Captured

Evan awoke to confusion. He was lying on a cold hard flat surface, perhaps a concrete floor, in complete darkness. He felt a dull throb in his head and he was stiff and cold. He had no idea where he was, nor how he had gotten there.

Evan cautiously sat up. He concluded he was in one piece with no significant injuries, with just a sore spot on his left shoulder. Getting on his hands and knees, he picked a direction and started moving slowly, feeling the floor as he proceeded. He soon came to a vertical surface that also felt to be concrete.

Sitting with his back to the wall, Evan took stock of his situation. Between the unnatural darkness and the flat orthogonal surfaces, it was obvious he was in an enclosed room. That meant somewhere there was likely a door. He added finding it to his very short to-do list, but he didn't feel a compelling reason to rush to seek it. Haste often led to mistakes. He didn't survive this long in this world gone to hell by making a lot of hasty mistakes. "Don't pat yourself on the back," Evan thought, "you obviously made a mistake to end up here."

He tried to bring up his last memory prior to awakening in the room. He recalled moving quietly through the forest as the sun was just setting, looking for a good spot to bed down for the night, when . . . what? A sharp pain in his shoulder. Yes, that was his last memory.

Sitting quietly, Evan became aware of a faint sound that he had not previously detected: breathing, and not his. A chill ran up Evan's spine. Someone or something living was in the room with him. That could be a good thing, but he needed to assume it was a threat for now. He felt for the hunting knife he kept in a sheath on his hip, only to find both the knife and the sheath were missing. Perhaps now was the time to find the exit.

Evan worked his way along the wall looking for any breaks, picking a direction that seemed to move him away from the breathing. Eventually, though he came to a corner, and his exploration began taking him closer to whatever was in the room with him. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but in this enclosed space, he knew any conscious person or animal would hear his movements.

Suddenly, there was a scrambling sound and a voice hissed, "Stay the fuck away from me, I've got a knife."

OK, so the other occupant of the room was human and sounded female. Evan felt some relief in that. He wasn't thrown in here as lunch for some nameless beast. Then again, if their captors had disarmed him and yet left her with a knife, he couldn't rule out the possibility that she was meant to eat him; the world had gotten that crazy.

"Hey, I have no desire to harm you; I'm just looking for a way out." Then Evan bluffed, ". . . and by the way, I'm armed as well, so don't get any ideas."

"The fuck you are. I searched you while you were out cold. You haven't got any weapons."

She still had the upper hand, but Evan suspected she was also lying. It's what he would do in her shoes. The good news was, even if she was armed, she had not chosen to kill him while he was unconscious. That meant she either had a shred of human decency or she felt he could be useful to her.

"The name's Evan."

"Fuck you, asshole."

"That's an unusual name, Miss Asshole. Mind if I just call you 'Fuck'?"

"Very funny." She paused, then said, "Fine, you can call me 'Liv', but I'm not looking for a friend. Stay the fuck away from me or I'll stab you."

"I call bullshit. You haven't got a knife either."

"You can believe what you want, but do you really want to chance it?"

"Nope, not worth the risk," Evan conceded. He went back to searching the wall.

"You're wasting your time, I've already tried the door and it won't open. There's not even a handle on this side."

After inspecting the metal door himself, he concluded that Liv was correct. "Did you try slipping your knife blade between the door and the frame to see if you could get to the latch?"

Liv hesitated for a split second and then said, "Yeah, no luck."

The hesitation confirmed to Evan that she was lying.

There appeared to be an access plate in the center of the door, with a seam all around it, possibly to pass things through the door.

"You a nomad, too?" Evan asked.

"Fuck off, I'm not talking to you."

Evan felt like their best chance to survive their current situation was to work together, but she was going to make it difficult with her standoffish attitude. It was ironic that he was looking for cooperation, given the way he had chosen to live his life.

When civilization had broken down, people had gravitated to three basic survival strategies. A common terminology had evolved to describe them that seemed to be universal at this point.

"Settlers" were the most common group and probably had the best chance of survival. These were people who established a home base and fortified it. It could be just a single building or an entire walled community. The larger the group, the more safety it generally afforded, but often at the expense of freedoms. Many of these groups, as Evan had found the hard way, were ruled by ruthless individuals who exploited their community members.

