on that wolf. We can have wolf meat for dinner tonight. Not the best, but, you know, it’s food.”

“Yay,” she muttered, and I didn’t blame her.

Unseasoned wolf meat…

Was not good.

But it was food, and right now that’s what mattered. I headed outside after getting my boots back on and securing my .22. I found Megan around the back, gathering up firewood. She’d gotten a good start on it, but we’d need a lot more.

“You know, you wanna talk about security concerns?” she asked as she heard me coming. “I’d be surprised if they didn’t hear her screaming.”

I stopped and looked at her, crossing my arms, considering that. I originally wasn’t going to say anything, but something about Megan, especially now, brought out my antagonistic side. Not in a bad way, more in a ‘fucking with your best friend’ kind of way.

Playful insults, stuff like that.

“Enjoy the show?” I replied as she turned to look at me.

Okay, I had to admit, I liked the look on her face. The pure shock, followed by the pure embarrassment and guilt, was something else.

She began blushing fiercely.

“How’d you know?!” she snapped finally.

I laughed. “I saw you,” I replied with a shrug. “I have good peripheral vision.”

She heaved a sigh and threw a stick at me. “Of course you,” she muttered.

“I’m not mad, if it helps,” I said.

“Whatever. Just...let’s just forget about this,” she growled, and went back to work.

“Okay,” I said, but I thought she’d have a hard time forgetting about it.

I went to go to work gutting the wolf.

~

Megan managed to last almost an hour.

I was most of the way through getting the good meat off of the sliced open wolf. I’d finally decided to just abandon any attempts to get anything else out of it for the moment. I wasn’t all that good at doing the stuff with the skins anyway, and it’s not like I had a lot of time or resources to fuck with it at the moment.

“You know, it’s not like that’s even weird,” Megan said after I heard her boots crunching in the snow as she approached me. “I mean, like, I heard about this survey they did. You know, back before all the fucking snow, and something like nine out of every ten people who took it admitted they would spy on people having sex if they knew they wouldn’t get caught. It’s like...common. I mean, it’s sex. We’re, like, programmed to want to see it.”

“I know,” I replied. “I said I wasn’t mad.”

She was silent again, no doubt frowning deeply, stance hostile, maybe even aggressive. I was still cutting into the wolf.

“This doesn’t mean I want to fuck you,” she said suddenly.

“I know,” I replied.

“You’re such an asshole!” she snapped.

I stopped what I was doing and turned around while standing up. A look of fear played across her face, very brief, but very noticeable, and I felt bad. I didn’t like intimidating people who I liked, or even didn’t actively hate.

“I’m an asshole?” I asked. “I saved your fucking life. I’m offering you a place to sleep. I’m carving up a wolf to make your dinner.”

She sighed heavily, looking away, sullen and still angry, but now ashamed too. “What I meant was...you’re doing that thing,” she muttered.

“What thing?” I asked.

“That thing where you say one thing but you clearly are thinking another. Yeah, you’re saying you know I don’t want to fuck you, but you’re thinking ‘oh yeah, she definitely wants to fuck me.’ You smug fuck.”

I sighed. “Even if that were true,” I said, and...I mean, yeah, it was true. I wasn’t going to armchair psychologist her too much, but I thought she did want to fuck me, hated herself for it, and was overcompensating with aggression. “I’m not holding it over your head, I’m not treating you like shit. I’ve treated you with nothing but respect since we met, and the only times I didn’t, I was acting, and you acknowledged that. I even apologized.”

“Shit,” she muttered after a moment. “Whatever.” She paused for another minute, then shivered, not quite meeting my eye. “I collected firewood. I’m going inside. I’m cold.”

“Fine,” I said.

She walked inside and I went back to work. I felt kinda bad. I wasn’t looking to piss her off...okay, I mean like not for real piss her off. I know that there’s a clear and important distinction in terms of ‘fucking with someone’ and ‘joking around’, and that too many people said they were just joking around when in fact everyone fucking knew they were just trying to piss the person off. Like all those stupid fucks who played ‘pranks’ know they were going to piss people off, and then pretending like the other person was at fault for getting worked up.

It’s just a prank, man! Why are you so fucking sensitive?!

I wasn’t into that, not at all, and if I thought I was actually hurting her feelings, I’d stop. Flat out. But I thought that there was something in Megan’s personality that was aggressive, in a playful way. A part of her that liked to be teased, and liked to dish it right back to you. But I guess I should probably ease back on it for awhile, because we’d just met, and as much as I wanted her to feel comfortable, I needed a better way to do it.

I guess, ultimately, I just needed to let more time pass without bad things happening.

Although I couldn’t promise that. This world was just chock full of bad things.

I finished with the wolf fifteen minutes later and gathered up all the meat. A bit of inspiration had struck shortly into the carving when I’d realized I didn’t have a great place to store it all, save for the pot, and we still needed that. I was thinking about cold places to put it, and that got me thinking about freezers, and that got me thinking about ice dispensers, which our freezer had! I’d grabbed it. It was basically just a plastic container a few inches deep for ice to fall into out of the maker. It was clean enough and I laid a bed of snow in it, then put all the meat in. Ultimately I’d have to stick it somewhere inside, to keep other animals from getting into it.

But I thought it was a decent start.

I honestly don’t know how I’d missed that the first time.

I gathered up the remains of the wolf and brought them all about two hundred feet back in the forest, hopefully far enough away to keep any wandering predators from showing up. Then I went back inside, where Delilah was laying on the bed, reading through the single novel I’d found earlier, and Megan was sitting in the chair, staring into the fireplace.

“We good in here?” I asked as I came in with my icebox of meat.

“Fine,” Megan murmured. She sounded sullen.

“Sorry if I pissed you off,” I said as I shut and locked the door, then got my boots off, set the icebox down on the table, and walked over to the fireplace to start warming up. I wasn’t good at apologizes, and I figured the best way to handle them was directly and honestly.

“Were you two fighting out there?” Delilah asked with a small smile.

“No,” Megan growled. “And it’s fine. I’m not a fucking fragile princess who needs to be fucking fawned over-”

“I was just trying to fucking apologize!” I cried, incredulous.

Fuck, she did love to fight.

She stared at me pointedly for a long few seconds, then she sighed heavily and her shoulders slumped a little. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking stressed out.”

“I get that,” I said after a moment. “I’ll make dinner, then we can eat, and then talk about how to take down those bastards.”

She nodded, and a glint in her eye said she had an idea. Well, here’s hoping it was a good one. I got to work on dinner.

~

I ended up making a sort of stew, more like a mush.

I knew there was a word for it, but I either didn’t know it or couldn’t remember it.

I cooked up the wolf meat and then mixed it in with a can of the baked beans. It had to admit, it didn’t smell great, but I knew for a fact it’d taste better than just straight-up meat. I mixed it up as best I could and made sure we had enough for three reasonable servings. Then I put out two plates of the stuff and kept what was left for myself in the pot that I’d have to clean out later.

“I know it’s not a lot,” I said as we started eating. “But we need to be careful for now. Until we get a bigger store of food, between the three of us, we have to assume the worst.”

“Yeah,” Delilah agreed glumly.

“Uh-huh,” Megan said with the resigned misery of someone who was used to scraping and scrounging to get by.

“So, Megan...care to talk about yourself at all?” I asked.

“You first,” she replied. I thought it was, more than anything else, a tactic to give her enough time to eat. She was probably starving.

So we spent a good ten minutes apiece telling her what we’d already told each other. That seemed to mollify her a little bit. She looked more relaxed, at least.

“There’s not a lot to say about me,” she began. I didn’t think that was true. I thought that what she meant was ‘there’s not a lot I want to say about me’. But I held my peace. “I grew up in Detroit. Miserable fucking city. Grew up poor, of course. Third generation immigrant. My grandma came over from Mexico, legally,” she added with emphasis. “And fuck anyone who says otherwise. Mom pretty much raised me herself because for awhile dad was there, but not really there, and then he wasn’t there at all, not even pretending anymore. It was just us two. I spent my whole life scraping by,” she said, her voice growing bitter.

She looked at the nearest window, as though she could see through the curtains drawn tightly over them at the snow and ice that beyond. “I was in Kansas City when it went down, when the snow started to fall. I was kinda good with computers, and I figured IT was going to be my ticket out of poverty. Went into fucking debt to start earning that degree. I was halfway there and it felt, you know, real. Like the real deal, like I was actually gonna do it, you know? Because I got it. I got the computer shit, I could do the work. And then this happened. Sometimes I run into places that still have computers, but it’s super rare.”

She laughed, more bitter than ever now. “It’s ironic, growing up poor sort of prepared me for this. You learn how to ration, you learn how to look for opportunities, you learn how to think about keeping your own ass alive while working with the slimmest of resources. Trying to make a hundred bucks last three months. Do you know how fucking hard that is? Or was, anyway. I fucking hated it, but it’s what’s kept me alive so far, at least.”

“Sorry,” was all I could think to say.

She laughed, and it was a bit more genuine and a bit less bitter this time. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t know what to say either.” She frowned, looked at me more closely. She looked a little guilty. “I know I said it already, but thank you, for saving my ass, and giving me food and a place to stay. And not trying to force sex out of me.”

“Your welcome,” I said. “Thanks for not shooting me.”

“She was gonna shoot you?” Delilah asked.

Megan sighed. “I saw an opportunity and I wanted some answers,” she said defiantly. “I noticed people tend to spill the truth when they’ve got a gun pointed at them.”

“That’s a fair point,” I said. “At least it gave us some common ground. I didn’t want to have gone to all the trouble of getting your ass out of there for you just to wander off and freeze to death.”

“You think I couldn’t have made it?” she asked.

“You said it yourself: you had nothing on you and nowhere to go.”

She sighed and took another bite. “Fine. Fair point.” She finished off her food and the next time she fixed me with her gaze, it was more intense, more focused. “I think I know how we can kill these guys without seriously putting our own asses on the line.” She paused. “Well...without putting anyone but your ass on the line.”

“Great,” I muttered, then I gave her my attention. “Let’s hear it.”

“The only reason I was in that situation was because I got hit by some hardcore bad luck. Off in the direction you were originally taking me, maybe four or five miles away, I was with a group of people not too long ago. We were traveling, we stopped and made camp for the night. The fire went out and before anyone woke up and took notice, two of us had frozen to death. I think, if we’d had those two people, we might have been okay when the next thing happened. The next day, we were moving on, and a wolf pack hit us. I know for sure two other people died, and I’m pretty sure the other one died. I ran. I just ran and ran.

“Eventually I ended up at the campgrounds, where they captured me. I was so exhausted that it was pretty easy,” she said, looking angry and embarrassed. “But my point is this: if we go back to where my people were killed, there’s a decent chance we find a rifle in good condition, and I’m a great shot.”

I thought about it. Thought about the hill I’d spied on them from.

Yeah...it could work.

TWELVE

Right away, I knew there was no doing it today.

The weather seemed to be turning sour. Not wretched, but sour. By the time I was done eating, little snowflakes were spitting from gray skies in fits and starts. I considered how to handle the rest of the day for a bit.

“Megan, would you clean the dishes thoroughly, and then boil some water? I need the thermos topped off and as much water on standby as we can manage. Which, right now, is two cups and that pot,” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment, her eyes briefly darting to Delilah, probably wondering why I didn’t ask her to do, and then remembering almost at the same time that Delilah was paying the rent on her back, and then just nodded. “Okay.”

“Thanks. I’m going to go find some more firewood and maybe see if I can find any of those super-food plants around,” I said as I pulled my boots back on.

“I haven’t seen any for a while,” Megan murmured.

“Yeah but you never know,” I said.

I went to the door and looked back at the two women briefly. I wanted to say something like ‘play nice’ but I didn’t think it’d come off as anything but condescending. I couldn’t pretend that there wasn’t an unhappy narrative potentially brewing here, or that Megan wouldn’t see it. Delilah getting to laze about just because she was attractive and willing to sell her pussy. Megan wasn’t willing to, and that wasn’t an unreasonable position. Ultimately, instead of trying to head off a problem that might not even manifest, I just headed outside.

Maybe they’d get along.

I had my doubts, but I’d been wrong before, and although I was good at reading people, usually I was good at reading them in relation to myself, not necessarily each other. It felt like there was a wider margin for error there.

I spent the next three hours doing work.

It was pleasantly mindless work. I was already tired, but doing this meant I’d be bone-deep weary enough to pass out early and wake up early, well-rested and ready to tackle the day ahead. Because tomorrow was going to be…

Difficult.

And dangerous.

I mostly collected firewood and kept my eye out for super food.

There was a better name for it, just not a more memorable one. Super food was what the common people ended up calling it. At some point after it had become obvious that shit was fucked and it wasn’t going to get unfucked anytime soon, someone, I still don’t know who, concocted a scheme to seed hundreds of miles of land with, well, seeds. They were genetically engineered versions of fruits, vegetables, and other eatable plants. They were basically meant to grow in extremely cold conditions. I don’t know how they worked, but they did work.

Sometimes.

It’d be really weird, walking through a forest and, in the middle of nowhere, coming across a frosted over single stalk of corn.

But I didn’t find anything out there that day. Some places had been passed over, and some seeds just didn’t take.

I ended up managing to gather an appreciable amount of firewood and by the time the sun was starting to fade, I ended up back at the cabin, dead tired.

Something in me worried that I’d come back to something awful, like finding the place ransacked, door open. Or, less seriously, the two women arguing. Something about them just seemed to be a recipe for disaster in regards to that.

But as I came inside after dropping off the final batch of firewood, I was happy to find the two women laughing, sitting at the table.

“How’d it go out there?” Megan asked.

“Fine,” I replied, shutting and locking the door, then getting my coat and boots off.

“You look exhausted,” Delilah said.

I nodded, then yawned. “It’s been a long fucking day. And we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow if the weather doesn’t go to shit.” I sat down heavily at the table. “We should discuss sleeping arrangements.”

“I’m gonna sleep in the chair by the fireplace,” Megan said.

“Okay,” I said.

There was something in her gaze that said she wanted to say something else. I waited, watching her. She sighed.

“And...I’d be okay with, uh, you two doing it even though I’m in the room. I guess, if I’ve already seen you doing it once...”

“Wait, you were spying on us?” Delilah asked, sounding delighted by the possibility.

Megan looked sharply at me. “You didn’t tell her?!”

“I thought you’d be glad!” I replied.

“I’m not mad,” Delilah said. “I’m okay with it.”

“Don’t you get tired, being angry so often?” I asked, looking at Megan, who seemed to be yet again on her way to getting pissed. I was a little surprised by the question, as it had kind of just slipped out, and she seemed surprised too.

She stared at me, fuming, and then her anger seemed to collapse. “Yeah,” she said wearily. “I do get tired being angry so often.”

“You don’t have to be angry around us,” I said. I decided to take a stab at something. “It’s not like I’ll take you less seriously if you don’t fucking argue with me eighteen times a day.”

She stared at me, maybe trying to judge what I was attempting, then she just shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. It felt like a concession, but one she didn’t want to necessarily confirm or deny had been given.

I accept it and let it drop.

“Well then, I think we’ve got enough clothes and water for you to wash up and change,” I said. “We’ve been using socks as rags. No soap, yet. You can do it in the bathroom, if you want.”

“Fine,” she said, getting up, grabbing a sock from the pile, and one of the cups of water. She went into the bathroom and closed the door.

“So she was spying on us fucking?” Delilah murmured as she began taking her clothes off and I started doing one more check of the outside, looking through the windows.

“Yeah,” I said. “Wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“I think it’s hot,” Delilah said with a smirk. “And I think she likes you. A lot,” she added in a soft whisper.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. She just needs to admit it to herself. Give her time.”

I nodded. A few minutes later, Delilah and I were naked and washed off as much as we could be, and getting into bed. Megan walked out in new clothes, cobbled together from whatever I’d managed to find so far. She hesitated as she walked into view of the bed, staring at the two of us, laying there naked, and blushed.

“You still okay with this?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. She laughed nervously. “There was this town I was in earlier this year...they had a brothel. And guys could fuck some of the women for free if they agreed to do it publicly. Because people paid to watch it live. Some people came and fucked publicly in exchange for food or stuff sometimes. I’d go and watch sometimes. It was...wild.” She walked over to the chair and found the blanket I’d left for her there.

“Thanks for this,” she murmured as she got settled beneath the blanket.

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “Now, let’s get to it.”

Delilah and I started right in. We made out, we touched each other, rolled around on the bed as much as we could. Delilah looked so fucking good naked, and I had to admit: it was noticeably more erotic and arousing with a hot chick intentionally watching. I hoped I looked good fucking, and, okay, call me a shithead, but I thought this was a big step towards her wanting to sleep with me. I think doing this, even if she maintained otherwise, was going to make her a lot more comfortable with the idea of fucking me.

I could be wrong, and I was totally willing to let it go if I was, but I still thought she did want to fuck me, but either she was naturally very stubborn, or just in a bad place right now thanks to the shit she’d gone through, and her wanting to fuck me made me her pissed at herself. It probably didn’t help that I was still throwing off the same douche-bag vibes the assholes who’d kidnapped her had. Not that I could help that.

Before long, I wound up on my back with my cock in Delilah’s mouth.

“He’s got a big dick, doesn’t he?” Delilah murmured as she massaged the head of my cock.

“I mean...yeah,” Megan murmured awkwardly. She was breathing a little more heavily now and she looked flushed. She seemed to regain some of herself as she caught eyes with me. “That’s not everything though.”

“Oh I know,” Delilah murmured. She licked my head, causing me to groan and shift. “He eats pussy really good, too.”

Megan frowned. “You eat her out? Why?”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I?” I replied, slipping a hand over the back of her head as she took my cock into her mouth and started slipping her lips up and down its length.

“She agreed to be your fucktoy, your sex slave. Why would you do anything extra for her?” Megan replied.

“What fucking part of ‘I’m nice’ don’t you fucking get?” I asked. I was tired, and there was some real anger in my voice that I couldn’t keep out of it.

“I-sorry,” she stuttered finally. Then sighed. “Whatever, ignore me, just go.”

“Fine,” I said.

Delilah sucked me off for a bit longer, then I had her stop and we switched places. I was tired. I wanted to bust my nut and get to sleep, but not before I made her come first. Plus, I wanted to bust inside of her. Or maybe on her face. So I got to work eating her out. I did a really good job partially because, well, I liked Delilah and wanted her to feel good, but also because I wanted to prove Megan wrong. I mean, I get where she’s coming from.

Back when the internet was a thing, you could hit any sex message board and come across a woman complaining about how guys were fucking lazy lovers and didn’t see the female orgasm as necessary.

They’d fuck, they’d bust, they’d go to sleep.

And think they’d done a good job.

Fuck, with so many assholes like that, no wonder so many women are reluctant to sleep around. They could just stay home and fuck a vibrator or even their hand and have a better time. But I wanted to let her know I wasn’t like that, even with a woman who had sold her body to me. Just because she’d done so didn’t mean I was gonna treat her like shit.

And, okay, I’ll admit, maybe I was using Delilah as an audition for how good I’d fuck Megan. And given what she’d said so far, I didn’t think Delilah would have a problem being used in such a fashion.

She seemed just as into her as I did.

God, how fucking awesome would a threesome be with these two?

I ate that pussy until Delilah had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming her fucking head off because she was orgasming so hard.

When I was finished, I sat up.

“What position you want?” she murmured, getting her breath back.

I looked at Megan. “Since we’ve got an audience...what would you enjoy watching the most?” I asked.

“Oh...um...well, I’d like to see her ride your cock,” she admitted after a moment.

“You got it.”

I laid down on my back and Delilah mounted me with something like glee. I had the notion that she was really into the idea of sex as performance art. I guess I could see it, under the right conditions. I will admit that my own notions of it were a bit more narrow. Delilah slipped me inside of her and fuck was she wet tonight.

“Oh yeah, right there...” I grunted as she worked me into herself.

She let out a loud moan as she took my length into her, and then she started bouncing. Those fantastic tits of hers bounced with her and she looked like she was enjoying herself tremendously as she rode my cock. Delilah fucked me like a porn star and that raw, unprotected pussy was exactly what I felt like I needed after today.

Honestly, I needed it after damn near every day now.

I grabbed her hips and she let out a loud cry of bliss as I thrust up into her. I could hear Megan breathing more heavily now. Was she masturbating? That’d be pretty awesome. I didn’t want to look at her and make her mad. I kinda knew how she’d feel. Even if there were people in the room that were aware you were masturbating to them, you might still want to have that sort of illusion of privacy. I thrust up into Delilah again and again, gripping her hips tightly and pulling her down against me, making her shout in bliss.

I was a little less worried about noise now as the winds were up. Listening to her panting and moaning, crying out in that sexy voice of hers, was a pleasure all its own. And then there was her smooth pale body and her sexy red hair.

I fucking loved redheads.

Honestly it seems like most dudes were down for redheaded chicks and I don’t know why that was, but I had definitely fallen under that spell.

“Oh fuck yes shove that huge cock into me...” Delilah moaned loudly, going even harder.

I watched her tits bounce and her beautiful face twist in pleasure, her mouth hanging open several times as she lost herself in fucking my dick, her eyes losing focus. For one long moment she chewed on her lower lip. Listening to her pant and then gasp in raw pleasure was wonderful. And my fucking dick inside of her…

It was pure, wet, hot ecstasy.

I was getting ready to bust a huge load. But a thought occurred to me. “Delilah,” I said.

“Yeah?” she replied.

“I’m going to bust on your face.”

She smiled. “I’d love that.”

Part of me wanted to bust in her pussy, but part of me always wanted to bust inside the pussy I was fucking. It just always felt so fucking good and satisfying. But going all over a woman’s face was a better visual, and I had to admit I wanted to let loose all over her sexy seductive face. And hopefully Megan would like it.

“How do you wanna do this?” Delilah panted.

“Like this,” I replied, then I grabbed her, sat up, swung my feet over the side of the bed, planted them on the floor, and stood.

She let out a cry of happy surprise, then a loud moan of total bliss as I began bouncing her on my cock, using my hips and my hands to slide her up and down it. I hadn’t fucked many chicks like this, but it was nice and I was sure strong enough for it now, especially with Delilah’s little frame.

“Oh! Fuck! Oh! God! Chris! Oh fuck!” she cried, incoherent with pleasure.

I went for as long as I could, then gave her a quick warning. She was on it. She put her legs down and let me out of her, then dropped to her knees as I let go of her. Looking up at me, she gripped my cock and started jacking me off. Barely a second passed before I started shooting my load onto her face. She moaned loudly, mouth open, eyes closed, tongue out, as she jacked me off onto herself. I, apparently, had to bust a huge nut.

I watched a lot of my stuff come out of me in thick, stringy spurts. It got onto her cheeks and her chin and forehead, and it went into her mouth. Gotta admit, there’s a primal, base thrill to watching a hot, naked woman jack you off into her mouth.

She took it all and then when I was finished, eventually only dry-kicking, she put it in her mouth and began sucking and slowly pulling it back out from between those sexy lips. I groaned at the final burst of pleasure this hit me with.

“Satisfactory?” she asked, her eyes still closed.

“Yes,” both myself and Megan said at the same time.

“Good. Could you get me something to clean up with? You fucking came so much.”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Megan. She had sounded a bit strained and when I looked at her I saw she was sweaty and she looked...embarrassed? Aroused? Focused?

I grabbed one of the cleaning socks for her, wet it, and brought it over to her. She thanked me and began cleaning up.

“I...should go into the bathroom,” Megan murmured after a moment.

“You were touching yourself, weren’t you?” Delilah asked as she washed up.

“Maybe,” Megan said.

“You might as well finish in here, where it’s warm and comfortable and you’re already settled. I mean it’s not like we’ll be weirded out by it, you literally just watched us have sex,” Delilah said.

Megan stared at me, and I looked back at her, feeling kind of weird. It was still weird to be naked in front of someone I hadn’t been intimate with, but I could tell she liked what she saw. I shrugged and she sighed.

“Whatever,” she muttered, and shifted, then I saw the area around her crotch, beneath the blankets, began to shift as well. She gasped and closed her eyes.

I let her do it and tried not to focus on her too much. Instead, I did one more sweep of the area, just for my own peace of mind. Checking out all the windows as subtly as I could manage. I saw nothing but darkness out there and snow falling. I felt about as confident as I could that we were alone and secure still, so I tended to the fire, getting several logs in place so that it’d burn for several hours without needing to be fucked with.

And then I laid down in bed with Delilah, and held her against me.

We fell asleep listening to Megan quietly orgasming.

THIRTEEN

When I first opened my eyes the next day, it was still dark.

But I was awake. I knew right away that it was time to get up and I couldn’t go back to sleep even if I tried. Which was fine by me. I wanted up. I wanted out. I wanted to be fucking doing things. Sometimes I got hit by a burst of energy and it was great. Probably because I knew I had so much to do today. And yeah, I’ll be honest, I was not looking forward to straight-up fucking murdering people, but sometimes it had to be done.

And right now, it had to be done.

Megan and Delilah were dead asleep still. I let them sleep, figuring the sounds I’d make would wake them up. Or not. Megan needed her sleep, she’d been through a lot. So had Delilah, but she didn’t have a day of walking and killing ahead of her.

As I got up, she opened her eyes and stared up at me blearily. “Something wrong?” she murmured softly.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just getting ready for the day,” I replied.

“It’s still dark,” she said, yawning.

“I know. Go back to sleep.”

She smiled. “I like you.”

“I like you too, Delilah,” I said, and kissed her forehead.

She rolled over and was back asleep immediately.

I got to work. Megan slept through most of it initially, so I figured she must really be tired. I washed, I dressed, I set water to boil and did a perimeter check. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, barely lighting the skies over the region as I did that. No footprints, and the snow had stopped falling sometime last night, so we were probably good. I hated living like this: in constant fear that we’d be discovered.

For the most part, I thought I could handle myself. In the months that had followed the collapse of society, I’d found that I was a quick draw and a good shot. By now, I knew my way around guns well enough. It was Delilah I was worried about. Even if I trusted her with a gun, which I didn’t really, not that I thought she’d do anything shitty on purpose, but that she’d do something shitty on accident, I didn’t even have one to give her.

She was defenseless here.

And then there was the problem of the walk ahead of me. So many things could go wrong. You had to account for the weather, which could turn bad quite quickly. And people you might run into. Animals you might run into. Environmental hazards you might run into. Then there was Megan’s memory. I had to trust that she knew where she was going. Plus, it might be entirely possible that this was all a bust.

And that wasn’t even counting all the shit that could go wrong with the attack.

But I didn’t let it bother me, not yet. Getting up in the morning was sort of meditative for me. It helped everything kinda settle in my head, leaving me clear for the day to come and whatever it might bring. By the time I was finished boiling fresh water, gathering more firewood, and eating breakfast, Megan was awake and at the table, eating some breakfast of her own. I’d had one of the cans of tuna and she was going through the second to last can of peaches.

“So, about today,” I said as I began preparing my backpack for the journey.

“Yes?” she asked, and I was unhappy to hear a bit of defensiveness creep into her voice.

“You said it’s about five miles?” I asked.

She nodded. “Roughly, I guess. I’m admittedly not super great at measuring distances.”

“Do you feel you can reliably find your way back there?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I hesitated, considering how to approach this. “Are you saying yes because of a pride thing or are you saying yes because you are actually sure? I genuinely need to know, because the weather is making me nervous,” I said.

She looked ready to fight again, but maybe something in my tone or my expression, or maybe something inside of her, seemed to make her relax. “I’m fairly confident I can find my way there,” she said evenly.

“Okay. I’m going to trust you on this. Finish up and we’ll head out. Sooner the better.”

“Fine,” she said, and kept eating.

~

I triple checked everything, just to be sure, before leaving.

Delilah knew what to do and how long to wait. I had my stuff. Megan didn’t have anything at the moment but the clothes on her back. I was hoping we could change that. Most people traveled with backpacks nowadays and I figured there was an extremely high chance that there’d be at least one usable one among the dead.

We set out just as the sun was really starting to rise, into the forest.

I didn’t like the way the sky looked. It had that mean gray cover that meant it could start storming, bad, at any moment. But it just as likely might not. The winds were pretty calm right now and there wasn’t any snow coming down and yet again, I didn’t want to wait any longer than we had to to act on this.

We walked for about half an hour in silence.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she said: “It’s not like I’m a prude or anything.”

I looked at her. “...what?”

“It’s not like I’m not sleeping with you because I’m a prude or something. Like, I don’t mind casual sex,” she said.

I stopped. I didn’t want to, but I felt like I had to. I fully turned to face her, and she stopped as well, looking surprised and a little fearful.

“Megan,” I said, then stopped, considering my words for a few seconds. Around us, a gust of cold wind blew. “Megan,” I said again, “I’m just going to say this once: you don’t have to fight with me. I’m not silently judging you. I’m not angry that you refused to sell me your body. I’m not looking for some way to trick you into sleeping with me. I would, obviously, be happy if you offered, but even if you never do, I will respect that. More importantly, I respect you. I’m not going to take you any less seriously for any of the reasons you might think. I just want to work together to stay alive and get shit done, until one of us decides we’ve had enough of the other, and part ways amicably. Don’t fuck me over, pull your own weight, and we’ll be square. Okay?”

She stared at me for several long moments. I wondered if she’d just leave.

Finally, she said, “I’m sorry. I...” She shook her head. “Let’s walk and talk, this will take a minute,” she muttered.

“Okay,” I replied.

We kept walking.

“I’ve had to put up with people questioning me, looking down on me, distrusting me, disrespecting me, disbelieving me my entire life just because I’ve got a vagina, or just because I’m half fucking Mexican. When you spend years where everyone fucking talks down to you or talks to you like you’re a fucking idiot or just dismisses you, it makes you fucking angry. So yes, I’m really defensive, and yes, I’m really angry, and yes, it takes me time to...relax. And you just...remind me of some people,” she muttered.

“Douche-bags?” I asked.

She laughed softly. “Yeah, honestly. And I know, that isn’t fair. Just because you look like a douche-bag jock who’s gonna talk down to me doesn’t mean you are. If anything, it just means I’m guilty of the same thing I get so pissed about. I’ve been kinda treating you bad because of how you look, and that’s fucked up.”

“Honestly, I understand,” I replied. “It’s been that way for awhile now. And you have more reason than ever to be paranoid of someone like me. I mean look what fucking happened to you at the campgrounds. That’s so fucking common now, shit like that. I’m not mad, I just want to let you know that you don’t have to worry about any mind games with me. I don’t bullshit, I don’t beat around the bush, I just wanna get shit done.”

She snorted. “Normally when people say stuff like that, they’re just looking for an excuse to be an asshole. ‘Hey bro, I’m just telling it like it is! I’m brutally honest!’ You know?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I hate those assholes. They’re more into the brutal part than the honest part. But I’m not-” I paused.

“What?”

I sighed. “I was gonna say ‘But I’m not like that’, but doesn’t fucking everyone say that? Doesn’t everyone claim that they’re the one that’s different, they’re the one exception?”

She growled. “Yeah. It’s so common. But so far you seem to know the golden rule.”

“And what’s that?”

“Talk is cheap. Don’t fucking say, do.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I feel about it. I guess I’m trying to talk now because I know what it’s like to live in constant anxiety, or at least I know somewhat about it. I just want to put you at ease, at least with regards to me. Which I understand by its very nature is a shifty thing to say. That’s the problem with bad people and good people. Both of them will try to put you at ease. Bad people will do it so they can take advantage of you more easily, and good people will do it because it’s kind. And it’s harder to tell who’s who.”

“And you’re kind?” she asked with a small smile.

“Yes, actually. I know it seems like my deal with Delilah-”

But she interrupted me. “No, no. I...get it. Delilah seems actually really happy with you, and she also doesn’t seem stupid. I also don’t disrespect her decision to sell her body. I’ve just...had a lot of offers, and I hate it most times. I like sex, actually. A lot. Even if I haven’t had it for awhile. I haven’t found anyone I could trust. But I get it.” She paused. “I noticed you weren’t using any protection last night...”

“Oh yeah, you wanna know if we’re stupid or I have an ace up my sleeve?” I asked. She nodded. I laughed. “I’ve got an ace up my cock, actually.”

“...what?”

“You ever heard of the golden mesh?”

“Oh shit, that like nano-implant thing?” she asked. I nodded. “You got one?” I nodded again. “Does it really work that well?”

“I mean, as far as I can tell, yeah. I gotta admit, I don’t stick around every woman I sleep with long enough to see if they miss a period, but so far none of them have. And as far as I can tell I’m still clean. I know that isn’t perfect but...” I shrugged.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel you. With how fucking shitty everything is, might as well have fun,” she muttered.

