by Nick Harland
I smiled internally at the Lord of Rings quote, although I’m not sure he got it quite right, and I think he would have said more but Eve stepped forwards, ‘Jim is right, we were lucky today, lucky we had grenades and lucky Mark was willing to sacrifice himself. There are no more grenades and Mark is gone. There are hundreds of thousands of them for every one of us and until this place is an impregnable fortress we should be working twelve hour days, all of us.’
‘We need to be ready to fight, or run, at any time of the day or night. Everyone needs to know their place in the plan and everyone needs to be willing and able to fulfil it. Chris, Esme, Brad and I will be going in search of more guns and ammunition tomorrow. We’ll be gone all day and we’ll be taking two vehicles with us. We expect this place to look different when we get back.’
There was silence but it was not the silence of resignation, it was the silence of determination. Eve turned and marched to our van for effect and Esme and I followed, trying to match her serious expression. When we were inside and I had closed the door Eve said, ‘Was that too much, what do you think?’
Esme replied, ‘No, I think it was just enough. On the same subject, I’m sorry for losing it a bit earlier, I was angry.’
Eve smiled and said, ‘It’s ok, you were entitled, we all were, you just pull it off better than the rest of us.’ Then she tuned to me and said, ‘You said some pretty freaky stuff earlier and I get the feeling you meant some of it. It’s given me an idea that’s probably equally freaky, but you need to tell us what happened earlier before I tell you. Something happened didn’t it?’
I sat on one side of the van and Eve and Esme sat on the other, the van’s small table between us. I said, ‘I felt the message she sent to the horde, I felt it build in her before she sent it. You’ve said before I have a Zed sense and there have been other times I felt it, like just before Marion and Mathew died. I don’t know how to explain it and I wonder if it’s some kind of hormone or scent or something. I’m sure I remember some nature program about animals and insects communicating by smells or something. I wonder if it’s like that.’
Eve said, ‘That’s kind of what I thought. You also said you breathed them in and killed them when they invaded you but I don’t know if that’s true, and we need to find out. I don’t know if your immune, and you killed them before they could take hold, or if you just don’t have the kind of naturally occurring bacteria they merge with and use to take control. Either way we might be able to use you, and Bill for that matter.’
Esme interrupted, ‘So they could still be swimming around in him exactly as they were when they arrived. You said you had a freaky idea, what is it?’
Eve replied, ‘As part of my PhD I worked on bacterial thresholds and immunity. You know most vaccines are made up of dead viruses, or even tiny amounts of live ones. That usually isn’t the case with anti-biotics, and vaccines are very different. There are theories around bacterial immunity drugs made from the blood of people who have had recent exposure to the infection, but not at a level strong enough to get sick. The problem has always been finding the right amount of cells to inject to provide immunity, without making the person sick.’
‘I’ve even read some really out-there stuff about an ancient but advanced civilisation who almost mastered the art before making a mistake and being wiped out by a super-bacteria. They say that’s where the practice of homeopathy comes from. They didn’t have microscopes so dividing water with blood in was the only way they could produce a fluid with only a few cells in. Ridiculous of course, but you know where I’m headed.’
Esme’s already large eye’s widened as Eve spoke and when Eve had finished she said, ‘That’s genius. If he’s immune and killed the aliens when they arrived his blood might help protect against infection from bites, and if they are still in their original form, injecting just a tiny amount of them might allow a person to develop their own immunity against a bite. We’ve already hypothesised that the aliens must have totally flooded the earth and couldn’t survive long inside us without combining with our own cells and mutating them to work against us.’
If Brad has the original cells in him he’s not immune, he’s the opposite, he’s a container that has preserved their original form. He has no defence against them like the rest of us, but also none of the right kind of cells for them to enter and mutate. If what we think we’ve worked out so far is true, injecting people with a just a few aliens, alien cells, whatever, should allow people who never breathed them in to kill the small number injected and become immune. They wouldn’t get sick or turn, they’d become immune to bites, well hopefully. It’s not a cure, or at least it’s extremely unlikely to be, but it’s a start.’
