It wasn’t just a funeral for her parents and Zeb’s sons. Everyone there had lost someone. In fact, everyone there had lost everything. All they had were the clothes on their backs, and no one knew if they would even live another day. Eve felt really touched that people cared enough to honor her parents death. She genuinely shared the pain of every person present.
“Dixon jumped up and grabbed the beast by the throat and shook it. I could hear the neck breaking!” Candy was recounting the story to Sven, who smiled at her, as Eve joined them.
“Yeah,” Eve said. “We would probably be coming to feed on you tonight if not for Dixon. He saved us.”
“So, is Candy watching out for you?” Sven asked, in a half joking manner.
“Yeah, she’s taking good care of me,” Eve smiled.
“I’m gonna take a little smoke break.” Sven arched his eyebrows. “You want to come? Might cheer you up.”
It wasn’t Sven’s fault that her parents were dead. In fact, he tried to stop them from being shot. Without Dixon guarding her last night and taking out that beast that lunged at them, she probably would be infected right now. “Okay,” she said.
It was electric, when Sven took her hand, to lead her off around the side of the building. Dixon didn’t follow, preferring to stay near the food. Sven was always so cool: never flustered, never raised his voice. She really liked that about him. Also, his friends were all so dangerous, but he was so cool, so seemingly unaffected. She watched as he lit up the fragrant weed and took a long drag, holding it in his lungs before passing it to her. She had smoked pot before but this time she was nervous because of him. She started to inhale, but ended up in a nervous coughing fit. Sven smiled with his mouth and lungs still full of smoke. He leaned toward her slowly, gently taking her head in his hands, then pressed his lips to hers and exhaled into her mouth until her lungs were filled with the smoke that had been in his. He smiled at her and said, “Hold it in.”
She coughed a little before putting her hand to her mouth to keep it in. She kept her eyes locked to his. Finally he exhaled, giving her the signal and she let out a long exhale of smoky air. Her head felt very light and she found herself giggling as he took another drag. He seemed calm and unaffected. Sven gave her another very mellow smile and handed her the blunt. This time she was able to take a drag and hold it in. Sven nodded his approval and squeezed her hand. Afterward, she noticed that he didn’t let her hand go. It felt good, and she liked it. She released the smoke in a flurry of uncontrollable giggles. She didn’t even know what she was laughing about. Her mind was racing from topic to topic. Sven was laughing with her. She was laughing so hard, she found herself doubled over, her head pressed against his long torso, her hands resting against his chest.
Then she found herself looking up into his face. They kissed. It happened so fast, and the kiss was so brief, she wondered if she had only dreamed it. Her heart pounded in her ears. She could hear that his heart had sped up too. She buried her head into his chest not wanting to pull away but afraid of what might happen is she met his eyes again.
Someone cleared their throat loudly behind Sven. Eve and Sven jumped apart as though they had not been touching. “She’s only sixteen, you know,” Rusty said, fingering the butt of his pistol. Next to him were Thompson and the other guard. Behind them was Brit, looking like he had just been sucking on a lemon.
“We were just talking,” Sven said.
“Looked to me like you were rounding second base,” Thompson chimed in, looking to Rusty for support and finding it.
“What’s going on here?” Jackie and Candy appeared behind Rusty and Thompson.
“That one there,” Rusty pointed at Sven, “was kissing a sixteen year old girl.”
“I’m not sixteen,” Eve said. “I’m eighteen, and we weren’t doing anything. We were just talking.”
“Well then, I’m going to need to see a driver’s license for proof.”
“I must have left that in my other purse,” Eve countered sarcastically.
“What’s that in your hand there?” Rusty demanded.
“That’s pot,” Thompson said. “I can smell it.”
“So?” Sven said.
“Yeah, so what?” Candy pushed forward to defend Sven. Dixon powered through the crowd to come stand beside Sven. He looked at Sven and then looked at Rusty and Thompson and the other guard. A low rumbling growl began sounding from him.
“You better hang onto that dog or I might have to shoot it,” Rusty stepped back.