We walked on in silence for another twenty minutes before I tried to get a real conversation going. It was quiet out here, and peaceful, for the most part. Our only company seemed to be the occasional gust of wind.

“What was it like for you, when it went down?” I asked.

She offered a short, bitter laugh. “Honestly, not too different from normal. I had a tiny little studio apartment I was living in at the time. I didn’t have much. A mattress a friend of mine gave me, a couch I found on the side of the road, a TV from twenty years ago. Not much food in the kitchen. My most expensive thing was my laptop. I was already good enough with computers that I was basically doing gig repairs. People knew I was smart, word spread around campus, people would come to me with their stupid computer problems. Normally I’d fix whatever it was in less than an hour and walk away with a twenty. Sometimes a fifty. I’d gotten good at getting old laptops and computers from people who didn’t want them anymore or thought they were broken and just looking for an excuse to buy a new one.

“I’d fix them up or scrap them, sell what I could. I had gotten good at it, honestly. I was also doing part time as a, ugh, waitress.” I glanced at her. She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t some slight against waitresses. I mean, I think most people think the job itself sucks to do, but some are really good at it. I was shit at it. I hated it. I’m shit with people, honestly. Couldn’t hold anyone for too long in my bed. They’d stay around for a few weeks, maybe two months, because the sex was great, although sometimes more just for them than for me, and eventually that wouldn’t be enough. The haze of good sex would wear off and they’d get tired of my arguments and paranoia and jealousy. And they weren’t wrong, I’m a fucking awful girlfriend.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean, based on what I’d seen of her, she was probably right. She would be difficult to date. Insecure people usually were. I should know, given how insecure I used to be as a teenager. I still was, in some ways, but now mostly I just shut up about my insecurities. I don’t know if that was a good thing or not.

But she saved me the trouble of thinking of something to say, continuing on.

“I was actually good at the apocalypse. I still am...inside a city that has a big enough population. I’m the kind of person who can trade pretty well. I can hold onto shit that most people would throw away and know who to get it to. That became my rep after...” she paused, looked at me. “Did you know about what happened to KC?” I shook my head, I hadn’t heard anything. “Half of it burned to the fucking ground. I still don’t know how or why. Several people said that a plane crashed into a power plant or some building storing like jet fuel or some explosive gas or liquid, and that’s what started the fire. There was some kind of explosion somewhere, I remember that. It happened a few months after everything fell apart.”

“I’ve heard a lot of stories like that,” I muttered. “Too much big, important, complicated shit that will blow up if no one’s watching it.”

“Yeah. But people knew to come to me. They all wanted something. Sex toys. Certain clothes. Certain foods. A specific book. An old DVD player. Batteries. I kind of had a nose for finding out who had what and what they’d take to part with it.”

“So why are you out here?” I asked.

She sighed. “Same reason as always. I fucked up. I’m volatile. I’ve got anger issues and a temper. I’d get in fights with people. Eventually I get in a fight with someone important and everyone decides I’ve got to go.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that either.

This time around I at least tried. “I know what you mean about anger. I used to be angry a lot in high school. And for a year or two after. I evened out a bit before the snow and then after, I guess it occurred to me, like really hit home, that unchecked anger could get me killed easily. So I started working hard on just telling my anger to shut the fuck up whenever it came. Sometimes it’s still useful, but not often.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, “I’ve been trying to do the same. It’s hard.” She paused. “Does it get any easier?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, it did for me. That’s me though. I think for the most part, I was wired a certain way, and living within our society, that wiring sparked anger. But living in this world? Same wiring, different result. Now I feel more like...this is how I’m supposed to be living. If that makes any sense.”

“It does and it doesn’t. I mean, it makes sense in that I understand what you’re getting at, but it makes no goddamn sense that you feel like this,” she opened her arms, encompassing the world around us, “makes sense.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “I know. I don’t tell that to many people. I feel bad, like it seems like I’m glad billions of people are dead. I’m not. I’m just...better suited to this world than the last one,” I explained.

She fell silent for a few moments, then finally nodded. “Okay, I guess it makes sense. I mean, you seem pretty good at survival, you’re strong and fit, you seem to know your shit. I imagine girls like Delilah must just drop their panties for you all the time.”

“Not all the time,” I muttered.

“I guess why wouldn’t you like it?” Her face grew bitter suddenly. “I hate it. Mainly I hate the cold, but I hate that I’m so bad at staying alive out here. I’m not great at starting fires, I’m a great shot, but I’m pretty much no good when it comes to skinning and cleaning animals. I do okay in settlements, like I said, but I always fuck myself over and get kicked out. I hate that I’m going to have to rely on you until we get to a settlement.”

“I’m not that bad,” I replied.

She laughed, despite herself. “Not you specifically, just, you know, another person. I hate relying on people. No one’s really tried to teach me to do this stuff.”

“I could,” I said.

She looked at me as we walked. “You’d really be willing to piss away who knows how long teaching me how to properly gut and skin and clean a wolf or a rabbit or a deer? How to hunt better? How to survive better?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“And if I get good enough that I decide ‘hey, I don’t fucking need you anymore’ and leave?” she pressed.

“Well, that’ll suck, but I part ways with everyone eventually. I hope we’ll have had a good time together before that point,” I said.

She studied me a bit further, lips pressed together, a look like she was judging me. Finally, all she said was, “Hmm.”

After another few minutes, I asked: “So what do you like about the new world?”

She was silent, considering it, no doubt turning a lot of things over in her head, looking for an answer. Suddenly, she offered a nasty smile.

“I guess the one thing I really like is that when we run into human pieces of shit who rape and extort and torture people, who treat people like objects, we don’t have to worry about the fucking corrupt police force to say ‘we’ll look into it’ and then let them off the hook nine times out of ten. Now we can just fucking blow them away like they deserve.”

FOURTEEN

The good news was that she remembered the way there, and it took us less than an hour to get back to the location.

The bad news was that the weather was turning bad.

By the time we found the area where the wolf pack had attacked her party, snow had started to fall in big, fat flakes. The sky had darkened.

“Do you know of any structures in the area?” I asked.

“Yes. There’s a cabin we passed getting here. We cleaned it out for supplies, not like it had much in it, but it was sturdy enough.” She sighed. “We were all so pissed when we found it. If we’d just headed another half-mile deeper into the woods, we could have stayed in that cabin for the night instead of outside.”

The scene itself was brutal.

There was a lot of frozen blood, and two mangled and chewed corpses.

Megan just stared at them for a few seconds.

“How well did you know them?” I asked, then wondered immediately if that was the wrong thing to say.

“Not very,” she admitted. “The guy’s name was Mike. He was kind of an asshole, kind of superior. The girl was Kay. She hardly said anything. I kinda liked her, but we never got to know each other, honestly.”

“Well,” I looked up at the sky again, “let’s get this done. If the weather doesn’t clear up by the time we’re done, we’re going to have to get to that cabin.”

“Yeah,” she murmured.

We set to work. I searched the bodies. Both of their backpacks had been ripped open by the wolves, a few of the weaker cans had burst open in the fray. I rifled through the ruined backpacks and their pockets while Megan searched the snowy ground for the rifle and anything else that might have fallen loose.

I managed to get my hands on a can of vegetable soup and two more tins of tuna. “You guys weren’t very well-equipped, huh?” I murmured.

“No,” she replied. “We’d burned through a lot of our supplies trying to get to another settlement. And this is after we gathered the stuff from the two who had froze to death...oh shit, here it is!” she said, brushing away some snow and picking up a rifle.

I finished gathering up the materials, finding just a book of a dozen matches and some bandages and a few antibiotic pills, (those were damn useful at least), and joined her. The rifle was mostly covered in snow and we took a moment to brush it off. Megan gave it to me and I looked it over. It was a simple deer hunting rifle, a bolt-action single shot with a basic scope mounted on it. I checked how much ammo it had, then sighed softly.

“Five rounds,” I said. “Not a lot to work with.”

“Better than nothing,” she replied.

“Any chance there’s more around?”

She shook her head. “No, I remember that all we had was what was in the gun. And it was the only gun we had.”

“Really? Between six of you?” I asked.

She nodded. “There was a pistol, but it was shit and it broke at some point and Mike got so angry he threw it down a ravine.”

“Jesus fucking-you’re shitting me,” I muttered.

“Nope. Told you he was stupid. There was a shotgun, but we lost it running from a bear. Never went back to find it.”

“Of course.” I looked up, squinted and screwed up my eyes against the snow and the cold wind. “It’s getting worse. Come on, show me this cabin. We’ll wait it out in there.”

“This way,” she said, and we set off.

~

I gathered firewood along the way.

The storm was definitely coming.

As I always did, I hoped it wasn’t one of those big-ass blizzards.

After about fifty feet, we found another attack site. A lot of kicked up snow, a few dropped items, (I policed up a glove and a broken flashlight), and more frozen blood. And there was a trail of it leading to the same place we were going.

I glanced at Megan.

“It has to be Alec,” she muttered. “The only guy I didn’t see die for sure. He ran, but in another direction. I guess he thought to get back to the cabin.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

She looked embarrassed and angry. “I panicked, okay?”

“Fair enough,” I said.

She looked ahead. You could just barely make out the cabin in the distance, through the trees, though it almost immediately disappeared among the snowfall as it began to intensify. “Maybe he made it out alive,” she muttered.

“Maybe,” I replied, but I didn’t think so.

That was a lot of blood.

I finished my little search of the area, then passed her some of the firewood I’d found and headed on. “Come on, we gotta hurry.”

We stopped to grab whatever other wood we could find, but when a particularly strong gust of wind almost knocked us over and the snowfall picked up even more, I said ‘fuck it’ and just hurried towards the cabin. A moment later, we were there. The blood trail, which was rapidly disappearing, did indeed lead through the front door, which was closed. I hurried over to it and dumped my firewood on the ground, then pulled out my pistol.

I hammered on the door. “Anyone in there?!” I called, listening over the winds.

Megan stepped up closer to me and knocked. “Alec!? It’s Megan! Are you okay in there!?” she yelled.

Nothing.

“Okay, I’m going in,” I said.

“Be careful. I doubt he’d attack you if he’s in there, but...”

“Yeah, I get. Back up.”

She backed up. I tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. I pushed the door open, not standing in front of it so I didn’t make a big tempting target, outlined by the pale winter light still coming down, and peered carefully inside. It was cold, I felt no heat coming from within. That was a sign that the place was abandoned, but not necessarily a clear one.

“I’m coming in!” I called. “Not looking for trouble!”

I moved slowly in. The cabin was about the same size as the one I now called home, though not in as good of shape. I scanned the area, finding a simple single-wide bed, a single chair, a broken shelf, a broken table, and just some bits of wood and trash scattered across the floor. The fireplace was dead and cold, though it looked somewhat recently used. I moved over to the only door and opened it up after calling out another warning and waiting.

The blood led from the front door to the fireplace to here.

“You can come in,” I said to Megan, lowering my pistol as I stepped into the bathroom. “It’s safe in here.”

Alec was here, all right.

Or at least I assumed this was Alec.

A pale, scrawny man was hunched up in the shower stall, frozen solid, though that almost certainly wasn’t how he had died. There was a lot of blood and he had several wounds on him. The wolves had gotten to him bad and he’d crawled in here to die.

I heard Megan come in behind me. She looked over my shoulder. “Oh. Alec,” she muttered. “Poor bastard.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You wanna leave him or get him out of here?”

She sighed. “Let’s just leave him and close the door. Bodies don’t really bother me at this point,” she muttered.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna search him. Looks like he’s got a backpack.”

“Yeah, uh...if you give me some matches, I can get a fire going.”

“Sure,” I said, passing her one of the books I had on me.

She left the bathroom.

I took ten minutes to search the body and get the backpack off of it. I’d heard several people make similar claims to the one Megan had just made, but I actually believed her. There were some people who just didn’t get upset by bodies, not through any force of will or decision, more like, the reaction just didn’t occur inside them. Kind of like arachnophobia. You either had it or you didn’t. Although sometimes it could be gotten over or fade, like in me. They used to bug me, but they really didn’t anymore.

Not unless they were like mauled horrifically and you could see inside them.

This guy wasn’t too bad but I wanted to be done with it.

The backpack he had was bigger than the one I currently had on me, although it was unfortunately not very full. I found some more clothes in it, just a basic change, no weapons, a plastic container of what looked to be relatively fresh rabbit meat, and two books. A crime drama and an action novel. Cool. I left it all in there and then performed a search of the bathroom. But it was obvious that this place had been picked over thoroughly. Once my sweep of the small bathroom was finished, I closed the door firmly.

Megan had the front door closed and locked and a fire going by then.

I set the backpack down on the bed, then shrugged out of mine and put it down, then spent a moment transferring everything over to the larger pack. It still wasn’t a big one, but it was bigger, which was enough for me. Once it was done, I held up my old pack.

“Megan, this is yours now,” I said.

“Thanks,” she murmured, coming over and taking it. She looked it over, then set it down up against the nearest wall. “Now what?”

“Now we wait,” I replied.

“Did he have anything good on him?” she asked.

“A few books, some rabbit meat,” I replied.

“Well, that’s good at least.”

She sighed and sat down in the one remaining chair that looked like it could hold any weight. I walked to one of the windows and looked out. It was snowing harder than ever now. Great. I looked at the pile of wood she’d brought in next to the fireplace. We should be fine, but it really depended on how long this snow lasted.

“I’m gonna search this place,” I said.

“All right,” she replied.

She seemed like she wasn’t looking at me intentionally. I paused for just a second, considering that. What had I done to piss her off this time? Maybe nothing. Maybe she was just mad because of the situation we were in and didn’t want to take it out on me.

Or maybe it was something completely different.

Either way, I mentally shrugged and got to searching.

~

The first hour was productive, on my end at least.

Despite what she said, Megan wasn’t half-bad at making and then tending a fire. It was fairly warm inside, but the mood seemed to be souring on both our ends. Megan seemed like something was bugging her and I figured it was probably the fact that we’d confirmed all of her last party was dead now. She sat around for awhile, then paced, finally when I offered her one of the books, she took one and started reading, though she still seemed annoyed.

Things weren’t going great on my end, either.

That hour was basically wasted. I found not a goddamned thing. Nothing in any of the obvious spots, nothing tucked up or hidden away, no compartments or panels or nothing. No hidden items up under any furniture.

Not a damn bit of useful supplies.

The storm was as strong as ever by the time I was done.

With the search finished, I ended up turning my attention to the rifle. I broke it down and looked over it carefully, making sure that it was going to fire when the trigger was pulled. What I saw made me relax, at least. The rifle was in good condition. I really wanted to test-fire it at least once, but we simply couldn’t afford to waste even a single round right now. So I put it back together and loaded it and looked it over as much as I could, then I put it aside and spent another half an hour just looking out the windows at the snow blowing by.

Finally, Megan put aside the book and shifted in her chair.

I turned, because it seemed somehow deliberate, and saw she was looking at me. “I wanted to ask,” she said, then hesitated.

“Yeah?”

“What are your relationships like nowadays?”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

She shifted again, this time looking a little uncomfortable. “I mean, are they all like Delilah? Is every time you get laid a transaction? Or do you have girlfriends?” she asked.

“Why do you wanna know?” I replied. I felt like this was going somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure where.

She sighed. “I’m just curious. I can’t make conversation?”

“Unusual choice for conversation,” I replied. She stared at me, waiting. I decided to humor her. “They’re usually some of both,” I said. “Sometimes it’s just a hookup. I meet someone out here in the wilderness, or someone at a bar in a town, we catch eyes, we hook up. Sometimes, often, I’m willing to trade something for sex. Sometimes women come to me and make a deal. Usually I have a place to live and decent access to food and firewood because of my skills. And I’m willing to share my resources and place in exchange for regular sex. And honestly, most times, I feel like, for a little while, it becomes indistinguishable from a relationship. We’re two people who live together, share resources, and have sex.”

“You don’t think that might just be your perception of it?” she asked.

“I mean maybe. It’s not like I scream at the women if they ever try to tell me no. I never threaten, I never try to intimidate. Sometimes they say they don’t want to, and I don’t push it. Sometimes, yeah, I’ve ‘broken up’ with a few because it became obvious that they were using me, but were unwilling to hold up their end of the bargain. I told them they had to go. I mean that’s fair, right? That was the deal, and if you break the terms of the deal, then I have a right to ask you to leave,” I said, feeling oddly defensive.

“Yeah but you have the power in these relationships. I mean what, if you stopped providing them with food, what are they gonna do, kick you out of your own place?” she asked. “Unless she had a gun, I doubt many women could physically force you to do anything.”

“It’s not like that’s my fault,” I said. “And it’s not like I go around, looking for desperate women and coercing them into fucking me in exchange for food and safety. I’m not a fucking predator.”

“Have you ever hit any of the women who shacked up with you?” she asked.

“No,” I said, then I paused. “Not unless they were asking for it,” I said.

Megan’s eyes popped open and she surged up in her seat. “What the fuck-” she began.

I held up my hands. “Wait, wait! Shit! Sorry, that’s not what I meant. Wow, that came out really wrong.” I sighed, and it was a testament to how far she must have come towards liking me, or at least not distrusting me so much, that she actually waited for me to continue. “What I meant, was that I only get physical with women if they explicitly ask me to during sex. Like BDSM, you know?”

Megan calmed down. “Oh...yeah. Okay.” She relaxed in her chair and actually laughed. “Man did you ever say the wrong thing...although I guess technically you were right. They do ask for it.” She studied me again. “Yeah, I guess you’d actually be really good at that kind of stuff, those girls who like being choked or slapped around or held down. You’re probably really strong.”

“They seem to enjoy it enough,” I said with an awkward shrug.

She looked away from me after that, and I couldn’t tell exactly, but I thought she was blushing. I thought about listening to her masturbating last night, of her watching us have sex. I thought it’d be weirder today, because sometimes people just got weird and awkward after seeing you naked, but for the most part she was the same.

“Something’s on your mind,” I said, deciding to push a little. “This storm isn’t going anywhere for probably at least an hour. You obviously are thinking about something or you want to say something. There’s nothing else to do. And it’s not like I’m an asshole or anything. I’m actually not that hard to talk to.”

She crossed her arms and stared at me, and her body language said she was steeling herself for something. To say something she didn’t want to say, maybe like she was going to admit something or insult me or I don’t know.

“Fine,” she said after a minute, then she sighed. “I want to...make a request.”

“All right,” I replied, waiting patiently. Okay, so I was right, she did have something she wanted to talk about.

“But I want to be clear about this, okay?” She stood up suddenly, defensive. “I’m not trying to make a deal. I’m not fucking giving in. I’m doing this on my own terms. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I replied.

“Fine.” She paused again. “I want to have sex with you.”

FIFTEEN

I fucking knew it!

I almost said it out loud but I kept myself as neutral as I could. Right away, I could tell this offer, request, whatever, was very tenuous, and I was the one on thin ice. She was ready to retract this offer and shut me out at the drop of a hat.

“All right,” I repeated.

She was scrutinizing me closely, probably expecting me to rub her face in it or something, but I had no intention of doing anything like that.

“That’s all you got to say?” she asked doubtfully.

“Well, I accept,” I replied. “I already said I’d like to sleep with you.”

“Fine,” she said, almost like she was challenging me. “But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it my way, all right?”

“Okay,” I said. I liked being in charge but I’ll be honest, if it got me inside of Megan, I’d be happy to hand her the reigns.

“Don’t try to make me do anything. Don’t try to do anything on ‘accident’. No fucking ‘oops I put it in the wrong hole’ or ‘I forgot to pull out!’. You want something, you ask, and if I say no, don’t fucking argue. None of this ‘but it ruins the mood’ or ‘I got caught up in the moment’ bullshit, do you understand me?” she demanded.

“I understand,” I said. Then I said, “Jesus fucking Christ, it sounds like you’ve had to put up with some really shitty guys.”

“I have,” she growled. “I’m not fucking doing it again. Now...take your clothes off.”

“You got it,” I replied, and I started getting naked. The bed didn’t look super comfortable, but right now I didn’t give a shit.

I wanted inside of Megan.

I watched with intense focus as she started to take her own clothes off.

“So what are we doing, exactly? Because unless you have some condoms hidden somewhere, we’re gonna have to go bareback,” I said.

“Show me that golden thing, I heard you can see it with the naked eye,” she said as her shirt came off. Underneath it, she wore a white bra.

“You can, and I’ll show you,” I replied.

She kicked her boots off then unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, pulling them down. She had on a pair of black panties.

“Goddamn,” I muttered as I finished getting my own pants off.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re...really hot,” I said.

“Not as hot as your little redheaded slut back at the cabin,” she muttered.

“I’d say you’re both tens, honestly.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “Give me a fucking break.”

“No, seriously.”

“Look, I know I’m halfway hot, but Delilah is clearly a lot more attractive than I am.”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t have your force of will,” I muttered.

“What the hell does that have to do with how I look?”

“I guess it has more to do with how I look at you, if that makes sense? Plus, you’re a bit more filled out than she is, and you’re taller. I fucking love tall women. And you look...tough.”

“Men don’t like tough,” she said, though now she sounded less combative. She was definitely blushing now. “I know this for a fact.”

“What, every man everywhere doesn’t like tough women?” I asked, taking my boxers off.

She sighed. “Whatever, you know what I mean. In general.”

“Look, I’ve got no reason to lie to you. I think you’re as hot as Delilah. You’re both tens to me, just for different reasons. It isn’t difficult.”

“It is after you’ve had like twenty years of people making jokes about how ugly you are or how your hair looks stupid or how you look like a boy or this or that.” She abruptly shifted topics. “Okay, show me,” she said, looking down at my crotch.

“It’s easier when I’m hard,” I murmured. I was at half-salute right now.

She rolled her eyes again and took off her bra. That did it. Fuck, she had some nice tits. Beautiful, firm c-cups topped by dark nipples. They jiggled and bounced nicely as her bra came off and she tossed it onto the floor.

She smirked when she saw me finish getting erect. “Well, that’s a nice reaction, I gotta admit,” she murmured, then she got down on her knees and reached out. As she wrapped her fingers around my dick, she hesitated, then looked up at me. “I’m not sucking your cock today.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you expect me to eat your pussy, right?” I replied.

She frowned, then growled. “That’s fair,” she muttered. “Will you consider this, like, an audition? I’m actually all about fair play. So if this goes well, and yes, I do want you to eat me, I’ll suck your cock next time.” I continued looking at her, considering it. She sighed. “Come on, look at it from my perspective. I haven’t had a good lay in months, and I haven’t had my pussy eaten in even longer. Not like your precious redhead back at the cabin. And you have obviously been getting your cock sucked and fucked to your satisfaction for a long time now.”

“All right, all right, fair enough. But you’d better not half-ass it.”

She snorted. “Trust me, I know how to suck dick. You won’t regret waiting, now...” She peered into my urethra and nodded. “Okay, yeah, I see it. Fine. We can go raw.”

“Can I come inside you?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, standing up. “Not this time. And not on my face or in my mouth, either. I’m not...ready for that.” She pursed her lips again, considering. “Just go on my stomach. I’ll jack you off if you make me happy enough.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’ll make you happy.”

She studied me. It still was difficult not to cover myself somewhat, even though she was almost as naked as I was. “I’d say you’re overconfident but after having seen you perform twice now, I can’t really say that. All right,” she said, turning around and pulling her panties down. Fuck, she had a sweet ass. Thicker and broader than Delilah’s, smooth and with a nice heft to it. “Let’s do this.”

She walked over to the bed and, after checking it over and flapping the blanket a few times to get the dust and debris off it, she laid down on her back.

“How are you about kissing?” I asked as I moved to join her.

“I love kissing,” she replied. “Never understand how people can fuck casually but also not kiss. Like ‘oh yeah that’s where you draw the line? Fucking is no big deal but kissing, no way, that’s too intimate!’, you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I replied as I laid down beside her.

She watched me closely as I settled into place beside her, between her and the wall. “You are...intimidating, you know that?” she said quietly.

“Sorry, not trying to be,” I replied.

She laughed. “I can tell by now. I’ve seen your intentional intimidation. You’re just...a big guy.”

“I’m not even that tall. I’m just six two. And you’re on the tall side yourself.”

“It’s not just height or even weight. You’ve got a big build, though. No, it’s more like...I guess your confidence. I’ve seen a lot of guys acting tough, but someone once told me something like, what was it? ‘Real confidence isn’t loud’. I guess that’s what you make me think of: real confidence. You’re just...direct and calm and you don’t boast.” She smiled and gave her head a small shake. “Much, anyway.”

“I just have a decent idea of what I’m good at,” I replied. “Shall we begin?”

“Yes,” she replied.

I kissed her.

I have to admit, I’d thought about doing this since I’d first seen her. Then again, I think a lot of people do that. Or maybe I’m just a pervert.

But who isn’t a pervert of at least some caliber?

Now that it was finally happening, it was actually a bit better than I’d imagined it. She kissed me back, her lips pressing to mine, and I got a sample of her natural taste. It was dark and kind of rough, if that makes any sense. It was intense, to be sure. I ran a hand down her arm, feeling the bump of a scar once, down all the way to the back of her hand, then over to one bare, firm hip as she turned towards me. She leaned into me, kissing me harder, and opened my mouth. Her taste really flooded in as her tongue sought mine.

Megan was definitely more aggressive than Delilah.

A quiet moan escaped her as my tongue found hers and they touched together, then began to twist and dance. Her hip was firm and smooth and hot beneath my hand. I ran the hand lower, down one firm thigh, then up again, over the hip, searching until I had one of her breasts in my hand. I gave it a small, gentle squeeze as she stared into my eyes and made out with me. I could feel her nipple pressing into my bare palm and that sent a powerful shock of lust through me. I felt my whole body, my cock especially, throb in response.

She kissed me harder, leaning into me even more, our lips and tongues wrestling. I put a hand on her shoulder suddenly and pushed her firmly onto her back. The kiss was broken temporarily and she looked at me with wide eyes. It almost seemed like she felt that move was a challenge and she was very eager to accept it.

I leaned closer to her and resumed kissing her, keeping her pinned, just a little, with some of my body. Then I slid my hand down to her thighs, working it between them, and she opened her legs for me just a little.

My hand moved up and brushed across her pussy.

She exhaled hard and I felt a shiver run through her at just the barest contact. Was she super sensitive or just keyed up?

Maybe both.

I ran my fingertips along her inner thighs for a moment, getting several more shivers and some moans out of her. Sensitive thighs, for sure.

Then my fingertip sought her clit, and I found it, nestled between the taut lips of her vagina. I made contact with the small white wet nub and began to rub it gently.

“Ohhhhhh...” she moaned loudly, breaking the kiss again. “Oh my fucking God...oh fuck...” she moaned again, shuddering.

“What was that about being cocky?” I asked, rubbing a bit harder and faster.

“Ahhh! Fuck!” she gasped. “It’s been...awhile,” she whispered, breathing much more heavily now. She closed her eyes, concentrating as I pleasured her. “You just...caught me in the right mood, is all.”

I laughed. “Oh, the right mood? What mood is that, exactly? Not bitchy?”

“Fuck you,” she muttered without opening her eyes.

“You will in just a minute,” I replied.

“Ugh, stop talking...” she moaned.

I complied, instead shifting and beginning to lick across one of her beautiful tan breasts. She moaned and shuddered even more intensely as I did that. For the next few minutes, I listened to the sounds of the winds shrieking by outside and Megan moaning in pure bliss. As I pleasured her, I did wonder if Delilah would be jealous or angry, but I didn’t think so. I thought she had been honest when she’d told me that she just wanted Megan to be a part of our own sexual unity, and she seemed like the type of woman who would be cool with it even if Megan only wanted to fuck me. So far, I hadn’t heard anything that clearly put her as straight or bi definitely. Although I thought she might be into Delilah, that just might be my fantasies talking.

“Oh, Chris! Oh fuck! I...oh I’m coming!” she screamed and her whole body spasmed. Her hips bucked as I rubbed her clit more vigorously and her thighs clenched and I watched her go through the telltale stages of a beautiful female orgasm.

I pleasured her through it and watched her twist and writhe, her breasts swaying and bouncing wonderfully as she came.

When she was done, she fell back, panting.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “Okay, I’m ready for the next one.”

“You’re a greedy girl,” I said as I got up.

“I’m not greedy I’m neglected,” she growled. “I haven’t been given an orgasm by another person in over two months, I’ll have you know.”

“I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me then,” I said, getting re-situated between her thighs. Not much had come out of her, so she must not be as much of a squirter as Delilah clearly was. Well, she seemed to have enjoyed herself plenty and it meant cleanup was easier. She also had a fair patch of black pubic hair.

She saw me looking at it. “I haven’t had much reason to trim the hedges for awhile either,” she said, looking mildly embarrassed. “I didn’t think I was going to be naked in front of someone today and it’s not like grooming is high on most people’s minds anyways nowadays.”

“That’s fine,” I said, and dipped my head.

I gently parted the lips of her pussy, exposing her clit, and touched the tip of my tongue to it. A fresh moan escaped her and a new shiver ran through her.

“Oh fuck...” she whispered as I started to massage her clit with it. I intended to do a great job. I wanted her to feel good, but I also wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity she’d given me. This audition of hers.

Having a very attractive woman around who would fuck you regularly was great.

Having two, on the other hand?

That was beyond great. That was amazing.

I listened to her moan and cry out and sometimes outright scream as I ate her out, licking at her clit with more and more of my tongue, and finally getting my lower lip involved. I slipped a finger inside of her and found her to be both wonderfully tight and fantastically wet on the inside. This was going to be great sex, based on everything we’d done so far.

It didn’t take her as long to orgasm a second time. Megan reached down suddenly and grabbed my head and rammed my face deeper into her crotch. I kept eating her as she orgasmed, and felt her shuddering and writhing around me, heard her screams come out again as she lost herself in that wonderful climax.

I did it until she pushed my head away and I sat up, looking down at her.

Hot damn was she an attractive woman.

As she came back down from that second high, she looked at me, saw me staring at her. She looked a lot more relaxed. “You really think I’m as hot as Delilah is?”

“Fuck yes,” I replied immediately.

She laughed softly. “You’re a weirdo.”

“Why?” I replied, distracted by her nudity, by her long, sweat-slicked body, by how fucking hard my erection was and how much I wanted to put it into her.

“You just are. Okay, it’s your turn now. Stick it in there. Nice and easy, you’re...big,” she murmured, looking down at my cock.

“Nice and easy,” I agreed as I eagerly got into position.

I laid the head of my cock, which pulsed in time with my heartbeat in pure naked sexual desire, at the entrance to her sweet, wet pussy.

Then I slid into her.

“Oh my fucking...wow,” she whispered, looking down the length of her smooth tan body at me as I worked my way into her. “You feel...quite large.”

“You can handle it, right?” I asked, just a little bit of a teasing edging into my voice.

She sighed. “Oh fuck off, you aren’t that big.”

“Oh really?”

I pushed deeper into her. She grunted and moaned. “I’m fine,” she growled.

“If you say so.”

I got the rest of the way into her and then started fucking her. She let out a loud, long moan as I screwed her. And I very quickly lost myself inside of her. She was...so good. So fucking good to fuck. I planted my hands on either side of her head, pressing into the pillow, holding myself up and staring down at her. I watched her face twist in pleasure, her eyes closing, her mouth opening, her tongue coming out and going back in. Women had all sorts of interesting involuntary reactions to sexual pleasure.

They were always a joy to discover.

Presently, I was lost inside her.

Just totally lost in that sweet bliss of barebacking a woman I had never before been intimate with. With Megan, I could already tell it was more powerful than with Delilah. I could also tell that I was not lasting very long. That was one of the problems with having unprotected sex with a woman for the first time. It was also a problem when I was really, really attracted to a woman. And apparently I was really damned attracted to Megan.

In a way, I hadn’t even realized just how much she appealed to me until we’d started talking about sex. It was like something had been out of focus for awhile. You knew it was there, but you didn’t quite realize what it was. And then, all at once, it was thrown into perfect focus and you saw exactly what it was.

“Oh, Megan...” I moaned as I fucked her, sliding my cock in and out of her. That slick heat enveloped my dick in a pocket of pure pleasure that spiraled out from my core, filling my body, making me want to come so fucking bad.

“You like that pussy don’t you?” she panted, her eyes opening. She grinned fiercely up at me.

“Yes,” I replied, stroking smoothly into her, making the bed shake. “Fuck yes, it’s so good.”

“I thought you were gonna hurt,” she whispered between breaths. “But I think you’re just right. Not too big, not too small, just right for maximizing how fucking good it feels.”

