Haven 3 - A Post-Apocalyptic Harem

by Misty Vixen

  Behind him, David felt Jennifer press against him, and he suddenly felt cold. Was it a good idea that she had come along? He had been so pleased to see her and so distracted by Cait and by the vipers they’d run into that he hadn’t really thought about the implications of it. Wraiths...were a wildcard, in the reactions they provoked. Ellie and Cait hadn’t said anything, so he figured they’d know if anyone here would have a genuine problem, given how much they knew about the region and the people in it, but maybe they were just as distracted as he.

  Certainly Cait was.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the assistance, or am unhappy to see you, but I am curious: what are you and your friends doing here?” the elder man asked.

  “We’re here on behalf of the doctors...and to ask for your help with something extremely important, Murray. Can we speak with you alone?” Ellie replied, stepping forward.

  “The doctors? Oh! Yes. Elias. Don’t worry, he’s safe. He’s back with the others for now. All right, I’ll talk. Split up, people, make sure we’re safe! Check your homes!” he yelled.

  The group reluctantly spread apart, scattering across the fishing village, and Murray walked over to them. “So, as decent as the two of you have been to the people of this village, I do have to ask, because they would complain to me if I didn’t: you didn’t take anything, right?”

  “No, Murray. We didn’t steal from your fucking homes,” Ellie replied.

  “Okay. Again, sorry, but I had to ask.”

  “What happened here?” Cait asked.

  He sighed and looked back at the village for a moment. “Day before yesterday, it was just like most other days, and then these fuckers,” he growled, glowering at the nearest viper corpse, “came boiling up out of the lake by the dozens. No warning. Nothing. We lost several people, it happened so fast, we ran. We first tried to get down to our secondary site, the fishing cabins down the way, but they were being attacked, too. So we gathered those who were there and fled into the forest. We ended up hiding in the abandoned town at the crossroads, but we’ve had several stalker and zombie attacks, and some raiders attacked this morning...”

  He sighed heavily and shook his head. “We decided we had to come here and retake the village now, not later.”

  “Shit,” Ellie muttered. “We ran into some vipers about two miles inland. I knew something was going wrong. But what? Why are there so many?”

  “No fucking clue,” Murray growled. “And it’s not like we have another place to live...so why are you here?”

  “Those raiders who attacked you, I’m guessing they’re part of the same group that burned down River View and have been harassing the region for the past few months.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Murray replied, nodding.

  “We’re going after them.”

  “Are you now?” he murmured.

  “Yes. We need help. What we want is someone to help with the assault, and I’d like to keep this quiet. No idea if they have any contacts or people in anyone’s group,” Ellie replied.

  Murray frowned, studied them for a moment, scratched his chin and looked back out over his village and his people again, then he sighed and looked back. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “You retake the little village down the way, make it safe, and also escort Elias to the doctor’s to see that our deal remains unbroken, and I’ll give you someone to help out. One of the boys-”

  Ellie cut him off. “No. I want Ruby.”

  “Ruby, huh?” he muttered. “Yeah, I was worried you might say that.” He stared at her for a moment, his face becoming flat, unreadable, and she stared right back. Finally, he relented. “All right, all right, fine. I’ll give you Ruby and her rifle. But only if you do the jobs.”

  “Fine. We’ll need more ammo. We burned through a lot of bullets fighting here.”

  He sighed again, more heavily. “Of course you did. Fine. Come on.”

  He led them into the wooden building and had them wait in the entrance lobby, then he walked up across to a set of stairs and disappeared up them.

  “Are you okay?” David asked, looking at Jennifer, who had stuck close to him, practically clinging to him.

  “Yeah. Just...I’d actually gotten comfortable being around the doctors. Everyone there is, well, at least not an asshole, some are really nice to me, I just...had forgotten. How people react, you know? Some of them were staring at me like they wanted to shoot me...”

