by Angela Foxxe
She sat down on the sleeping bag and started to think. Winston seemed so kind, but underneath his apparent softness was a stern quality about him. He was a leader through and through, and she knew it cost him quite a bit when he got exiled from his people, but he wanted it. Why did he want to leave so badly? Did he want to see the world, or did he want to run from his responsibilities? If it was the responsibility thing, why would she even want to be with someone who was so cowardly?
Shawna sighed and waited for Winston to come inside. She started to tremble, her eyes welled up with tears as the events of the past few days finally caught up with her. She was no longer in pure survival mode and now her emotions were catching up with her. She battled with pushing the utter dread and terror of being left alone in the wasteland, away from a settlement, to fend for herself while pregnant.
Her rational brain tried to pipe up and tell her she wasn’t alone, that she had Winston, but her hormonal, irrational brain was taking over. It was completely uncharacteristic of her as she sat and silently sobbed as terror crept into her soul.
Winston poked his head in and noticed Shawna trembling on the sleeping rolls and strode toward her. He knelt down and just took her in his strong arms as her body was wracked with sobs for the loss she had just endured.
“We’ll get through this, don’t worry,” he whispered as he held her. “We will find a settlement in time for you to birth, I promise.”
“It’s that I lost everything I know,” she sobbed. “My father, my home, everything.”
He remained silent. He willingly gave up all he knew to move on with his life, she was thrown out for a crime she didn’t even commit. All he could do was hold her while she shook with grief for all she lost.
He just smoothed her rough brown hair as she wept. Winston felt his manhood stir as he felt her warm body pressed against his. This isn’t the time for that, he chided himself. She was raw with grief and all he could think about was laying with her. What kind of man was he? A mortal one, that’s what.
He tilted her chin up and looked in her tear blurred eyes and gave her a warm smile. “I promise I’ll keep you safe. You might not believe me now, but I hope that through my actions, you’ll come to trust me.”
“Nobody can protect anybody out here,” Shawna said softly. “Not you, not my dad, nobody.”
“Well, I’ll do my damnedest,” he said as he lowered his head down for a kiss.
She felt her heart race as his soft lips met hers. Her lips parted to admit his probing tongue while they embraced.
Shocks of desire coursed through her body as their tongues danced. Her mind wasn’t in the mood, but her body was waking up to his touch. She decided to take the time to enjoy herself because she didn’t know when they would have a chance to do so again.
She let out a soft moan as she felt Winston’s hand reach under her shirt and caress her soft breast. His thumb grazed her nipple, which was rendered even more sensitive due to her pregnancy, so she felt a sudden surge of dampness in her pants from the stimulation.
Winston started kissing on her neck as he fondled her breasts. He didn’t know what was coming over him but he needed her right then and there.
He laid her down onto the bed roll and started to lift her shirt off. He moved his head down to her full breasts and started nuzzling at them making her mewl with desire.
Winston’s hot mouth found one of her perky, swollen nipples and engulfed it. She pushed her chest up to meet the delicious feeling coursing through her body. She wanted him bad.
His hand drifted to the open waistband of her leather leggings. He gently caressed her swelling belly as he wandered down to tug her leggings off her widening hips.
Shawna lifted her butt to allow the pants to be pulled off and reached up to draw Winston in for another kiss. She felt his fingers probing her wet folds as their tongues danced around each other. She moaned into his mouth as he gently stroked her sex.
Shocks of pleasure shot through her body as they lay together on the sleeping rolls. The silence was punctuated by their heavy breathing and the occasional drip of water from the back of the cave. She felt his rough fingers stroke her throbbing clit and she bucked her hips.
He felt his strong cock throb in response to her need and he let out a low growl. Being in such close proximity to her for these past few days had been driving him mad with lust. He practically tore his robe off and nuzzled her neck, nibbling and licking his way down her torso.
He stopped at her nipples and nuzzled each breast before moving down to the juncture between her thighs. He spread her folds and dipped his tongue into her sweet nectar, savoring its sweet and tangy taste.
Shawna let out a cry of passion as Winston feasted on her wetness. As his tongue furiously worked her sensitive folds, she felt her climax building deep inside. She started to feel it building and wash over her in a frenzy.
Winston took his lead and positioned himself between Shawna’s spread legs and plunged himself home into her quivering wet depths with a low cry.
Shawna clawed at his back as Winston pounded deep inside her. She gasped and moaned with almost every thrust.
He felt his climax building at the base of his spine as he felt Shawna’s wetness surround him. He wasn’t going to last long and that was okay. Winston groaned and shuddered as he emptied himself inside her and he nearly collapsed.
“Sorry about… that,” he panted. “I just…”
“It’s okay,” Shawna said as he rolled off of her. “I still enjoyed myself,” she said with a smile.
Winston stood up and put his robe back on and stepped outside to check on the fire. The orange glow still was burning cheerfully as he put a haunch of cooked bear next to it to reheat. He came back in as the crack in the back wall exploded in a pile of rubble.
“Oh shit!” Shawna exclaimed as she scrambled to her feet after putting her clothes back on. “Stone crabs!” she shouted as she tried to bolt to the exit.
