by Will Lemen
I hadn't bothered to stop for, or for that matter even think of pilfering some soap from someplace before I headed for the river. Considering that it was too late to worry about it, I decided to just enjoy myself and let the river water do the cleaning on its own.
This was the first time in a very long time that I had stopped and been able to relax, not to mention go swimming too.
The Wolf River was definitely not comparable to the pool at the Sarge's Y, but it was better than nothing, and seemed to be doing the trick.
When my clothes were as clean as they were going to get, I rang them out and found a nearby tree with an overhanging branch to hang them on to dry.
With the warm summer sun beating down on my fully exposed body, I decided to lie on the sand, absorb some vitamin D, and wait for my things to dry.
Well, you've all heard the old saying.
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"
Well, it was too good to be true all right.
Just as I got comfortable and began to let my head air-out a little.
In the distance, I heard dogs barking.
"Well shit the bed," I complained as I stood up. "And just when I was beginning to relax."
It didn't take long for the sound of the barking to get closer.
In fact, I barely (again, no pun intended, remember I was still naked) had time to pick up my M-4 before I saw a girl break through the trees on the ridgeline of the riverbank as she ran toward me.
She was wearing blue jeans and a bloodstained white t-shirt. If she had a weapon of any kind, I didn't see it.
When she saw me standing on the shore she screamed.
"Help me!"
That was just before she tripped and tumbled down the steep muddy bank, ending up sprawled out in the sand with her head inches from my bare feet.
Spitting some sand out of her mouth, she looked up at me standing in front of her stark raving naked, and repeated her urgent request.
"Will you please help me?"
I didn't have time to answer her question. The dogs that I had heard that were chasing the girl, now had caught up to her, and me.
Two of the feral dogs had been flanking her and now were trotting along the edge of the bank, one coming from the right side and one coming from the left side.
However, our main problem at that instant was the two vicious dogs that were attacking us head on.
I seated my rifle into the small of my shoulder and pointed the muzzle in the direction of the charging K-9's.
The crack of the supersonic projectile sounded the timely demise of the lead dog, but didn't detour the malevolent mutt that followed.
Taking aim at, and just before I put a cap in the second hound, an old adage came to mind, and it goes something like this.
"If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch!" I thought, as my bouncing genitals gave the girl at my feet a meter to accurately measure of the pounding recoil of my rifle as it weighed down the rapidly approaching mongrel with lead.
Now with two of the feral curs out of the way, I gave my full attention to the two that were closing in on us fast from each side.
I quickly swung my rifle to the right and drew down on the dog on that side first.
As it leaped into the air and started its downward trajectory toward us, I shot a bullet into its mouth that followed the backbone of the animal clear to its tail, and the dead dog plowed into the sand between the legs of the girl that was still lying at my feet.
I had chosen to shoot the dog on my right side first, because I knew that I could swing my gun around faster to the left side and get a quicker sight picture on the last of the malevolent pooches that was rushing toward us.
I did just that and with one final shot, I ended the canine's attack at the riverbank.
"Thank you," the girl that was still lying at my feet said, looking up at me past my manhood that was still swaying from the rifle's recoil.
I held out my hand and helped the girl to her feet.
Not out of kindness, I wanted her to stand up so I could search her for weapons, even though I hadn't seen any up to that point.
I wasn't about to turn my naked back on some hyper-active, man-hating, psychopathic whore that I didn't know (and I have known some from time to time), that might have been ready, and more than willing to turn my lights out at a moment's notice without as much as saying fuck to me.
Especially, just because I was too lazy, stupid, or too busy drooling over her tits to check the fucking cunt for weapons first.
Not that I was being judgmental mind you, I was just being cautious, and there was no way in hell that we were going to continue our conversation any further without me frisking her first.
As the young woman got to her feet, her toned body and curvaceous features did not hesitate to revel themselves to me, so I quickly took inventory of her, visually first, and then by hand.
The girl stood about five foot five inches tall and weighed in at somewhere between I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers, and one hundred and twenty-five pounds.
She looked to be somewhere in her early to mid twenties, which was younger than I was, yet she was still legal in every state and most countries around the world.
Her short brown hair although relatively clean except for the beach sand she had just plowed into, looked like someone had trimmed it with a malfunctioning weed-cutter with an automatic centrifugal clutch.
She wore a clinging blood stained white short-sleeve t-shirt that very effectively put her shapely jiggling twins on display, and with her skintight designer jeans adhering to her pelvic region as if they had been painted onto her body, I didn't need to hear anything that she had to say, because I could read her lips without really even trying.
However, wearing her color coordinated blue high-heeled sneakers that laced up passed her ankles, it was a wonder that she wasn't being toted around in the south-end of someone's (something's) underwear by now.
How in the living hell she was able to stay out in front of that pack of feral dogs while wearing those shoes was beyond my comprehension.
Looking at the girl, even with her punk-like haircut and being as semi-dirty as she was, I wouldn't have called her homely by any stretch, even without makeup I think she rated on a scale of 1 to 10, somewhere around...Plain Jane, certainly no lower. At least from the neck up I mean. Below the neck was an entirely different story. There she climbed up the scale quite dramatically.