Eve was beaming but they had lost me somewhere around an ancient civilisation of homeopaths. Then they looked at each other and exchanged smiles before looking back at me suspiciously. Eve folded up the table and pushed it back before coming over and sitting on me, pulling her t-shirt down a bit and pressing my head into her lovely cleavage. I was suspicious but I couldn’t’ resist the soft, smooth, warmth between her boobs, It was always lovely and I never got bore of it. I heard Esme scrabbling around in a draw and when I tried to move my head back to look Eve pressed me against her harder and said, ‘Be a good boy and just go with it, we’ll kiss it all better later.’
Then I felt Esme grab my hand, she was surprisingly strong for her size, and stab my thumb with something sharp and pointy. Then she squeezed it hard and made me squeal before saying, ‘That should do.’
Eve let me go and I saw Esme examining the end of a small penknife blade with my blood on it. I grabbed Eve’s bum before she could get off me and said, ‘You could have just asked.’
Eve looked down at me with puppy eye’s, put her index finger on her lush lips and said in a sexy Marilyn Monroe kind of voice, ‘But baby, that wouldn’t have been any fun at all now would it.’
I pulled her t-shirt down and leant forwards so I was in her cleavage again and said in a muffled voice, ‘I suppose not.’
We followed Esme back out into the communal area where the electron microscope was still sat on a small camping table by the wall. Esme turned the machine on, put the blood on a slide, and inserted it into the machine. I stood behind Eve and put my hands on her curvaceous bum while looking over her shoulder. I whispered in her ear, ‘I hope you meant it about kissing it better later.’
Eve wiggled and curved her back to push her bum against me, ‘Of course I did. You know, however this turns out we’ll probably be needing a lot more blood from you?’
That particular penny hadn’t dropped but I brazened it out, ‘Of course!’
Esme snorted, ‘Yea right. You may be superhero killing machine with Zed senses, and who knows, you might be mankind’s last hope of survival, but you’re a shit liar.’
Eve giggled and although there were still a few people sat on the couches she put her hands on mine and slid them from her bum around her waist then up to hold her breasts, ‘She’s not wrong, but we love you for it.’
Esme banged the table and blurted, ‘Ha, there you are you bastards, we’ve fucking found you, naked as the day you invaded.’
The people sat on the couch tried not to stare and I wondered what they must think of us. To come from the outside and see our behaviour must have been strange to say the least, even without the love triangle thing. We were largely beyond caring how we looked, but I hoped the other survivors trusted us and knew we only wanted to help them. They seemed to listen to what we said and generally did what we suggested, but it must have been strange for them. I made a mental note to try and be more open about what we were doing and why.
Realising that actions spoke louder than mental notes I let Eve go and walked over to the couches. Sitting on one of the chairs and meeting the expectant eye’s I said, ‘Sorry about that, it’s just that Esme and Eve think they might have found a way to make everyone immune to the bites. I really don’t have a clue as they’re the science geeks, and
it sounds like it will need some work, but it’s exciting none the less.’ I was met by a wall of nods and polite silence so I added, ‘We’ll explain it to everyone tomorrow’, before walking back to Eve.
It was getting late and we had a busy day ahead of us so we went back to the van and started to get ready for bed. Esme let her clothes fall on the floor, which only meant one thing, before laying naked on the bed. Behind me I felt Eve press against me and I could tell she was naked too. She slid one hand across my chest and slid my boxers down with the other, coming to hold me. I moved my hands behind me until I could feel her hips, the curve of her never failed to make me instantly excited.
Esme moved her hands over her body and flicked her slim fingers over her soft nipples, ‘Eve dear, what do you think it would be like to get fucked by a superhero saviour of mankind?’
Eve replied, ‘Well Esme, my beautiful, sexy, oh so pert darling, I think we’re about to find out. And as we’ll soon be taking some more of this superhero’s blood, I think we better make sure we make the most of him now, while he still has enough to…fill himself up.’