I regained some of my focus. “So, you like getting fuck by me, huh?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she growled, then moaned loudly as I shifted angle and hit a particularly sensitive spot. “Fuck! Why are you so good at this...”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” I replied.

I fucked her for as long as I could. Altogether, I think I managed to pound her for maybe four or five minutes. It was hard to tell, and even that felt like a feat.

Seriously, her pussy was so good!

It was even better than Delilah’s, though I couldn’t say why.

Maybe it was just because she was more the type of woman I’d like to date, as opposed to the type of woman I just wanted to screw.

“Shit!” I yelled right at the last second, and I pulled out of her.

She reached down and gripped my cock right as I started coming. She let out a small gasp as she began jacking me off. I looked down at that wonderful body of hers as I began to spurt. Her hand jacking me off felt fantastically good. I watched my stuff shoot out of me in thick sprays, getting on her belly, up onto her ribcage, then some even onto her tits.

Fuck, I got some of it on her neck.

“Oh my fucking God, Chris,” she whispered as she kept jacking me. “Jesus fucking Christ there’s so much of it!”

I was just moaning in incoherent pleasure, totally lost in that orgasm.

When it was done, I had her let go of me, and then I twisted, put my feet on the floor, and sat on the edge of the bed, taking a moment to catch my breath.

“I need something to wash up with,” she muttered. “You fucking covered me in it.”

“Yeah,” I replied, head still swimmy from the orgasm.

I grabbed my new pack, rifled around in it, and came up with the thermos of water and the shirt I’d found in Alec’s pack. I passed them both to her and she carefully cleaned herself up.

“I guess taking it in the mouth would’ve saved on clean-up,” she murmured.

“Yep,” I agreed.

As soon as she was done cleaning up, I laid down on my back beside her. After only a moment’s hesitation, she laid against me, then partially on me, her nude, hot body feeling exquisitely pleasant. I wrapped an arm around her.

We listened to the wind howl.

SIXTEEN

We laid without speaking for almost half an hour.

I think she dozed for some of it. I was content to just lay there and enjoy having Megan against me and the post-orgasmic bliss I was feeling.

And then she spoke up.

“Will Delilah be mad?” she murmured.

“No,” I replied, laughing softly. “She encouraged this.”

“What really?”

“I think she wants you too,” I said.

“Huh,” was all Megan said to that.

“Can I tell her? Or do you not want me to?” I asked.

“You’re asking?”

“Well I mean yeah. You don’t want me to talk about what we did, I won’t.”

“Interesting. Most people can’t shut the fuck up whenever they get laid, and I thought you’d be giddy over the fact that you convinced me to take off my clothes and open my legs for you.”

“I mean...I am. But it’s your business.”

“I appreciate that,” she murmured after a few seconds. “Yes, you can tell her.” She shifted and then groaned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Your fat cock made me sore,” she complained, shifting again.

“Sorry.”

“No you aren’t. But don’t worry, it’ll be fine by morning, probably. It’s probably for the best, actually. If I wasn’t sore, I’d be taking you for another spin and maybe that’s not such a great idea,” she replied.

“Why not?”

“We had sex for the first time. After that, it’s best for me to give everything some time to settle. And things have a much harder time settling so that I can see clearly if I fuck a second time. So I just need to...see where we stand with clarity.”

“Makes sense,” I said. I paused. “Hear that?”

“What?” she asked, tensing immediately.

“The winds are dying down,” I replied. “We can probably go soon.”

“Wonderful, back out into the fucking cold.”

“Yep,” I replied. “At least we got the rifle and we both got laid.”

She laughed.

~

Twenty minutes later, we were dressed and on our way back.

The storm was either in a lull or gone completely. If it was a lull, it would almost certainly last long enough for us to get back home safely, and I didn’t want to leave Delilah alone any longer than I absolutely had to.

“Just so you know, this doesn’t mean we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or friends with benefits,” Megan said suddenly after about ten minutes of silent walking. I was glad to see that there was much less venom in her voice, much less tension in her stance.

Getting laid and having multiple orgasms tended to do that to you.

“I got it,” I replied.

She offered a short laugh. “Right.”

“What, you think I don’t?”

“No, no. I just, well, I guess I’m getting used to the idea that I don’t have to keep reminding you of this shit. Force of habit, I guess. People fucking assume so fucking much! You glance at a guy, he assumes you’re into him. You fuck a guy once, he assumes you’re his girl now. Assumptions fuck everything up.”

“You don’t have to worry about that with me.”

“I’m learning that.”

We didn’t talk after that as we walked back through the recently fallen snow. I figured there was a pretty decent chance she’d want to fuck again. She seemed a lot more relaxed around me now. That could be the fact that she’d gotten laid, or the fact that we’d fucked and it had gone well. Probably both. I at least felt good that I wasn’t lying to her. If she wanted to stop and just go back to being strictly business partners, or survival partners, or whatever phrase made the most sense, then I’d be completely fine with that.

I mean, I’d still want to fuck her, but I knew how to shut the fuck up about it.

We made it back to the cabin without running into any problems. No wolves, no assholes, no bad weather either. In fact, by the time we were back, the skies looked like they were clearing up. Damn I hoped it held. Based on what I’d experienced, you could reasonably hope for three, maybe four days of clear skies at a stretch. A week was on the far end of possible nowadays. I hated how damned insane the weather had gotten.

Fuck did I miss summer.

And I didn’t even like summer before. I hated being stupidly hot and humid all the time. Not like fall was great either for that.

Of course, it was humid most of the time in Florida, but that was a lifetime ago.

I was glad to see that the cabin looked intact, no one was hanging around, and when I did my knock, Delilah answered promptly.

“Oh shit, you found the gun,” she said, looking at once both excited and anxious.

“Yep. It works, though we’re not doing great on bullets,” I replied as we came in.

“I can handle it,” Megan said as she walked right over to the fireplace and sat down on the floor before it, warming herself.

After I closed and locked the door, Delilah stared at me, flicked her eyes briefly to Megan, and then raised her eyebrows in inquiry.

She wanted to know if we had fucked, I could just tell.

I gave her a big grin.

She almost laughed, looking excited, then calmed herself. “So, um, what now?” she asked.

“Now we nail the fuckers,” Megan growled.

“No arguments there,” Delilah replied. “I just...don’t want you two to get hurt.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said. “Probably.” I sighed and took a seat. “The first question is: How many do we intend to kill? Because I feel like we could probably kill them all. But the question is, should we kill them all?”

“Maybe,” Megan growled. Then she sighed. “Shit, I don’t know. I’m not a fucking savage or anything...or maybe I am. I fucking want to kill those bastards. I overheard two of them, his big bodyguard and I think the guy that usually sits up on the roof all day with a gun, complaining that the boss used to let them rape their captives. So I’m cool killing the boss, the lookout, the bodyguard, and his smarmy little smart guy assistant. Dude snuck in and fucking groped me.”

“Okay, that’s four. What about the other two?” I asked.

She sighed. “One of them I didn’t see much, but there’s one who goes out and hunts. He had short blonde hair, like a crewcut kinda. He was really the only one who took any kind of care of me. Bathroom breaks, replaced my food and water. He never did anything fucked up and he actually looked like he felt bad about it.”

“All right, we’ll kill the four of them, and then if the other two put up a fight, we kill them too. Sound good?” I asked.

“Fine by me,” Megan muttered.

“How do you actually intend to do this?” Delilah asked.

“Megan’s the sharpshooter. There’s a little hill in the woods that overlooks the campgrounds. If I can get most of them out in the open, we can put them down. I’m a pretty quick draw and they...” I sighed, disgusted. “They trust me already. They asked me to join up with them and I told them I’d think about it.”

“You aren’t like them,” Delilah said.

“Yeah, I know,” I muttered. I shook my head. “Whatever, this is what I think we should do. Megan, you get in place with the rifle. I’ll go with you and we’ll make sure the guy on the roof is up on the roof. He needs to be the first to die. High ground needs to be controlled fast. But once we confirm, I’ll make my way around to the far side, come to them, try to get them to talk out in the open. Keep a sharp eye on me, I’ll give a signal.”

“What’s the signal?” she asked, standing back up and staring at me intently.

“When I spread my arms out,” I replied, demonstrating, holding them out like I was indicating the cabin around me. “When I do that, kill the man on the roof. Can you get a headshot?”

“What’s the distance?” she asked.

“I thought you said you were bad with judging distance,” I replied.

She sighed. “Yeah, like, on a broader scale. But for shooting I can judge it pretty decent.”

“About a football field, three hundred feet,” I replied.

“Huh. Okay, yeah, I can make a headshot pretty good from that distance.”

“You done this before?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yeah, I’ve had to do stuff like this before. Not often, you know, but sometimes. And I’ve done it often enough for hunting. I at least got good at that.”

“All right, fine. I’m going to spend maybe a minute or two trying to figure out where everyone is. The guy in charge seems to keep his two cronies with him, so hopefully they’ll be front and center. After the first shot, I’ll be pretty vulnerable, so I’m going to pretend I don’t know what’s happening. I’ll need you to take down at least one of them, preferably his big body guard. I should be able to drop the others with my pistol and hopefully I’ll have figured out where the other two guys are. And that no one else is around. There’ll be some playing it by ear, basically. But ideally we’ll be able to cap the four jerks really quick. You stay put on that hill until I signal you. I’ll wave you in when I’m ready. Does that all make sense?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Megan replied.

“I assume I’m staying here?” Delilah said.

“Yep. We’ll be back for you. Once it’s all cleaned up, we’ll come get you. You can help us search the place over for supplies.”

“Cool,” she said, though she still looked nervous.

I felt kinda bad, she liked me a lot already, I could tell that much, but practically speaking, she was relying on me a great deal. If I died, she might be fucked. She was tougher than she thought she was, I figured. She had to be to still be alive after two years. Most people who were still around were tougher than they thought for the most part. But not everyone realized it. The human mind went all sorts of directions, most of them not great.

Megan and I finished warming up, then we drank some water and looked over our guns. Once we were double-sure they were functional, I dropped off all the extra gear, and Megan opted out of hanging onto her new backpack for the moment. I kept mine, though loaded down with not much gear, then I stepped up to Delilah.

“Delilah, try not to worry too much,” I said. “We can handle it. I’ve had to do stuff like this before. I’m still here. If something happens to me, though, Megan will come back and help you.” I looked over at her. “Right?”

Megan sighed. “Yeah, I’m not going to leave you to rot, Delilah.”

“If something happens to both of us, and we’re not back by sundown, I want you to pack everything and leave. And keep a watch out regardless. Okay?”

“All right,” she said, looking more anxious than ever.

I gave her a hug and a kiss, and she squeezed me tightly.

“Don’t worry,” I said, then figured it was probably pointless to say it. She was gonna worry. That was just one of those things you said when you had nothing else to say, I guess.

“Just come back okay,” she replied into my chest.

I stroked the back of her head. “I will. I promise. We can fuck to celebrate,” I said.

She laughed, despite herself. “I’ll hold you to that.” She let go of me after a moment and looked up at me. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I gave her one more kiss, then turned to Megan. “Let’s do this.”

~

I had to admit, I was nervous.

It had been awhile since I’d done something like this, and it wasn’t even like I’d done it all that often. Just a couple of times. I didn’t like it, and my stomach was twisting in knots, my heart rate was up. If it wasn’t so damned cold out I’d be sweating. Megan looked cool and calm though. I wondered how angry she was, how much she was looking forward to this. I wondered if she’d be able to do it. I didn’t think she was lying to me, she probably was a great shot, but it was one of those things where it needed to be correct.

If she fucked up, there’s a good chance I’d die down there.

I was quick on my feet though, a quick draw and a good shot when I had to be, but six bullets wasn’t a lot to work with. Although they’d have guns. Maybe I could grab one of their pistols if things went sideways.

We walked through the woods, past the store and then the barn and farmhouse. No wolves, thank God. Damn that would fuck this up. Maybe they’d finally found and shot a few of them. Our food problems would probably be over. I’d definitely have a lot more guns. They had several pistols and a shotgun between them at least. A rifle, too, I think.

As we came up on that hill again, I focused.

Time to get serious.

We crawled up there slowly, carefully, on our bellies through the snow. Finally, we had a good view, hidden among some bushes growing on its top.

“Wow, this is a great view,” she whispered.

“Yep. And look, there he is,” I replied.

Sure enough, the same guy was on duty. Probably was the best shot among them. Either that, or he was just cool with playing guard all day long. I saw the blonde guy she’d mentioned walking across the way. I studied him. Yeah...something in his posture, in the way he was walking, spoke of depression. Or maybe resignation. I guess I’d have to see how he reacted. Couldn’t see anyone else. They must be all inside, circle jerking about how awesome they were.

“This is a good setup?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got a clean line of sight to everyone. Or I will. Go do your thing,” she said.

“All right.” I began to get up but she said my name. I looked over at her.

She kissed me full on the mouth. “Good luck, okay?”

“You too,” I replied, then grinned tightly. “I’m putting my life in your hands. Don’t fuck this up.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

“Okay.”

I got up.

From there, I made the big circle in the woods, carefully out of sight. I spent the whole time getting into character, calming myself, figuring out what I was going to say. By the time I was on approach to the campgrounds, I thought I had it all sorted in my head. Keeping calm, even a little cocky, I walked up to the front gate.

“Yo that guy’s back!” the man on the roof called out. “Stay there!” he said to me.

“Yep,” I replied, keeping chill.

I felt elation as I saw all three of them come out of the main building. Ryan, the leader, and Tony, his big burly bodyguard, and the third guy. Had I learned his name? Shit I couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered, I guess.

They were going to be corpses soon.

It made me uncomfortable how cool I was with that thought.

“Chris!” Ryan said, smiling as they approached me. I took a look around as I walked in to meet him halfway. The blonde dude was in the shack where they’d been keeping Megan. It looked like he was cleaning it up. I didn’t see anyone new in there, but that was something I intended to find out. Because that would be important to know once the shooting started. I didn’t see the final guy. He could be anywhere.

A wildcard. Great.

“Ryan,” I said as we met in the middle.

“How was she?” he asked.

I affected a somewhat guilty though amused look. “Heh, well...I broke her.”

His eyebrows went up. “What’s that mean?”

“I got a little drunk, started in on her, she was a fighter, though. Man was she a fighter. Went in a bit too hard on her and, uh, broke her neck. She’s dead, man,” I said, chuckling ruefully.

“Goddamn man!” Ryan replied, clearly amused. “You are hardcore! I like that. Fuck, well, I’m sure we’ll find another.”

“You got another one?” I asked hopefully, keeping that angry-hate-sick gut feeling completely off my face and out of my body language. Jesus Christ, I’d just told him that I’d accidentally killed someone and he was fucking impressed over it.

“Nah, not yet. But I’m sure we can rustle up some more women. Especially if you agree to join us. So...have you thought on it?”

I took one more look around, my heart thumping. All right, this was it. This was as good as it was going to get. I had hoped to see the sixth guy, and I thought I caught a bit of movement through one of the windows to the left, but I couldn’t be sure and I couldn’t wait any more. I honestly thought this was as good a shot as we were going to get.

“You really wanna move to a town?” I asked. I held out my arms, encompassing the campgrounds around me. “You wanna give up all this personal freedom?” I asked. He looked at me like he wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. I laughed. “Nah I’m just fucking with you. Yeah I think that’d be a great-”

The rifle barked.

We all looked around, jerking in surprise, as there was a nasty wet sound and I just saw the lookout’s head snap back in a spray of not just blood but a lot of chunky brains and skull, too.

“What the fuck!?” Tony cried.

The lookout’s body staggered briefly, then collapsed, falling off the roof. Half his fucking head had been blown off.

“Holy shit!” I cried, turning partway around, pulling out my pistol. “What the fuck was that?!”

“Sniper!” Ryan yelled. “Get the fuck-”

Tony’s right eye exploded like there’d been a fucking bomb inside of it and the bullet smashed out the back of his head in a huge spray of gore.

“Shit! Shit!” Ryan yelled.

Those were his last words.

I turned on him, aimed the six-shooter right at his head, and pulled the trigger. His head snapped to the side, his brains spraying out onto the snow. Before he could even finish falling down, I’d turned and drew a bead on the other guy. He was pointing his gun at me already but there was a look of shock on his face.

I pulled the trigger three times, putting three rounds into his chest.

He screamed, briefly, and then went down, dead on the third shot as it blew his heart out. I immediately twisted to the right. The blonde guy was standing about a foot outside the shed. He wasn’t holding a weapon and he looked dazed, like a man in a dream, just staring at me with wide eyes. I thought I saw some movement in the cabin next to him, but it was still hard to tell.

“Get the fuck over here!” I snapped. “Now! You got a gun, throw it down!”

“I don’t have a gun,” he said, coming back to himself.

“Get over here, right now,” I replied.

He came over to me, his steps steady but heavy. He kept staring at me, occasionally looking at the corpses, then back up to me.

“Okay, close enough, stop,” I said when he was about ten feet from me and the dead bodies. “I’m going to make this real simple for you: lay face down, on the ground, and put your hands on your head. Stay there until I tell you otherwise. If you get up, my sniper will put a bullet through your head. Do you understand?”

Now he just looked defeated. “I understand,” he said, and got down onto his knees.

“Where’s the last guy?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but probably in the cabin behind me. It’s his. The one nearest the shed where we kept the girl,” he replied, then he laid down.

“Fine, stay there, don’t fucking move.”

“Okay.”

I wondered why he was so compliant. Maybe he just knew he was fucked, but I thought it was more than that. I looked at the cabin. It was the one I’d seen movement in. I glanced at the hill Megan was on, although I couldn’t see him.

“If he moves, shoot him!” I yelled, my voice carrying well.

“Okay!” came her response. Good.

I headed for the cabin. I sensed as much as saw movement through the window, which was only half covered by curtains or a blanket maybe. Stopping about ten feet short of the cabin, I readjusted my grip on the pistol and cleared my throat.

“I know you’re in there,” I said loudly, “so I’m telling you to come out right now.” I paused. Nothing happened. “If I have to come in there, I promise you will not like it.”

Just as I began to start walking towards the cabin, I heard a muffled voice. “Okay, okay! I’m coming out! Don’t shoot me! Fuck!”

“Slowly,” I said.

The door opened slowly. I saw a scrawny guy with shaggy brown hair. He looked shaky, like his control of his own body was tenuous. I hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid. He looked defeated, but also terrified, and fear made people do crazy stupid things.

“Slowly, towards me,” I said, stepping carefully to the side.

“Don’t kill me, man,” he groaned, lingering in the doorway.

“Just get over here. You probably won’t die,” I replied.

He regarded me with terrified misery. “What do you mean probably!?”

“At this point, it’s not up to me if you live or die. It’s up to her,” I said, nodding off to my left, where Megan was still hidden.

“Who is she?” he muttered, looking that direction.

“That girl you had locked up here yesterday.”

“Goddamnit! I knew we shouldn’t have fucking trusted you,” he muttered.

“Walk,” I replied.

He walked towards me. I directed him over to the man with the blonde crewcut, who hadn’t moved an inch.

“On the ground, hands on the back of your head,” I said.

“Come on, don’t fucking execute me,” he begged.

“We’ll see. Do it or I’ll shoot you in knee,” I replied.

He sighed and grumbled to himself, but he did it.

“Fucking cold,” he muttered.

I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the ground or me.

Without taking my eyes off them, I raised my hand and waved for Megan to join me. After a few minutes, I heard her walking through the snow, into the campgrounds.

“Good work,” she said as she joined me.

“You too,” I replied. “What should we do with them?”

She sighed, staring at them with a deep frown. Then she handed me the rifle. I took it and watched as she stepped up to the pair.

“You, blondie, up on your knees,” she said.

He got up onto his knees. He looked very resigned.

“Why’d you do this?” she asked, staring hard at him. “Why did you help them?”

“We were just-” the scrawny man began but Megan shot him a glance.

“I didn’t ask you a motherfucking thing!” she screamed at him.

Damn she could be intimidating when she wanted to.

The brown-haired guy shut right the hell up.

She looked back at the blonde man. “Well?”

He sighed. “I don’t have any excuses,” he said. He sounded tired. “He just...reminded me of my best friend. Who got killed when we were teenagers.”

“Who did?”

“Ryan, the guy in charge.”

“Seriously? That’s it? He reminded you of someone?”

He sighed and shook his head. “No. That’s just how I got started. I was out hunting a few months ago, ran into Tony, got to talking, he was looking to recruit, said I looked like a hardass. I went back, met with Ryan, joined up. It was a few weeks before I realized how bad they were. By then...I don’t know. I don’t have any excuses. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I thought maybe I could stay here and try and help the women they did capture. I managed to at least convince him that fucking them wasn’t a great idea if they were trying to sell them...” he just sighed and shook his head again. “I’m not even trying to justify myself. If you’re gonna shoot me, you might as well do it now.”

Megan sighed, staring at him for a long moment, then turned to the other guy. “What about you, skinny? You got something to say for yourself?”

“I was just following orders,” he replied.

“Jesus, that’s the most cliché thing I’ve ever heard in my whole fucking life,” I muttered.

Megan walked over and held out her hand. I slapped the pistol into it. She knelt and pushed the barrel against the back of his head. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“Oh, fuck! Come on! I never touched any of them! I never fucking touched you! I’m just trying to fucking live!”

Megan held her position. The man on the ground whimpered and shook. I studied her, wondering if she was just going to pull the trigger and end him right then and there. Finally, with a soft sigh, she pulled back.

“Get up, on your knees,” she growled.

“Th-thank you,” the man whispered.

“Shut the fuck up,” Megan replied, coming to stand next to me. “I don’t want to kill either of them,” she said. “But they can’t stay here.”

“Agreed,” I replied. “How about this? We let them gather their belongings, no guns though, and a reasonable amount of supplies, and send them on their way?” I suggested.

“No guns? Come on! How am I supposed to fucking defend myself out there?!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Megan snapped, pointing the gun at him again. He instantly cringed away from it. “I could just kill you right now.” She looked back at me. “Fine.”

“All right, let’s do it. Up, you two.”

SEVENTEEN

It took half an hour for them to gather their stuff. We checked it all out, to make sure they weren’t trying to smuggle any guns out or maybe anything really valuable. The blonde guy didn’t put up any kind of fight. In a way, I felt bad for him. I know that to ignore something is to be complicit in it and that is its own form of evil, but I do think a lot of people underestimate what it’s like to actually be faced with that choice.

A lot of people talk tough, but if they ever actually lived a situation where you would have to risk your life to stand up for what was right, they wouldn’t.

The skinny guy who complained a surprising amount for someone with a gun on him tried to pull a fast one on us, sneaking a gun into his pack. When we searched it after they packed, Megan found it, turned, and kicked him square in the nuts.

That took an extra ten minutes just to get him back on his feet.

Finally, the four of us stood up on the highway.

“This is where we part ways,” I said. “Consider yourselves lucky, you could be dead right now. But we’re giving you this chance. Pick a direction and start walking, although I’d advise against north, because that’s where we’ll be heading, and if we ever see either of you again, there’s a good chance you won’t be so lucky.”

“If I ever see you again,” Megan growled at the brown-haired man, “I promise I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

“Fine, jeez,” he muttered.

“Go,” I said.

The blonde guy just started walking south, back along the way I had initially come from. After a moment’s indecision, the brown-haired guy followed after him. We stood there and watched them for awhile, until they were finally just dots.

“There,” I said. “Mission accomplished.”

“Yep,” Megan muttered. She shuddered suddenly and leaned against me. I put an arm around her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just...that was really intense. I don’t regret killing them, they were monsters, but fuck, that was intense.”

“It was,” I agreed. “Why don’t you head back to the cabin and take a break. Let Delilah know we’re okay?” I suggested.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m going to go back to the campgrounds and start gathering up that gear. All we need is for some random person to swing through and scoop it up,” I replied.

She stared at me for a moment, hesitating. I couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t want me to leave her, or because she didn’t fully trust me yet. Maybe it was both. Then she just nodded. “Okay,” she said, stepping away from me.

“You remember the knock?” I asked. She nodded. “Okay. Once you’ve rested up, bring Delilah to the campgrounds and you two can help me search it over.”

“All right,” she said. Megan hesitated, looking at me for another moment, like she wanted to say something else, then she just nodded again and turned away. I watched her make her way back down the hill that led down from the highway. When she’d made it safely down to the ground, I turned back and faced the other direction.

Where the people who almost certainly had my journal were.

I stared out over that large tract of landscape, at the trees, the church on the hill, the frozen lake. That was the next big thing, the next goal.

I was going to get my fucking journal back.

But not yet. For now, there were loose ends to deal with, survival to ensure.

I began heading back to the campgrounds.

~

I had time to frisk all four corpses and then haul them off to the side, in the woods.

Out of sight, out of mind.

The guy on the roof had a pistol. Ryan hadn’t been armed apparently, but his skeezy sidekick also had a pistol, and Tony had one too. A big, shiny forty-five. I recognized the other pistol as the nine millimeter they’d let me borrow. I unloaded the forty-five and tossed it into my backpack, then tucked the nine millimeter down the back of my pants after making sure it was loaded and the safety was on. I also tossed the twenty-two in there too after unloading the remaining two bullets. The nine would serve nicely now.

They didn’t have much on them. Tony and Ryan had lighters, and I found three magazines of ammo between the four bodies. A knife. Some cigarettes. A bottle of painkillers. A book of matches. Not as much as I was hoping for. After getting rid of the last body, I walked back and saw Megan and Delilah approaching.

As soon as she saw me, Delilah ran towards me. When she got to me she pretty much threw herself into my arms, hugging me tightly.

“You really like me, huh?” I asked.

“Duh,” she replied as I wrapped my own arms around her. “You saved my life and you’re the best fucking lay I’ve ever had.”

I laughed. “Well that’s good to hear.”

When she stopped hugging me, she looked off towards where I put the bodies. You could see an arm sticking out of the bushes. “Jesus...you really killed them, huh?”

“Yeah. I got two, Megan got two. She really is an excellent sniper,” I replied.

“Told you,” she said, walking up.

“I just...fuck, that kind of freaks me out a little. I mean, I get it, you were right. They chained us up and were going to fucking sell us as fuck toys. They deserved it. Just...fuck. It’s so intense. And now they’re gone forever.”

“I know. Try not to think about it,” I replied. “Why don’t you and Megan get started searching the main house. Go over it with a fine-toothed comb. There’s a table in the main room, right past the front door. I want you to put every last useful thing you can find on that table. I’ll get to work searching these cabins, then we can switch, see if the other person missed anything. How does that sound?” I asked.

“Good, but...” She hesitated, looking around.

“But what?”

“Are we gonna move in here?” she asked uncertainly. The way she asked made it seem like she really didn’t want to.

I had been considering that, leaning towards yes, actually. “I’m not sure,” I said. “You don’t want to?”

“No. It’s...I mean it’s a lot nicer than where we are now, and bigger, just...”

“Too many bad memories,” Megan said unhappily.

“Then we won’t move in here,” I said.

“You sure? I know it’d be better than where we are now...” Megan replied.

“I’m sure. We’re fine in the cabin. Though we may want to consider carrying a bed over so you don’t have to sleep in the chair.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Thank you,” Delilah murmured, looking relieved.

I kissed her forehead. “You’re welcome. Now, yell if anything’s wrong. Also...”

I shrugged out of my pack and opened it up. I took a moment to reload my twenty-two and gave it to her, and the box of bullets to put in her pocket.

“You do know how to use one of these, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m not a great shot, but yeah. I won’t shoot myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Delilah replied.

“Okay.”

I considered what to give Megan, then ultimately gave her the third pistol I’d found from our little shootout. It was another nine millimeter. I liked my own new nine, but I thought the forty-five would be a bit much for her. She was strong, yeah, but it had one hell of a kick.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting it and a spare magazine. The way she took the current magazine out, checked it, then slipped it back in made me relax. She knew her way around the sidearm, at least. And she’d proven she was a good shot.

“Yep,” I replied, pulling my backpack on again. I stood. “Let’s get to work.”

~

The rest of the day wound out slowly in the chill of the abandoned campgrounds.

I worked my way through all the buildings, working slowly and methodically, doing my search thing. Under, behind, within. It seemed like despite how stupid they appeared, the group here had at least managed to scour the place in the months they’d been here. But it was meditative, and it went a long way towards calming me down.

Those men deserved to die.

That’s what I believe.

There was doubt, there’d just about always be doubt, but it was minimal here. Honestly, I had bigger doubts about letting that shifty asshole live. I believed in redemption, to be honest. I believed that a terrible person could turn themselves around and become a force for good in the world, or, at the very least, not be a force of evil any longer. I also believed that it was really rare. People don’t want to change. It’s difficult and painful and just no fun at all most of the time. These guys had clearly already long since talked themselves into thinking that capturing women and selling them like pets was totally acceptable.

If I’d disarmed them, beat them, then sent them on their way, I honestly believed they’d just be right back to it in a week or two. However long it took them.

Because how many politicians and business executives and Hollywood big shots had been caught doing sick, twisted shit over the past few decades? How many of them, (a lot of them dudes, I’d noticed, not all of them, but definitely over half), had stared into a camera and solemnly apologized and promised to never, ever do the bad thing they’d been caught doing again? And you knew they were full of shit. Maybe not every last one of them, but almost all of them were just sorry they got caught. And this time around they’d be more careful.

Yeah, I believed in redemption, but it was by far the exception, not the rule.

The rule was: You give them another chance and they’re just gonna do it again.

Maybe that was one of the upsides of this new world, just like Megan had said. Now, we could just put bullets in their heads. No cops to take six months to figure out what to do, no judge to go ‘eh, I don’t wanna ruin their lives, they’re nice young men and I’m sure they won’t do it again’, no society to tell the woman she was a fucking lying slut. None more of that system that was designed to let monsters get away with it.

I preferred this new method, even if I didn’t like it at all.

I still don’t know why people can’t just fucking not be evil. I mean I get it, there’s ambiguity out there, there’s shades of gray, but this shit!?

This was clearly evil.

Like straight-up, no bullshit fucking evil.

And they laughed while they did it. They knew exactly what they were doing. How did they live with themselves? How could they be okay with that? How could they be so inhuman? I think the fact that they were comfortable treating humans like cattle disturbed me a lot more than the fact that I was getting more comfortable with murdering my fellow humans.

These were the thoughts that haunted me as I searched.

We spent the entire day clearing that place out, searching it top to bottom, each of us giving it a go-over and gathering up every last scrap of material, every last resource. When you found a bounty like this, you had to make the absolute most of it, and make it last as long as you could. When we had found everything, we spent almost two hours hauling it all back to the cabin. It took three trips. Two for all the materials, and one more for another mattress we found the same size as the one me and Delilah were sleeping on.

It was to be Megan’s bed.

The whole day, and all of the following day, actually, was a daze to me.

Once we’d gotten everything safely home and set up, and I’d done my chores, I had pretty much just passed out. I was in a shit mood and exhausted and I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t even fuck Delilah that night. I did when I woke up the next morning. I fucked her hard and fast, pounding her into the mattress until she orgasmed twice, and then I pumped her full of my stuff and then I got up and got to work on my chores.

I spent most of the day taking Delilah to the convenience store she hadn’t had a chance to finish searching, and then to the barn and the farmhouse. We didn’t talk much and she could tell I was disconsolate. She tried to cheer me up but I was kind of in a funk. I’d had nightmares last night and they had been bad.

For some reason I kept thinking about that blonde guy.

I didn’t want to, but the way he’d just told us why he’d done what he’d done…

I don’t know, it bugged me and I kept trying to put it out of my mind.

When we were finished searching all the buildings that I knew about on this side of the highway, save for the cabin way deep into the woods, I wasn’t willing to go back there, (Delilah managed to find a handful of items among the farmhouse at least), we went back to the cabin and I spent the rest of the day doing chores and sorting through the stuff we’d managed to track down. It wasn’t as much as I had hoped, but it was more than I’d feared.

There was about another two week’s worth of food between the three of us now. There were a good twenty cans of meats, fruits, and vegetables. There was also an assortment of wolf, rabbit, and deer meat, but most of it was fucking useless because the dipshits hadn’t stored it properly and a lot of it had started to fucking rot.

There was also some goddamned toiletries. Oh thank God, praise the good lord, there was fucking soap and toiletpaper! There was even some shaving supplies. And a fucking pair of fingernail clippers. Good lord I’d forgotten how much I had missed having one of those. There were also a few canteens, several more pots and pants and other stuff we could store water and food in. Including two single-gallon jugs, which would be pretty useful as well. There was also some very useful fire-staring supplies. Another lighter and a big box of matches, though the box was damn near empty. And, of course, there was some illicit shit.

