Haven 3 - A Post-Apocalyptic Harem

by Misty Vixen

  “Don’t worry, David. I can hold down the fort here. I’ll start moving everyone into position as soon as you’re gone,” she replied. “Just...don’t do anything stupid out there and come back to me. All of you fucking better come back.”

  “We fully intend to,” Cait replied.

  She gave all of them a hug and a kiss on the mouth, save for Jennifer and Lara, and then they were off, heading into the fading sunlight and the cold.

  …

  They managed to make it to the hospital without any real trouble, which only made David more nervous as they crept through the fading twilight along the river. There were a lot of things that could go wrong, and every minute that went by seemed to crank up the tension. He kept expecting a pack of vipers to slink from the waters, a group of stalkers to leap from the trees, a squad of humans to launch an assault from the shadows.

  But there was nothing, save for a few zombies that wandered across their path.

  They made it to the hospital as the last of the sunlight faded.

  David was relieved to see that Ruby was there and Vanessa was already geared up. She’d actually smeared what might have been oil, something dark, across her face. War paint, he realized. She also held what he figured had to be Widowmaker. It was a big fucking machine gun, something that would probably take all his strength to lift.

  “What the fuck is that?” he asked.

  She grinned savagely. “It’s called an M Sixty. Old school military weapon, hardcore, packs quite a punch. We are gonna fuck some people up tonight.”

  “Apparently,” he murmured.

  Vanessa looked terrifying, more like a warrior goddess than ever now. Ruby wore tight, dark clothing over her vivid red fur and carried a rifle with a high-quality looking scope on it. She was checking it over, sitting on one of the couches. Ellie filled them both in on the plan, which they each were amenable to. Especially Vanessa. She seemed to particularly enjoy the idea of being bait, though Jennifer looked a little anxious.

  “Don’t worry, Jen. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be doing most of the fighting. All you have to do is watch my ass. Not literally, don’t get distracted. Just make sure no one sneaks in behind us and tries to cap me. You can handle that, right?”

  “Yes,” Jennifer replied. “I can handle that.”

  “Good. Like I said, I’ll take care of you.”

  That seemed to make her feel better.

  They warned the doctors to be ready to receive casualties, just in case, and though they looked anxious, they assured them that they stood ready to help. Provided any injured made it back to the hospital.

  It was a long walk.

  And with that, they grabbed the last members of their team, and headed into the darkness.

  …

  They retraced the route that he and Ellie had taken, cutting a path through the darkness and the cold. Despite his previous anxiety, David was actually feeling better now. Maybe it was that they were actually doing this, actually walking directly to where the main event would unfold. Probably it was the fact that they had gathered everyone, and the backup they were receiving was not inconsiderable. Vanessa looked like a complete fucking badass, Lara seemed very competent, and there was a stony stoicism to Ruby that seemed to embody that of an exceptionally competent sniper. It was easy to believe what Cait and Ellie had to say about her.

  He felt good about this plan.

  Although it would be very dangerous, because so much in life was random and luck-based, these were competent people, people he felt he could trust and rely on. And based off of everything he had seen so far out of the thieves, they had more cruelty than brains. His anxiety didn’t leave him completely though. As they broke away from the river and plunged once more into the dark, frozen forest, he couldn’t help but think of all the things that could go wrong, all the ways in which they could be hurt, who might be hurt. He felt very guilty for knowing that he had preferences. If someone had to get hurt, or even killed during this thing…

  He didn’t even want to think about it.

  So instead, he focused on getting his head straight, honing his attention. He was going to need to be ready for this assault, for he played an important part in it. They all did. And not only would he have to watch out for himself and for his friends, but for potential innocents as well. He could easily envision people being held prisoner here, or, even if not outright prisoners, but not thieves themselves, maybe too afraid to leave. And then, of course, there were zombies, stalkers, and other things to be paranoid of.

  Almost certainly they would be drawn in by all the gunfire and shouting.

  Eventually, they returned to the same hill overlooking the area that he and Ellie had first arrived at yesterday. Ellie whispered quickly to Ruby and Cait, and then they were off, breaking away to the left to circle around and find a good vantage point that would give them a view of the area in between the cabin and the main encampment. She then spoke quickly to Vanessa and Jennifer, pointing, and the pair of them nodded and headed off in the opposite direction, making for the cabin. Then she retreated a little bit to join him, Evelyn, and Lara.

  “And now, we wait,” she whispered. “It should take Ruby and Cait five minutes to get set up, and I told Vanessa to strike after ten minutes if possible. Once she hits, we let everyone possible leave the camp. We’ll play it by ear, but I think we should let two minutes go by before we hit the camp. Any questions?”

  “No,” David said, and Evelyn and Lara shook their heads.

  He studied them. Ellie looked fierce, almost like she was looking forward to the battle ahead. Evelyn looked worried but prepared. Lara looked grim and serious. David wondered how he looked. He ran a hand over the length of the cold metal barrel of his rifle in the darkness, waiting. He double checked the rifle and the pistol, the safeties were off, the weapons were ready for business. So was he. David did not like murder any more than most other people, but over the years he had grown colder towards the idea, bolder, perhaps.