She felt a strong claw grab her leg and drag her backward toward the pool. Shawna turned and kicked the impenetrable rock hard shell with all her might as the mutated crustacean pulled her to her certain doom.
Suddenly, she heard a roar and Winston was pouncing. The sound of his claws raking against the stone carapace was deafening in the confined quarters of the small cave.
Shawna managed to scramble free from the grasp of the creature thanks to the distraction caused by Winston.
She grabbed a log from the blazing camp fire and went back into the fray. Winston was clawing and growling on the flailing creature’s hard carapace, exposing its face and deadly, pinching claws. Shawna stepped from side-to-side waiting for her moment and struck.
She jammed the flaming brand directly at the small, exposed face of the giant, mutated crustacean, causing it to scream shrilly and drop to the ground. It pawed at its blinded and burnt face with its claws as it screamed and skittered back to the water in the back of the grotto.
Shawna stood there panting as Winston shifted back into his human form.
“That was close,” she gasped.
“Yes it was. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” Winston replied as he pulled his robe on. “We need to go find another place to sleep. That thing probably will heal up fast and it’ll be out for blood.”
“They don’t heal fast. They’re cold blooded. He’ll be out for a few weeks at least, but I agree, we need to find somewhere else to crash since there might be more of them.”
Winston nodded as he rolled up the sleeping roll that had been kicked into the corner during the fray. “Let’s hope it’s not too close too dark. I hate walking in the dark.”
“Me too. Hopefully there’s a house near by and we can hide in it,” she said as she exited the cave. Her leg hurt from where the stone crab had grabbed her. She pulled up her pant leg and saw a deep red groove where it had been. “At least it didn’t break the skin,” she said as she let the leg drop. “Last thing I need is an infection.”
Wi
nston nodded as he hefted the back pack onto his broad shoulders. The sun was nearing the western horizon and they needed to hurry.
“I think I see a house in the distance, I’m not sure,” Shawna said as she peered against the bright orange horizon.
“Can’t tell. We might have to camp out in the open tonight,” he said warily. “Means we’ll have to take turns sleeping to watch out for threats.”
“Not my idea of fun,” Shawna said as she silently hoped for shelter. She wanted to hurry up and sleep. The adrenaline shock of the stone crab started to wear off and she was starting to tremble. She felt her legs buckle from underneath her and she collapsed to the ground.
Winston rushed to her and helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?” he asked solicitously.
“Just feeling weak from the fight earlier... The rush has worn off,” she explained wearily. “Let’s get to that building in the distance before I pass out.”
“Agreed,” he said as he helped her to her feet. “It looks like we’re only about forty minutes or so out give or take if we walk faster,” he heard her stomach growl. “You hungry?”
“Yeah. This little tiger is taking a lot out of me,” she replied patting her swelling stomach.
“I’ll see what I can scare up once we get to the building. I had to leave the rest of the bear meat behind when we left the cave,” he said sadly.
“Well, I’d rather be alive than meat for that thing,” she said gruffly as she trudged along. “We can always hunt more food.” She noticed his slumped shoulders as he walked. “What’s bothering you?”
“Am I that obvious?” Winston sighed. “Just feeling a small bit of regret,” he said. “I mean I don’t regret meeting you, but I do regret how I went about things.”
“Well, kidnapping me and seducing me isn’t the best way to go about things, no, especially to get out of an arranged marriage,” Shawna replied.
“I know. It’s just that I wanted you. Not her, you,” he said as he drew her close. “You might not know me very well, but I know you, I’ve known you for years and I made it my mission to make you mine and it worked, kind of.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Shawna spat. “Now once we get to the settlement I’m going to be for everyone because I’ve proven I can make babies,” she said as she stared with disgust at her growing stomach.
“I swear I won’t allow that to happen. The island… I heard they don’t work like the rest of the hume settlements,” he said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Shawna said as they approached the burnt out husk of an old gas station. “Well, go in and see if we’re safe for the night,” she directed Winston.
He shrugged off his robe. “On it,” he said as he shifted into his tiger body. He prowled toward the gas station to inspect its interior while Shawna stood and waited.
She was moved by his fierce protectiveness, she admitted that much to herself. Nobody that she’d ever met felt that way about her. It was always each person for themselves in the wastes, and relationships were no different.
With Winston, it was different. He wanted her to survive and stay safe. Her leg throbbed where the stone crab grabbed her and she bent down to rub it. She lifted her pant leg and noticed it was nearly black and swollen.
“Fuck,” she said softly. “That’s not good.”
Winston came back and noticed her blackening leg as he shifted back.
“The station is clear. We need to lance that or the blood pooling in it will get infected,” he said pointing at her leg.
“I was afraid of that,” she said “So I either definitely get gangrene, or…”
“Not necessarily,” Winston replied. “Come on, let’s get you sitting down and I’ll get a fire going. We still have some clean water left so I’ll boil that up and make sure everything is as clean as can be, okay?”
Shawna nodded nervously as she laid out the bed rolls onto the dirty black and white tile floor. Her leg throbbed as she eased herself down onto the mats while Winston went in the back to see if there were any containers he could use to boil water.