They’d gotten their hands on a few bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, a bunch of hand-rolled cigarettes, and some weed.

As for their arsenal, it wasn’t as big as I’d hoped. The pistols had been a good find, but when we finally tracked down the rifle, it became obvious why the guy up top hadn’t been using it: it was busted. I don’t know what had happened or why, probably something stupid, but it looked like someone had used it like a baseball bat. We took it anyway, because I might be able to fix, but worst case scenario, I could sell it as scrap.

There was also a shotgun, but it was not only drained of shells, (and we hadn’t found any anywhere), but it was in shit condition. It needed a thorough cleaning and repair, and I did not have the tools or supplies to make that happen.

So that meant we’d gotten a pair of nine millimeters, the forty-five, and the gun the scrawny bastard had been trying to smuggle out was a ten-shot twenty-two in half decent condition. All in all, not a bad haul, I guess.

Finally, night fell on the second of two of the longest days I’d felt like I’d gone through in a long time.

And that was saying something.

EIGHTEEN

“And with that, my friends, I am fucking done for the day, and I am drinking,” Megan said as she took off her boots and her coat.

She’d just come in from collecting the last batch of firewood.

The sun was down, the skies were gray, and I thought it was going to storm again tonight.

I sat at the table, looking over the supplies that were still laid out on it. I had been contemplating either getting buzzed or getting high. I was honestly leaning towards getting high. The taste of alcohol had never sat well with me.

But I looked at Megan as she said that, and she must’ve sensed my eyes on her. She turned to look at me. “What...you’re not like a prude about getting drunk are you?”

“No, no,” I replied quickly. “I don’t care if you do. I just...” I shifted uncomfortably, unsure if I should bother approaching the problem or not.

“Come on, out with it,” she said as she got her coat off, then her sweater, and sat down across from me.

Despite the unhappiness I’d sunk into over the past two days, I did notice that she’d relaxed a fair amount, and seemed to trust me more. She was at least being nicer to me.

“Okay, I don’t want to piss you off,” I said, “by it seeming like I’m assuming anything. But I feel like I need to say this, if you’re going to get drunk.”

“Kay...” she murmured, waiting, tensing at least a little.

I sighed. “It’s nothing bad. Just...if you’re intending to sleep with me tonight, I’d like to know now, before you get drunk. Because unless we already have a clearly established relationship, I’m not comfortable sleeping with drunk chicks. I mean, I like it, obviously. Women are...really wild when they get drunk, I’ve noticed. But I don’t want you to fuck me while drunk and then get upset about it the next day. I want, you know, to be completely sure, one way or the other, what my answer should be if it comes up while you’re drunk.”

She stared at me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that stare.

She looked like...she was having a hard time believing me.

“So you’re serious, right?” she asked.

“What? Yeah. What you think I’m fucking joking?” I asked, my voice a bit sterner than I meant it to be, but I was still stressed.

“No. Sorry. Just...I don’t know if I’ve ever had this conversation. Um...yeah, I guess if we’re gonna talk about it, then yes, I’ve decided that I’m cool with having sex with you. So yeah, you can drunk fuck my goddamned brains out. I want to ride that dick just like Delilah does,” she said with an encouraging smile.

I laughed softly. That did make me feel better, at least.

“Good to know,” I said.

“What about me?” Delilah asked. I glanced over. She had on a low-cut tanktop and was leaning forward, her big, pale breasts nearly falling out of her shirt. “I guess if we’re gonna talk about it...are you into chicks?”

“Yeah, honestly, and you’re one of the hottest chicks I’ve seen in a long time,” Megan replied. “But...not tonight. I need a little more time to get back into the sex game. Soon, though. I promise. We’ll swap oral.”

“Oh fuck yes,” Delilah whispered, grinning broadly. “You are so fucking hot.”

“You two really think I’m that good looking?” she asked.

“Yes,” we both said at the same time.

She laughed. “I guess I’ll just appreciate it and take your word for it. I have to admit, having two hot people wanting to sleep with me is doing a lot for my mood. Plus having those shitheads be gone forever helps a lot.” She reached out and grabbed one of the bottles of wine suddenly, then grunted with effort trying to get the cork out. When she couldn’t, she shoved it at me suddenly. “You’re big and tough, do the big strong guy thing and open this.”

I laughed as I took it. “Oh so you’re cool with that trope?” I asked.

“Nothing wrong with asking for help,” she replied.

I pulled the cork out and passed the bottle back to her. “I happen to agree.”

“I bet you never ask for help,” she said, then took a long drink.

“I ask for help,” I replied.

“Yeah, help busting a nut,” she muttered after the drink.

Delilah giggled and held her hand out. “Mind sharing?”

“No,” she replied, passing her the bottle.

Delilah took it and drank. She looked at me. “I know we’re gonna fuck,” she said.

“Yep,” I replied.

“You want some?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, reaching out and grabbing the baggie that held a collection of hand-rolled blunts. I pulled one out, grabbed a lighter, and stuck the blunt in my mouth. “Hope they didn’t cut this shit with anything,” I muttered as I lit up.

“Didn’t take you for a stoner,” Megan said with a smirk as she took the bottle back and had another healthy swing.

I took a long pull on the blunt, held it, felt it fill my lungs, then coughed it out. “I’m not really,” I said after I was done coughing. “I did it here and there, usually with my friends. I make a habit not to get into addictive substances at all.”

“Weed isn’t addictive,” Megan replied.

“I don’t know about that,” I murmured, staring at the handful of blunts in the little baggie. “I guess I’d agree that the substance itself isn’t addictive, but I do think the state it brings on is. Like, God, if there was a button I could push to just take away my stress and anxiety like weed does most of the time, there were times where I’d burn that fucker out. But it’s better to not come to rely on it. You need to learn to deal with your anger and anxiety and fear and stress without any kind of chemical crutch.”

“What about people who need antidepressants?” Delilah asked. “Or anti-anxiety meds?”

I sighed heavily. “Obviously if you need those pills then you need them, although goddamn are they fucked nowadays. Probably tough to get even a semi-regular supply of that kind of stuff. But it’s not like I had a problem with psych meds before the snow. I wished more people had access to them because I’ve seen what a goddamned change they can make. They aren’t miracle cures, but sometimes they help so much. And it’s not even like I look down on people who drink or smoke all the time. Life is fucking stressful and you get by how you can. I was just lucky enough to win the genetic lottery in that my brain and body are chemically balanced well enough that I don’t get crazy stressed out or crazy anxious, to the point where I need pills to fix it.”

“You sure of that?” Megan asked.

“Yeah, I actually got one of those genetic tests. It checked to see if I had any of the genetic markers for chemical imbalance, for anything that might cause extra anxiety, depression, anger problems. I had some anger problems, and the chemical that caused it, I can’t remember what it’s called, was a bit high, but they wanted to see if I could get it under control through some behavioral therapy and it worked.” I shrugged. “Like I said, I was just lucky.”

“Apparently. You’ve got two hot chicks that want your cock,” Delilah murmured.

I laughed and took another hit. “Yes, definitely extremely lucky there.”

We fell silent after that, just listening to the fire crackle and the wind blow. I got through half my blunt. It was good, and I didn’t think there was anything in it but weed. I could feel it going to work on me, my head feeling light, a sort of lethargy gently settling onto my body, a releasing of tension. I still felt a little shitty, but much less so.

“So, Chris...” Megan said cautiously.

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “I mean, I figured you wouldn’t be jumping for joy after what we did, but you still seem fucked up. Are you like...okay?”

I sighed heavily. “Maybe I should talk about it,” I muttered.

“Talking usually helps, I’ve found,” Delilah said. “That’s one of those things people always say but most people also think is bullshit. But if you find someone you can trust, I think just talking about what’s on your mind is kinda like sucking the poison out, you know?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I replied, then hesitated further, frowning at the two of them. They were both so fucking attractive, even looking haggard, hair messy, no makeup, not wearing clothes that were designed to show off every fucking curve and contour. They were both so goddamned beautiful.

“What’s got you hesitating?” Megan asked.

“I guess...a separate issue,” I admitted. “You remember how over the past couple of decades you kept hearing about women who were talking about how they wished men would open up and talk about their feelings more? I know so many guys who did that shit and got burned. Shit, I got burned.”

“Burned how?”

“I’d open up, show some fucking vulnerability, and actually fucking talk to my girlfriend if something had pissed me off or made me sad. And she’d fucking use it against me! Whenever an argument came up she’d use that fucking shit against me. Anytime one of my girlfriends was mad at me they’d go reaching for that ammunition I’d given them. I was feeling self-conscious about something? Oh yeah they’re all sweet and innocent when they want you to ‘open up and share’, but the second they’re pissed, they’re spitting it back in your face, hitting you below the belt, hitting those weak spots that you showed them.”

“Every girlfriend you had was like that?” Megan asked.

I smirked sardonically, crossed my arms, and stared at her.

She stared back, not understanding for a few seconds, then she sighed. “Okay, fuck, yeah. I get it. Point made. I’m being a hypocrite.”

“How are you being a hypocrite?” Delilah asked.

“Chris and I were talking earlier. I kept feeling the need to tell him, over and over, certain things, or distrust him whenever he said something nice to me. And I told him it was because basically every guy I’d been with had used me somehow, which as an exaggeration...so point made.”

“Not every girlfriend,” I said. “But at least half. And I heard a lot of stories. It was fucked up. I don’t know, women go on and on about how they don’t want their boyfriends and husbands to try to measure up to some impossible standard where you’re one hundred percent badass one hundred percent of the time and you’re completely stoic and nothing ever bothers you and you never ever lose even once and you always know how to handle every situation. Which most people would agree sounds fucking stupid, right? But that’s what society has told us we hetero dudes need to be. Especially if you look like me. And women say ‘it’s fine, you don’t need to be like that.’ But then you let your guard down, admit that you don’t know something, admit that you’re scared of something, or hurt, or whatever, and they’ll either use it against you, or it’s like...planting a seed.

“It’s like it’s a seed that grows over the next few years and eventually becomes them leaving you because ‘they want a real man’.” I heaved a sigh and took another hard pull. “I’m probably blowing it out of proportions and generalizing. People are bad about that, I’ve come to learn. And there’s a lot of great women out there. I’ve seen a lot of really great women who aren’t like that. It’s just frustrating because it’s like people lack self awareness. They just say anything that’s on their mind in the moment and assume they’ll feel the same way forever. They want their man to be more vulnerable in that moment? They say that.

“But then they see some fucking meme or hear from their friend or something about what a ‘real man’ is and they think back to that moment of weakness and they start to wonder. Maybe they don’t want him to show vulnerability.” I shook my head. “Fuck, I don’t know. I got off track.”

“I’m not gonna use this shit against you, Chris,” Megan said. “You don’t have to worry about any of those mind games with me. I don’t pull that bullshit.”

“Yeah, and I’m obviously a really big fan,” Delilah murmured.

“But would you still be if you saw me afraid? What if you saw me cry? How well would your fandom hold up then?” I asked.

She shifted, considering it. “I’d like to think that I would be okay with it. And, I mean, it’s not like we’re actually dating...” she murmured.

I laughed. “Yeah, there is that. Okay, whatever. This is what’s up: I was thinking about that blonde guy. He didn’t seem like a terrible person. But he was involved with terrible people. I guess I got to thinking about how easy it is for not-terrible people to make the switch over to doing sick, twisted, awful shit. Like...it’s easier than we all think to talk ourselves into doing fucked up shit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an excuse or anything, I just think not everything is as simple as everyone would like it to be.”

“In my experience, people want to shove everything into a category. Usually one of two,” Megan said. I could tell by her expression and the way she was talking that the wine was going to work on her. “So I’m with you there. I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page that I don’t fucking care how you got there, why you got there, or anything else: rape is fucking evil, and there’s no fucking excuse for it.”

“Yeah I’m with you there,” I said.

She looked at me suddenly. “Have you ever-”

“No!” I replied. She stared at me. I sighed. “No, I really haven’t. And yeah, I know what that means. I was never one of those guys who kept fucking asking until he got a yes, I never threatened or intimidated, never did it with someone too drunk to say yes, none of that shit. We’ve been over this, Megan.”

She sighed suddenly and looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said, and it was probably the most genuine apology I’d ever gotten from her. “I’ve been treated like shit a lot. And usually by guys that look and sound like you. Not like you, necessarily, physically, I mean. But they have that kind of same persona about them, you know? Tough. Confident and arrogant. It can be hard to parse those two things out. And that isn’t fair to you. I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, and so far you’ve been nothing but great to me, and I’ve been bad to you.” She looked back at me, suddenly smirking. “I’m really gonna make it up to you.”

I laughed a little. “Well...I’m not gonna stop you,” I replied.

“Obviously.”

I felt better after that, although I wasn’t entirely sure why. I guess just talking really did help. Or maybe it was the weed, or the fact that Megan seemed to actually like me now. Or maybe not like me, but trust me. I had the suspicion that she had liked me kind of early on, but she didn’t really trust or even like the fact that she liked me. I could respect that, honestly. People had a way of taking advantage of stuff like that. Just because your gut reaction was to like someone didn’t mean they weren’t a cruel piece of shit who would fuck you over at the next possible opportunity. Trust was harder than ever to come by nowadays.

I finished off the blunt. I wanted to do a second one, but I didn’t. One was enough and they would make excellent trading opportunities. So would the cigarettes.

After she’d polished off about half the bottle of wine, Megan stood up suddenly. “I’m going to go...freshen up,” she said, grabbing one of the thermoses of water I’d made earlier, as well as a bar of soap, a rag, a towel, and one of the razor blades, “so don’t start without me.”

“Don’t be too long, I’m horny when I’m drunk,” Delilah said.

“So am I,” Megan admitted. “I’ll try not to be long.”

I couldn’t help but check out her jeans-clad ass as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

“God, she is hot,” Delilah whispered. I looked back at her. It was obvious that she’d been doing the exact same thing I’d been doing.

“Yeah, she is,” I replied. I stood up after a moment. “Why don’t do you wash up and get ready? I’m pretty horny myself.”

“Yes sir,” she replied with a drunken glee. She took another swig, then set the bottle down and got to her feet, where she almost fell over.

“Jeez, you’re a lightweight,” I muttered as I reached out and steadied her.

“Duh,” she replied. “Fucking look at me. But it means I don’t have to piss away a lot of stuff to get drunk.” She paused. “I was gonna say money, but we don’t use money anymore.” She laughed suddenly and almost fell over again.

“How drunk are you?” I asked.

“Not as drunk as I seem. I’m more just really happy. Like really happy. I’ve got you and Megan here with me, and the bad people are gone, and we’re gonna have sex, and it’s gonna be so awesome tonight,” she replied. “And you’re gonna help me get to that town.”

“Yes I am,” I replied.

She took off her shirt. “And until we get there, I am going to ride your dick like a fucking whore every night and every morning.”

“You really like fucking me, huh?” I asked as her bra came off.

“Duh! You’re awesome to fuck, and I can go bareback with you without worrying. That’s so awesome. I fucking hate condoms,” she said, unbuttoning her pants. I was still staring at her tits. Holy shit it still amazed me how perfect her tits were. They were fucking porn star tits. “They fuck up the feeling and it’s just a lot more, I dunno...like, we’re closer when we fuck raw. It would have been not as close if we’d had to use a rubber.”

“I’m in full agreement,” I replied, and took off my shirt.

NINETEEN

Her pants came off, then her panties. She kept her socks on. We all did, because the floor was cold pretty much everywhere you went nowadays. I stripped naked as well, and went to another pot we’d set aside, by the fire to keep it warm, and got one of the washrags we’d actually managed to find among the possessions tucked away at the campgrounds and another bar of soap, and got to washing up. Delilah joined me, and soon we were washing each other. I ran the rag across her back, and then she ran it across mine.

Honestly, I really enjoyed little stuff like this. Raw fucking like rabid animals was great, but holding hands, washing each other, having a woman run her fingers through my hair, reading to each other, all that stuff made the relationship, I think. Or maybe that stuff is made it a relationship. And what I had with Delilah was definitely a relationship at this point. When you have enough of them, you get to a point where you could just tell, and it could happen fast. Now, that didn’t necessarily mean the other person would agree, they might have been letting themselves slip into relationship mode without realizing it.

Which was fine, I think another part of a relationship is that it has to be a conscious choice on both party’s behalf.

Delilah seemed very happy with where we were. Honestly I was the one having doubts, because I didn’t know how long it would last, but I knew I would almost certainly leave before she wanted me to leave.

But that was later.

Now was sex. Awesome fucking sex.

We finished washing up and dried off, then sat on Megan’s mattress, which we’d put by the fireplace, and let the warmth wash over our naked bodies.

“I wonder if we could convince her to let us put the two mattresses together on the floor,” Delilah murmured.

“It’d be more comfortable,” I said.

“Let’s pitch it to her when she comes out. We’ve got a sheet big enough to put the two of them together now, right?”

“Yeah, although hopefully she won’t see it as us trying to pressure her into doing stuff with you,” I murmured.

“I don’t need to pressure her,” Delilah replied with a smile. “She already basically admitted she’s in lust with me.”

“Who the hell isn’t?” I replied.

She laughed. Then she let out a long, happy sigh and fell back onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling. “God, it’s been so fucking long since I’ve been drunk. Since I’ve been in a place where I felt fucking safe enough to be drunk.”

“You can’t have been drinking that long,” I replied.

“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t really wanna through my teen years, so I stayed away from it. It always smelled so bad to me. Then, you know, twenty first birthday, some shit survives even the apocalypse. I was with friends, and they convinced me to drink. I decided what the fuck, why not? I didn’t get blackout smashed, I didn’t drink ‘til I puked, but I got buzzed, then I got drunk, and it was just...nice. It was actually nice. I liked it. Usually enough time passes between drinks that I always forget how good it feels.”

“Kind of the same with me and weed,” I said.

I laid back and we laid there together until the bathroom door opened up. We both sat back up and turned around, looking at Megan.

She came out butt naked and right away I could see what she’d meant by freshening up. She raised her arms. “So, what do you think?”

She’d shaved. Her pubic hair, her legs, under her arms, apparently using the soap as lather. Not as good as actual shaving cream, but I knew it could work in a pinch.

“Really nice,” Delilah murmured.

“Yeah, nice,” I agreed.

“Thank me,” she said as she walked over, “I did it for you.”

“It’s not like I asked you to or gave you shit about it,” I replied.

She rolled her eyes. “I know, but don’t pretend like you don’t prefer it.”

“Okay, fair enough. Yeah, I prefer my women shaved,” I replied. “I had a suggestion.”

“Oh?” she asked, standing at the foot of the bare mattress we were on.

“We could put the two mattresses together on the floor and make it like a queen size that we could all sleep on. You down for that?”

She thought about it, then shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”

“Cool.”

Delilah and I got up and we made it happen as fast as we could. The fact that Megan pitched in meant she was just as turned on and horny as we were. We got the mattresses pushed together, sheets over it, (a towel down for where Delilah was gonna fucking come), and all the blankets and pillows we could gather. I wanted this to be a decadent night in whatever way we could manage, because after all the shit I’d gone through recently, and all the even worse shit these two had gone through, I figured we all had earned it.

All three of us ended up naked on that bed. Delilah pretty much pounced on me right away, apparently unable to contain herself, and started making out with me intensely as she wrapped her fingers around my cock and started massaging it. I started groping her big tits. I’d been wanting to do that all goddamned day long. There was an immediate and powerful joy that hit me as soon as I began feeling her up, grasping her bare breasts. Her lips and her tongue were as wonderful as I remembered and we made out with an intense enthusiasm.

After a bit, I felt Megan’s hand on my shoulder and broke the kiss.

“You gotta share now,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” Delilah replied, breathing heavily, her eyes wide and excited.

“You like seeing people do it just as much as me, don’t you?” Megan asked.

“Oh yeah, big time,” Delilah replied.

I started kissing Megan. She moaned and kissed me back and then I was feeling her tits up. Damn, she had some really nice ones too. I thought of her sweet ass, how good it looked in those pants she’d been wearing, and slid my hand down to the firm curve of her hip, then back around, groping the thick swell of her ass.

“Fuck, you have such a hot ass,” I whispered between kisses.

She grinned. “Do I now?”

“Yes. Seriously. It’s amazing.”

“It really is,” Delilah said. I could feel her pressed against my back, her boobs pushed up against my bare skin. She was still touching my dick.

“I’m glad I’ve got so much approval,” Megan murmured, then kept kissing me, pushing her tongue into my mouth. I could taste the alcohol on her breath and that gave me another shot of lusty excitement. There was a unique pleasure to fucking a woman who was drunk. Now that I had her permission, I threw myself wholeheartedly into the encounter. I kissed her for awhile longer, then started fingering her and sucking on those wonderful tan tits of hers again. Good fucking hell did I love sucking on tits.

She moaned and enjoyed the attention for a bit, then she gently pushed me back. “Okay Chris, it’s my turn to suck on you,” she said. “I promised I would.”

“Have at it,” I replied, laying on my back.

“Can I join you?” Delilah asked.

Megan smirked. “You just wanna kiss me.”

“Is that so wrong?” the redhead replied.

She laughed. “No, it isn’t...I bet Chris would enjoy having two women work on his cock than just one, huh?”

“I would,” I agreed.

“Okay, you can join me. Maybe we can kiss. You’ve got really nice lips,” she murmured.

“So do you,” Delilah replied.

The two women shifted until they were down lower, their faces by my cock, and they both leaned in and touched their tongues to the head of my dick. I groaned loudly. Now this was a study in hedonism. The two women began licking across my head, dragging their wonderful tongues slowly across it, occasionally licking up the shaft and sometimes touching tongues together. They looked marvelously erotic.

Honestly, I was hard-pressed to think of anything else I’d seen in my life that turned me on more than what I was seeing right now. In this moment, they both seemed like the most attractive, seductive, erotic women on the face of the planet. Delilah turned and kissed Megan’s cheek. The woman paused, smiled, then turned and kissed Delilah on the lips. The redhead hesitated just a second, then she pressed her lips to Megan’s and began making out with her intensely. Apparently it was all the opening she needed.

Megan seemed surprised, though not unpleasantly, and kissed her back.

When they parted lips, Delilah looked at her with that drunk smile and said, “You know, I don’t mind if you both use me to get off.”

“You really like being used like a piece of meat, don’t you?” Megan asked.

“I do,” she agreed. “I don’t know why, but for the right people, I absolutely love being used like a fucking whore, like nothing more than a fucktoy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Megan replied, and then she took my dick in her mouth.

“Aw fuck, Megan...” I groaned loudly, placing a hand over the back of her head.

She started bobbing it smoothly, and I could tell that what she’d said earlier about being good with her mouth wasn’t a boast. She was good at sucking dick. Her lips glided smoothly up over the head again and again, lavishing me with pure hot pleasure, making my cock throb in response. She kept at it for a solid minute before taking it out of her mouth and passing it to Delilah, who licked up the whole bottom of my cock, starting at the base, then slipped it smoothly into her mouth. Watching my dick disappear between those luscious red lips was an intense pleasure all its own. Especially with the way she stared at me.

“Oh my fucking God, Delilah,” I whispered, staring at this shockingly beautiful redhead as she blew me like she was fucking in love with me. She moaned as she bobbed her head, taking it all the way to the back of her throat and then down it, deep-throating me and swallowing, making me twitch and groan loudly each time she did.

The two women passed it back and forth between themselves, and then Megan looked up at me. “Okay, I wanna fuck now. I’m so fucking horny and I just want a pounding.”

“Get on your hands and knees,” I replied.

“Oh you wanna hit it from the back?” she asked, giving me that tipsy grin.

“Fuck yes I do,” I replied.

“You got it. I really like that position.”

“I want to see this so bad,” Delilah said as they both got up.

Megan got onto her hands and knees and Delilah sat down on our side of the new bed, staring at the two of us with big eyes and a bigger grin. I got behind Megan pretty fast and found myself looking at her sweet ass. She was in pretty good shape and her ass definitely had that hot teardrop shape, narrowing up to her waist and thickening lower down. It had a nice heft to it and her pussy looked so fucking good, so damned inviting.

My erection was so bad it almost hurt.

“Can I come in you this time?” I remembered to ask as I got up against her, laying one hand on her thick ass while grabbing my cock with the other.

“Yeah,” she said, “you can give me a creampie.”

“Oh thank God,” I muttered.

I slid my cock slowly inside of her and found her to be immediately, wonderfully, amazingly wet. She moaned so loudly, hanging her head as I put it inside of her.

“Oh fuck!” she cried.

“You like that?” I asked, well, almost growled at her.

“YES!” she yelled.

As I started fucking her, working my way into that sweet, raw pussy, I felt a surge of joy sweep over me. I knew what it was, and I intended to enjoy it while it lasted: I had done a really dangerous or difficult thing and not only gotten it out of the way, but gotten through it without a problem. There was elation in that, and given how absolutely miserable the world was and could be, you had to learn to take the victories where you got them, and enjoy them while you could. Because there was more than enough despair in your future.

So I fucked Megan doggystyle and loved every second of it.

I loved the swell of her wonderfully fit ass, how she looked on her hands and knees. I loved watching my cock going into her again and again. I loved how that felt, of course. God did raw pussy feel good, especially with a woman I was extremely attracted to and was still discovering sexually. I especially loved the fact that Delilah was there, naked, horny, and watching. I glanced over at her and she was just staring at us with a small, drunken grin. And I definitely loved the fact that I could do what I was about to do.

After pounding Megan’s wonderful vagina for a few moments, I gave her ass a smack, then pulled out and shifted over to Delilah.

“Spread your legs,” I said, shoving her onto her back.

She was one of those women who really liked being handled roughly.

“Yes, sir,” she murmured, opening her legs for me.

“Come on...” Megan complained, falling forward. “That wasn’t enough dick.”

“You’ll get yours, quit whining,” I replied as I slipped my cock into Delilah. Holy fucking shit she was just as wet as Megan.

Delilah let out a loud, long moan of bliss, interrupting whatever Megan was going to say in response to that, and I started right in on her. I looked down at her amazing, slim, pale body and her beautiful, huge tits.

“Good lord, Delilah, you have such an amazing rack,” Megan muttered, then yawned. “I mean wow, I am so fucking jealous.”

“Don’t be-ah! Yours are fucking perfect...oh! Chris!” she cried as my dick hit something sensitive.

I just grinned down at her and kept pounding her hard and fast, sliding my cock in and out of that tight, wet hole of absolute bliss. I reached out and groped one of her big breasts, enjoying that primal thrill of lust that came from grasping a big, bare breast. Shit, I was absolutely losing myself in their pussies. It was times like this that truly reaffirmed to me that sex was honestly one of the few things worth living for nowadays.

Survival was okay, little accomplishments and overcoming challenges provided some nice emotional feedback, eating something that tasted great was nice, and the burst of nostalgia that hit when you found something awesome from your past was sweet, but god-fucking-damn was unprotected sex just an absolute fucking blast. It was thrilling, it felt stupidly good, and because of the way I tended to do it, it gave me a sense of intimacy that I sometimes craved very deeply. When Delilah stared up at me with her drunken, tired, lust-filled eyes, I could tell that she was damn near in love with me, and there was probably no one else in the world she’d rather be fucking right then. I knew how she felt, because I felt the same way about her.

Of course, I had a choice.

I screwed that sweet pussy until I couldn’t stand it anymore, prepared to pull out and hold off that first orgasm, but fucked up and tripped at the finish line.

Fuck it, I thought, and instead of pulling out, just began fucking faster.

Thrusting wildly into her, making her scream, I started moaning loudly as I was shot towards an intense orgasm. It didn’t take more than five seconds before I started letting off inside of her.

“Oh my God! Oh fuck! Delilah! Holy shit!” I yelled, just totally incoherent with bliss as I pumped that pussy full of my stuff one, hard contraction at a time. My cock jerked and kicked and twitched and spasmed. Each time it did, it shot out another spurt of my seed into her. Fuck, if I didn’t have that birth control implant, Delilah would’ve been so fucking impregnated right now. Shit, the thought of me knocking her up just made me come harder.

It was a hell of an orgasm. It was like diving into a sea of pure pink pleasure, washing my whole body in uncut bliss, temporarily taking away all my aches and pains. I filled her pussy up and when I was finished, opened my eyes and looked down at her.

She was staring up at me.

“Were you come too?” I asked, panting.

She grinned. “Yeah.”

“I couldn’t tell...fuck, that was so good.”

“Goddamn, man. That was probably the most intense orgasm I’ve ever seen a dude have,” Megan murmured. She was laying on her side now.

“It was good,” I repeated, getting my breath back. Then I pulled out of Delilah. Megan’s eyes flicked to my cock, which was still rock solid.

“How are you still hard after that?” she asked.

“I’m fucking horny tonight,” I replied as I moved over to her. I pushed her onto her stomach. “You ready for a creampie?”

“Yes,” she replied.

With her laid out on her stomach, I laid down against her backside and slipped my cock into her pussy again. I pushed myself up as I had with Delilah and looked down the length of her smooth back and her fantastic ass and my cock inside of her, then I resumed pounding. I listened to her moan and shout into the pillow, letting me just fuck the hell out of her. Something I liked about sex was all the unique feelings. It didn’t all feel the same. Getting head was its own distinct pleasure apart from pounding pussy.

Fucking one chick immediately after coming inside of another chick was its own unique bliss and I was enjoying that particular pleasure right now. I couldn’t always keep it up after coming, and sometimes my dick was too sensitive to even touch, but not now.

Now I was just fucking horned up beyond belief.

I fucking pounded her so goddamned hard something fell off the table behind us. After that, I yanked her back up into the doggystyle position, reached up under her, found her clit, and started rubbing it as I kept humping her.

“OH HOLY SHIT!” she screamed at the top of her lungs in unexpected pleasure.

Didn’t take long to make her come.

Didn’t take long for me to come again either.

We soon were locked together in orgasmic rapture, coming hard and intensely, pleasure washing through us like a broken dam. I fucking screwed that climaxing pussy as I filled her up just like I’d filled up Delilah.

It was heaven.

When I was done coming in her, I was definitely done...for a little while.

I pulled out and laid down in between them, staring at the ceiling, my head spinning a lot. I just felt...good.

“Wow. That was incredible,” Megan murmured. “I gotta be honest, I usually don’t hand out the compliments, guys are fucking full of their own ego enough as it is, but you are really good at sex. Holy fucking hell.”

“Thanks,” I replied, then I yawned.

“You’re not done are you?” Megan asked.

“No,” I replied. “Go get cleaned up you two, that was just round one.”

TWENTY

I woke up the next day to someone crawling on top of me.

“What’s going on?” I muttered, though it was good to feel hot, soft skin against my own. It felt even better when I felt a hand grip my cock then slide it into a hot, wet pussy.

“Your meat is free game now, and I know how much guys like having their morning wood fucked,” Megan replied in a breathy voice, then she moaned as she pushed me completely into her and began fucking herself with my cock.

I grunted, then groaned, the pleasure waking me up, rolling through me. “Does that mean your pussy is free game too? Can I just fuck you whenever I please?”

“It’s not the same,” she replied. “Are you ever not gonna be in the mood to fuck?”

“Hey, I treat you with respect, you treat me with respect,” I replied, then stopped, surprised at my anger. It was weird to feel angry, like actually angry, and be fucking at the same time.

She paused, then kept going. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. That’s fair. Put it this way: You’ve got as much free access to my hole as I have to your meat, but if I’m not in the mood, I don’t want arguments. I say stop, you stop, got it?”

“Understood,” I replied. Then I grinned, rebounding off my anger into a good, horny mood. “Not like I’ll have to worry about that, you’ve made it obvious what a sucker for my cock you are.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Now that I let you know how fucking good you are in bed you’re going to be insufferable aren’t you?”

“Not totally insufferable,” I replied, putting my hands behind my head and watching her fuck me, watching her tits bounce as she screwed my cock.

“Whatever, just shut up and let me come,” she muttered.

“As long as you do the same,” I replied.

She sighed but kept fucking me, closing her eyes. Gotta admit, this is a great way to wake up, and she had a point: I was never gonna complain. But double-standards did still kind of piss me off. Either way, she fucked me until she had orgasmed, and then she let me orgasm inside of her, which was more than enough of an apology, because holy shit was it good to come inside of Megan. I busted a huge nut inside of her.

“God, you fucking come so much,” she muttered as she got off of me and held a hand over her vagina to keep it from dripping everywhere.

“Apparently,” I replied. “Women complain about it often enough. I can’t really help it.”

“I kinda like it,” Delilah murmured sleepily.

“Yeah you would,” Megan muttered as she started cleaning up.