  Sometimes, you needed to kill people.

  And sometimes, unfortunately, you needed to go out of your way to do so, to prevent them from harming you or yours or anyone else. Time and again these fuckers had proven themselves to not just be assholes, but monsters. In all honesty, David thought that they had sealed their fate the moment they set fire to River View. How many had died there? Dozens, at least. Over fifty, maybe more. Too many. Way, way too many. And how many others had they murdered before and after that? How many had they robbed and raped?

  It was going to stop, and David found that he didn’t really feel all that bad about what was about to happen.

  The minutes ticked by in the chilled darkness. He and Ellie carefully watched the encampment, studying those who moved around. There seemed to be roughly the same number as last night, which made sense. Those who attacked the campgrounds would probably have already left by the time they’d come to spy on the group. The atmosphere was different this time, though. Less laughter, more shouting. He saw the man from before, presumably their leader, moving among a group gathered around a fire.

  He was angry, yelling.

  Probably pissed about yet another failed attempt to attack David’s group.

  Well, he was about to get a taste of his own medicine.

  Suddenly, gunfire sounded. He saw muzzle flare from the east, towards the cabin Vanessa would ultimately run to, and although he couldn’t see the woman herself, he knew it had to be her. She was firing into the crowd with a pistol, and he saw several men go down. They all shouted and scrambled and began returning fire, but Vanessa was already running. She fired over her shoulder a few times to keep their attention. The leader screamed for them to follow, and the general alarm went up. This was actually perfect.

  They were all pissed, all angry, all riled up.

  It meant that almost all of them would blindly follow her into the forest, intent on murder, whether they realized it or not, they would be seeing this as perhaps some form of revenge
for all their failures. Even if they had no idea who was attacking them, they saw it as an opportunity to bleed out all their frustrations and fury.

  There was a chaotic and abrupt exodus as over thirty men rushed out into the woods. As the last of them headed off, he heard the crack of a sniper rifle, and more shouts.

  “Go!” Ellie snapped, and set off.

  They followed after her.

  David’s heart began hammering even harder in his chest. This was it. Do or die, moment of truth. Ellie took the lead, with Lara behind her, and him and Evelyn bringing up the rear. He could see a few others lingering in the camp, all of them holding weapons, talking loudly to each other, mostly asking each other what the fuck was going on. David and the others approached as silently as they could, but it was easy to be overlooked given the sheer amount of gunfire going on. He heard more cracking from Ruby’s sniper rifle and now the heavy, heavy rattle of Vanessa’s Widowmaker. It sounded absolutely fucking insane.

  And then they struck.

  Ellie was the first to open fire, and David squeezed the trigger at almost the same instant. Their shots were excellent, taking two of the armed thieves in the back. Lara struck next, shooting a man in the side of the head, then another in the neck. Evelyn added her own gunfire to the mix. The survivors screamed and scrambled and returned fire, and for several seconds, it was a chaotic mess. David emptied his assault rifle in a series of careful, controlled bursts, and managed to down four of the survivors.

  “Lara, Flank!” Ellie snapped, jerking her finger to the right. She looked at David and Evelyn. “Stay here. Keep the pressure on them.”

  And then she was gone in the other direction. They knelt among the trees and kept hunting for targets to take down. Somewhere, he heard someone crying, a woman, and was extremely glad that they had thought to not perform wholesale slaughter on the entire encampment. There were roughly half a dozen survivors moving among the buildings now. One leaned out to fire on his position and Evelyn caught him right as he was doing that, the bullet hitting his forehead. As he fell, David managed to shoot another man three times in the back as he ran between the buildings. He screamed and collapsed to the ground.

  David ended his life with another shot to the temple.

  One of the men broke and began sprinting into the trees. Unfortunately, he ran right into Lara’s position and she shot him in the face.

  It didn’t take long for them to finish off the remaining thieves left behind at the hunting lodge encampment and move in, like a noose tightening around a neck. David kept a wary eye out as they hurried up to the buildings.

  “David, Evie, search. Lara, come on,” Ellie said.

  The pair ran off, towards the sound of the fighting, preparing to turn the two-pronged assault into a tri-tipped massacre. He and Evelyn got to work. There were almost a dozen buildings, most of them built in a rough square around the central one, the hunting lodge. They were mostly cabins, a few shacks, nothing incredibly significant.

  “Watch my back,” he whispered as he approached the first one.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here,” Evelyn replied tightly.

  He didn’t hear crying anymore, though it was hard to hear anything. Although the amount of gunfire had died down, there was still a fair amount of it. He pushed open the door and looked around inside. Someone’s bedroom and not much else. The place was a chaotic mess, and he had the impression that several people shared the space. He quickly checked anywhere someone might be hidden, found no one, and moved on. The next four shacks were like this: disorganized, smelly, empty. On the fifth one, he nearly got stabbed.

  As he opened up, someone screamed, and he leaped back, raising his rifle, as someone took a swing at him.

  “Wait!” he cried, spying a pair of women in the shack. One was crouching in the corner, and from the tears on her face it was obvious she was the one who had been crying, the other had been waiting near the door, holding a combat knife.