Sven jumped to his feet, “Then you would be a dead man.”
“Did you just threaten me?” Rusty drew his pistol. Instantly, Jackie, Candy, Sven, Jeb and Mack had guns pointed at all the guards.
“Whoaa! Whoaa!” Dennis lumbered to the front, “What’s going on here? Everyone just calm down now. Nobody’s going to get shot today. Hasn’t there been enough killing?”
“This is a federal installation and we are duly appointed federal officers sworn to protect this installation.” Rusty was red in the face. “You’re under arrest for possession of a controlled substance. We’ll put him in the holding cell until the government shows up.” Rusty nodded to Thompson and the other guard, who began to move toward Sven with hand cuffs. Dixon let out a snarl and lunged at Thompson, knocking both he and the other guard on their backs like ten pins with his massive chest. Candy jumped in and stopped Dixon from going for Thompson’s neck with his massive jaws. Sven grabbed Rusty’s pistol and wrestled it up to prevent Dixon from being shot, then head butted Rusty on the bridge of his nose until Rusty’s knees wobbled and his nose was bleeding pretty badly.
Jackie and Zeb stepped in, knocking Rusty, Thompson and the third guard out cold with the butts of their rifles. “Get their weapons. Cuff them,” Jackie ordered.
CHAPTER 21: October 16, 3 p.m.
“This is a federal facility. You’re all trespassing,” Rusty screamed from the ground, where he was cuffed and his feet were tied and then all of that was tied to his hand cuffs behind his back to complete a very tight, very uncomfortable-looking hog tie. “As federal officers, we are in charge of this facility. We are ordering you to leave now or risk being shot.” Thompson and the other guard were tied the same way.
Sven laughed, lit up a blunt, took a long drag and blew the smoke into Rusty’s face. “The government went underground to their bunkers. They’re hiding. They left us all up here to die.”
“There’s nowhere to go. If we left we would be eaten by the beasts,” an older matronly female survivor said.
“I say we kill them.” Jackie spoke quietly to Zeb and Mack, who nodded. “Save us a lot of trouble later.”
“No. No. No.” Dennis was everywhere now, dancing around like a ninety-pound ballerina, fighting for their lives. “They’re just following orders. They didn’t mean anything by it. Just let them go. They’ll stay in the guardhouse.”
“I don’t know…”
“You can’t go killing everybody who knows how to run this plant,” Dennis argued. “These guys have been here for years. They know how everything works. You need to keep them around.”
“You can’t kill them!” The older matronly female survivor pleaded, while several others in the crowd grumbled agreement and nodded vigorously, “They’re not infected.”
The crowd was clearly against killing the men. “Okay, but we’re taking their weapons as punishment, and they need to stay out in the guardhouse,” Jackie said.
“No more food for them,” Sven said.
“They have to provide their own food.” Dennis was agreeing to anything at this point.
“Okay, take all their weapons.” Next, Jackie ordered a search of the guardhouse, and all remaining firearms and ammunition were confiscated and put upstairs in the tower. A small armory with nine new M-16s, bullet-proof vests, lots of ammunition, and more handcuffs and hobbles was found in the tower. Two more spotlights were found and moved to the upper tower.
“This is a death sentence. How will w
e defend ourselves against the beasts?” Rusty complained, as he and the other guards were released.
Jackie pointed to his head, “Use this for starters.”
“Fight with an axe, metal bar, whatever,” Zeb said. Sven just smiled. Dixon stood close by, occasionally emitting a low grumbling growl.
“I don’t like this,” Jackie spoke quietly to Sven. “But the remaining survivors have seen too much death and I don’t think they would stand for us killing any living people at this point.”
“It’s not over,” Sven said. Eve stood close beside him.
CHAPTER 22: October 16, 4:30 p.m.
Sven was keeping his distance from Eve, since their brief encounter. He glanced around the room uncomfortably. Everyone seemed to be doing something else, but he knew all eyes in the tower were focused on Eve and him. Wherever he stood, he could feel eyes on the back of his neck. Every time he would glance back to see, she would look away. Only Brit stared openly. He sat on a table watching Sven, while a nurse examined and changed the bandage on his wound. “It’s healing well. No infection…” She stopped as she realized others’ ears would perk up at the word infection.