I got right up out of our new bed on the floor. I felt great. I’d been stoned last night, fucked into a coma, had a long, dreamless sleep, and then got fucked again in the morning. And I wasn’t quite living with nearly as much anxiety as I had been. Not only was I well-armed now, I had eliminated the worst threat in the region. Or at least the closest one. The other guys could be a lot worse, for all I knew. But I felt confident, and it was a good feeling.

Standing up, I stretched a few times, then took the opportunity to do some push-ups and sit-ups. What I wouldn’t give for a damn proper weightlifting set.

“You know, I don’t normally get impressed by dudes working out but...I have to admit, it’s working now that I like you,” Megan murmured as she continued cleaning herself.

“Glad to hear it. You getting turned on?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“I am,” Delilah said. “Can we fuck?”

I considered it, then nodded. “Yeah, lemme finish up.”

Ten minutes later I was done with my exercise, I’d made Delilah come and shot another load into her pussy, and was in the process of washing up after having tossed another log onto the fire. I didn’t hear any wind outside, which was good. Not perfect, I still needed to look out the window, sometimes the snow fell in perfect silence.

“So...we killed those assholes,” Megan said as she pulled her clothes on, “what’s the plan? Or are we just wanting to chill here in this cabin for awhile? Gotta be honest, I kind of like it here now that the big bad jerks are gone.”

“The plan,” I said, noticing an unhappy look from Delilah, (she must really want to get to that settlement), “is to first track down my stuff, and then get Delilah to the town she wants to go to. Although I’m not a hundred percent on how long that will take, I do intend to keep working on that first part continuously until it’s finished, and not letting an unreasonable amount of time lapse between finishing that goal and getting Delilah to that settlement.”

I looked at her as I said this last part, and so did Megan.

“Man, you really wanna be in that town, huh?” Megan murmured when she saw the look on Delilah’s face.

Delilah tried to relax. “I just...like being near civilization,” she replied.

I hesitated. Something about her told me she was lying. Did she have some other reason for going to that town? Well, if she did, I doubted it was bad or had anything to do with me. And if there was another reason, that was her business. I had agreed to get her there and keep her safe, and so far she was living up to her end of the bargain.

Although honestly she couldn’t help me all that much more in the second part. I was going to have to do the legwork on getting my shit back.

“Okay, so, your shit. Where is it and why isn’t it with you?” Megan asked.

I sighed. “The only reason I’m here is because I crashed during a bad storm. Some assholes robbed me while I was knocked out. Most of the stuff I can stand to lose, but some of it I can’t. I need it back and I’m not leaving without it. There was a chance the assholes we just attacked might have been the ones who’d done it, but it’s now obvious that they didn’t. None of the stuff there was mine. Which means the other group of assholes in the region must have it. So I’m going to do some recon on them, figure out if they might be open to negotiation, after all, they didn’t kill me and they could have easily, or maybe I can steal it from them. But we’ll see. Today I’m going to go do some legwork and check out what’s on the other side of the highway.”

“I want to go,” Megan said.

“All right,” I replied. Normally I liked being alone during times like this, but I had to admit, I liked having her around now.

“I’ll stay here and keep house,” Delilah said.

“I appreciate it,” I replied. I finished pulling my clothes on and set off to take care of the regular chores for the day.

I wanted to get them out of the way.

I was actually eager to get on with this.

~

We were on our way up the off-ramp on this side of the highway an hour later.

I decided to try and pick up a conversation. “What do you miss about before?”

She looked at me, almost like she was a little startled that I’d spoken, then looked ahead again. “What do I miss from before?” she murmured. “A lot of things. Electricity. The internet. Digital media. How easy it was to just go by a damned burger, like a good one. Maybe that’s what I miss the most: the food. Now you get by on what you can find, and you’re lucky if you can find it. I guess there’s a lot more fresh meat, but unless people have seasonings, it just...isn’t the same. Plus, it’s harder to find condiments now.” She paused, sighed miserably. “Soda. Good lord, soda.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Same.”

“What about you?”

“Rain,” I said.

She looked at me again. “Yeah, that’s a good answer. I hate the snow, I always have, but I got used to it. I miss warm, sunny days but by God do I miss rain. Taking a walk through the park when it was raining lightly, just misting. Staring through a window at a downpour.” She sighed wistfully.

“What’s better about things now?” I asked.

She laughed. “Not much.” Then she paused thoughtfully. “I guess...the gap between the work you put in and what you get out of it feels much narrower. So many people I know worked their fucking asses off just so that they could barely scrape by. But now, in most settlements, you put in a reasonable amount of work and you get something reasonable in return. Although some people are still dicks, the barter system is good.”

“It is nice...I guess for people like me, at least,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet you’re wicked good at bartering. You find cool shit and you’re big and intimidating even when you don’t try to be. You seem to have a decent understanding of human psychology,” she replied.

“I guess so.”

We reached the top of the ramp and crossed the highway over to the other side. For a moment, we just stood and stared.

“Now that’s a view,” Megan murmured.

I’d seen it before, so I glanced at her. “Yeah...it is,” I replied.

She looked over at me and blushed, then sighed, rolled her eyes, and started walking down the opposite ramp.

“You don’t take compliments well, huh?” I asked as I followed.

“No. I don’t. Far too many of them were either lies, or manipulations, or just being polite, or outright bullshit.” She fell silent again.

We kept walking and I looked out over the area once again. The off-ramp let out onto a little rest stop area. There were a couple of derelict cars, and I saw what was clearly a gas station, a little grocery story, and what might have been a restaurant.

I got good feeling when I saw the gas station, but it was just nostalgia.

“What are you ginning about?” she asked.

“Just...that gas station. A little while ago, I was in a bad situation. Got run out of the town I was staying in, walked for six days, got a gas station in the middle of nowhere. There was a woman there, Mary. She was in a desperate situation herself. Pretty much made the same off to me Delilah did. We hooked up. It was...really good. I got her to a little settlement a ways back from here and we got a small apartment together for a few weeks. Had a nice thing going.”

Megan frowned. “So why’d you leave? Why are you here?” She hesitated suddenly. “Or...did she not make it?”

“No, she’s fine,” I said. “I mean, as far as I know, she’s back at that settlement, in that apartment. I liked Mary a lot, but...” I sighed and shook my head. We hit the road at the base of the off-ramp and started heading for the first location of interest: an abandoned car. “I’ve got what I call the ‘wanderlust bug’. You know how it’s like everyone seems to have some sort of bug in them? Like, there’s that one thing they just gotta do? Even if it’s unreasonable?”

She sighed unhappily. “Yeah. Mine is fighting. Knew someone who had the drinking bug. Knew too many people who had the shopping bug.”

“Yeah. I got lucky...I guess. After all this happened, the bug reared its head at some point. And it’s like, no matter how good I have it, no matter how much I like the girl I end up with in a settlement, what job I find, the people I know...I gotta move on within a month or so. Sometimes just a week. And even the first day that I get there, I can just tell. I can just tell, you know? I look around, and it feels like coming to a motel. I know I’m not gonna stay.”

She looked at me in a speculative kind of way as we stopped at the car. I didn’t have much hope for it. The windows were bashed in, the trunk was open, so was the hood, and obviously the engine had been scrapped. But I walked around back and started looking in the trunk anyway. It was empty, but I felt around deeper in for stuff hidden in the shadows, and hidden compartments.

“That’s sad, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing,” she murmured.

“Oh yeah?”

She shrugged, suddenly unsure of herself. “I don’t know. Maybe. I guess...what it made me think of was, like, one of those old ‘pearls of wisdom’ was that kind of the one truly, actually good thing that a person could do to live a good life, like across cultures and ages and whatever, was to not let themselves get content and secure, and to keep improving themselves. It seems like the most successful people have that mindset. Maybe...in this world, that ‘wanderlust’ bug is that. I’ve met a lot of people who found a little place to live and they’re just gonna stay there until they die, be it two months or fifty years from now.”

I sighed, considering it. “I don’t know,” I said after a moment. There was nothing in the trunk, so I moved on to the backseat. “I don’t think any one way of living is any more valid than another.” I paused. “Well, I mean, the way those shitheads were living wasn’t valid. But you know what I mean. I think it’s really just down to a matter of what you want. I think for a lot of people, finding one place to live and putting down roots is fine, it’s what they want. It doesn’t make them lesser in any way. Honestly, I want to...someday.” I paused. “What I mean is, I want to want to, if that makes sense. I’d like to get rid of this wanderlust bug.”

“Huh,” she murmured. “So you wander less because you want to and more because you feel compelled to?”

“Lately, yeah,” I replied. Nothing in the backseat either. Fuck. I moved to the front, started poking around. “I really enjoyed it in the beginning, when I started over a year ago. Just wandering. I started in Florida. I made it here...we’re in Kansas, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Damn, that’s a long way.”

“Yep. But lately, I don’t know. It’d be nice to find a place to settle down. I just have no idea what that looks like. And it’s not just because I ‘haven’t met the right woman’. Believe me. I have. More than once. Some of the women I’ve met were a lot like you.”

She paused. “What do you mean?”

“Like you: brave, tough, confident.”

She laughed. “I am not confident.”

“Yeah you are,” I replied, looking up at her. I was now on the passenger’s side, rooting around in the glovebox, and she was seated in the driver’s side. “You obviously are. You got through all that shit that happened before you met me. You didn’t panic or give up. You dealt with it.”

“I was just...angry. And I didn’t really have a choice,” she replied.

I laughed, a little bitterly. “You’d be fucking surprised how many people will give up even when they don’t have a choice. I know confidence. You’re confident.”

She looked out through the dirty, snowy windshield for several moments, then snorted and shook her head. “Whatever.”

I think that’s what she said when she didn’t really know how to respond. I finished my search of the glovebox and confirmed that yep, there was not a damn thing in this car. We got back to walking, heading for the little intersection of buildings.

“Your turn,” I said.

“What?” she replied.

“Something’s on your mind. What’s up?”

She laughed derisively, blushing a little. “Nothing profound, I assure you.”

“Tell me.”

She sighed heavily, a little dramatically. “Fine. I just...can’t fucking believe that I let you come in my pussy. Twice. I let you fucking creampie me. It’s actually been a real long time since I’ve let a guy fucking do that to me. Honestly the lack of protection has killed my sex life. I know we had those big breakthroughs in the late twenties, and we knocked some of those big-ass STDs out of the way finally, but...they aren’t all gone. And having one before now was bad enough. Living with it now? God, it’d be fucking hell. Hell on top of hell.”

“Yeah, I get you,” I agreed. I sighed. “I know I’m not immune, but...shit, I don’t know. There’s still cures out there for the ones that are left, I think. It’s just a matter of finding them. But I feel you. Is that why you’re so free with me now? Now that you’ve crossed that threshold and let me not just fuck you raw but actually shoot my load into you, you see no real reason not to just stay on this side of that threshold?”

“Yeah basically,” she replied. “You’re hot, you’ve got a good-sized dick, a little too big, but I can get used to that, you’re good in bed, you fucking listen. Shit, that alone is worth the risk. That and the fact that you eat pussy.”

“Gonna let Delilah eat you? I bet she’d be good at it,” I replied.

She smirked and shot me another look. “You really wanna see us hook up, huh?”

“Duh, of course I do. You are two of the fucking hottest women I’ve ever fucked.”

“I believe that for Delilah, but for me? Come on. Surely you’ve fucked much hotter women.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m a more ‘in the moment’ kind of guy. It’s not like what I’m saying is bullshit, but to me, right now, you two are some of the hottest women I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. In an intimate sense.”

She scrutinized me for a moment, maybe trying to decide for herself if I was just buttering her up or not. I wasn’t, I meant what I said, and maybe that decided her. She just nodded. “Okay, fine. I’ll take it.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, you’ll take it.”

She groaned. “You’re gonna be like this from now on, aren’t you?”

“You don’t like it? You really seemed to be enjoying that dick earlier.”

“Of course I was. Just...don’t get too fucking cocky.”

“Okay,” I said. We stopped as we reached the section of road that sat between the structures. I looked around. “All right, let’s get to work.”

TWENTY ONE

Something else was bugging Megan.

I could just tell, despite her initial good mood, something was bugging her. Maybe she’d remembered something or thought of something that sent her down that path of anger or misery. I knew that well enough. We searched the two other derelict cars that were there, but they were picked as clean as a dead animal in the desert by vultures. Nothing left but the bones. It wasn’t surprising, and I didn’t expect to find much of anything. This little intersection was prime pickings. Anyone who passed through would’ve almost certainly made the little jaunt down here over the past two years. But I stuck to the search anyway.

We were most of the way through the little gas station, (it was as cleared out as I expected), before I decided to try again.

“Megan, what’s bothering you?” I asked.

She looked up at me. We were both behind the counter, hunting through the area. She looked a little startled, then maybe a little upset. A thing I’d learned about people: they really didn’t like it when you accurately guessed what was going on inside their head. I think that’s why people hate psychologists and therapists so much, movies made everyone think they’re master manipulators or mind-readers or something.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I’ll leave you alone if you want, but I am free to talk. Unless it’s about me. I can understand how that’d be weird.”

A full minute passed before she sighed. “It’s not you. It’s stupid. And it’s nothing new.” I waited. She was staring into the space under the front counter, but I could tell she wasn’t actually looking any longer. “It’s stupid,” she repeated. “I’m just...jealous of Delilah. I’ve known a lot of women like her: beautiful, a little dumb, they get by on their looks alone.” She let out a huff of irritation. “You know how many fucking studies they’ve done that prove, like objectively, that attractive people have it easier in life? People will trust you more, they’ll do nice things for you, they’ll beg for your attention if you’re attractive. Attractive people get promoted more often and make more money. Obviously they get more fucking action.”

“I doubt you’ve ever lacked for action,” I said.

She laughed bitterly. “Maybe. Enough guys have asked. But it’s true, about the bias.”

“Hey, you’ll get no argument with me.”

She looked at me again. “Yeah, you’ve got a great body, but you’re kind weird-looking.” I looked back at her. “Hey, I’m just agreeing! Not even bad-weird, just...scary-weird. Although it’s less like that now that I actually know you.”

I laughed. “Again, no argument from me. I know I’m in a funny-looking fucker. And I’ve seen it. Yeah, traditionally attractive people are playing life on easy. Rich people were playing life with cheat codes. Glad most of them are fucked now.”

“Yeah.”

We kept searching for stuff, but like the car, this place just seemed bone dry for resources. After poking around everywhere I could think of, I marked the gas station off my little mental checklist and we headed back outside. As we hit the little restaurant and started searching, I noticed that Megan’s mood didn’t really lift. I tried to split my attention between hunting and thinking of something to say that might cheer her up.

The thing was, I understood. I wasn’t sure if it mattered how many times Delilah or I told her we thought she was attractive. There was probably a part of her that was just broken and then reset incorrectly, and it had never healed properly. And might never. Lots of people had that stuff. I’d mostly banished my concerns about how attractive I was. My face used to bug me. It is kinda funny looking, and kind of sinister I guess. But I had long since learned that it didn’t really matter. I could hunt, I could survive, I could defend myself.

Those were all way better than being attractive.

But you never completely got over something like that. Sometimes it’d just come back and bug you. And it was way more likely to hang out if you’d been having a run of bad luck or shitty times. Which she most certainly had. Hell, I feel like for most people, even good days now feel like mediocre days at best.

The front part of the restaurant was a bust. Not even the tables or chairs had survived. Judging by the splinters and dust everywhere, hundreds of passers-by must have broken it all down to burn. In a way it hadn’t been for ten thousand years, fire was life for everyone. Same story with the pair of bathrooms tucked away in one corner of the place, not that I really expected anything to be hiding there. But we found a kitchen with a pair of closet-like supply rooms, a walk-in freezer, and an office hanging off the back.

“Megan...” I said as we checked through the second storage room. The first had been utterly empty, no places to hide anything, but there was a shelf and some boxes left in the second one.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Can I tell you something and you won’t repeat it?”

She looked at me, a look of curiosity on her face. “I guess it depends on what it is. Like if you’re gonna confess to me that you intend to kill Delilah in her sleep or something, I mean, I’m not gonna just sleep on that.”

I sighed and laughed a little. “God, you are so pessimistic!”

“Just being real,” she replied mildly.

“It’s nothing bad. Just...I don’t know. I thought it might help you feel better.” I hesitated, wondering if I was about to say something stupid.

“Okay, now I’m curious, what?”

Fuck it. “It know it’s not a cure for what’s got you down, but...I’m more attracted to you than I am Delilah.”

She frowned, scrutinizing me again, looking into my face, as if she was searching my expression for a lie, hidden somewhere cleverly in there.

“Why?” she asked finally, putting her hands on her hips.

“I mean...don’t get me wrong, I love submissive women. A lot. But I like your personality more,” I said.

She looked genuinely surprised. “Oh come on! Like half the things I’ve said to you since meeting you have been threats or insults or arguments. Probably closer to eighty percent. What, are you secretly a masochist? Are you one of those guys who gets off on being humiliated by a woman? Because hey, I can work with that.”

“No, I’m not,” I replied. “I just like that...you challenge me. Not many people do. Fewer women do. And I respect that...and find it really attractive.”

She laughed. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. But don’t get it confused: I’m not looking to be your girlfriend.”

“I know, I know. This isn’t me trying to raise the stakes on what we have going already. I don’t intend to, anyway. I’m just letting you know. I just thought...normally it helps people, it helped me, when you get told that you are attractive by someone you find attractive.”

“Who says I find you attractive?” she asked, crossing her arms. I stared at her. She sighed. “Yeah, okay, obviously I do.”

“Also, something that helped me stop worrying about it so much: as much as society likes to make it seem, although far less so now, being attractive isn’t the only metric of your value as a person.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, I hope it helps.”

I went back to searching.

“It does, actually,” she said after a moment, and walked over to me. She grabbed me and gave me a kiss on the mouth, smiled, then went back to work.

I smiled, too.

We kept searching.

~

The restaurant wasn’t a total bust.

We found some damned ketchup! It was in an unopened bottle and should probably still be fine. We also managed to find a can of black beans and a can of mixed vegetables. Whatever else we found was long since rotted to pulp.

That was pretty much the same deal in the grocery store. There was food left there, frozen over, but obviously rotted. We ignored it during our search, hunting fervently and systematically across all the shelves, underneath all the furniture, behind all the counters. I even ripped some vent coverings off and looked in there, though that didn’t provide anything useful. After just over an hour of searching, we came up with some matches, a pair of pants someone had abandoned sometime in the past, and a few more cans of food.

I walked back outside, ready to search the two other cars that were within visible distance. But the light was different, I could tell that right away, and so I looked up as I took the first step out of the grocery store.

A front of gray clouds had blown in while we were inside. It was going to snow again. Fucking great. Here I was ready to tackle the day, maybe push on to those lake houses and check them out, and now it was going to snow. I could just tell.

That was when I heard Megan scream my name.

I looked back down, sensing something ahead of me, and froze in pure shock at seeing the furry, sleek form of a wolf. It had come from around one of the cars not ten feet from me, low to the road, and with a growl it launched forward.

I fumbled for my gun but there was no time.

I threw my arm up instinctively as it leaped up to rip my throat out and its jaws locked onto my forearm. I yelled as its teeth dug in and I went down, hard, to the icy road. The pain was enormous, exploding in my arm as the teeth punctured skin. I was on my back, which screamed out in pain as well, the breath driven from my lungs.

“I can’t get a shot!” Megan shouted.

Then I heard a distant gunshot. Almost at the same time, the wolf jerked violently and I took the opportunity to throw it off me. Something warm had splattered my face and neck. It took me a full two seconds to put together that someone had just sniped the fucking thing.

“Get back inside! Now!” I yelled as I dove for the car and put myself alongside it, opposite the side the shot had come from. I glanced at the wolf. It had been a perfect headshot. Shit, how far back had those woods been? Or had they been in the woods? Who was it? The shot hadn’t come from the highway, I knew that.

No, whoever it was had positioned themselves in the opposite direction.

I peered cautiously around the edge of the car, I saw the flash of sunlight reflecting off a scope. Yep back at the woods, had to be a good five hundred yards away, and then another gunshot rang out. I expected either to die or to hear Megan scream, but instead I heard a startled yelp, then I hear beating footsteps, paws in the snow, running.

There had been more wolves. I squinted, staring hard, and could just barely make out a figure among the trees, holding the rifle. After a moment they stood and lowered the rifle. And stared right back at me, like they were waiting.

“Chris, who is it?” Megan asked from the store.

“No idea, but they saved our asses,” I replied. “I think they’re waiting for us to go.”

“I thought we were heading over there today?” she asked.

“No, it’s going to storm, we have to get back home.”

She sighed. “Yeah, okay. Can I come out now?”

“Wait,” I said, and got back to my feet. I walked around the back of the car and put myself in full view of the sniper. They didn’t move. I gave a little wave. I just barely made out a return wave, though it was brief. Huh.

“All right, come on,” I said.

Megan came out and cast a nervous glance at the distant trees, then we started walking away. “Shouldn’t we grab the wolf?” she asked. “That’s food.”

“No,” I replied.

“Why?”

“We’ll leave it as a thank you to whoever just saved my ass. Anyone that can shoot that good is a hunter, they’ll know what to do with a dead wolf,” I replied. “Now come on, snow could start coming down at any minute, and we’ve got a walk ahead of us.”

She nodded and we picked up the pace.

~

Sure enough, by the time we got home, it was snowing.

I’d taken the time to patch myself up during the walk.

By the time we actually got behind a closed door, visibility was down to maybe fifteen feet and the winds were blowing harshly. I hoped our savior had gotten somewhere safe. Might be worth checking out in the future. Could just be someone passing through, but for some reason I got the impression they lived in the area. And if that was true, then maybe they’d have some real information on the jerkoffs who’d robbed me.

But that was later.

For now, we were on snowstorm lockdown. We weren’t going anywhere. And sometimes that drove me out of my head with craziness from cabin fever or just frustration that I couldn’t make any progress on anything that wasn’t inside the four walls (or sometimes cave) that I currently occupied. But sometimes it was actually fucking awesome.

And almost always those awesome times had to do with the fact that there was a woman with me. Now, I had two women with me.

Two women who were happy to take off their clothes and open their legs for me.

And as I took off my coat and boots and pants, I saw Megan give Delilah a look. It was quick, but intense. I recognized that look. It was that I’m so going to fuck you look. I’d been lucky enough to get a lot of those looks since the snow started to fall. In a way, that was a little depressing. It took the end of the world for me to start getting regular action. Although I guess if I’d started acting like an asshole before then, maybe it would’ve worked out better.

Still didn’t understand all the exceptionally attractive women who hooked up with guys that were clearly treating them like shit.

But no, I didn’t want to get started on thinking about shit that bothered me in the past and put myself on track for a bad mood. It was too easy, even now. Instead, I made the decision to have today be a good day. Kind of an extension of the celebration we’d had yesterday, because I was tired. I’d been going for awhile, and I don’t think I’d still recovered properly from that crash. Parts of me were still sore and I’d been pushing a lot ever since the wreck. Sometimes it still surprised me how resilient and fragile the human body was.

Plus, something I’d learned somewhere along the way: you had to enjoy yourself while you could. Because you might not get a chance to for weeks, or months.

I finished getting out of my clothes, now down to a t-shirt and thermal underwear and socks, grabbed a blunt and a lighter, and sat down in the chair by the fireplace.

“So is that it?” Megan asked, taking a seat at the table across the cabin. “Are we done for the day?”

“Yep,” I replied. “At least I am. Getting attacked by wolves takes it out of you.”

“You got attacked by wolves?” Delilah asked. She’d been laying on the bed in her panties and a t-shirt, stretched out, reading one of the books I’d found. Her eyes went to my arm. “Oh shit, are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” I replied. “Someone saved us.”

“Who?”

“No idea. I think they’re friendly, or not an asshole at least. They could’ve killed us both, but they didn’t. I waved, they waved back. They were a ways away.”

“Huh,” she murmured. Then a smile came across her face as I put the blunt in my mouth. As I lit up, she got up, waltzed on over, and plopped down in my lap. “Well, if it’s all the same to you,” she said with a sweet as can be smile, “I’d like to get stoned and fuck all day, then.”

“Actually, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea,” Megan said.

Delilah’s eyes lit up with excitement and she twisted around in my lap as I finished lighting it up. I took a pull, held it, let it out slow.

“Does that mean you’re ready to do sex stuff with me?!” she asked, as excited as I’d ever seen her. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but ended up being happy about it. If she was gonna be more excited about having sex with someone else than me, who better than Megan? And it wasn’t like I was going to be missing out on it.

Megan smirked and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Delilah,” she said, a little patronizingly, “that means I’m ready to let you eat my pussy.”

“Good,” Delilah said. “You’ve got no fucking idea what I can do.”

“I saw you in action, you looked pretty amazing sucking dick,” she replied as she pulled one of the blunts out of the baggie and grabbed another lighter.

“Gimme,” Delilah said, turning back to me.

I let her have the blunt and puff on it. She let out a sigh of relief once she passed it back. “God, that’s so good. It chills me out so much.”

Megan and I both agreed quietly.

For a few moments, we all just sat there, getting high, relaxing. In a way, I thought weed was funny. Like, they spent a century making it illegal and fucking people over for no reason at all, even though beer was totally legal and fucked you up even worse, and then finally, when we actually get it legalized at a federal level, the apocalypse happens.

Go fucking figure.

It wasn’t long before I really started to get turned on. It didn’t help that Delilah was grinding her sweet ass into my crotch, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

After about five minutes, I decided enough was enough.

Time to fuck.

TWENTY TWO

“All right,” I said. “Get up.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Get up,” I replied.

She got up and looked at me, and that little smile on her face told me she knew fucking exactly why I wanted her to get up. I had a steel hard-on at this point and it was straining against my boxers and my thermal underwear.

“Take all your clothes off and go wash yourself, you little slut,” I said.

“Yes, master,” she replied demurely, and took off her shirt.

“You’re really good at that,” Megan said. I looked at her, considered whether or not to try pulling some of that ‘shut up and do what I say’ on her, but decided against it. I thought she might be into it, at least a little, but that wasn’t exactly something you sprang on someone, and she was volatile enough that it might piss her off, even with weed in her.

“What?” I asked.

“Telling someone what to do in a ‘you aren’t gonna fucking argue with me’ voice and somehow you sound neither stupid nor like a douche,” she replied.

“Well, it helps when she’s into it and it pretty much only happens during sex,” I replied.

“I guess so.” Megan leaned forward suddenly with a surprisingly wicked smile and fixed her eyes squarely on Delilah, who had just finished getting out of her panties. “Delilah. We are going to use you like a worthless piece of fuckmeat.”

Delilah froze where she was for just a few seconds, staring back at her, then let out a shuddering breath. “I...would like that,” she managed.

“You’re pretty good yourself,” I said. Then I reached out and smacked Delilah’s ass. Hard. “I thought I told you to get washed up.”

“I’m sorry, master,” she replied, and hurried over to the water and soap. I took a few more pulls on the blunt, then stubbed it out on the stone of the fireplace and set it on the mantle for later. Then I stripped down and moved over to join her in washing up. This was going to be really good. One of those fucking awesome sexual encounters. Two beautiful, horny women, one of them extremely submissive, both of them trusting and totally cool with absolutely no protection. Situations like that seemed rare, even now.

While I took the rest of my clothes off, I winced, my arm bugging me again. The weed was helping and I still had a few painkillers in my system, but it was so hit or miss if those things held up nowadays, because of how old some of them were.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Megan asked as she took off her shirt.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I’ll take the bandage off after we’re done and one of you can look at it. God, I’m gonna have one solid scar on my forearm in another year or two.”

“I saw a lot of other little bite scars,” Megan murmured in agreement.

I sighed. “Yeah, that’s like the eighth or ninth time I’ve had to sacrifice my arm to keep my throat from getting ripped out. Fucking wolves. But whatever, it’s sealed up for the moment, we’ll look at it later, now I just want to relax.”

“And by relax you mean have vigorous sex with the two of us,” Megan said, joining Delilah by the water as soon as she’d finished stripping.

“Yeah,” I replied, doing the same.

All three of us were excited, I could read it in their expressions and the way they moved. More than that, we were eager. I know I was. Once we were washed up, we got into our bed on the floor and Delilah pretty much jumped on Megan now that she’d declared herself free game. She immediately began groping and kissing her, using a lot of tongue.

When she finally pulled back after a good minute or so, Megan’s eyes were a little wide and she was grinning. “Wow, you actually really like me.”

Delilah giggled. “Have I not told you that yet?

“Yeah, just...whatever,” she replied, then she kissed Delilah once more and shifted over to me. My hand found one of her firm breasts as her lips found my own lips. We enjoyed each other, enjoyed all those good feelings that hooking up with a hot person gave you, enjoyed touching and kissing. Before too long Delilah butted in and pretty much demanded my attention. I gave it to her gladly, cupping of her large, pale breasts and slipping my tongue into her mouth. One of them reached down and started massaging my cock, slowly jacking me off, which sent a wonderful thrill of lust echoing through my already sex-craving body.

“Lemme ride your tongue,” Megan said after a moment, staring at me.

“Okay,” I said, and she grinned and started moving. I looked at Delilah. “You know what to do,” I said to her.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and quickly got down between my legs. She was a nimble little redhead, and very eager to please.

Right about the time Megan straddled my face, I felt that wet heat of Delilah’s mouth as she wrapped her luscious lips around my cock. She started bobbing her head smoothly, and so I went right to work on Megan.

“Oh fucking hell,” she gasped as I started tonguing her clit. “Wow, I keep forgetting how good this feels.”

I reached up and laid my hands her smooth thighs, running them up and down her skin, feeling her wonderful, soft heat against me. I loved pleasuring women and that love had only grown since the apocalypse, I think. Just about everything had gotten better, it seemed. Maybe it was because the new normal was a state of abject suffering. The highs were much higher now. I appreciated damn near everything that happened that was good more than I used to. Although I’d always loved sex, now I practically worshiped it.

And because of how amazing it felt to be pleasured, I had an idea of just how good I could make another person feel. If anything, with regards to that particular line of reasoning, sometimes I thought I was in the better position. Women seemed easier to please, physically, in general. A chick doing stuff to my dick with her tongue was awesome, but when I did something with my tongue to their clit, most girls fucking lost their minds.

Megan had both hands on my head now, fingers in my hair, moaning loudly and apparently fighting to keep from moving around too much. If she lost control she was liable to fall off me or crush my head between her wonderful thighs.

Or at least bang it. I was still dealing with headaches from the crash.

Delilah was doing a great job, putting her tongue and lips and the inside of her cheek to good use. And her hand, too. She was massaging my balls gently in that soft, hot grasp of hers. She really knew how to do that.

Finally, Megan got off of me. “Okay, can I fuck now? Can we fuck?”

“Yeah, but I want you to do Delilah first. She really wants to have you eat her out, and she’ll be less distracted if you get her off now,” I replied.

Megan smirked, looking down at our redheaded sextoy, then she just laughed. “Yeah, okay. Been awhile since I’ve eaten pussy, but it’s one of those things you never forget how to do.”

“Yep,” Delilah agreed, sitting up.

We all switched positions and our threesome really got underway then. Delilah was on her back with her slim, pale legs open wide, her bald pussy glistening with desire. Megan got onto her hands and knees, and damn if she didn’t look really good in that position. I got behind her, quite eager myself to get back into that sweet pussy of hers.

Megan lowered her head, buried her face in Delilah’s crotch, and went to work.

“Oh yes! Oh Megan!” she cried out immediately as Megan started licking at her clit.

I got behind Megan and settled my hands on her ass, admiring it and her for a moment. She really did have a great ass, the kind that came from a lot of legwork, a lot of walking, staying in great shape. Then I looked up higher, at her head as it moved, her face buried in Delilah’s crotch, the insanely sexy redhead moaning loudly, her legs spread out wide, hands on the back of Megan’s head. As I rested my cock at the entrance of her pussy, feeling her whole body shiver in response to the contact, it occurred to me that Megan either trusted me a lot, or was very desperate for physical intimacy. Or maybe it was both.

It had to be incredibly difficult for her to open up, and I thought that she might be the kind of person who, although she would like to be good at compartmentalizing physical intimacy and emotional connection, she wasn’t. If she let someone into her bed, she let them, to a certain degree, into her heart and her head, even if she didn’t want to. That could make casual sex tough. I think most of us dealt with that to a certain degree. And there was a certain elitist stance in the ability to completely divorce sex from emotion.

If you had trouble with it, many people saw you as weak and pathetic and easy to take advantage of. They were wrong, and often cruel, but it didn’t stop them from thinking that. People were always looking for ways to feel superior.