  “I would never let them do that, Jennifer,” Ellie said, reaching out and laying a hand gently against the side of her head. “Never.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. David turned around and gave her a hug, and she hugged him back tightly.

  “What kind of ammo do you need?!” Murray called down.

  They conferred among each other for a moment, and then Ellie shouted back, “Nine millimeters and ten gauge shells!”

  “All right!”

  They heard him moving around upstairs. David looked outside, at the people moving through their village. He felt for them, genuinely, but he did notice more than one of them staring back at him occasionally with dark, distrusting gazes. He tried to ignore them. This didn’t exactly feel like a nice place, but under the circumstances, he couldn’t really blame them. Something about Murray felt shifty though. Maybe that was just how he was.

  A few moments later, Murray returned with a small box held in both hands. He had a look that was somehow both grateful and sour.

  “Look like you just bit down on a lemon,” Cait said as he came over.

  He sighed, exasperated. “Not you guys. I actually wanted to thank you for doing this. Just thinking about the others we asked for help. Those military dicks up the way. Sent a runner off as soon as this happened. They told us to fuck ourselves, basically. Got something more important to do than help our sorry asses.”

  Ellie shot David an angry glance, but he just looked back at her. Unless he heard that they were actively shooting people on sight just for approaching, he intended to ask them for help. If you never asked, the answer was always no. But if you did ask, the answer just might be no. It made sense to ask, in this case at least.

  Murray set the box down. “All I can spare.”

  “Thanks,” Ellie replied.

  They split up the ammo. David managed to get his hands on two more magazines for his pistol. Not as much as he would have liked, but better than nothing, at least. He made a mental note to start traveling with more of an arsenal on him. It would be more of a pain in the ass to carry around, but he could certainly afford to have more bullets on him, especially if he was going to be running into situations like this more often than not.

  “All right,” Ellie said after making sure everyone was good to go, “let’s get this motherfucking show on the road.”

  …

  “Can we have sex tonight?” Jennifer asked.

  They were about back at the fork in the road they’d emerged from the woods in, marking the halfway point between the fishing village and its smaller sister site. So far, they hadn’t said much of anything as they’d been making their trek.

  “I thought you already asked that, but yes, definitely,” he replied. “You gonna come back to the campgrounds with us?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to see them, and to meet the others I’ve heard about. I talked a little about it with Cait...you’re also dating a rep and a goliath...is that right?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Yes, that’s right. A shy rep woman named April and a goliath woman named Evelyn.”

  “And Cait?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Cait and David said at the same time.

  “Wow...” she looked at Ellie. “Are you two dating?”

  “I’m not dating anyone,” Ellie replied. “I have friends that I fuck sometimes.”

  “Okay. Sorry, I had to ask, so much seems to have changed over the past month. And there are other people living there?” Jennifer asked.

  “Yes. We have four...I guess families i
s accurate. What is a family anyway? Four families living there right now. I think they’re all refugees from River View, like myself, Evie, and April were,” David replied.

  “He’s also fucking this blonde girl named Ashley,” Ellie murmured.

  “Right! Ashley! Shit...” Cait whispered, looking alarmed.

  “What? What’s wrong?” David asked.

  “Hmm? Uh...nothing’s wrong. I just...forgot something,” Cait replied.

  “What’d you forget?” Ellie asked.

  “I just need to talk with Ashley about something.”

  “Which is…?” David asked.

  “Personal,” Cait replied after a moment.

  He looked over at her, then at Ellie, who also looked confused.

  “Why is everything personal and private all of a sudden?” Ellie asked.

  “It isn’t,” Cait replied.

  “Come on, something’s going on, Cait. Are you okay?” David asked.

  “I’m fine,” she replied firmly. “Just...trust me on that. I’m okay. You don’t need to be worried...I’m fine, all right?”

  She looked back at the two of them, and he shared another glance with Ellie, who finally shrugged. “Okay, Cait, whatever you say.”