“Sven, I need you over here on this light. It’s getting dark,” Jackie barked from the catwalk.
Glancing back again, Sven saw that Candy now had an arm around Eve’s shoulder. Eve and Candy watched him as he walked away. Brit stared at him with malignant hatred.
“Aren’t we a little thin up here?” Sven asked, looking around at the few men manning the lights. “Where are the new arrivals?”
“Down below,” Jackie pointed. “They’re all on the first floor with a steel door between us and them. They’re the first line of defense.”
“If the infected get in they’ll tear through them like a hot knife through butter.”
“They’re down there and we’re up here in case some of them are infected and change. That way they won’t get all of us.”
“Smart.”
“If we keep taking big losses like the past few days,” Jackie shook his head, “God help us. We’re not going to make it.”
Both men were silent as they realized that tonight’s battle would probably decide whether they would make it or not. Sven unconsciously turned to look toward Eve, to find her watching him. He looked away.
“There’s one. You see it?” Jackie pointed to a lone wolfish figure emerging from the next building, where it had been waiting out the murky daylight. It was just after 4:30 p.m..
“Hit the lights!” Jackie barked, loud enough to wake the dead. Zeb was standing by to immediately flick a bank of switches flooding the base of the tower with light. Immediately, the beast disappeared back through the door to avoid the light. Several more times over the next few minutes the same door cracked open only to close with nothing emerging. Finally, a small group of beasts could be seen standing in the shadows over to the left. Sven could see a few of them raising their noses to sniff the air. Then from another direction, another group of infected began throwing dirt, sand, rocks and sticks at the lights. A single light broke, hit by one of the rocks. Gunfire erupted from below, as the defenders in the bottom of the tower began shooting at the infected.
“Hit them with the spots!” Jackie ordered. Sven flicked on the powerful spotlight and lit up the shadows like the noon day sun. The infected hiding there from the gunfire scattered instantly.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Jackie yelled into the radio clipped at his waist. The firing finally stopped. “Save your ammo. Only fire if one of them gets close. One shot one kill. Got it? One shot one kill.”
Zeb came and stood next to his son, Tiny, who was manning the other spotlight. “Seems to be working,” Zeb said, absently fingering his weapon, while manipulating a toothpick with his tongue.
“Whenever you see a group of them, hit them with the spot. There. Right there,” Jackie pointed to another group that had formed in the shadows. Sven and Tiny both eagerly hit the group with their spots. The beasts banged into each other and the wall and the door, so great was their haste to escape the bright light.
“Whoop!!” Zeb let out a whoop. Tiny laughed. Jackie slapped Sven on the back.
“Okay, Tiny, you take that side. Sven, you handle this side of the tower. Light up anything that gets close.”
At the locked outer gate, a small group of late survivors drawn by the lights, rattled the chain link fence and called toward them, “Let us in!”
Sven and Tiny lit them up with the spots, just as four to six beasts were fast approaching, with a writhing wall of darkness on their heels. The beasts veered away from the bright spots. Jackie waved his arms and yelled, “Hide! It’s not safe! Get in the cars!”
“Hide!” Sven screamed.
It was a man, woman and two young children. They jumped back as the beasts came toward them. “Help us!” they screamed. The man began firing into the near darkness dropping a few beasts and enraging others further. Sven could see dark figures running toward them from every direction, drawn by the noise; hundreds, maybe thousands, deterred momentarily only by the pinpoint lights of the spots on them.
“We have to do something!” Mack jumped up with his rifle, ready to rush out the door. Two more men jumped up to join him.
“No, son!” Zeb held his hand out to stop him.
“It’s suicide!” Jackie said.
The door on the bottom floor of the tower opened, and four men came out, guns bristling like SWAT, firing as they moved toward the family at the fence. Jackie ran to the steel door and flung it open to get to the floor below. Mack and the other two followed on his heels.“Shut that door!” He screamed to the ten men standing guard at it with their rifles, backing up the four who just exited.