I smiled and felt myself harden further. Whenever Esme and Eve spoke like old Victorian women, but used explicit language, I knew I was in for a particularly good session, and that I would be their plaything during it.
Esme sat up, smiled, and shuffled to the edge of the bed. Leaning forwards so her lips just touched the end of me she said, ‘I see what you mean darling’, before taking me from Eve and starting to kiss me gently. She knew how much I loved to see her red lips on me and my whole body tensed.
I shuddered from the sensations and Eve came around to stand beside me and started kissing me. Between hot breaths she said, ‘So superhero, are you going to stay all full up for us tonight? We’ve been in such a rush recently we haven’t had the chance to make you pay us both back for earlier favours. I seem to remember the challenge was to give us both satisfaction while we were both sat on top of you. I seem to remember feeling that in that particular position your tongue work excelled. So Esme darling, I think you’ve done a fine job making him beautifully hard for me. Why don’t we see if you agree with my assessment. I promise I’ll be gentle with your work. I only hope he can resist so there’s something left for you to get comfortable on when we swap places.’
Having Eve slowly rock and shift on top of me while I lost myself between Esme’s thighs felt as good as anything we’d ever done. I was tense the whole time and knew I’d have sore abs later. I moved my hands between their lush bums and had to stop Eve from moving at one point or I would have failed the challenge. I groaned loudly and tensed even harder to resist and when I returned to my duty I found Eve’s finger there to help. This seemed to excite Esme as much as it did me and she only lasted a few moments after that.
By the time they swapped places I had lost all rational thought and there was no longer any debate about whose bum to hold. I buried my fingers into Eve’s bum forcing her towards me and quickly found Esme’s finger there to help me. Eve went from exclamations of encouragement to breathless silence and we came together to the sound of Esme shouting, ‘Fuck yea.’ I think it might have been the loudest we had ever been but the embarrassment was worth it, ten times over it was worth it.
Chapter Eighteen – Gun’s n Ammo
We were up early, despite the session lasting some time, but we were used to it. Chris was up early too and met us in the seating area for breakfast, which was dry cereal. Finding food wasn’t particularly difficult but the post-apocalyptic diet was definitely one thing that wasn’t better. There was no meat to cook, no milk, and almost nothing fresh. The garden was coming on but it was nowhere near sufficient to give us all a decent serving of something fresh every day. We tried our best for the children but we knew the lack of milk wasn’t ideal. Luckily we had a shed load of supplements.
I wondered if we should have prioritised finding a goat or cow earlier on but I knew by the time we found the others the chances of finding any animals alive were slim. We didn’t need to talk to anyone or organise anything before we left as Jim had made it clear he would lead on base management.
We decided to take two vehicles on the trip north to find guns. We didn’t want to find ourselves stranded if one broke down. It wasn’t too hard to find car keys but it was getting harder to kill the Zeds holding them and they’d started to wander away from where they turned. Two cars mean that we had to split up, which was uncomfortable for all of us. Esme didn’t hesitate to say she’d go in the rear car with Chris. We hugged and I whispered, ‘Stay close.’ Mutt hadn’t had a proper outing for a while so we took him with us in Mary.
We had enough supplies for a few days, some ammo, and one of the rifles. Eve and Esme had Seven’s and I had become used to the pry bar, Chris had an M9 and a baseball bat studded with nails. Needless to say we adhered to the helmet policy. Although it was a detour from our route north, we headed to the village Eve said her old gun instructor lived in first. We drove in silence for a while but as we approached the village I was about to speak when Eve interrupted me and said, ‘It’s ok. I know she might be there and if she is it will be difficult, but I’ll be alright. Let’s just concentrate on getting in and out alive to shall we, so keep those Zed senses of yours alert.’