He strode from the back room holding a metal bucket. “This should do,” he said as he poured a canteen of fresh water into the dented metal bucket.
“I’m surprised this place hasn’t been picked clean yet,” Shawna said as she rolled up her pant leg to reveal the black, swollen muscle underneath.
“We’re far from any known settlements,” Winston replied as he started the fire. “There’s a few feral colonies out here, but nothing to be afraid of.”
He placed the bucket over the fire to boil and dropped his knife blade first into the water.
He cut a few sections off of his robe and placed them in the heating water as well to cleanse them of any impurities. He then pulled a leather strap from the back pack and tied it around Shawna’s leg, right below the knee. He didn’t tighten it just yet, but made it so it could be tugged as tightly as possible.
“You’re not gonna cut the whole thing off are you?” she asked, wide eyed.
“No. I’m going to lance it and let the ichor run free then we’ll bandage you up as best as possible. Hopefully we can find someone with some moldy bread to put on it soon so it doesn’t fester worse,” Winston explained as he looked into the bucket and saw bubbles start to rise to the surface of the water.
“What’s that supposed to do?” Shawna said, her face riddled with disgust.
“The spores in the moldy bread keep the wound from festering. I learned it in the library,” he said as he watched the water in the bucket boil hard. “Without it, the wound will fester even more and you’ll die.”
“The stone crab didn’t even break the skin,” she said. “How the…?”
“It grabbed you with it’s pinching claw, not its crushing claw. The pinching claw has needles that inject a venom into the flesh of its victim to dissolve the muscle for easy consuming. They don’t have very big mouths… more like a straw.”
Shawna’s face went grey as she realized what had happened to her. “So they grab with the pincer, inject the toxin and…”
“Drown the victim or crush their heads with their crusher claw, then they wait until you’re a soup bag and drain you dry,” Winston finished for her as he picked his knife out of the steaming water.
Shawna swallowed hard as he tightened the strap around her leg.
“You might want to find something to bite down on,” he said softly.
She shook her head vigorously. “I’ll be fine,” she said as she gritted her teeth in preparation for the agony.
“I’m so sorry,” Winston said as he gripped her ankle between his two powerful knees and held it in place. He put a plastic oil pan underneath Shawna’s calf, gripped his knife, and stabbed it into the back of her lower leg.
Shawna let out a howl as the agony flashed through her body like a searing lightning bolt. She saw flashes of bright light across her vision as the hot steel tore through the flesh of her infected calf muscle, releasing the pressure within.
She heard running liquid as the purulence poured from the wound into a dirty black oil pan. She stared up at the orange sky that peeked through the decaying ceiling of the old garage.
“I can’t believe I’m getting operated on in this place,” she said as the pressure and throbbing subsided in her leg.
“I know. It looks like we caught it before it could do much damage to your muscle. We need to find some bread soon, or the toxin will keep spreading,” he said as he watched the red-black fluid pour from the three-inch-long gash he had made in her leg.
The smell was awful. Shawna gagged as the stench of decaying flesh wafted up to her nose.
“Holy shit… that’s…”
“Better out than in,” Winston said as he massaged her calf to force more ichor out. “I think you should stay here while I go raid a feral colony to see what supplies they have.”
“Are you sure?” Shawna said as she felt him wash the wound with warm water.
“It’s
the only way. You’re too lame to run properly when things get rough. I can get in and out with little issue. With you limping around, I don’t want you to get caught. Your best bet is to hide out here for the time I’m gone. I’ll be back for you, I promise,” he said as he tied the clean bandage around her leg.
Shawna swallowed hard and nodded. She was at risk. She was both pregnant and injured so she would make an ideal target for anyone, or anything, that wanted to make a meal out of her.
“Don’t leave me without food, please?” she whispered.
“I’ll go get some pig mole or something for you,” he said as he helped her up. “Let’s get you to the back and out of sight, all right?”
She put her weight on Winston’s shoulder and hobbled toward the office area behind the destroyed counter. He laid her down on the dirty floor and smiled.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said as she started to close her eyes.
He sighed as he saw the day take its toll on her and her brain lulling her into a restorative sleep.
“Sleep is the best thing for you,” he whispered as he walked out of the office to hunt for her needs while he was away.
He shed his robe, banked the fire, and transformed into a large white tiger. He stood stock still as he sniffed the air for any sign of potential prey.
He thought he had caught wind of a pig mole in the distance, but wasn’t too sure, so he cautiously padded out of the garage and off toward the darkness to the east. Winston looked back over his shoulder at the faint glow of the fire in the broken window frame and sighed. He really didn’t want to leave Shawna, but he had no choice if he was to save her life.
He followed the scent trail of the pig mole and dispatched the creature swiftly. He dragged the three-hundred-pound animal back to the garage and was pleased to see that the fire was still glowing as he prowled through the darkness.
Winston was exhausted but couldn’t sleep just yet. He grabbed his knife and washed it in the cooling water in the bucket and started to dress his kill so he could cook most of it up for Shawna when she awoke.