So as I began making love to Megan again, sliding into her from the back, I took a lot of gratification and appreciation in the fact that she was letting me do this. I could be wrong about her, but as time went on I was increasingly sure that I wasn’t. She was a very guarded woman, and she had reason to be, no doubt.

I listened to her let out a series of incredibly sexy, muffled moans of bliss as I stroked smoothly into her from the back. Her pussy was incredible, a thing of absolute sexual ecstasy. Screwing her was a study in hedonism. I pounded that tight, sweet vagina until Delilah sucked in a deep breath and then let out a long, loud cry of intense rapturous release.

“OH MEGAN YES!” she shrieked as her hips bucked and she started coming.

She was quite a sight. They both were.

As soon as Delilah was done coming, Megan sat up and waved me off. I stopped pounding her, pulling out of her, and she straightened up on her knees, stretching her arms out and popping her back and neck.

“Oh yeah...not that that dicking wasn’t appreciated, but I want oral from Little Miss Red Slut here,” she said.

“I don’t mind pounding the fuck out of her, either,” I replied.

Megan reached down and slapped her thigh. “Get up, you dumb little whore.”

“Yes mistress,” she replied, all but hopping up and giving her space to Megan, who laid down on her back and spread out her legs. Delilah got onto her hands and knees and buried her face in Megan’s crotch as I got up against her.

And we went to work using Delilah like nothing more than a piece of meat.

Exactly like she wanted.

I could tell she was getting off on it really hard, too. I started ramming that perfect pink pussy of hers from the back, finding her exquisitely wet and blissfully tight as I grabbed her pale hips, and it didn’t take more than a minute for her to let out a shriek of mindless pleasure as she began orgasming and squirting all over my dick. I kept pounding, making her shriek again each time I plunged my cock into her and making her squirt even harder.

For the next I don’t know how long I lost myself in that sweet, terrific pussy. Lost myself in running my hands over her smooth skin and her well-shaped ass. In reaching up under her and grabbing those big tits of hers. Lost myself in hearing those two women moan in ecstasy. In seeing their naked, perfect bodies writhing in response to me and to each other. For that session, that unmeasured length of time, it was like we were locked away in our own little world, separate from the rest of the planet, from the rest of society.

All the miserable, fucked up things that were happening out there, that were part of our new reality ever since the snow started to fall, all the bad things that had happened to us and would no doubt happen to us in the future, it was like they couldn’t get in. We were separate from them. Even if it was an illusion, it felt real in that moment.

Right now, I felt as close to these two women as I had ever felt to anyone.

And if that was an illusion too, then I didn’t care.

I made Delilah orgasm two more times before I shot my load into her. I comed so fucking much inside of her pussy, busting a huge nut inside of her and draining my balls into that perfect, sweet, pink pussy of hers. She moaned, pushing against me, inviting me deeper, inviting me in to empty my seed into her and to fill her up. The pleasure roared through me, a living wave of total rapturous ecstasy that found every niche, every hidden part of me and pressure-blasted it with pure, mindless bliss. I lived that orgasm from a fantastically long time.

I emptied myself out and filled her up and bathed in the bliss of ages.

It was magical.

When I was finished, I pulled out of her and she flopped forward, resting half-on Megan, who had enjoyed a few of her own orgasms.

I fell onto my back beside the two women, staring at the ceiling, which was spinning. I felt like I’d just had a full-on workout, I was sweaty and my muscles ached. And my arm hurt.

“You’re bleeding, Chris,” Megan murmured.

I raised my arm and looked at it, then grunted and sighed. “Course I am.”

“Gotta change the bandages,” she said, patting at Delilah, who moved quickly.

“Are you okay?” Delilah asked.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I feel great. Hot damn. That was some awesome sex.”

“Yes it was,” Megan agreed while Delilah went ‘mmm-hmm’ in a dreamy tone.

Megan came over to me a moment later with a bottle of antiseptics and some more bandages. I sighed and sat up.

“This is gonna hurt,” she muttered.

“No news there,” I replied.

While Delilah cleaned herself up, Megan got the bandages off and I let out a bark of pain as she got the disinfectant all over the wounds. Stupid fucking wolves. You know, honestly I was fine with live and let live with wolves, all they had to do was fucking stay away from me. Some did, but too many of them attacked me like assholes. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Lay down and die? If they’d just fuck off, I wouldn’t have to kill them. But that was the nature of nature, I guess. I winced and complained as Megan patched me back up.

“I’d say take it easy for awhile, but we both know that isn’t going to happen,” she murmured when she was done.

“You did a good job,” I replied. “And I’m down for the day, at least. Plus sex and weed are great painkillers.”

Megan laughed. “Yeah, they are.”

I laid back down, and Megan laid down beside me. I put an arm around her, held her nude body to my own. Delilah finished washing up and laid down on my other side. I put my arm around her and held the two naked women, letting the heat from their bodies and the heat from the fireplace wash over me as the storm raged outside.

~

The rest of the day was great.

We lounged for awhile, and toked up a bit more. Finally, we had another threesome. This time the ladies took turns bouncing on my dick, and fuck was that great. Seeing their tits bounce with them, their faces twisting in bliss, feeling that fantastic ecstasy of raw pussy slipping up and down your cock until you busted a huge nut…

This time I shot my load into Megan.

After that, Megan decided she was going to put together a meal for us, like a real one. While she did that, Delilah took some initiative and decided she was going to wash all our blankets and clothes. I figured they could use them, and now that we had a bit of real soap to use and some more pots and pants and an unlimited supply of water, it was as good a time as any. She ended up half filling the tub with boiled water and washing everything in there over the course of the day. Then she’d wring it out and hang it over furniture or off a clothesline we discovered rolled up and attached to a wall near the ceiling. We pulled it out, locked it in place, and put it to use.

The meal Megan put together was good stuff. She’d fried up the rest of that rabbit meat we’d found earlier, as well as all the deer meat we’d recovered from the campgrounds. It needed to be eaten quickly anyway. She threw in some wolf meat and shredded beef, and then made a decent stew out of the vegetable soup she’d found, pumped up with the can of green beans and one of the cans of peas we’d found.

With some of the ketchup, it was a feast.

Between the two of them they polished off that bottle of wine they’d gotten into earlier. The most I indulged in beyond the meal was the rest of that blunt I’d started.

It was a great day. The best I’d had in a long time, even with my arm hurting.

In the end, I found myself stoned and very chill and mellow, going to sleep on clean sheets, beneath a clean blanket, in between two naked women, all three of us very satisfied from another threesome we’d had.

Yeah, definitely a great day.

TWENTY THREE

It was a new day, and although I can’t say that I felt like a new man, I was feeling pretty good all things considered.

I was standing on the highway, alone today, looking out over the vast winter desolation once more. I was looking towards the lake. The skies were clear again and I was hoping that another fucking storm wouldn’t blow in like they had been recently. I could see four structures in a line along the shore of the lake, the last two only barely visible beyond the trees of the forest that partially wrapped around the lake.

Today I’d search them all and maybe find that mystery sniper who’d saved my ass.

As I set off, I considered the two women I was now sharing my life with. Relationships were very different in this new world. There were several new dynamics at play. Ironically, a relationship dynamic that had been evolving much more rapidly over the past two decades had suddenly became very standard in this miserable new world.

The transactional relationship.

What can you do for me?

A lot of people viewed this as selfish and a lot of people were right. Too many people, in my experience, didn’t understand the true nature of a transactional relationship. It was a two-way street. It wasn’t only what can you do for me? It was also what I can do for you? Like symbiosis, two beings working together, each providing the other something. Now that things weren’t really in abundance anymore and it was so easy to die, this was the new standard. I think the problem came in with regards to emotions.

You can’t ditch emotions, not really.

You can ignore them, and maybe sometimes successfully in the long run, but they’re always gonna be around.

And transactional relationships could turn ugly or sour much more quickly, or even start out that way. Plus, by their very nature they could be very ugly. Think about it: you can’t do something so you gotta do something else that’s easy but distasteful or disgusting for someone you might hate just to stay alive. Most people talk tough and say shit like ‘I’d rather die’ but most people are lying. No, you wouldn’t rather die, stop thinking you’re hard and just admit that you’ll do what it takes to live. Tension would be a real problem if Delilah didn’t like me or wasn’t happy with the idea of selling herself in exchange for something.

Despite all the negatives, I had to admit I liked the whole relationship paradigm a lot more now, if only because it was just so much more blatant and honest.

Way, way too many people were only talking to you or befriending you to try and get something out of you back then, but they wouldn’t admit it. Now people are a lot more straightforward. I mean, in general. Obviously there’s still liars out there, people looking to take advantage, but I can flat out say ‘I’ll protect you’ or ‘I’ll hunt a deer for you, what will you give me in exchange?’ and people don’t get all upset over it.

It’s just the way things worked now.

That and the fact that money was out the door. No one gave a shit about money, the only thing it was good for was tinder. I’d heard that they still used it in some of the big cities but I thought that was kind of stupid. How easy would it be to go find some abandoned bank, break in, and get your hands on a hundred grand or more?

No, the barter system was way better.

Or rather, it was way better for me. I could see it being shitty for a lot of people. Hell, I’m sure it still slanted away from women. How many women were skilled in something useful? Car repair, hunting, sewing, medicine, stuff people needed, but the only accepted currency most guys would take was pussy?

I tried to remain self aware about that, but I had to wonder how many women I’d taken advantage of. How many had grinned and took it? But what was taking advantage nowadays? Where did you draw the line?

Shit, I don’t know.

I tried to judge everything as it came to me. Delilah was happy enough to sell me her body, but Megan could only accept sex with me if we went to bed together as equals. We were fucking for fun, not for profit. Which I was okay with.

I let out a little laugh, my breath appearing in a fog on the air as I moved through the little intersection where I’d been jumped by a wolf yesterday. The body was gone. Here it was, the end of the world, and I was still agonizing over moral choices. I guess that meant I kept my humanity. It was worrying how many people hadn’t.

After a good long walk down the road that led away from the highway and intersection, (with just one pause to search a derelict car that yielded a big old nothing), I made it to the lake. The road crested over a hill and I stopped there and just took in the view. I could see just about the whole lake. It was decent-sized, and completely frozen solid. There was a lot of open space over on the far side, but here to my left was more forest and that row of buildings. The first one was another cabin, not too unlike the one I was living in, the next three were lake houses. Fancy places where rich people had once retreated every now and then.

I wondered if anyone was living in them. It occurred to me that this was where the assholes who’d robbed me would probably be, although at a glance I didn’t see any immediate signs of activity. For a moment, I indulged in enjoying the view. It was a nice view. The snow-capped trees, the frozen lake, the ice wreathing the buildings, the clear blue skies overhead. I think places like this, places where there was mostly nature and a touch of humanity, benefited the most from looking good during winter. It was the cities that were miserable, unhappy places. Maybe because it reminded us too much of what once was, barely two years ago.

Well, enough indulging.

I got to work, heading over to the cabin and checking it out. I got my pistol out. I’d taken both the nine millimeter and the forty-five. The nine was tucked down the back of my pants, the forty-five in one of the holsters I’d salvaged from the jerks at the campgrounds. I checked the outside and then went inside. The place was vacant, and it looked very picked over already. As I set to work, I again thought back to Delilah and Megan.

Something was different now.

Something had changed last night, or maybe the change had begun and then fermented while we slept. I thought it was a good change. I noticed, as I went about my morning routine, that Delilah and (especially) Megan were calmer now. It wasn’t the sex, I was almost sure, because we’d already had sex. It wasn’t even that they were calmer, it was that they were more at ease around each other specifically. Delilah was already pretty easygoing. I had the idea that she was surprisingly resilient, given her disposition.

Like nothing could get her down.

Well, not nothing obviously, but she seemed to bounce back quickly. Megan was a lot gloomier. Again, with good reason. I couldn’t blame anyone for being gloomy nowadays. But it was kind of interesting to see how people adapted. Some people were miserable even though they had fucking everything. Some people were relentlessly optimistic despite being in objectively and consistently awful circumstances.

Although I didn’t carry the misconception that it was all willpower.

That optimistic person wasn’t gaining their shiny outlook through grit alone. It was just how they were wired.

That gloom and doom pessimist wasn’t that way because they insisted on being miserable...it was just the way their fucking brain had formed.

I mean yeah, you had some control, but it was the difference between trying to lift a cinderblock and trying to lift a bus in some cases.

Twenty minutes later, I let out a little sigh of frustration and stepped back outside. The cabin was picked clean. I was becoming more and more certain that someone was living very nearby. That wasn’t just the ‘scavengers coming and going for months’ cleared out. No, that was the ‘someone lives near here and has had weeks or months to consistently search this structure’ cleaned out. Well, if that was the case, maybe I could turn this to my advantage. Although to be honest I didn’t think I could pull another scam like what I’d just done at the campgrounds.

They’d recognize me because they had robbed me.

Although they’d rightly assume I wouldn’t recognize them. I felt a pulse of hate and anger touch off and race through me as I thought of my journal again. It’d been simmering in the back of my head for the last few days but I hadn’t really thought about it because I’d been so distracted by the girls. But I thought of it now.

I wanted that fucking thing back.

I still thought it was stupid that I was so attached to it, but whatever. It was mine. Pretty much nothing was specifically mine in this frozen hellscape now. And it wasn’t even like a whole lot had really been mine before then, or if it was, I didn’t particularly care about it. Was that a human thing? Like it didn’t matter so much of what it was as what it represented? Surely some of it had to do with the fact that it was a thing I had created. Not the paper and cover itself, but the words, the sentences, the thoughts.

I had put time in generating those.

That journal represented a long time.

I don’t know. I’m not really smart enough to delve deep into psychology, but I knew I wasn’t leaving without getting it back and maybe I might not step on my anger when it showed up this time around. Maybe I’d knocked some fucking teeth out. That got me thinking on what I’d had to do a few days ago, killing most of that group…

It bothered me how much it didn’t bother me.

I didn’t want to be a fucking sociopath who could just off people like it was no big deal. On the other hand, I didn’t want to freeze up and get my ass killed. On the other hand I didn’t want it to cripple me emotionally or psychological when I did have to kill someone. Maybe I was striking a nice balance: I killed when I had to, and felt more or less okay about it if I felt like it was truly justified. Or maybe I was fooling myself and I was a monster.

Fuck, I hoped not.

I searched the first of the lake houses and found a whole lot more nothing. The place had been tossed and I could see that some furniture had been taken. Though there wasn’t the telltale remains of dust and wooden bits from it being broken down for burning fuel. No, I thought someone might’ve found a chair they’d liked and hauled it off wholesale. And sure enough, as I stepped back outside and started making my way for the second lake house, I was hit with the absolute certainty of being watched by someone.

Looking around, I tried to figure out where it was coming from, and ultimately I decided it was almost surely the last lake house. The sun was reflecting too brightly off the windows, so anyone inside would be hidden from view, but they’d have a damn clear view of me. Well, might as well keep going, I’d come this far.

Heading into the second lake house, I searched it and found nothing as well, though I was just going through the motions at this point.

I fucking hated leaving places unsearched.

The sense of being watched was overwhelming as I approached the last lake house. It looked like the nicest one, perched on a little rise in the land, giving it a nice view of the lake no doubt. It was two stories and looked pretty new, maybe built within the last decade, and even had its own privacy fence going around it.

I made sure my approach was nice and easy, my hands quite visible. Didn’t want to give whoever it was the wrong impression. It was times like this that I was really gambling with my life, but I was going to trust my gut and my gut said I’d probably be okay. Could be wrong, but that was the nature of gambling.

Getting up to the front gate in the privacy fence, I opened it up. As I did, I saw a woman standing on the front porch of the house, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and holding a black pistol. She looked very comfortable holding that pistol.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, there,” she replied. “Help you?”

“Yes. I’m looking for information and potentially to trade.”

“Hmm.” She studied me and I studied her.

She was an older woman, probably somewhere in her forties, mid-to-late maybe. She had crow’s feet around her eyes and some around her mouth, a few scars on her face, which was pretty in a very rough kind of way. Her brown hair, worn in a basic ponytail, didn’t show any gray though, and she didn’t seem the kind of woman to bother with dyeing it. Her green eyes looked very sharp and clear. She wore a heavy brown coat and heavy brown work pants, with gray hiking boots.

“You alone today?” she asked.

Today. As opposed to at all. Which meant she almost certainly had to be the sniper who’d saved my ass yesterday. Or she’d been watching us.

“I’m alone today,” I confirmed.

“That girl of yours back somewhere safe?” she asked.

I nodded, but said nothing else.

She smirked a little. “So you wanna trade, huh? What’ve you got?”

“I’ve got cigarettes,” I replied as she took another pull on her own. That seemed to get her attention, though only mildly. I imagine it was hard to find cigarettes or tobacco out here, unless she somehow managed to grown her own.

Finally, she sighed and looked around, then centered her gaze back on me. “You can come in and we can talk about it. But you mind your manners or I’ll put a bullet in your head faster than you can spit,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied, which made her smirk a little more.

I knew how to mind my manners.

We walked into her house and, ever the pervert, I couldn’t help but check out her ass. It was mostly hidden by the coat and the pants, but I got a rough idea of its shape, and I could tell that this woman was a fit but hefty lady.

And I was into that.

I was just into women in general. I’ll own it: I’m kind of a whore.

Her place was nice. Really nice. Clean, neat, and full of nice stuff. I made sure to kick the snow off my boots and wipe them off on the mat before following her across a mostly smooth hardwood floor, down a hall and into a living room where one whole wall was just bookshelves. Packed with books. Across from it, in a fancy stone and glass setup, was a very nice fireplace, with a little fire crackling along. There were two long couches, a pair of recliners, and a pair of coffee tables. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall.

Thing was probably seventy or eighty inches and output 8K or maybe even 16K UHD.

It was covered in dust.

“Have a seat. My name’s Hazel,” she said as she sat in one of the recliners. She had a sort of rough voice.

Another attractive thing about her.

“Chris,” I replied, sitting down across from her on one of the couches after taking my backpack off and setting it down in front of me.

She hadn’t put the pistol away or even let go of it, though she was no longer directly pointing it at me. A good sign, I thought.

“What are you looking for and what do you have?” she asked.

“Information,” I replied. “And maybe some books. I guess some other things. Food you might be willing to part with. Medical supplies. Toiletries. Soap.”

“Can’t help you on the medical supplies. Not much food, either. I got soap, though. And books, obviously.” She leaned forward. “What kind of information, exactly?”

I began pulling out the things that I was willing to trade that I’d brought with me. All the cigarettes, the little travel bottle of vodka I’d first found in the cabin, (the girls had insisted we keep the second bottle of wine and the bigger bottle of vodka and I was finding it hard to say no to them), those batteries I’d found, that broken flashlight, and one of the three lighters in our possession. “I’m looking for some people,” I said when I was done.

She stared at the stuff for a moment, then got up and walked over, looking it over. Finally, she reached out and picked up the bag of ten hand-rolled cigarettes. Pulling out, she studied it, smelled it. “If we’re going to have a serious conversation, I want one of these as proof of commitment to a real trade deal,” she said.

“Fine,” I replied.

She looked a little surprised and then set her own cigarette, which was nearly dead, down in a nearby ashtray. At least she used her own lighter to light up. I knew what she was doing: testing me. Seeing how far she could push our little interaction. I was fine with some pushing, but not much more than this.

“What kind of people?” she asked, taking an experimental puff on the cigarette.

“Kind of people that would rob a man of everything he has and not even have the nerve to kill him while he’s passed out,” I replied.

“Hmm. I might know of some people like that.” She nodded over her shoulder. “Back on the other side of the highway, there’s a group that lives in some campgrounds.”

“They’re dead,” I said flatly. “Saw to that personally.”

That gave her some pause and she raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what all that shooting a few days back was about?” I nodded. “All of ‘em?”

“No,” I amended. “Two survived. I let them walk away.”

“Did you now? Interesting. Why’d you kill the others in the first place?”

“They were kidnapping women and selling them.”

“Hmm. Good reason. You let the others go because...”

“They surrendered, and I’m not exactly to the point where I’ll murder people outright in cold blood when they’re on their knees in front of me. One of them, I felt, was genuinely remorseful and had gotten caught up in it. I don’t think he’ll be causing more problems. He seemed ready to accept it if I was going to kill him or beat him within an inch of his life. The other guy was weaselly and panicking...I decided to let him run his ass off and have some luck trying to survive out there on his own. The others we killed outright.”

“We, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m guessing you rescued one of these women? That who was with you the other day?”

“So that was you who shot the wolf?” I asked.

She smirked. “Yeah. Good shot, huh?”

“Excellent shot,” I replied honestly. “And yeah, that’s who was with me.”

“I trust you’re treating her better than her previous situation.” It was almost a threat.

“I am,” I replied. “She could leave with good gear right now if she wanted to. We have an understanding.”

“Hmm.” She pulled on the cigarette a few more times as she looked over the stuff I’d laid out. Then she looked up at me. She seemed to be appraising me in exactly the same way. “Take your coat off,” she said.

“Any particular reason?” I asked.

“I just want a better look at you.”

I thought about repeating that question, but instead stood up and took my coat off, hoping that this was going exactly where I wanted it to go.

Gotta be honest, I wanted to bang her.

I fucking loved older women as much as I loved women my own age. I took off the sweater I had on underneath it, leaving just a t-shirt.

“You’re in great shape,” she murmured.

“Well I travel a lot and do all my own hunting, skinning, and cleaning.”

“I see.” She looked at me for a bit longer, then back down at the stuff. “Okay, I’m willing to make you a deal. I know who robbed you. Or, put it this way: if the people who robbed you aren’t long gone, then I know who it had to be, and I can tell you about them. I’m also willing to give up some books, let’s say half a dozen of your choice, provided you don’t take my favorites. I can throw in three cans of food. What I want in return is all this and...you gotta lay me.”

I raised an eyebrow. Wow. So it was going the direction I wanted it to go, just not in the way I expected it do.

She could have easily gotten more shit out of me in exchange for a chance at her pussy, but she thought she had to convince me to fuck her.

“Deal,” I said.

She smirked. “That girlfriend of yours won’t mine?”

“They won’t mind. We have an understanding.”

Now she raised an eyebrow. “They?”

Oops. “Yeah,” I replied, trying to play it off casual. It was dangerous giving out more information than you had to in most situations, although I honestly wasn’t getting bad vibes from her. Hazel struck me as the kind of woman who just lived by herself and was cool with that.

“Okay then,” she said, grabbing up the stuff and straightening up. “Come on. I got a bed upstairs. Show me a good time.”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied, getting up as well.

TWENTY FOUR

“Just so you know, I’ve got one of those birth control/STD implants,” I said as I followed her up the stairs.

She definitely had a big ass.

“Oh really?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Must be nice.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Is that your way of saying you wanna ride bareback?” she asked as we reached the top of the stairs.

“Yes,” I replied.

She issued a little laugh and didn’t say anything as we walked down a hall to the door at the end. She pushed it open and we went inside. The master bedroom was really nice. Big king-size bed with nice pillows and blankets, nice wooden desk, two dressers, full-length mirror. I could easily envision this place belonging to some CEO or stockbroker, a place they came to for long fishing weekends or summer getaways with their family.

Or from their family.

I wondered where they were now, if they were even still alive.

I knew a lot of people’s plans were ‘get to an isolated cabin, away from everyone else’, when the snow began to fall.

“Well I don’t have to worry about getting knocked up so much anymore,” she said as she set the stuff down on one of the dressers. Then she turned to look at me. “Is it that fancy one you can actually see?” she asked.

“It is, indeed,” I replied, setting my backpack down.

“Show me.”

I started taking my clothes off. Got my boots off, put my nine down on the table beside the bed and began piling my clothes on the floor next my backpack. All of it within reach of each other and the bed. You always wanted to be ready to go in a hurry, just in case.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty five,” I replied.

She blinked in surprise. “You aren’t lying are you?”

“No.” I got down to my boxers and I saw her eyes flick to my hard-on, straining against them. Seems women had to at least look, even a little, at hard cocks the same way we had to check out cleavage. “I’m really twenty five years old.”

“Shit,” she muttered. “I thought you were older. Thirties at least. But I can see it...damn, you’re a lot younger than me.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Forty six,” she replied.

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. And she did the same.

“Oh, you got a thing for older women?”

“You got a thing for younger guys?” I replied.

She laughed. “I do, as a matter of fact. No surprise there.”

“Yeah, I like older women,” I said, and took off my boxers.

“Wow. That’s a nice package,” she muttered, staring at my cock. I suddenly wondered if Megan or Delilah would understand this. Well, Delilah would. Hell, she’d probably think it was awesome. Megan might not, but she understood that this wasn’t exclusive at least. Well, too late now. My own feelings and lust (and it was intense) aside, Hazel said she had information, and I believed her, and this was how I was going to get it.

“Okay, let’s do this. There’s some water in a bucket in the bathroom. Just changed it. Go wash up, young man,” she said, taking off her coat and hanging it on the wall.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

She laughed and continued stripping as I headed for the bathroom attached to the master bedroom. There was soap, a fair amount of it actually. I grabbed a bar and a rag and washed up. The water was room temperature but clean. I washed quickly, eager to get to it with her. As I finished up, she joined me in the bathroom, now completely naked. While she stared washing up, I took a moment to study her.

For a woman settling into middle age, she was in great shape. But she lived alone in a frozen world where you had to rely completely on yourself for everything. Food. Firewood. Survival. Protection. That would whip anyone into shape. She was stocky, with a pleasantly padded body. You know the type: big broad hips, thick thighs, fat ass, large breasts. All of it tempered by a lot of hard work and good physical fitness.

“Well?” she asked as she washed up. “You like what you see?”

“Definitely,” I replied.

“I’m a little surprised, honestly. I saw that pretty Mexican girl you were with. She was quite the looker.”

“Oh yeah, she’s...great. Very, very beautiful. But you’re also just really hot.”

She finished washing herself and turned to look at me. “You’re one of those boys who thinks pussy ages like fine wine, huh?”

I chuckled. “Something like that.”

“Good for me then. Come on. Let’s do this. I’ll trade you oral.”

“Okay.”

We left the bathroom and crawled into her big, comfy bed. Hazel didn’t hesitate. As soon as I was in position she pressed herself against me and kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back, my hand finding one of her big breasts. Fuck, she had some big tits. Bigger even than Delilah’s. I groped her as we kissed, feeling that wondrous thrill of going to bed with a new woman. And an older woman. She might actually be the oldest woman I’d ever gone to bed with. I didn’t get all their ages, but typically the older women I hooked up with seemed to be in their late thirties or early forties. Like most of them, Hazel had an air of sexual confidence about her.

There was no hesitation as we kissed and her hands wandered across my body. I could tell she was really turned on by me, which was a great feeling. I wondered how long it had been since she’d gotten laid.

Her hand found my cock and started massaging it.

“You’re a big boy, huh?” she murmured.

I laughed softly. “That’s what they tell me.”

“Yeah, I bet you fuck a lot of little sluts, huh?”

“I mean, I get around,” I replied.

“Modest. You’re interesting.” She kept kissing me, her tongue probing my mouth. She tasted like tobacco, and that wasn’t as bad as cigarettes. I’d made out with chicks who chain-smoked and honestly I did not like the taste of modern cigarettes. But the hand-rolled cigarettes really weren’t that bad to taste. I slid my hand down after feeling her up for awhile to one broad, firm hip, then back around to her ass.

This woman had a big ass.

I was going to have to try to convince her to do doggystyle. She probably would be down, but it was a position some women got weird about. Some got it into their heads that it was demeaning and that was unfortunate. I never argued with them about it, but it sucked because that was a really awesome position.

“All right,” she said, a little breathlessly, “show me your skills.”

“Okay,” I replied simply, and I began to pleasure her.

First I fingered her, slipping my hand between those thick thighs of hers, finding her clit, and beginning to massage it with my fingertip. She let out a loud, almost surprised groan and I felt a powerful shudder go through her entire body. Yeah, it had been awhile since someone had touched her. She started panting and moaning as I rubbed her clit and then started sucking on one of her big, awesome tits.

“Oh wow,” she whispered. “I...shit, that’s good,” she panted. “You’ve had a lot of practice pleasing vagina haven’t you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I replied.

“Oh my fucking God, that’s good,” she repeated.

I kept fingering her, eventually getting a finger inside of her. She was wonderfully wet and pretty tight inside. I fucked her with my finger, making her cry out. That rough voice of hers sounded awesomely sexy when she moaned in pleasure. I licked across her breasts, her nipples, alternated between sucking on them as I pleasured her.

I did that until she orgasmed.

“OH!” she cried, again sounding almost startled, and her hips bucked, her whole body convulsed, as she started to come. I fingered her throughout the orgasm as she grabbed onto me, holding me tightly as she came, shouting in pleasured ecstasy as it rolled through her body. And then she went slack, panting.

Without a word, I got up and moved down in between her thighs. Laying down, I got to work keeping up my end of the bargain and started eating that mature pussy.

“Oh holy shit!” she yelled as my tongue found her clit.

I listened to her scream and shout as I ate her, doing my best to get her off a second time and just generally give her a good time. I slipped a finger into her again before long and fucked her with it as I licked her pussy.

Her words became more incoherent as I went on, and after several minutes of work, I was rewarded with one intense orgasm and one satisfied mature pussy.

She came hard and thrashed pretty intensely. I was a little worried she’d hurt one of us, but in the end she fell back against the bed again, panting heavily.

“I can see why you’ve got two women shacking up with you,” she murmured. Then she laughed softly. “Unless there’s more. I’d believe you if you told me there were four. Goddamn. You can fucking eat pussy.”

“Thanks,” I replied, getting up and taking a moment to wash up again. She’d made a mess on me, not that I minded. I hurried back over to the bed, eager to see what that mouth of hers could do. Once I got back into the bed, she sat up, her big breasts swaying pleasantly.

“Okay...my turn,” she said. As she got down between my legs, she murmured, “now let’s see if I remember how to do this.”

She looked at my cock, wrapping her hot fingers around it, and she closed one eye and stared into my urethra.

“Well I’ll be damned, you can see it! Ha! That’s fucking wild,” she said. “You don’t feel that? Like at all?”

“Nope, not a thing,” I replied.

“That’s really wild,” she murmured.

Then she got to work. Hazel stuck out her tongue and made direct eye contact with me as she began dragging it slowly up the bottom of my shaft. I shivered as it reached the bottom of my head and that oh-so-sensitive spot down there. She let out a satisfied little laugh, and I felt her hot breath on my dick. She started dragging her tongue slowly across the head, hitting it from every angle, lavishing me in hot, wet pleasure.

She was good.

I got an idea of just how good as she switched to actually sucking on my cock. She put her lips around the tip and began slowly, very slowly, dragging them down. Once she got to the shaft, she took the whole thing into her mouth, all of it, and I felt it hit the back of her throat, then go down it a little. She held it there, still staring at me, her lips wrapped around my dick. Then she swallowed. I groaned loudly, a shudder of absolute bliss running through me. She looked quite satisfied with herself and swallowed again.

I groaned again, louder, all those wet, slick, hot throat muscles tightening around my dick, convulsing around the head, stimulating it all at once.

She pulled it back out. “Yeah, I still know how to do this.”

Then she resumed sucking my dick.

For the next few minutes I watched and enjoyed her work. She bobbed her head with a smooth sureness, letting her lips lingering on my head, stimulating and pleasuring me, bringing to the edge of orgasm and then…

Stopping.

“Okay,” she said, sitting up, “I want this big, fat dick in my pussy. Right now.”

“You got it,” I replied. I was eager to dive into that mature vagina.

I got up and she laid on her back again, opening her legs. I got between those thick thighs of hers, taking a moment to just check out her body. There were signs of aging, but I always wondered if people made bigger deals out of that than was true. Either the person who had them or the person who was seeing them. They didn’t bother me or turn me off. I thought she looked pretty good. Honestly she could’ve lied and said she was in her late or even mid thirties and I would’ve believed her. I loved her pleasant padding and stout build, her broad hips and her thick thighs. Her large breasts, obviously. She had a really enjoyable body.

“Admiring the view?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, gripping my saliva-slicked cock and getting up closer to her. I rested it at the entrance of her pussy and then began working my way inside. I was wondering how well I’d fit into her, but I was finding getting inside to be a really pleasant experience. She was wet. Really wet. And oh so hot. And pretty tight.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered as I kept going.

“Ooh...nice and easy,” she murmured. “You are a big boy.”

“Let me know if I need to pull back,” I replied. She looked a little surprised and grinned up at me. “Also, can I come inside you?”