"Hold still, I'm going to check you for weapons," I told her, in the harshest voice I could convincingly muster standing before her in my birthday suit. Thinking that I wouldn't mind checking her for ticks either.
"I don't have any weapons, I dropped my knife somewhere back when the dogs were chasing me," she insisted.
"Good move, dropping your only weapon while being chased by a pack of hostile dogs," I declared sarcastically.
"I couldn't help it, I tripped and fell, and the knife flew out of my hand. The dogs were already gaining on me, so I didn't have time to retrieve it. You saw how close they were, if I would have stopped, even for a moment, they would have surely caught up to me and killed me.
Hey, if you hadn't have been here, I would be dead by now anyway.
There's no way I could have fought off all of those dogs with just my knife.
You can go ahead and search me if you want, but I'm telling you that the knife I lost was the only weapon that I had," the girl said, as she continued to whine.
"I'll be the judge of that," I said, remembering the keys in Jason's pocket I had missed, as I patted the front of her body down, even though I had not seen any unnatural bumps.
Doing a swift groping search by checking her natural bumps (which quickly and pleasure-fully, considering she wasn't wearing a bra at the time), revealed that she was hiding no lethal weapons above the waist).
Then by feeling around her shapely hips and down the waistline of her skintight jeans, I found no weapons below her waist
either.
Well, no lethal weapons anyway! Just a single house key buried deep in her right front pocket.
"Nice set, now turn around," I ordered, as I spun the buxom woman's backside toward me.
I made one final check of the back of her waistband, and with a gentle pat on her callipygian butt, I communicated to her that maybe sometime in the future we might be able to become friends. Or at least, check each other for ticks.
After searching the woman, I deemed that she was telling me the truth and that she had no weapons on her person (except for those two locked and loaded torpedoes that she had strapped on her chest and was lugging around all over fuck's creation).
"Okay, you're clean," I announced, as I spun her back around to face me again, and brushed some of the sand off her shoulders. "Well kind of."
"I told you I didn't have anything that could hurt you," she asserted with a smile, as if she had just won an argument.
"I know you did, but I can't take any chances, I've seen too much out here to trust someone that I don't know. Even someone as innocent and harmless looking as you," I maintained, making no effort to hide the naked truth.
"Well anyway, thank you again for saving me from those damn dogs."
"You're welcome, I guess," I answered, as I picked up my pistol and walked away. "Let me get some clothes on, and then we can get properly introduced.
I pulled my damp clothing from the tree branch and proceeded to put on my pants.
The girl slowly brushed the sand off her clothes, and began to shake her head wildly.
"I'll never get all of this sand out of my hair," she complained, running her fingers through her hair.
When I was all dressed, and the girl I had saved was done shaking the sand off her, we introduced ourselves to each other.
"I think you know me a little better than I know you," I said, with a slightly embarrassed smile on my face. "My name is Jack, what's yours."
"I'm Cassandra," the girl answered.
"Well Cassandra, it's nice to meet you, but what in the hell is a big tit-ed woman like you doing running around this savage land all by yourself?"
"I was out looking for food and weapons, and not having much luck finding either one, when I saw those dogs you just killed. They were quite a distance away, but heading in my direction. So I began to run away to try to maintain the gap and avoid them, but no matter which way I turned, or how fast I ran, they were still behind me.
Well, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was pretty far from my sister's house, and the dogs had almost caught up to me. So I ran as fast as I could to the river thinking that I'd have a better chance of fighting them off if I jumped into the water. But instead, you were here and saved me," Cassandra explained.
"Yes I did, I saved your life, now you owe me everything you've got... pay up!" I teased jokingly. "But seriously, I think we had better get the hell out of here. I mean if you're coming with me. I'm not an expert on those damn canines, but I've never seen a pack of feral dogs that small, they usually run in bigger packs, so there's probably more of them traipsing around here somewhere.
Nevertheless, it's up to you, you can travel with me for awhile if you'd like, or we can go our separate ways right now, it's your call.
However, if you're going to go with me, then wiggle your pretty little butt in this direction, because I'm getting the heck out of Dodge as we speak.
Before more dogs show up, or eaters, or whatever in the hell might show up that I'm going to have to kill," I told her, as I trudged back through the muddy water of the small runoff, and began the short walk back to my truck.
"I need to get to my sister's house; it's not too far from here. Do you think you could take me there?" she asked, as she followed me to my vehicle.
"Where exactly does this sister of yours live, and what's she going to say when you drag a strange man into her house?" I questioned, trying to see what I might be getting myself into.
"She won't say anything, she never says much since our sister Pam died." Cassandra answered, looking forlorn.
"I'm sorry to hear that, what happened to her," I asked, as if I didn't already have a good idea, and really gave a shit about her sister which I never knew.
"It's a long story," Cassandra answered sadly.