  He wanted to push it further, because something was up, but he also wanted to respect her privacy. What the fuck could it be, though? Apparently it involved Ashley, too. The thing was, Cait was a really open person. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe he just got that impression of her because that’s what she presented, and also because she talked about sex so freely, and that was something people normally kept to themselves.

  What the fuck was it?! He felt like this was going to bug the shit out of him, but he made himself just relax. They had more important things to worry about and he had to remind himself that whatever it was, if it was his business, she’d probably share it with him. He trusted her that far. He trusted her a lot, given what had gone on between them so far, but this was just...out of character for her. Which just made him all the more curious.

  “Shit,” Ellie said.

  “What?” Jennifer asked.

  “I can see the second village...a lot of activity there. I think we should make them come to us, stay a good distance away and shoot them. I’ve got the best eyes among us. Cait, I know you’re a good shot at a distance. David, Jennifer?”

  “I’m not a great shot,” Jennifer said. “I mean, I can do okay mid-to-close range...”

  “I’m all right, but not great,” David said. “At least, not with a pistol. If had a rifle, on the other hand...but I’m just okay with a pistol.”

  “Fine. Save your ammo for when they get closer,” Ellie replied.

  They kept walking until they reached what Ellie judged to be the bare minimum distance required for her and Cait to make accurate shots. Cait pulled out her pistol and stood next to Ellie. Both of them took up a shooter’s stance atop another small rise in the land. As they picked out targets, David studied the smaller village from afar. It was maybe a third the size of the first one, little more than a tiny dock and maybe half a dozen shacks by the lake’s edge. There were indeed several gray, skinny figures moving among the buildings, several of them crawling along the ground like oversized insects. They looked so horrifying, even from a distance.

  He quickly studied the rest of the area, but there wasn’t much to see. Trees and more trees, first along the left side of the road they had walked up, and then dead ahead, where the road disappeared into a forest. Though there were several larger buildings further up the coastline. He kept paying attention to the forest even as Ellie and Cait opened fire. Anything could be drawn in by the noise and they were out in the open. He kept his pistol in hand and quickly double-checked it, making sure it was fully loaded and the safety was off. Once that was done, he glanced at the village.

  All of the bulbous-headed figures were now sprinting at an alarming speed towards them, making the distance between them disappear quickly, but there were definitely less of them now. More fell as they raced across the slush and dirt and snow. For the first fifteen seconds or so, David thought everything was going to be okay. Ellie and Cait were excellent shots, hitting almost every single time they squeezed the trigger, and they were calm and measured in how they took down their targets, one by one.

  And then something let out a wild roar from the forest, and David jerked back to face it, and saw a dozen shapes emerging from the woods.

  “Wildcats!” he screamed.

  Jennifer let out a shout of surprise.

  “Deal with them!” Ellie snapped.

  David took aim. They were so fast! He saw them, the awful things with their patchwork fur and decayed skin and long, vicious claws. They raced across the land between them even faster than the fucking vipers! He opened fire, trying to keep his hands steady. The pistol jerked in his grasp as he started letting off shots, and Jennifer stepped up beside him, doing the same. The first round went wide, missing anything but the trees, but the second caught one of the wildcats in its misshapen forehead and dropped it.

  He shifted aim, fired, fired, fired, dropped a second one, and saw a third go down with its head snapping backwards, a mist of corrupted blood escaping it as one of Jennifer’s shots connected. Panic was fast approaching, though, because there was less distance and these things were so fast. David emptied his pistol, trying not to fire wildly, and managed to put down another three of them. Hastily, he reloaded, and knew that they weren’t going to be able to kill them all in time. “Incoming! Back up!” he screamed, and kept firing.

  The wildcats and vipers hit them at roughly the same time.

  The only good news was they’d managed to mostly wipe out the vipers, and between the two of them, he and Jennifer had taken down half the wildcats. The bad news was that that didn’t matter nearly as much in close combat.

  David buckled down and fought for his life.