She looked more surprised. “Wow you really know how to mind your manners,” she said. “Yeah, you can come inside.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I finished getting inside of her.

Holding myself up, my hands on either side of her head, pressing down into the pillow, I looked down at her body as I started stroking smoothly into her. She let out a loud moan, her legs spread out wide now, and I could see everything. That wonderful body of hers as I slid in and out of her mature vagina, the way she shuddered and spread her legs out further, the way her tits swayed with the rhythm of my stroking.

I saw my cock disappearing into her again and again.

And dear fuck the pleasure of it. The sheer, raw, sexual ecstasy and gratification of screwing this hot, thick, mature woman…

I was bathing in it.

It seemed to reach every part of my body. I started hitting it harder and faster, making her yell as she panted and moaned.

“Oh yeah! Fuck it! Fuck that pussy!” she moaned, and her interesting, rough voice sounded just as sexy and hot as I thought it would during sex.

She put her legs up in the air, spreading them out wider. “Fuck it!” she screamed.

I started pounding her harder and harder, shoving my whole cock into that tight pussy, enjoying every second I was getting with this mature beauty.

After a few moments, I let myself down and kissed her. She immediately kissed me back, kissed me hard on the mouth, her lips pushing against mine, and then her tongue seeking mine. I wrapped it with her own, happy to get as intimate as she wanted.

I fucked Hazel until I got what I wanted: another orgasm.

I reached down and looped an arm under one leg, held it up, shifted onto my knees and readjusted myself, then started hitting it from a different angle. It was a gamble, but sometimes this particular angle I had found really hit their pleasure button.

And it worked for her.

“Oh yeah!” she cried, her eyes going wide. “Oh my God, Chris! Oh fuck! RIGHT THERE! RIGHT FUCKING THERE!” she screamed.

I fucked that sweet spot and that sweet pussy until she started coming again. Groaning loudly at the fresh wave of pure, hot, wet bliss that erupted from her orgasming vagina, I stopped holding my own orgasm back and started hitting it harder and faster. I went and went, fucked and screwed her climaxing pussy until I busted a nut inside of her.

“Ohhhhhh, Hazel!” I moaned, shouting my bliss as that first pulse of pure, unfiltered rapture rolled through my body, my seed exploding out of my cock in a hard convulsion. I started pumping her pussy full of my stuff, coming hard and fast into her, grunting, my hips jerking forward reflexively as I came inside of her.

We orgasmed together for what felt like awhile, making all sorts of sounds, and then we were done, coming down from the high.

I pulled out of her after I was done and flopped over onto my back, getting my breath back. Hot damn that’d been intense.

“So...I coulda sold you my pussy, couldn’t I have?” she asked after a few moments.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Yeah,” I admitted. “You could’ve.”

“Damn,” she muttered.

“You don’t think you got enough out of me as it is?” I asked.

She sighed. “I suppose it was a good deal.” She shifted and groaned. “Goddamn, the sex alone was worth it. Jesus Christ, I haven’t been fucked like that since I hit my forties.”

“What, seriously?”

“The dating pool drops dramatically for older women, and it’s not like there were a lot more options after this fucking winter hit. The people who I do come across, well...let’s say most of them aren’t the kinda guys I’d let into my bed.”

“Fair enough,” I replied.

“You’re a lucky fuck in that regards, aren’t you? Don’t gotta worry about some chick trying to overpower you,” she said.

“No, though to be fair I do have to worry about them cutting my throat while I sleep.”

She grunted. “Fair point.”

We were quiet for another few moments, just basking in the glow of that sweet, post-sex bliss. God, orgasms were great, but those intense ones when you hooked up with a new chick that you were really into for the first time, and rode bareback, those could be just...the fucking best. After a moment, she shifted and then got up.

“Fucking how much did you come?” she asked, hurrying over to the bathroom.

“Probably a lot. Your pussy is fucking awesome,” I replied.

She laughed. “Well, that’s good to know, at least.” She fell silent, cleaning herself up. “Goddamn, that’s a lot,” she muttered.

A moment later, she came back. I looked over at her, still laying on my back. She was staring at me, and there was something I didn’t like on her face. On the one hand, I saw an expression of something like admiration and awe.

On the other hand, she looked a little guilty.

“Damn, you’re handsome,” she muttered. “Can’t believe I bedded you.”

“You got something to say?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.

She frowned and crossed her arms suddenly, looking at once both guiltier and a bit defensive. “Fuck, you’re good at reading people.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied. I waited.

She sighed. “So, I might have a small confession.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know exactly where these guys you’re looking for are.”

I sighed heavily and fell onto my back.

“I’ve got a decent idea,” she said quickly.

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“I never went looking. Knowledge is good, but keeping out of sight of trouble tends to be better. They learned not to come my way when I shot at them a month ago. Never saw them since.” She paused. “But look, I actually like you. God knows why. I mean, you’re a great lay and really handsome, but that isn’t enough for me to go sticking my neck out for people...but I’ll make it up to you. I’ll help you find them.”

“You will?” I asked, sitting up fully now.

“Yeah. I’m a great tracker, actually. I’m confident I can find them.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, getting up off the bed and going into the bathroom. I started washing up. I needed to tell the others about this.

“I want to make it up to you in a different way, too,” she said, coming up behind me. I felt her push her big tits against my back.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, pausing.

“Yeah. You like anal?”

“Yes,” I replied immediately.

She laughed. “I bet you like my ass too, huh?”

“Definitely.”

“Come spend the night with me. I’ll let you fuck me in the ass, and I’ll suck you off again, too. We can have more sex. Would that help?”

“Very much yes,” I replied.

She grinned. “Okay, then.”

“I still need to go home and let the others know. I’d like to bring one of them, or maybe both of them back here with me-” But I stopped as she frowned.

“I’d...honestly, I’d like you to myself for tonight,” she said.

I thought about it. Frowned. Sighed. “Well...I’ll have to see how they feel. I have an agreement with one of them for sure to protect her, which I can’t really do if I’m not there. But if they both feel comfortable enough being alone...I can come back. If not, I’ll have to forgo the night of pleasure for now. Let me talk to them.”

“All right,” she said. “Well, I’ll get ready and hope for the best.”

“All we can do, most of the time,” I replied.

TWENTY FIVE

That good mood had found me again, but this time it had brought a friend.

I was fucking motivated.

Okay, it was potentially still a long shot. A lot of shit could go wrong. The assholes who robbed me might’ve moved on. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to find them. Maybe Hazel was lying. (I still didn’t think so, she seemed like a hardass, though on the level). Maybe they’d used my journal for kindling by now.

Other things could go wrong.

But this was as close as I’d come to getting my shit back. Honestly, so long as I got that journal back, I’d be cool.

But whatever, I was on the path more than I’d been on the path since that wreck.

Sometimes, while I was wandering, it bugged me that I didn’t have a goal. A purpose. A path. A lot of the times it was nice, freeing even. I could do just about whatever I wanted. Go wherever I wanted, almost. I had the tools, the skills, and often the will to set goals and achieve them. It was a sort of treadmill and I thought I had adapted nicely to it. Whenever my lack of a ‘real’ goal beyond survival began to get to me, I tried to set an arbitrary goal. Usually it was: find a landmark in the distance and then go there.

But this was the clearest goal I’d had in awhile, it felt like.

I walked all the way back to the highway, up over it, and down the other side, getting back to the cabin without running into any trouble. I knocked on the door in the right way, then unlocked it. When I opened it up, I found myself looking at two naked, sweaty, beautiful women, laying on the bed together, Megan in the process of getting up, Delilah still laying on her back.

“Well...hello there,” I said.

“Hi,” Delilah replied with a grin.

“Hey...everything okay?” Megan asked. She looked like she’d been caught doing something really bad.

“Everything’s great, actually,” I replied, closing and locking the door. “I need to talk to the two of you about something...first of all, I met someone. And had sex with them.”

“Who?” Delilah asked, immediately curious.

“Yeah, who?” Megan asked, sound a little closer to hostile.

“Our sniper savior from yesterday. Turns out she’s a she, and she lives by the lake, in one of the houses there.”

“Is she pretty?” Megan asked, and I didn’t like the jealousy creeping into her voice. Although I had to admit, she was taking it better than I thought she might. There was an edge to her voice, but it wasn’t as sharp as it might have been a few days ago.

“I sure think so, although she was surprised I was into her. She was intimidated by you.”

It was a calculated attempt to mollify her, but it seemed to work. Megan looked surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah. She saw you from afar. She’s like twice my age or so, and not what you’d exactly call ‘traditionally attractive’. But I was wicked into her. We cut a deal: I traded her some stuff and pleasured her, and she gave us a few things, and agreed to help me track down the assholes who robbed me,” I explained, reaching into my pack. My hands came out with three bars of soap, which I set on the table. Then I pulled out half a dozen books.

“Oh fuck yes,” Delilah whispered, getting up and walking over. She began picking them up. “These are great, Chris.”

“So what, we’re gonna go off them right now?” Megan asked.

“No, tomorrow. She, uh, wants me to herself tonight.”

Megan’s eye had wandered to Delilah’s naked pale ass, but she looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re gonna go hunt cougar pussy tonight then, huh?”

“That’s the idea,” I replied. Maybe getting fucked by Delilah had mellowed her. I also smelled weed in the air.

“Can we come?” Delilah asked.

“She wants me to herself,” I replied. “I think she’s a little shy. Or maybe just selfish. Doesn’t like to share. But here’s the thing: if you don’t feel comfortable spending the night here, by yourselves, tonight, then I won’t go back. I’ll stay here, and we’ll all go in the morning together to her place. Delilah, you’d stay at her place while Megan and Hazel and I hunted these assholes down.”

“Hazel, that’s her name?” Megan asked.

“Yeah.”

Delilah had put the book down and was looking at me, then looked at Megan, who stared back at her. “Up to you,” she said.

Megan sighed, shifting her gaze to me. “I think I can hold down the fort,” she said after a moment’s consideration.

“You just want me all to yourself tonight,” Delilah said with a very confident smirk. When that girl was talking about sex, she was as confident as I’d ever seen her. I mean, she had every right to be, but it was interesting.

“I guess so,” Megan admitted uncertainly. “You’re...really good.”

“Told you.”

“So you’re comfortable with me being away for the night?” I asked.

“Yeah, go get your dick wet. You can come get us in the morning,” Megan replied. “I can handle myself.”

“Remember to lock this place down tight, double-check everything before you sleep, tend the fire,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Megan said.

I considered it a moment longer, but my mind was on Hazel.

And her fat ass.

And my dick going into it.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll be back in the morning. Megan, you’re cool to help me nail these guys, if it comes to that?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I can handle it.”

“Okay. Uh...well, have fun.” I paused. “Give me a hug. And a kiss.”

“Aw, you gonna miss us?” Megan asked, getting up.

Delilah gave me a hug and a long kiss. “I mean...yeah,” I said.

That seemed to surprise her, but Megan gave me a hug and kiss with tongue nonetheless. “Don’t fall in love with that cougar pussy and forget about us.”

“Not gonna happen,” I replied. “I get the feeling Hazel wouldn’t keep me even if I wanted to stick around.”

I lingered just a moment longer, looking at them, feeling like I was forgetting something. But in the end I decided I was just being paranoid, I was always paranoid about leaving people in my charge or that I cared about alone, and so I gathered my things, told them farewell once more, then headed back out into the cold.

…

“Oh my fucking God, Chris...slowly...Jesus fucking...fuck! You have a huge dick!”

“You okay?” I asked.

I was halfway up Hazel’s ass by now and enjoying myself, but she seemed less certain now.

“I can handle it,” she grunted. “Just...nice and easy.”

“If you don’t want-”

“I said I can handle it,” she said firmly.

Now I wondered if it was a point of pride, but I was enjoying it too much to stop unless she told me to. If she was going to let me keep fucking her in her fat, mature ass, then I was going to keep doing it. Because damn did it feel good.

I spent the next few minutes working my way into her. It felt great to be in for the day, and the night, naked again with her on her big, comfortable bed. Hazel looked particularly good on her hands and knees, taking me up her thick ass.

“Definitely glad I kept that lube around,” she said as we fucked. “Ah yeah...that’s it. That’s getting there,” she whispered.

“So you do like anal?” I asked, my hands firmly on her hips now as I stroked into her. Goddamn was her ass tight. Fuck, I loved that drag and that unique texture it had, how fucking good it felt to fuck a woman up the ass.

“Yeah,” she said, “though it’s been awhile. Ah! Ah yeah...mmm...harder.”

“You asked for it,” I replied.

I started stroking harder into her, going a bit faster too, and she let out a long moan. I watched my cock disappearing into her ass. After I’d made it back, we’d stripped and screwed again, then lounged for a bit, laying around naked, and finally I had decided I wanted that anal because I was still too horny to think straight.

And I could tell, even after busting another nut not too long ago, I wasn’t gonna last much longer. I kept going, pumping my rock-hard cock into that sweet, mature ass of hers, listening to her grunt and moan, looking at her body as she rested there on her hands and knees, taking it up the ass. I gave her big ass a hard smack and she groaned, hanging her head.

“Aw yeah...right there. Fuck my ass,” she almost growled, pushing back against me.

Tightening my grip on her big hips, I started going even harder and faster, and she let out a cry. I went for as long as I could, but before another minute or so I was coming. I let out my own inarticulate, half-strangled shout of sexual release and ecstasy as I started coming in her ass. Moaning loudly, I pushed my cock deep into her and emptied my seed for a third time into this woman, filling her up, pumping her full of it, filling myself with raw rapture. I came so hard my body seemed to constrict, trembling with effort.

And then I was finished, carefully pulling out of her ass, and I got up and walked over to the bathroom, where I started cleaning myself up again.

“God, it’s gonna take forever to get that out,” she muttered, now laying on the bed. “You happy?” she asked.

“Very,” I replied. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy. Like I said, I managed to bed a hot twenty-something who can fuck pretty good. It’s been awhile since I’ve had sex. It’s been longer since I’ve had sex with someone that I really enjoyed it with.”

“Glad I could be of service,” I replied.

Once I was done cleaning up, she got up and we switched places. I laid on my back, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling, just trying to enjoy the afterglow. I knew I was risking myself here. Helen could be intending to rob me. She might just want to get some good sex out of me before taking my shit and making me leave.

Or fuck, just straight-up killing me.

Getting away with murder is easier than ever before.

But I had learned to trust my gut over the past few years, and I was almost always right. Hazel seemed like the real deal: a woman looking for a good lay, some companionship, and maybe to help someone.

I’m honestly surprised that I didn’t give her any weird vibes like I seemed to give half the women I meet. I’ve just got that ‘asshole’ persona stuck to me, apparently. Maybe I’ve got resting asshole face. But it was really hit or miss whether or not women got that vibe from me. Delilah didn’t, but Megan did.

Hazel came back after awhile and laid down with me. She lit another cigarette and laid there smoking.

“Wanna tell me about yourself?” I asked.

“What’s there to tell?” she replied easily. “I used to be a social worker.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t seem the type, do I?”

I considered it. “I actually don’t know.”

“Fair enough. Hmm, tell you about myself...well, I grew up in Kansas. One of those little towns with less than a thousand people where the biggest deal around is hunting and fishing. Had a real outdoorsman dad and no mom. I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t think she died in childbirth, he would’ve said that, but he was always evasive. I think she split for one reason or another. I never found out. But I spent twenty years in that little town, learning to hunt, learning to fish, learning to clean guns and shoot with a bow and arrow and skin a deer and make a rabbit trap. Main reason I’m alive right now.”

She fell silent, took a long drag on her cigarette, probably lost in her memories.

“So how’d you end up a social worker?” I asked.

She sighed. “When I was twenty my dad died. Heart attack. Not exactly surprising, given the way he lived, but still...that one hurt. He’d made me ready, though, to live on my own. I was already kinda-sorta wanting to leave town, get to the big city by then, but after the funeral, I knew it was time. He left me the house. I sold it and almost everything else, took the money, and drove to Wichita. Enrolled in college, got myself a shitty little apartment, and lived off the money from the house while I went through the classes. For whatever reason, I knew I wanted to be a social worker and help people. Cue the next two and a half decades of me getting my most basic degree needed, getting a job as a social worker, loving and hating it in equal measure, burning out, moving, getting a new job, feeling guilty, going back to social work, burning out, rinse, repeat…”

She heaved another sigh.

“What was it like? I don’t actually know what the job’s like,” I said.

“It’s a lot of different things, but mostly it’s going out to people’s houses, and usually in this state said houses were private property twenty minutes beyond city limit, and helping someone who had some weird, bizarre, crazy, or unique situation and came to us for assistance. I’d take people to food pantries, make sure they got to psych appointments or court dates or the emergency room. Try to help them get their life on track in some capacity. Some people were great. Honestly just good people in bad situations, victims of circumstance. Some were fucking assholes. Some were mentally ill. Some were just...fucked. Like, cursed. I swear. I don’t know. But I always went back to it. Always. Well,” she chuckled bleakly, “not anymore.”

“Maybe this counts,” I said.

“Maybe,” she agreed after a moment.

“How’d you end up out here?”

“Kind of tragically, I guess. When the first really bad snow hit, I was on my way back to Wichita actually. I’d moved to Kansas City when I thought I was done for good with social work.” She snorted. “Had a friend out there who offered me a job as a manager at a restaurant chain she was co-owner of. I figured, why the fuck not? Half the jobs I’d taken in between social work were related to food somehow. Did it for two years, and it was nice at first. But then I felt that damned yearning. In the end, I apologized, let her find someone to replace me, got back in touch with my old boss, who pretty much always said ‘yes’ when I came crawling back, because they’re always desperate for people, because of the high turnover rate and I was actually good at it. And I packed up my stuff and headed out. Hired a company to move my furniture, since I was getting too fucking old to do it all myself. Well, halfway there I crashed.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, it was a whiteout. Bad, bad one. Luckily I was close to a little town. Managed to get there, and a lot of people had come off the highway there. It was a weird scene, though not a bad one. People were actually being nice, helping people out. I got a motel room, ended up splitting it with a few other people, because a lot of folks were coming in and they were running out of places to put them, and the snow wasn’t letting up. It was a blizzard. A really bad one. Went on for like two weeks. We were all locked in, basically. At that point I was already kinda figuring something serious might be on the horizon, I just didn’t know it was so close. My car was totaled, and the weather was so bad that most people didn’t have vehicles to make it to the next town over, let alone fucking Wichita. Long story short, I ended up staying there for like ten months, just helping people. It started out as me helping settle disputes between people, finding food and shelter for people, helping people with breakdowns and panic attacks, then it became me helping people by hunting and skinning deer, making animal traps, stuff like that, when it became obvious that this wasn’t going to get better, and help was not coming. Because help never came.”

“Wow,” I murmured.

“Yeah. Eventually, life settled into something like normal and I woke up one morning and thought to myself...I don’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t know where I wanted to be, only that I wanted to be somewhere else, away from people. So I said my goodbyes, packed my shit, and just started walking to the next nearest town. I kind of just picked a random destination and went. Cue months and months of wandering all over Kansas. Eventually, I found a cabin in the middle of nowhere. There was a family there, dead. They had died from a clogged chimney, inhalation. A couple, two kids, young teens. They’d gone peacefully, at least, in their sleep, then froze. They were rich. Found some stuff only rich people would carry among them. Found a map. They were coming here, to their getaway lake house. So I decided to see what it looked like. Followed the map. Got here a few months ago. Liked it, stayed.”

“Damn,” I said after several moments of silence.

“Yeah.” She paused. “What about you?”

I spent the next however long telling her a basic version of my story. Personally, I thought hers was way more interesting.

When I was done, she asked, “So what were you? Before all this. A cop? Marine? No, a bouncer,” she said.

I laughed. “Everyone says something like that. No, I worked in a fucking grocery store.”

“You’re fucking shitting me.”

“No, for real.”

“Fuck,” she said, stubbing out the dead cigarette. “I guess you turned into a badass after the apocalypse, huh?”

“I don’t know if I’m a badass,” I replied.

“You killed several people not all that long ago because it was the right thing to do, you’ve survived largely by yourself in a frozen wasteland for months now, and you’ve got three different women agreeing to let you put your raw cock in them. I think that counts.”

I laughed awkwardly. “I guess so.”

“So, how about we eat something, and then lounge around awhile longer?” she suggested.

“That sounds fine by me,” I replied.

“Great.”

We got up.

TWENTY SIX

“So you’re sure you’re good to do this?” I asked.

Hazel stared at me, sitting on the bed, topless, smoking a cigarette. She was going to chain-smoke everything I’d given her by tomorrow at this rate, but that was her business. I was in the process of getting dressed, and I had the idea she was trying to figure out if I meant anything by the question. I didn’t, and apparently she decided that.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she replied.

“Okay.”

Something that had bugged me, growing up, about our culture, American culture but it was probably a problem all over the world, was how many people just went along with stuff. Like, how many people felt pressured into saying yes to things, from big to small, because our culture had taught us not only to not take ‘no’ for an answer, but also that declining was rude or somehow wrong. I’d eventually figured out that there was a sort of spectrum to it, you didn’t have to say yes to fucking everything, but you also didn’t have to stand your ground and fight over every time someone pushed just a little to get you to do stuff.

Most people didn’t even realize they were making the other person uncomfortable by continuing to ask.

After the snowfall, I was obviously on the good end of most transactions or relationships when it came to people I came across who were less survival-inclined. It would be incredibly easy for me to start taking advantage of people, especially of women.

In a situation where death was basically always just around the corner, and I had a unique skill-set that allowed me to keep death at bay in most situations, I could easily present the ultimatum: ‘open your legs for me or I’ll leave you here to die’.

I never had, and I never intended to, but there were a lot of ways of taking advantage of someone. It wasn’t black and white, it wasn’t all or nothing.

Like that old mafia trope: ‘Be a real shame if something happened to this place’. A ‘plausibly deniable’ threat.

Because of this, I’d started building the habit of making sure people were really okay with the deal we’d struck. And I was going a bit further than usual with Hazel because I was asking her to help me, potentially, kill some people.

That was a bit more serious than sex for survival.

I finished pulling my clothes on. Yesterday had been really good. After fucking her in the ass, we’d had a long meal and a longer time kind of just laying around. We talked, she told some stories of her wilder clients or more unique situations, I told her some stories about stuff I’d seen or done since the apocalypse, women I’d hooked up with. She wanted to know about that. Some women asked, and it seemed to me that when a woman wanted to know about other women I’d hooked up with, they really wanted to know.

We had sex three more times, and she complained that I was wearing her out each time, though I didn’t think it was an actual complaint, given she initiated two of those three times. She gave me another blowjob which was fucking spectacular.

Eventually, we’d gone to sleep. I was always wary about sleeping in a bed with a new woman. So far, I hadn’t been fucked over. I thought it was because I was lucky, or good at reading people, or both. Probably both. But it could definitely happen. Hell, it could happen with a woman I’d slept in a bed with twenty times. She might suddenly decide it makes more sense to rob me and run away, even if it didn’t.

But I woke up safe and sound and horny, and she fucked me.

She rode my cock until we both came, then we got up, washed, and started dressing.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

“I’ll go get the girls and grab a bite to eat for breakfast. I want one of them to stay here, for safety,” I replied.

“Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “She’s not like a klepto or a pyro or anything, is she?”

“Not as far as I’ve been able to tell.” I paused. “Put it this way: I trust her to mind her manners,” I said.

Hazel laughed. “Fair enough. Anything goes missing, it’s on your ass.”

“Fine,” I said.

I finished pulling my clothes on and as I laced up my snow boots, Hazel stubbed out the cigarette and finished getting dressed. I checked through my backpack, made sure everything was still where it was supposed to be, then stood up and pulled it on.

“I’ll be back in about an hour, maybe a little longer,” I said.

“I’ll be ready,” she replied.

I started to walk out, then hesitated and looked back over at her. “Any chance I can get a kiss?” I asked.

She laughed. “Yes,” she said. I walked over and she gave me a firm kiss on the mouth with some nice tongue. “You’re a weird boy,” she murmured. “But I’m getting the impression that those two girls are lucky to have you.”

“Well, I’ve been helping them at least. I know I’m lucky to have them around,” I replied.

“I’m interested in meeting them. Plus, now that I’ve had you to myself, I have to admit, it’s been awhile since I’ve watched live porn. I wouldn’t mind seeing you fuck one or both of them.”

“I really wouldn’t mind letting you see that.”

“Good. Go get them. Sooner we get this done, sooner we can all relax again.”

I nodded. She had a point.

I told her I’d be back soon and headed out of her house.

~

I felt better than ever.

Happy, motivated, ready to fucking go.

This was it. This was the day I was going to get my shit back. Or, at the very least, the day I was going to get it back or discover I couldn’t. Even in spite of my happiness, I could feel that darkness lingering at the edges of my mind, wanting in. Wanting to bug me, punch my anxiety or anger buttons. That knowledge that my journal might be gone, or burned, or read. It was still weird to me, that it bugged me so much, because it didn’t bother me for reasons other people might get bothered. There was nothing embarrassing in there. I mean, I didn’t think so. Anything I wrote in there I wouldn’t be too upset if other people knew about it, even enemies. If they tried to use it against me, it wouldn’t really be effective.

I guess it still just came down to the fact that it was mine. Mine more than anything else in this whole world, except maybe my own body.

The only external thing in the entire face of existence that I felt was unequivocally my own and no one else’s.

And someone had stolen it from me.

Yes, I was getting it back today.

I felt it in my bones.

Though there were clouds in the sky, none of them looked particularly threatening. The winds gusted every now and then, abusing me with an icy cold that even two years later still bugged me. How the fuck did people get used to this level of cold? How did people live in places where it snowed year-round? I mean now you had to, but before it had most certainly been a choice. I didn’t know, never would, I guess.

The walk up the ramp and down the opposite one was a simple, easy walk. As far as walks went in the new world. I ran through the plan, inasmuch as there was one, in my head as I walked across the snow, towards the cabin that I called my home for now. Head in, grab some extra supplies, mostly weapons, get the ladies, walk back over to Hazel’s place, then go hunting. Honestly, I was hoping not to have to kill anyone else. Shit, if it came down to it, I might even consider bargaining for the fucking journal back.

Yeah, they’d robbed me blind, but they hadn’t killed me. Again, something about that struck me as odd, even though it really shouldn’t. I’d seen plenty of people robbed but just beaten up, or even robbed and unharmed. Why was it bugging me? I couldn’t put a pin in it and for now, I just put a pin in the notion and set it aside for later. If I could bargain to get the journal back reasonably, I would, because I just wanted to get the fuck out of here. Maybe I could convince Hazel to come with us, though I didn’t think so.

She seemed happy where she was.

But either way, I was planning on sticking around. I wanted out. More importantly, I had agreed to leave the region. We had a long walk ahead of us. Sooner we got to it, the better. Honestly, I was already feeling the itch to keep moving.

I walked up to the cabin and prepared to do my ritual of the appropriate knock and unlocking the door. There was smoke coming from the chimney, but as I came close enough to tell, I realized immediately something was wrong.

The lock was broken, the handle hanging at an awkward angle.

My heart immediately began kicking in my chest, flooding my body with adrenaline. I pulled my pistol out and looked around. I thought I could make out vague footprints in the snow, several of them, but it was hard to tell. Shit. Fuck. I moved quickly up to the door that someone had kicked in. God fucking dammit, something had happened while I was away. I had my nine out, safety off, and I kicked the door open.

Pointing the gun in, hoping I was wrong and that the women were okay, but knowing the chances of that were extremely low, I looked around.

The place was a mess, obviously trashed and pilfered.

Fucking Christ, what a nightmare. I took a step in and that was when I just began registering that someone was rushing up behind me. I began to turn. How had they gotten so fucking close so quickly?! Their crunching footfalls must have been covered by the winds and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and–

~

Fuck.

I came awake all at once, like someone had hit me with an electric shock. I jerked and let out a hoarse shout as I temporarily flailed, trying to stand up. I got to my knees, looking around, head pounding and swaying viciously, vaguely aware that I was in my cabin and something was seriously fucking wrong.

Trying to stand up, I lost my footing or balance or whatever the hell, I couldn’t even tell right then, and collapsed. Pure luck I fell onto the bed, and I caught a smell of three things: Megan, Delilah, and blood.

That awful mixture reignited my memories and jump-started my brain.

They had been kidnapped. Fuck. Fuck me.

“Fuck!” I screamed as I forced myself back up. Head pounding worse than ever, I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

The place had been cleared out, the table empty, drawers pulled out of the desk. I looked down at myself, saw my holster and gun were missing. Quickly, I began patting myself down, and found that my pockets had been completely cleaned out. Holy fucking Christ this was a shit situation. As I took a step to perform a quick sweep of the cabin, looking for something, anything left, putting together a plan in my head, I was struck utterly by the conviction that I should not be waking up. Why had they robbed me and knocked me out twice now?

Wait. Had they?

It was entirely possible that it was a totally different group of people, but something in my gut told me it wasn’t. Could be wrong, definitely could be wrong, but I didn’t think so for some reason. Why had they let me live?

I wanted to think more on that, because I felt like the answer, or at least part of the answer, was close. Maddeningly close. But not now, there wasn’t time. I had very limited time. There was a trail to follow, hopefully, and it was fading, depending on the weather outside. I glanced at the door. It was closed. Looked over at the fireplace. Embers. Couldn’t have been out that long. I looked out the window. Still the same, didn’t look any different out there. And I saw a single set of tracks, leading away from the cabin, back towards the highway.

Perfect.

Some motherfucker had knocked my ass out, robbed me, and kidnapped two people that I cared a lot about.

Bargaining suddenly seemed off the table.

~

There was nothing left in the cabin, or at least nothing I could use.

No weapons. No guns, no bullets, no knives.

All I had on me was my clothes. I was surprised they hadn’t taken my boots or my jacket. And honestly, the more I thought about it as I followed the tracks, stalking angrily across the snow and over to the highway, the weirder that seemed.

Why rob me blind but leave my clothes? It was fucking with me something fierce, even as pissed as I was. Not killing me was one thing, but both times I’d had every last thing stolen from me...except my clothes, even my boots. Taking a person’s boots nowadays was pretty brutal, given the likelihood of frostbite and hypothermia. But they hadn’t. Why? It was bugging me, but as I ascended the ramp, crossed the highway, and paused to take a long look over the area, I realized I was still too pissed and in pain to ferret it out.

Fine. I’d deal with it later.

I could see the bootprints continue down the other ramp and thought I could make them out moving along the road that led away from the highway, towards the frozen lake. Easy enough to follow. I started making my way down the other ramp, almost falling several times as I hurried up. What the fuck was I going to do? I was weaponless, had no supplies, and my head had only just stopped bleeding. Whoever it was had whacked me over the back of the head. I was dizzy and had a bad headache, with no idea if I had a concussion or not, or a brain bleed, or skull fracture, or fucking whatever else could go wrong when you took a bad hit to the head.

But I was upright and walking, and the pain was being numbed by the extreme cold.

Hazel, I knew. I had to get to Hazel. She had already offered to help. She’d have a gun and bullets for me, and she could help me track the fuckers down. I walked, following the footprints in the snow until they abruptly veered off to the left, into the woods, along a pathway just visible between the trees and beneath the snow.

Fucking perfect, I knew where to go.

I walked on, moving past it, and kept going until I hit Hazel’s place. I banged on the door until she opened it, holding a pistol.

“Oh shit, what happened?” she asked, pulling me in. I don’t know what tipped her off that something had happened, the fact that I was alone, my mood, maybe she noticed my shit was gone, or maybe I had blood on me and couldn’t tell.

“Got back to the cabin, girls were gone, place was tossed. I got knocked out, woke up and I’d been robbed blind. Again. I followed some footprints away from the cabin and to a path that leads into the forest a little ways back,” I said, my voice flat and angry.

“Shit. You’ve got blood in your hair and on your neck, come here, sit down,” she said, guiding me into the kitchen.

I wanted to leave right away, to grab a gun and just go, because God fucking knew what was happening to Megan and Delilah.

Shit, if they’d done fucking anything to them I wasn’t just going to kill them.

But I needed to get a looking-over by someone who had at least a decent idea of what they were doing before I marched off to war. I gritted my teeth and winced as she checked my scalp after pulling out a medical kit.

“You got whacked good,” she muttered as she started cleaning some blood off me with quick, efficient strokes. “Can’t tell for sure, you might have a concussion. You puke?”

“No,” I said.

“You seem pretty alert,” she muttered. “Dizzy?”

“Kind of.”

“Well, you made it here. Headache?”

“Big one.”

“No surprise there. Ringing in your ears?”