"Well considering that you've had the distinct pleasure of seeing me buck-ass naked, i.e. full frontal male nudity, I think you can take the time to share your story with me," I said smiling, still a little embarrassed by the incident.
Smiling back at me as she climbed into the truck, Cassandra began to tell me the lurid tale of how her sibling paid the ultimate price.
"Well it wasn't all that long ago, my sister Pam, her new baby Kyle, and I were hiding out with her boy friend Dick in this metal warehouse like place after being run out of my home by a bunch of the resurrected ones.
We were trying to get to my other sister's house, Carla; she lived several blocks away, that's where we're going now, to Carla's house."
"You call them the resurrected ones, that seems like a mouthful to say when you're in a pinch. I mean, what do you do when one of those sons-a-bitches is about to eat one of your friends? Hey lookout, the resurrected ones are attacking you," I said, laughing. "I just call them eaters; it's short, sweet, and to the point. All you have to do is yell out "Eaters" and get down to the business of killing the dead bastards."
"That makes sense, maybe I'll start calling them that too," Cassandra, concurred.
"Which way is it to your sister's house?" I asked, as I started the truck and put it into gear.
"If you go straight down this road for about two miles and then hang a left and go a couple more blocks we'll be there," Cassandra answered, pointing the way.
"Then we move," I said, pushing down on the little pedal on the right. "But don't let me stop you, please continue with your story."
"Well, on the way to Carla's house we were attacked again, that's when we ran inside the warehouse to hide. It was kind of small, but with the metal walls and roof, it was pretty secure from the resurrected ones, I mean eaters, and from the dogs, and we hadn't seen any normal people for awhile so we felt kind of safe there.
I don't know what kind of business used to be in it, it was empty when we got there. Just a couple of workbenches and an old refrigerator filled with mold.
We couldn't go outside to gather food and water or anything else. So we spent most of the time just sitting around inside that big metal shed.
After a couple of days we needed food and water really bad, especially the baby, he wouldn't stop crying. And his constant screaming was the reason that the resurrected ones. Damn, I mean eaters, stayed in the neighborhood for so long, and literally had us trapped in the building."
As Cassandra relayed the story to me, tears began to run down her cheeks. I wasn't quite sure why at the time. Her story so far sounded like a typical zombie apocalyptic nightmare that we had all been going through for over a year now.
Everyone was surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty dead demons in a feeding frenzy, it sounded pretty normal to me.
However, I was about to find out what had her so upset.
"On the third day we decided to make a run for it, and that's when it happened.
Besides the constant badgering outside by the resurrected ones... eaters, the never ending howling and screaming by my sister's baby had us all at our wits end.
That's when Dick, my sister's boyfriend, but not Kyle's father said."
******
Several weeks earlier...
"Will you shut that brat up, it's going to get us all killed," Dick yelled, over the baby's screams.
"He won't be quiet, he's hungry and thirsty, he hasn't had anything to eat or drink in days," Pam said, flustered.
"If he would just shut the fuck up for a couple of minutes maybe the zombies would go away, and we could get the fuck out of here, did you ever think of that?" Dick screamed, as the rage in his eyes became apparent.
&
nbsp; "Well I don't know what to do, we don't have any food or water to give him, and that's why he's crying, he's starving and dehydrated," Pam screamed back.
"I heard you the first time bitch, now did you hear me?" Dick demanded, still screaming. "The little bastard is going to get us all killed if he doesn't shut the fuck up!"
"Both of you shut the fuck up, before you two get us all killed," Cassandra interrupted in a loud whisper.
"Well then, if you don't get Kyle some food and water, I guess we'll all just get killed then," Pam stated to Dick in a snotty tone.
"I'm not going sit in this metal container like spam in a can waiting to get eaten by the undead, just because you can't control that God dammed screaming bastard of yours!" Dick now whispered loudly as well, just before snatching Pam's baby from her arms.
Now Kyle screamed even louder as Dick pummeled the child with his open hand, slapping the holy shit out of the kid and screaming in his face.
"Shut the fuck up!"
"What are doing to my baby?" Pam yelled, as she lunged forward and tried to pull her baby from Dick's arms.
Dick side stepped the charging women and shoved her to the floor.
"I'm gonna shut this fucking brat up, somebody has to, and since you and your stupid-ass sister over there won't do it, I guess it's up to me to do the heavy lifting around here," Dick explained, gesturing toward Cassandra.
"Shut up Dick, and give me that baby before you really hurt him," Cassandra ordered the infuriated man.
"Fuck you Cassandra, I told you two I'm not going to die because of some out of control brat," Dick shrieked, tucking little Kyle under his left arm and grabbing a hold of the crown of his little head with his right hand.
By now Kyle had reduced his caterwauling to a mere whimper, because even at his young and tender age of only a few months, he had sensed that the severe pain associated with the proper beat down that he was receiving from Dick, was correlated to his incessant howling.
However, being clenched under the hairy arm of his pissed off knuckle-dragging attacker, the baby Kyle was helpless to do anything except realize that without a doubt, he had fucked up royally.