  He popped off another shot right in the face of the lead wildcat and turned its eye into a spray of chunky gore. He shifted and fired again, putting a shot into the open mouth of one of the mutated jags as it was roaring and coming for him. A third jumped at him and sent him sprawling, the gun flying from his hands. He immediately went for his knife as he landed on his back, hearing Jennifer scream his name and a lot more gunfire. David managed to get the knife up and out right as the wildcat fell on him and he stabbed it through the eye. The thing went stiff and collapsed onto him, going slack, and he quickly shoved it off of himself.

  Another one appeared over him, roaring its lungs out, and then its entire head disappeared as an almighty shotgun blast sounded. Looking up, he saw Cait standing over him as she twisted, shifting aim and firing again. The muzzle flare nearly blinded him, the boom of the gun going off nearly deafening him, especially when she reloaded and did it a third time. His ears were ringing, but he sat up, blinking to get his eyesight back, trying to determine where the next attack would come from. Only the gunfire had fallen silent, and he saw no more attackers.

  Merely a field of corpses.

  “Are you okay?” Jennifer asked.

  “Uh...I think so,” he managed, feeling a little dazed.

  Cait holstered her shotgun over her shoulder and crouched, her hands running slowly over him, checking him for wounds. “We good, Ellie?” she asked, frowning in concentration.

  “We’re good,” Ellie replied. “Jennifer?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied, a little shakily.

  “I think I’m fine, babe,” David murmured.

  “Just checking,” Cait replied quietly. She checked his arms and legs, his torso, his head and neck, then smiled and nodded. She helped him up. “You’re fine.”

  “Thanks,” he replied.

  “Here,” Jennifer said. He looked over. She had his pistol in hand.

  “Thanks,” he replied, accepting it. He took a moment to wipe his knife off in the snow, then rubbed it down with a rag he carried around for just such an occasion and sheathed it, then he reloade
d his pistol and looked around. They had done it, the vipers and the wildcats were dead, and he didn’t see anything else lurking around.

  “Well...that was close,” Cait muttered.

  “Yeah, but we fucked their shit up,” Ellie replied. “Come on, let’s go make sure the village is secure, then go back and deal with the rest of this.”

  “Wait,” Cait said, and they stopped to look at her. “We’re about as close as we’re going to be to Lima Company. If we’re going to talk to them, we should do it before we head back.”

  “We shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Ellie replied.

  “Ellie, it’s like a twenty minute walk from here, if that. They’ve already got their hands full with cleaning up their main village. We need to do this now, it just makes the most sense,” Cait said.

  She let out a short, frustrated growl. “Fine.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Cait replied.

  “Whatever.” She turned and began stalking off towards the forest. David felt bad as they followed after her.

  Today had been a very...trying day, for Ellie. And he was sure it wasn’t going to get any better. But, apparently, that was the nature of their work.

  He just hoped she didn’t take a swing at one of them.

  …

  “So I don’t actually know much about this Lima Company. Who are they exactly?” Jennifer asked as they walked through the woods.

  They had managed to search over the half-dozen shacks without any real trouble, only having to put down a single viper that wasn’t quite dead. There were no people, no survivors, and thankfully only one non-monster body. Still miserable, but it could have been a lot worse. After securing the place as best they could, they left and began making their way south again, along the road that led into the woods, apparently where Lima Company rested their heads when they weren’t out causing problems in the world at large.

  “They’re a group of ex-military personnel who still act like the military. I don’t really know how many of them there are, sometimes I hear three dozen, sometimes fifty. I don’t think anyone knows for sure,” Cait explained. “From what I hear, they got here about two years ago, took over an abandoned military outpost, which is up ahead. For awhile they helped people. Patrolled the area, killed monsters and bandits and raiders, offered protection for travelers sometimes, facilitated trades. But that’s been stopping since I got here, about ten months ago. I guess it makes enough sense, given that’s about the time the other types started showing up.”