  “Back the fuck off!” the knife-wielder screamed.

  “Wait, I’m here to help!” David pleaded, lowering his rifle.

  “Bull-fucking-shit, just back the fuck off or I’m going to stab you in the fucking throat!”

  “Please, just let us go,” the second woman moaned, looking almost sick with fear.

  “I’m honestly, truly here to help,” David said. “That’s why we didn’t fire into any of the cabins.”

  “You just wanted to see if they had any fuck toys around so you and your fucking boys could claim us for yourselves,” the knife-wielding woman snarled.

  “What? No! I’m the only man here and we aren’t here to hurt or capture you.”

  “Fuck you! You fucking liar!”

  “Evie?” he said, stepping back.

  Evelyn stepped closer and peered in through the door. Both women seemed at first startled by her appearance, and then seemed to relax slightly. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “We’re really here to help you.”

  The woman holding the knife stared at them with wide, fearful eyes, then slowly lowered it. “If you are, then let us go. Just let us get our shit and go.”

  “If that’s truly what you want, we won’t stop you, but it’s incredibly dangerous out there right now. This place is infested with stalkers and there’s still fighting going on. If you’ll just wait here, we can bring you somewhere safe. You don’t have to stay there with us, but at least let us get you to safety before you figure out what you want to do,” David pleaded.

  The woman holding the knife stared at him for several seconds, then glanced back at the other woman, and then back at David and Evelyn. Finally, her shoulders sagged, and in that moment, she looked utterly exhausted. “Fine,” she whispered, “fine, we’ll stay here. Just...please, please don’t be lying,” she added.

  “I know words don’t really mean much now, but we aren’t. We will help you, I promise,” David replied.

  “Just wait here and lock the door. We’ll be back as soon as we can, we have to finish them off,” Evelyn said.

  “Okay...thank you,” the woman replied. She hurried across the shack and shut and locked the door, and David let out his breath in a long sigh, then looked to the next cabin and began hurrying over to it. They still had a job to do.

  “You handled that well,” Evelyn said as they searched the next shack.

  “Did I?” he replied.

  “Yes. I believe you did. Are we going to offer to let them stay with us at the campgrounds?”

  “Yes. I want them checked out by the doctors first, to make sure they’re okay, and then we’ll bring them back with us and offer them one of the cabins. If they aren’t interested, then we’ll get them a fair amount of supplies and help them however we can.”

  “Good.”

  They finished searching the ring of cabins and shacks, and then the main lodge, as quickly as they could. David wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like too long. Although apparently it was just in time, because right as they were gearing up to go, a trio of men in grubby clothing came running into the camp.

  “Grab whatever you fucking can, we’re getting the fuck out of here!” one of them snapped.

  David empty his assault rifle into them, gunning them down as quickly as he could. They waited to see if anyone else showed up, then set off to help the others. The fighting had almost completely died down. David didn’t hear the crack of Ruby’s rifle nor the heavy chatter of Widowmaker anymore. Just some occasional gunshots at this point. That could either be good, or bad. A few people were groaning in pain and someone was asking questions in a panicked voice. None of the voices were familiar. Which could also be a good or a bad thing.

  They carefully made their way towards the cabin and listened as the gunshots rang out. At one point, someone burst out of the trees onto the path, an unfamiliar man holding a shotgun. As they all aimed at each other, a gunshot sounded and he pitched forward, falling limply to the ground. Ellie emerged from the same spot he had.

  “
You’re okay,” she said.

  “Yes. There’s two survivors back at the camp, hostages, I’m pretty sure. They’ve agreed to wait there for us,” David replied.

  “Okay. Keep going, check on Vanessa and Jennifer. If they’re okay, go back to the camp with them and wait there for us. I’ve told Lara to get back to camp after she runs a few assholes down. I’m going to find Ruby and Cait, and do a little hunting. There’s a few left.”

  “You want any help?” Evelyn asked.

  “No, my senses are the best one for it. I think we’re going to have stalkers incoming, so get back there right now,” Ellie replied, then slipped back into the darkness before either of them could respond. David looked around anxiously.

  “Well...shit,” Evelyn muttered.

  “She’s right. Come on,” David said, and hurried on.

  They continued along the path, finding bodies everywhere. Occasionally, they would stop to grab a discarded gun, usually a pistol, and toss it into their backpacks, but mostly they ran. David could hear groans out there in the trees, and knew that at least zombies had been drawn in. They at least managed to make it to the cabin.

  “Hold it! Who the fuck is that?!” Vanessa snarled.

  “It’s me! It’s David and Evie!” David replied, freezing, panic exploding inside of him.

  “Fuck, sorry, you two.” She was panting. “Fuck,” she muttered.

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” David asked.

  “Took a few bullets, but I’ll be fine. What’s happening?” she replied from the broken window she was standing near. The front of the cabin she and Jennifer had occupied was so ridiculously bullet-riddled that it almost looked fake.

  “Things are good. Found two survivors. Ellie’s okay, Lara’s okay, as far as I know. We need to get back to the lodge. Can you make it?” he asked.