It was a small, pretty village, with old stone houses and what a few weeks previously must have been a well maintained village square with a large grassed area in the centre. We drove slowly looking for Zeds but couldn’t see any. Even at low revs Mary wasn’t quiet. There were a few small village shops that looked very touristy, but there was also a general store we knew we should visit if possible. Eve brought me from my thoughts, ‘There, that road there.’
I turned down the narrow road she indicated and crept along. With some parked cars on either side of the narrow lane Mary’s fat arse barely fitted. The lane strayed out of the village with a few cottages on either side, set back behind long narrow front gardens. Eve pointed at a front gate and said, ‘There, that one. She never said the number but when she talked about the quaint village she lived in I used to take the piss and one time she said there was even the outline of a sheep on her front gate.’
We stopped and I radioed Esme, ‘It’s this one, let’s wait for a minute and if you can use the rifle sight to look through any front windows you should.’
In the wing mirror I saw the rifles’ barrel stick out of the car and move slowly to and fro. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the feeling I had when my Zed sense tingled, but there was nothing. Esme radioed back and said, ‘I think I saw something move next door but I can’t be certain.’
There was no point drawing it out so I got out of the car and the others followed. As Chris and Esme walked up to us I looked at Chris and said, ‘Remember, guns are a last resort, we either fight or run.’ Chris nodded.
Eve led the way, opening the creaky gate with the sheep on it. Esme and Chris followed behind us and kept looking around as we approached the front door. It was an original wooden door, freshly painted in a deep leaf green with a small frosted round window near the top that also had a sheep design on. I looked through the front window, then between the vertical blinds. The inside was small but modern looking, I couldn’t see any movement.
I nodded at Eve who tightened her grip on Seven and tried the door, it was locked. Eve rolled her eyes and said, ‘I suppose it means there’s less likely to be anyone inside at least.’ Then she stepped back and said, ‘After you.’
I stepped back and front kicked the door as hard as I could. I expected some give at least but it was as solid as a cliff face and I bounced backwards almost falling over; the shock made my back spasm for a moment and I yelped. Esme giggled, ‘Wow, that was impressive.’
Eve re-examined the door then poked Seven through the small round window, knocking all the glass through. She poked her head through a little so she could see down and laughed, ‘Don’t be too hard on him Esme, there’s a dirty great steel bar across the back of the door th
at keys into the stone. The hulk could kick this thing and it wouldn’t go anywhere, it’s an axe job I’m afraid.’
Chris and I went back to the car to find an axe and Chris kindly volunteered to do the hard work. It was a hot day and he was dripping by the time he’d finished. He had to cut through the thick hard wood door all the way around the lock before we could get the thing open. I offered to help half way through but he wanted to finish the job himself. Eve said, ‘This security is a bit over the top but maybe it bodes well for her supplies. Let’s see what’s inside. I ushered Mutt in first and we followed him.
The short narrow hall led to the living room at the front and Mutt darted in and out of it. We investigated the living room while Mutt guarded the door but found nothing useful. There were some gun magazines on the table and an old decommissioned musket above the modern fire. It was a weird mix of new and old décor. We knew the presence of gun paraphernalia boded well for our chances though.
The kitchen was small and neat and we all had a drink from what was left in the pipes. It was mercifully cool in the house with the thick stone walls and most of the blinds drawn. We gathered some cans and dry food to take with us and moved on. There was a tiny utility room before the back door that had a similar security bar. Off to the left there was a decent sized downstairs bedroom that was as empty as a hotel room. The stairs were narrow and wound round in a tight circle, getting furniture up them must have been impossible, it must have had to go in through an upstairs window. Mutt prowled up the stairs but I couldn’t see any Zeds being upstairs.
Upstairs was a large bedroom and bathroom and there must have been quite a lot of building work done as there was no way that was the original design in such a small cottage. Eve examined the bedroom and I could see she was sad to see the clothes and personal effects of her former lover. There was a small locked cabinet on the wall above the bedside table that we assumed had a gun in it. Chris had the axe and went to work. He got it off the wall and dented the door enough that I could use the pry bar. After some grunting and groaning it opened up.