Sven watched in horror as the two daughters and then the woman were snatched from the beams of light. He could hear their screams. The man was firing wildly into the darkness all around him, calling out their names. Everywhere Sven moved his light, the thick masses of beasts scattered, but he didn’t see the woman or the girls. He could only hear their screams. When Sven moved his light back to where the man had been an instant before, he was gone. In his place were hundreds of beasts, writhing like maggots from this distance.
The four men, who had an instant before so bravely ventured out, began retreating, firing as they went. One by one, the beasts snatched them out of the lights. Only one man remained to run back to the steel tower door the well lit distance. He pounded on the door, looking nervously to his left and firing. He was swept away from the light by at least thirty beasts before he could look in the other direction. His terrified screams echoed in the darkness.
CHAPTER 23: October 29, 11 a.m.
“I think Brit is gay!” Candy was holding Eve and rocking her as she cried. Eve really needed someone she could trust.
Candy laughed almost unkindly, “Of course! You didn’t know that? I could tell just by looking at him. He’s in such great shape. His hair and body are perfect, and haven’t you noticed the way he stares at Sven? I think he has a thing for him.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Eve lifted her head from Candy’s breast to stare her in the eye.
Candy just laughed, pulled Eve’s head back to her breast and kissed her forehead tenderly. “You’re just young, baby. You’ll learn. You’ll learn.”
“I thought he was interested in me. He seemed so nice.” Eve was still sorting out the morning’s events clouding her mind. “I practically threw myself at him. I laughed at all his jokes...”
“But he is interested in you, honey. You’re close to Sven.”
“Not as close as Alexis…”
“Ohhhh, so that’s what this is about…a little revenge fucking. Maybe make Sven a little jealous so he will return to you.”
Eve was a little taken aback at the dirty language, “No…I don’t know. What does Sven see in her anyway?”
“She’s not you, honey.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sven and I have been frie
nds for a long time - long before any of this happened. He’s feeling a little crowded right now, but he likes you. He’ll come back. He doesn’t have any feelings for Alexis.”
“Really?” Eve searched Candy’s eyes.
Candy covered the two inches between them and gave Eve a kiss on the lips. Eve pulled away. The kiss was gentle but firm and Candy tasted sweeter than a man. Eve felt that she should end this, run away, but the moment was so intimate, so tender, and Eve just really needed a friend right now. Candy kissed her again on the lips, this time longer. She swept her hair out of her face with her hand and then let it rest on her breast as she kissed her again, more deeply, adding a little tongue. Candy played gently with her nipple as she kissed her again and again. Eve could feel her body responding, even as her mind was confused. Candy was so gentle and she seemed to respond to Eve, even before Eve became aware of her own feelings. Eve marveled at how different this felt from her limited experience with men.
Then, Candy was unbuttoning her shirt and removing her bra. Every time Eve thought to protest or try to move away, Candy gave her a new delight, a new bodily pleasure. The madam was in her element and demonstrating her prowess. Eve felt that she was being sucked into a great abyss of pleasure, tied with silken ropes from which there was no escape. Any thought of escape was overwhelmed instantly with new and different surges of previously unimagined pleasures.
Eventually, Eve gave herself over to the pleasures that Candy was offering. She felt safe in that moment. Candy brought her to new and exciting heights that she had never before dreamed of. Eve did not know these powerful feelings she experienced in her body were even possible. Eve was like a violin in the hands of a master. It seemed to go on for hours. Candy was teaching her, coaching her, telling her what to do and how. Correcting, encouraging almost like a class. In Candy’s sure hands, Eve learned not only the pleasures of responding to a lover, but the power of initiating and providing that pleasure. Eventually, Candy slowed and then finally stopped. She pulled her panties on and attached her bra, now looking down impatiently at Eve, who suddenly felt very naked, lying on Candy’s bed. Eve pulled the sheet over to cover herself.
TAGGED: THE APOCALYPSE Page 9