I paused, waited. “No,” I said. I think there had been when I’d woken up, but now in the quiet of her kitchen, I could tell for sure there was nothing ringing.

“Good. I don’t think you have one, then. The bleeding isn’t terrible. I think you might’ve gotten off lucky,” she muttered. “This is gonna hurt.”

The second she said it, I felt an explosion of stinging pain. I clenched my jaw, my whole body in fact, as if to absorb a blow, and let out a half shout.

“Sorry,” she said as she continued cleaning my wound.

“Fine,” I growled.

She worked for a bit longer and finally put a bandage over my scalp where I’d been hit, then she set a bottle of painkillers in front of me and a glass of water.

“Thank you,” I said, making myself say it. Not because I hated the notion of thanking her, I was genuinely grateful, but because I was fucking livid right now and it was hard to focus. I downed four of the painkillers, as my headache was fucking splitting, and finished off the water. I hadn’t eaten yet today, but now my stomach was too upset from pure rage to even consider it. I might actually throw up if I tried to down anything beyond water and pills.

I turned to look at her. “Will you help me get them back?”

“Of course,” she said. “Come on. I’ll get you some supplies.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

I got up and followed her out of the kitchen.

TWENTY SEVEN

Rage was a good fuel.

I’d learned this over the course of my quarter century of life.

Pain could also be a good fuel, like gasoline on a flame.

I was angry and in pain, though it was calming down to a more tolerable level, as Hazel and I moved along the pathway that led into the forest. I was in the process of trying to tone the rage down, because too much of it was bad. Needed to be clear-headed, focused, sharp. Lives were on the line, and not just my own.

I would never forgive myself if something happened to Delilah, Megan, or Hazel because I was too pissed to think straight.

“Something’s bugging me,” I muttered as we walked on, wary of traps.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the same people who robbed me twice now. They robbed me blind, but let me live. They didn’t steal my boots, my clothes. It would’ve taken more than one person to raid the cabin and take the women, but one person stayed behind.”

“You sure it’s one person?”

“I think so,” I said, reasoning it out. “There was just one set of tracks, and I don’t think there was anyone else around. Just one person who waited behind for me after they’d taken Megan and Delilah. Why? And they seemed to have left a clear path to themselves.”

“Maybe they wanted you to come after them,” Hazel hazarded.

“But why? Why would someone want me to specifically come after them?”

She shrugged. “That I couldn’t tell you. Might be a game to them. Maybe they robbed you and figured you’d come after them the first time, then they got impatient when you weren’t doing it fast enough and decided to hit you again, harder, and leave a more obvious trail, so you’d for sure come after them. Maybe so they can hunt you? Maybe to test some defenses they had set up? Fuck, I don’t know. People can be weird.”

“They sure can be,” I muttered.

There didn’t seem to be anymore to say after that, so we walked on in silence. The more I thought about it the more sense it made. The thing that was really bugging me, I realized all at once, was how much had been stolen.

In basically every other case I’d seen people surviving the initial encounter, it was usually a smash and grab. Blindside and maybe knock a person out, and grab the most immediately obvious stuff before running away. But both times, they had taken every last fucking thing on me except for my clothes. Like, everything.

All my pockets had been emptied.

That felt oddly deliberate.

Was it meant to piss me off even more? But why the fuck would someone want me to come after them? It didn’t make sense.

Maybe it wouldn’t.

Maybe their reason was something I just wouldn’t get, or maybe they were nuts. Maybe I’d find out, or maybe I’d never find out.

Right now, didn’t matter.

We walked on, going along the path, moving deeper into the snowbound woods. It was quiet, the snow absorbing the noise. All we had for company was each other, some birds calling here or there, and the occasional gust of wind. The footprints were more recent, better hidden from the snow and wind, and therefore very well preserved. It was easy to follow them. They were clear and consistent, the gait of a man, (I was convinced it was a man), who knew where he was going and wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get there.

Hazel had given me another nine millimeter that held twenty-round magazines, and four mags total. I was locked, loaded, and ready to pull the trigger. Hazel had a pistol and her hunting rifle. We had already discussed the plan. When we found the place, I was going to get up to it, (I’m guessing it was a house), and she was going to find a good position and provide sniper support. I figured between the two of us, the tactic would work. Of course, I could get killed. Or she could, but that was less likely. But that was the risk.

This needed to get done.

I couldn’t do anything but this.

After another minute or so, I stopped and so did Hazel. There it was. The place we almost certainly were looking for. I could just make out a house with very faded pale blue siding. Two stories, decent size, and the woods practically butted up against the back, with no real backyard to speak of. Well, that struck me as a way in.

“What do you want to do?” Hazel whispered.

“Let’s keep scouting, find a good place for you to set up. Then I’m going to sneak in the back, if there is a back,” I replied. I turned fully to look at her. “Listen, if something happens to me, you have to get them out of there. Somehow. Both of them. And once you do, give them whatever supplies they need, they’re intending to take a trip up the highway. Okay?”

She looked back at me and there was something in her gaze I couldn’t quite read. Reluctance? Maybe, it would make sense, given I was dumping this in her lap.

“Okay,” she said simply.

I nodded, satisfied. Or as satisfied as I’d get.

It was time to act.

I still wasn’t even sure that was the place, even though the path and the bootprints led up to it, but I became sure as we did our recon. I heard someone shout in anger and then something break, and I immediately recognized the voice as Megan’s. Well, that fucking clenched it. At least she was in there, almost certainly Delilah was.

We did our best to stay out of sight. It was slow work, and I hated every second I wasn’t busting into that house, but I was no good to them dead. And it worked, anyway. We found a little spot that was raised, but concealed behind some trees, giving her a commanding view of the house from the front. While Hazel settled into position, I quickly made my way around back. I could hear Megan shouting more. Fuck.

I had to get in there.

Going as fast as I could without giving myself away (hopefully, they had to know someone was coming), I got around to the back and discovered that there was actually a way in. A door that I discovered was unlocked. Given the amount of sound going on in there, I thought I could get in without anyone noticing. Hopefully. I twisted the knob all the way and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked, though not horribly.

A dank, old stairwell descended down before me and I aimed my pistol, waiting.

No one came. I slipped down the stairwell, briefly trying to figure out whether or not I should close the door, then decided to leave it open. The less sound the better. The steps were concrete, thankfully. Easier to sneak down. I went step by step, carefully, slowly, listening to the racket overhead. Something shattered.

I froze as I neared the bottom and heard someone mutter to themselves, somewhere close by. Fuck. Someone was down here. I remained frozen, my heart punching in my chest, pistol raised. Megan’s shouts subsided for a moment and I could hear the person, make out some of what they were saying.

“Fucking bitch...I’ll fucking get my turn with her.” Whoever they were, they were drunk, or fucked up somehow. But I was almost sure drunk, and quite drunk. Good. That was going to make this easier.

With careful movements, I tucked my pistol down the back of my pants and pulled out the knife Hazel had given me. I had done this once before, and I’d sure seen it done in enough movies, not that that really meant all that much, but it had worked the first time. Finishing my descent, I hit the bottom of the stairwell, coming into a tiny area the size of a closet. If it had ever had a door separating it from the rest of the basement, it was long gone. Peering cautiously around the doorway, revealing as little of myself as possible, I scoped out the situation.

There was one guy down there, among a bunch of crap. Some couches, a table, a crapload of boxes, some shelves. I saw a water heater in one corner and a washer and dryer pushed up into another. The guy was sitting on one of the couches, which was faced away from me. Thank fucking God. I slipped as silently into the room as I could. Overhead, someone shouted, another male voice, and Megan shouted right back.

I’m pretty sure it was go fuck yourself.

The guy laughed and took a drink, and as I drew closer to him, as silent as death, knife raised, I smelled alcohol.

The moment of truth came to pass and I struck.

One hand slipped over his mouth as he was finishing a drink and pulling the bottle back, the other hand plunged the knife deep into his throat, all the way up to the hilt. It was probably coming out the back of his neck. He let out a muffled sound of shocked agony and began thrashing around. I was bigger and stronger so I held on tight. The bottle dropped onto the couch, and there wasn’t anything close enough for him to kick around.

He was gone in about half a minute.

Overhead, the sounds of struggling intensified. Something was knocked over. Jesus fucking shit I had to get up there. Quickly double-checking that no one else was down here, drunk and passed out maybe, and not finding anyone, I hurried over to some stairs on the other side of the room. Pistol in one hand, knife in the other, I ascended. The sounds got closer as I hustled up the stairs, not needing to be quiet or slow anymore.

The door at the top was open and I stepped out, looking around, coming into a hallway. The door closest to me was shut and was where all the sounds were coming from. I didn’t see anyone in the hallway with me, so I kicked in the door and raised the pistol. There was a bedroom that had been trashed. Megan was topless and struggling with someone that I recognized immediately. That scraggly-haired, scrawny motherfucker that we had let go when we’d raided the campgrounds. Goddamnit! That son of a bitch!

They both looked at me, startled by my sudden appearance, and suddenly, in a burst of energy, Megan threw him bodily off of her. He yelled, flailing, and fell onto the floor, onto his back. Somewhere else in the house, I heard running footsteps. I took aim at the guy on the floor, but Megan jumped up, snatched something off a dresser, then leaped onto the man and brought the object, what I realized was one of those fucking heavy-ass custom-made ashtrays, down onto his skull. He screamed and the sound the thing made connecting with his head was awful. But then Megan was screaming at the top of her lungs, a maddened, infuriated war cry as she brought it down again, and again. The footsteps were getting closer.

I twisted and took aim as someone came into the hallway, appearing at the opposite end of me where I’m guessing more stairs were.

I didn’t recognize the guy, but he was holding a shotgun. His shock at seeing me was enough to let me get the drop on him and I opened fire, putting three rounds in his chest, one his neck, and finally a last one in his head when he didn’t fucking go down. The wall behind him splattered with blood and he collapsed. Overhead, at about the same moment I heard the sharp report of a rifle going off, I also heard shattering glass.

Hazel must’ve gotten a shot and taken it when she’d heard my gunfire.

“Megan! Megan!” I screamed to get her attention when I realized she was still going, still hammering away at the bastard’s skull.

“I told you!” she was screaming. “I told you what would happen if I ever saw you again!”

“MEGAN!”

She jerked and twisted around, blood-splattered ashtray in her grasp, raised over her head, but she immediately dropped it when she saw me.

“Oh fuck, Chris,” she said, struggling to her feet. I stayed in the hallway, despite wanting to help her, in case anyone else showed up. I could hear voices and movement overhead, but so far it seemed to be staying up there. “I thought you were dead.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She seemed a little dazed, no doubt still overwhelmed by the pure, white-hot rage she had been living with for however long she’d been grabbed by these fucking assholes.

“Yeah,” she muttered.

“Megan,” I said. She blinked a few times, looked down at the dead body beside her. “Megan.”

“What?” she asked, looking back at me.

“How many are there?”

That seemed to cut through some of the haze she was lost in. She tossed the ashtray onto the bed and walked over to me. I could see the tattered remains of her shirt somewhere nearby on the floor. “At least five,” she said. “Maybe six or seven.”

“Well, three are dead for sure now,” I replied, looking at the scrawny bastard she’d killed. His head was practically pulp now. Well, we’d sure as shit warned the asshole that if we ever saw him again, he probably wouldn’t walk away. Apparently he’d just run straight to these fuckers. And now he’d paid the price.

“Give me a gun,” she said.

I considered it, then nodded. “Wait here.”

As I made my way down the hallway, stopping to check each room I passed and finding them all empty for the moment, I heard another gunshot ring out and someone shout. Abruptly, a hail of return fire sounded, two pistols by the sound of it. Directly overhead. I finished clearing the ground floor, then snatched up the shotgun and let out a short whistle and jerked my head when I saw I had Megan’s attention.

She hurried down the hallway and joined me, and I passed her the shotgun. She sneered down at the corpse of the guy I’d killed, then kicked his head.

“Fucker,” she growled.

“Where’s Delilah?” I asked, looking at her. She looked like something off of an eighties metal cover or something, completely topless, her face and neck and breasts sprayed liberally with blood, the shotgun in her grasp, her eyes wide and enraged, her hair a wild mess.

“Upstairs, I think. The guy in charge, I think he took her upstairs to his room with him...what happened?” she asked.

“I was gonna ask the same thing but we need to kill these fuckers first. Be careful, Hazel is outside with a rifle,” I said.

“Understood,” she replied.

I headed up the stairs, pistol pointed. Someone was firing off a few shots from a pistol every now and then. There were at least two of them for sure up there, I knew that, as I’d heard two different pistols firing at the same time initially. This was going to be probably the riskiest part yet. “Stay behind me, watch my back,” I said.

She nodded tightly. We moved up the stairs and I kept my pistol at the ready, in case anyone jumped out at me. The gunfire that was popping off every ten seconds or so was driving me crazy, making me want to just fucking run my ass off, but I pushed against the survival instinct as best I could. I had to end them before they ended us.

The top floor had a relatively simple layout. The stairs let out into a room that connected all the other rooms. The door directly ahead of me was shut firmly. Two doors two my right, both almost closed, and one to my left, partially open, where the gunfire was coming from. I motioned for Megan to hold her place on the stairs, then slipped up to the wall beside the door. I was going to have to time this right. No doubt the other guy was watching the door, or maybe he was dead and I was lucky. I wouldn’t exactly count on that though.

I was just going to have to gamble it.

They already knew I was coming. The door was maybe a quarter of the way open. I quickly slipped around to the other side, so I could peer into the part that was open, but the second I did, bullets began exploding out through the door. Some got lodged in the wood but several punched all the way through. There was a pause after half a dozen rounds had come through. I blind-fired right back, putting my own half-dozen rounds back through the door, hoping for one of two things: either getting lucky and landing a shot, or forcing the guy into emptying his magazine the rest of the way, giving me an opening.

Return fire came back and it felt much more panicked, especially when I heard the crack of a rifle sound off twice.

The second the pistol fire cut off, I kicked the door in and took aim.

I took it all in as fast as I could. The place was a bedroom in a chaotic mess, clothes and trash and broken glass littering the floor, including a corpse with half its head blown off. Hazel’s work. There were two survivors. One was over by the broken window to my left, crouched down, obviously trying to focus on taking out Hazel. The other was a man crouched behind a twin-bed, in the process of reloading, a look of panic and rage written across his features.

He went first. I aimed and fired, putting a bullet directly into his forehead. As I snapped my aim to the second guy, who was in the process of turning around and giving me his full attention, I fired again, sending several bullets into him. One in the gut, another two in the chest, and finally one in the eye that blew it out and splattered the wall behind him in an awful splash of gore. He dropped just like his buddy.

Riding high on adrenaline, I quickly checked the room for other people: more assholes or Delilah, but I could tell these three had been it. My mind took in a useless detail as I walked back out: they’d been playing cards. The things were scattered around as well, mixing with the fresh blood, and one stuck to my bloody boot as I left.

“Delilah!” I called.

“Chris!” I heard her yell back. Both mine and Megan’s eyes instantly snapped to the door opposite the stairs, the one firmly shut. I marched over and prepared to kick it open but a new voice made me hesitate.

“That’s close enough!” Someone was in there with her. The boss, probably. I remembered one of the guys back at the campgrounds had mentioned a name: Tanner. Was this him? If it was, he was a fucking dead man.

“Come out, now!” I snapped.

“Why don’t you come in?” he replied, sounding surprisingly calm. While I was considering how best to deal with that, he pressed on in that same calm voice. “Open the door and come in or I’m going to kill the redhead.”

“Fuck...all right!” I said, raising my hand and stilling Megan, who looked ready to pop a gasket. “I’m coming in.”

I thought he’d say something about dropping my gun or, but he didn’t. Just silence. What the fuck was with this guy? I grabbed the knob, twisted it, slowly pushed the door open. I saw a bedroom beyond, what must have been the master bedroom of the house. Raising my pistol, I stepped inside, my instincts telling me they were to the left. Sure enough, that’s where they were. Delilah stood, looking paler than ever and terrified, her eyes wide, trembling, and a man stood behind her, a pistol held against her head.

“Let her go, now,” I said. I didn’t have a clear shot on him.

“All right,” the man, Tanner, I assumed, said, and he let go of Delilah. “Go on,” he said, giving her a gentle push.

I blinked in surprise but kept the gun trained on him. What the fuck was he doing? Delilah took a few hesitant steps towards me, no doubt terrified that she’d feel a bullet blast into her back any second, but he wasn’t even aiming the gun at her any longer. He was pointing it down, towards the floor. I took a step to the side, keeping the gun pointed at him, and moved so that Delilah wasn’t in my direct line of fire.

“Come here,” I said.

Delilah finally crossed the rest of the distance in a hurry and hugged me tightly. I wrapped one arm around her, never taking my eyes or gun off Tanner, but he was just looking at us. He looked...sad. What in the hell was going on? Was this a trap? Was I missing something? I fucking had to be. He had gone to all this trouble to get me here, apparently, unless I was wrong there, too.

“Chris, Chris,” Delilah whispered, squeezing me, trembling, like she couldn’t believe I was actually there.

“Go with Megan,” I said.

“I…” she hesitated, looking up at me, then back over her shoulder at Tanner, then twisted back around to look out the door, where Megan was waiting with the shotgun. “Chris-”

“Go with Megan, right now. Megan, clear out the house, make sure there’s no others, then get Hazel inside,” I said, raising my voice a little.

“Got it,” Megan replied tightly. “Come on, Delilah. Chris needs to finish the job.”

Delilah lingered for just a few seconds longer, then turned and walked away. I put my other hand back on the pistol.

“You mind if I take a smoke break before you kill me?” the man asked, setting the pistol down on the nightstand and grabbing a hand-rolled cigarette and a lighter.

“All your other guys are dead,” I said.

“Can’t say I’m sorry,” he muttered, lighting up. “They weren’t good guys.”

Something was not right about this, and I kept thinking maybe he was trying to distract me, but what the fuck for? To kill me, obviously. Maybe someone else was in the room? I took quick, furtive looks around while he smoked. I could tell right away why Hazel hadn’t nailed him: the two windows in his room were boarded over.

With quick movements, I checked out behind the door and in the closet. Nothing. No one. And I looked down under the bed, covering him with the pistol the whole time, ready to react in a split second if he so much as moved. No one there either, and he just sat there and smoked.

“Name’s Tanner,” he said.

“What the fuck do you want?” I asked, increasingly bewildered. What in the actual fucking hell was this guy’s game?

“I’d like you to put a bullet in my head,” he replied coolly.

“What? Then why the fuck didn’t you keep threatening Delilah? I sure would’ve done it then if I’d had a shot.”

“This may surprise you, but I didn’t want to put her in any danger.”

“Just her? Why the fuck didn’t you stop your asshole new guy from trying to fucking rape Megan?” I snapped.

He sighed. “Can’t win ‘em all.”

I felt my hands tighten on the weapon and I almost pulled the trigger, but I was too weirded out by all this.

Despite everything, I wanted to know more.

“Why did you do this? You robbed me. Twice. And knocked me out. You wanted me to come after you. Why?”

“I just told you.”

“Yeah but why?” I pressed.

He sighed and flicked some ash into an ashtray. Then he paused and laughed. “Habits,” he muttered. “It’s the apocalypse and you’ve got a gun on me, ready to blow my brains out, and I’m still flicking into a fucking ashtray. Jesus.”

For a moment, he just sat there and stared at me. I stared back.

Tanner looked to be in his late thirties, and someone who had been hard-used by life, aged early. He had nests of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, his skin weathered. There were a few scars on his face, what I could see anyway, as he had a raggedy beard and unkempt brown hair. He wore faded bluejeans and a leather jacket, not all that dissimilar from my own, actually. In fact, suddenly, he reached into the jacket.

I prepared to pull the trigger, but his hand came out with something familiar.

“I’m guessing what you really want is this.”

He set my journal down on the bed beside him.

“Tell me why,” I said firmly. I realized, right then and there, that some part of me needed to know. I don’t know why. It made no sense. Honestly, every second that passed that I didn’t put a bullet in him was another second I was risking my life. Even the others’ lives. He could have friends on the way to back him up, or some other means of killing us, but somehow, I didn’t think so. He looked tired, and older than his years, and more than anything else, he just looked despairing and defeated. He looked like he was done.

“It’ll take a minute,” he said, taking another drag on the cigarette.

“Tell me,” I repeated, still covering him with the pistol. I could hear the others moving around in the house, checking it out. I trusted Megan and Hazel to be able to handle themselves.

“All right. I’d like to tell someone, I guess,” he replied. “The short version then. My fucking back hurts and I’ve got a bad headache. Might not seem that way, but that redhead of yours has a powerful right hook.” I tensed at the implication of that and he waved a hand. “No, no. I didn’t do anything to her. I wouldn’t do that. Anyway. I grew up dirt poor and shit miserable. Tried putting a life together for myself for a long time. Finally got something going after awhile. Found a woman who was way too good for me, and she loved me for some reason, and I sure loved her. We got married. Had a kid. I got a job helping run a grocery store.”

He stopped, took another pull on the cigarette, let out a wave of smoke in a heavy, tired sigh. “Then the snow happened. It wasn’t too bad, at first. Our kid was just born. Given I worked at the grocery store and we had a healthy store of supplies, I was still in a good position, even for Armageddon. My wife would come down to visit me every day with our little girl all bundled up. She had this-” he stopped suddenly, his face twisting into one of the most honest, gut-punch expressions of pain I’d ever seen, and if there was any doubt as to whether or not he was telling the truth, they ended right then and there.

Tanner cleared his throat. “She had this dinosaur print blanket. It was the only thing I’d gotten from my parents and held onto. Anyway...people started to get nervous after awhile. I think we all finally began to clue in that shit was fucked. One day, people panicked. It was a bad time. My wife was down visiting me with our daughter. Not sure what happened, but someone flipped out, and people were already primed, so there was a stampede. My daughter was killed. I...lost it. A lot of us had started carrying pistols. I had one on me. I pulled it out, just started firing into the crowd. I shot five people. Three of them died.”

Jesus. I kept staring at him, not even sure what to say or fucking do but listen. I could hear the others downstairs. It sounded like Hazel had come in. How much longer before they decided to come check on me?

What the fuck was I going to do?

Tanner wasn’t looking at me anymore. Was just staring at the wall.

“We still had cops. I got arrested. Thrown in the local jail. I rotted for months in there while they tried to figure out what to do with me. It was getting worse, though, out in the city. My wife kept visiting me through the whole thing. Every day. I was good friends with one of the cops, although it wasn’t enough to get me out. I wanted to run away with my wife, but the opportunity didn’t present itself. Finally, she started getting sick, and eventually she stopped showing up. I tried to find out what the fuck was going on, but cops were checking on me less and less. I heard more shooting outside more often, and I know twice there was a big fire of some kind. Finally, after a few weeks, my friend came to see me, said he found out what had happened: my wife had caught pneumonia and she’d fucking died. He came and told me in the middle of the night, and he let me out. He gave me some supplies and some clothes and a gun and told me just to get out of town. I did, because I didn’t know what else to do. And I drifted for a long time.”

Now he looked back at me, seeming to come back to himself, to the room, to the reality he was currently living. He took another long drag on his cigarette, almost finishing it off. “I did some bad shit between here and there.” He laughed, bitterly. “You’d be surprised what you can do when you don’t fuckin’ want to be alive anymore, but you’re too much of a fuckin’ coward to kill yourself.”

“So that’s why you did it,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” he said, staring hard at me now. “We were on the highway when you were driving through. You almost hit me. Then you wrecked. Me and a few of the guys robbed you blind. They were gonna kill you, but I stopped them. Because I knew. Especially when I found this,” he tapped the journal, “I just fucking knew you were gonna come ice me and take it back. I knew you wouldn’t stop. Sure took you long enough.”

“Is that why you attacked Megan and Delilah?” I asked, my voice flat.

“Yeah. I thought you might need more incentive.”

“Fucking hell,” I muttered.

I stared at him, and felt a chill of pure dread as I did. There were things about him...I don’t know, it was kind of like looking into the future. Or a possible future. Looking at myself, a possible version of myself. Older, bitter, suicidal.

And it scared me badly.

I knew I was capable of some really bad shit. I was capable of truly awful acts. People like to think they could never commit evil, there were lines they were physically incapable of crossing, but that wasn’t true. You were far more likely to keep yourself in check if you didn’t think it was impossible to cross certain moral lines, but that you were intentionally not crossing them. That you were choosing not to cross them.

But if I was pushed far enough…

I didn’t know if I might stop caring about being a good person, or at the very least not hurting other people. Or at the very least, not hurting people who didn’t deserve it.

Remove or inhibit my soul, and I could absolutely turn into a monster.

So what was I gonna do? Do I kill this guy? He was basically committing suicide here. Could I do that?

“I can see you’re having trouble with this,” Tanner said. He sighed, tossed his cigarette into the ashtray, and picked up the pistol. “I’ll make it easy on you.”

He stood and pointed the gun at me. That got me to at least readjust my aim on him and tighten my finger on the trigger just a little.

I’d gotten really good at reacting to people pointing shit at me.

“You don’t have to die,” I said, which surprised me. How much awful shit had he done? I’d killed his friends, or, from the sound of it, the people he’d taken up with. Apparently he’d been their leader. What awful shit had they done?

“I want to, though,” he replied. “I can see it on your face, you don’t think I’ll shoot you. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Why shoot you when I’m relying on you to kill me? Don’t make that mistake. I will shoot you, because I know for a fact that one of those women will blow my head off. I can tell you all give a shit about each other. I know what that’s like. You may even love those girls. They may even love you. Do you really wanna take yourself away from them and force them to kill me? Because that’s where I’ll go if you don’t.”

I could tell he wasn’t lying. To me or even to himself.

His eyes were open and he was dead fucking serious. No bluffing here.

But fuck, this wasn’t like anything I’d had to deal with before. I’d never had someone suicide at me. Or shit, maybe I had. People had attacked me before. Maybe they were hoping I’d kill them. Shit. This was way too much. I’d come here expecting to do some dirty work that had to be done, but this was fucking…

I don’t even know what this was.

“Okay, then,” he said, adjusting his aim. “Fine.”

That hit me. That slammed me with the instant awareness that this man had just decided to kill me, and maybe it was an excuse, but it sure felt like reality: it forced my hand. It literally felt like it forced my hand, like I’d been hit with an electric jolt and my finger had tightened on the trigger automatically, without my consent.

Maybe that was a lie, maybe not.

But either way, I shot him right in the head. The pistol snapped in my grasp and the bullet punched an ugly hole in his forehead and he flopped back over onto the bed, the wall and some of the boards he’d used to cover the window splattered with blood and brain bits. The silence immediately following the gunshot was deafening.

Then I heard running footfalls. Megan appeared in the doorway, now wearing a t-shirt, still holding the shotgun.

“Chris,” she said, relaxing when she saw I was still standing and he was dead. Then she walked inside, came to stand next to me. “What took so long?” I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t stop looking at his corpse. She looked at me. “Chris, are you okay?”

It felt like a long time before I responded.

“I don’t know.”

EPILOGUE

We spent the next five days resting, recovering, and preparing.

I spent most of it feeling just…

Off.

We all did, except maybe Hazel. Delilah was clearly pretty shaken, and Megan was just furious. But they calmed down after the first two days, and by the end of the fifth, they were basically back to normal. I took it as a blessing and a curse. A blessing that they were able to get back to normal after something as bad as that, and a curse that they’d had to endure enough that they could get back to normal after just a few days.

The house was clear of other assholes. We had gotten them all. They were all dead now. I was glad that I hadn’t found the guy with the crewcut among them. And there was a decent stash of stuff there, too. Guns, obviously. Our stuff that they’d stolen. And whatever other stuff they had managed to get their hands on for however long they’d been there. Even in spite of our trauma, none of us were seriously injured, (though my headache persisted for days), and we spent all of that first day searching that house top-to-bottom and hauling everything useful over to Hazel’s place.

After that, we just relaxed. Hazel was okay with letting us stay. I think she felt for us, but she also might’ve been feeling pretty mellow considering the fact that A, we’d killed the last immediate threat to her in the region as far as she knew and B, there had been a lot of fucking cigarettes and booze stored up in that place. I don’t know where they’d gotten it from, but now it was ours. And I was cool to let Hazel have all the cigarettes in exchange for her help. She had been pretty good. Of us all, she seemed the calmest.

There was no sex the first or second day, all of us too shaken up. But then the third day there was a lot of it.

Delilah had been pretty badly shaken by the whole experience, and wouldn’t leave my side at first. I did what I could to make her feel better. At night, I held her until she fell asleep and often all night long.

It helped both of us.

I did the same with Megan. I’m not sure if she was naturally tougher or she was just pretending, maybe it was some of both, but she was ‘business as usual’ pretty quick. Though she didn’t have a problem with hugs and kisses and cuddling of the not-necessarily-sexual variety either. But on the third day, that changed.

Delilah wanted sex, suddenly and intensely, and we fucked, and it was damn good. Megan hopped on me as soon as Delilah was finished with me, and then I was lucky that I was as horny as I was because after that Hazel wanted a piece of me.

After all the fresh bullshit I’d gone through, it was a welcome event.

Megan told me what had happened, and it was about what I thought had gone down. Tanner and his assholes had come before sunrise and kicked the door in. Megan and Delilah were too tired, too deep asleep to properly respond, and there were five jerks with guns anyway. They’d gotten them up and dressed and force-marched them back to their place. Megan said Tanner had stopped his guys from raping them then and there, and also warned them not to do it when they got back. He’d stayed behind, waiting for me, apparently.

Even after I’d filled them in on what he had told me, Megan and Delilah, mostly Megan, were glad he was dead. I was glad his friends were dead, honestly, but I still didn’t know how to feel about the man himself.

When the fifth day had started coming to a close, Delilah was getting anxious to move on, and I kind of was too, to be honest.

I had briefly tried to get Hazel to come with us, but now that Tanner and the campground assholes were gone, she was happier than ever with her place in the world. Especially considering the big haul we’d ultimately decided to leave her. We’d taken our fair share of food, water, medical supplies, guns, ammo, and survival gear, but there was more than we could take with us, and I was happy to leave it all in Hazel’s hands.

That night, I fucked Hazel a few times, enjoying every second of it. I was seriously going to miss her, and her fantastic, mature pussy.

The next morning, there’d been another sex session, and then cleanup and breakfast, and then packing up our stuff, making sure we had everything.

Then we’d said goodbye to Hazel.

And that brought us to where we were right now.

“So, we sure we got everything? Because it’ll be a real pain in the ass to come back,” I said as I looked around the highway. We’d ascended it and now were in the middle of the road, facing the north, the way I had yet to go.

“I’m sure,” Megan said.

“Yeah, I triple checked,” Delilah replied.

I could feel the weight of my journal in my inner pocket. Megan had left the bedroom when I’d asked her to, right after she had come in after I’d killed Tanner. So she didn’t know about the journal. None of them did. Still to this very day, no one knew about that thing but me. I’d walked over and slipped it into my inner pocket.

I’d found time yesterday to write in it. Wrote about the shit that had happened for an hour before someone came looking for me.

I was glad to have it back, it felt like I was whole again.

I looked at both of them. They looked geared up. Each had on coats and boots and layers, their packs and pockets full and well-packed. Megan had a rifle and a pistol, Delilah a pistol, myself two of them, and ammo to spare.

Whatever we ran into, I thought we could handle.

Probably.

I almost asked Megan if she was completely sure she wanted to come with us, but caught myself. It would probably be insulting on some level. She was coming with us, she’d made that clear. Obviously I wanted her along, and Delilah had only taken to her that much more strongly after the whole incident with Tanner had happened.

“You okay?” Megan asked.

“Fine,” I replied, almost automatically, and started walking. The women lingered only briefly, maybe sharing an uncertain look, and then began walking with me.

I still didn’t know if I was fine or not.

What had happened with Tanner was still fucking with me, I knew that. The thing I didn’t know was exactly how or why. I knew something had happened to me in that trashy, boarded-over bedroom when I’d heard Tanner’s story and pulled that trigger.

The only problem was, I didn’t know if it was good or bad.

I didn’t even know what had happened.

I only knew that somehow, in some way, I had been changed by the experience.

A WARM PLACE 2 IS COMING FEBRUARY 1ST, 2021!

If you’re reading this, then thank

you for finishing my story!

If you would be willing to leave a review,

I would deeply appreciate it!

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ABOUT ME

I tend to write stories that blend adventure and sex, usually with a harem or polyamorous twist. I separate myself from most other authors in this genre by rejecting typical ‘alpha male’ type protagonists, and creating more realistic protagonists. I tend to emphasize things like trust, respect, vulnerability, and communication.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.