The second group were the "marauders." These were roving gangs that took what they needed as they traveled, by force if necessary, leaving destruction in their wake. They were often the undoing of smaller or poorly fortified settlements, but each always ran the risk of encountering a larger and better armed gang.

The final category was the "nomads," the lone wolves who trusted their own survival skills more than they trusted other people. Most kept to remote areas, where contact with other humans would be limited. Statistically, this was probably the most risky way to live, but the category that Evan kept gravitating back to.

These categories were not completely black and white. Many nomads maintained small shacks in the woods, or flitted between various hideouts in the cities, but the difference in strategy was they did not openly defend a property and did not seek strength in numbers. Settlements often sent out raiding parties to rival settlements, essentially acting as marauders, if they felt that there was a weakness to be exploited. Marauding gangs would occasionally settle down for a limited time until they used up the resources in the vicinity.

Footsteps announced the arrival of people outside the door. The access panel in the door swung open, sending light streaming into the room. A voice said, "Step back from the door."

The door swung open and four men entered. All four were large and powerful. They were dressed in all black outfits that appeared to have some type of body armor sewn into them. Two were carrying clubs and the other two each had something small and black in their hands. Evan backed up toward the wall. He stole a sidelong glance at his fellow captive and she was taking a defensive stance.

"Come with us and no-one will hurt you," one man said as he beckoned Evan to step forward. Two of the men turned toward Liv.

She stepped forward, but just as one of the men reached for her arm, she suddenly kicked him in the groin. As he bent over in pain, she connected with a knee to his nose, dropping him to the floor. She caught the club he dropped before it hit the floor and swung it at the other man's head.

As soon as Evan saw Liv begin her attack, he thought, "This is a bad idea." Still, he felt compelled to follow her lead. The man closest to Evan was briefly distracted by Liv and Evan dropped low and swept the man's feet with his leg, then delivered a punch to the man's throat as he fell to the ground. He turned toward the second man only to feel two Taser electrodes find their mark followed by intense involuntary contractions as the voltage incapacitated him. A second later he was handcuffed.

Evan looked over to see that Liv had met a similar fate. The man Evan had taken down glared at him, rubbing his throat. Liv's victim was slower to get up and was bleeding profusely from his broken nose. He cursed at her, "Fucking bitch, I should beat you to death."

A fifth man stepped into the room. He was small and balding, but had an air of authority. "Shut up and keep your hands off her. It's your own damn fault. You goons are supposed to be trained for this kind of stuff and these two almost took you out. Let's go."

They were led into a hallway. There were additional armed guards outside the room. These men had guns. Evan wondered if they actually had real ammunition, a very difficult commodity to come by these days.

Evan was shocked to find that the hallways were lit with electric lights. When was the last time he had seen anything running on electricity? He couldn't recall. Come to think of it, those Tasers would have needed to be charged somehow also. This settlement had resources beyond any he had seen since the early months of the collapse.

Civilization had turned out to be a veritable house of cards. Few people understood just how much regular human intervention was required to keep the infrastructure in place that made society work. When the pandemic reached its peak, people abandoned their jobs and focused on their own personal survival.

Public transportation ceased almost immediately.

Next to go was the power grid. On the US east coast, this failure came quicker than elsewhere, as a massive hurricane swept through two months after the virus struck, knocking out power to large areas. With no functioning utility companies to fix even the simplest problems, power was never restored. Rampant attempts by desperate individuals to tap into the still functioning portions of the power grid simply served to further compromise the system, hastening its demise. The entire US went dark within 9 months.

Without centralized power, cell phone towers ceased to transmit signals and the primary source of communication disappeared.

Private transportation, in the form of automobiles, remained viable for a while longer. The dramatic drop in population meant functional vehicles and fuel were initially in surplus. However, with no oil being pumped, refined into usable fuel and distributed, this resource was doomed as well. By the time four years had passed any fuel that had not been consumed was degraded to the point where an automobile engine wouldn't run on it.

Evan looked over at Liv. She was slight and wiry, probably not much more than 110 lb. She was dressed in brown leather and was filthy from head to toe. Her dark eyes darted back and forth like she was looking desperately for a way out. Evan hoped she would calm down. Resistance was not the right option at this point.

The hallway came to a tee and the group split up. Several guards led Liv to the left, while the rest led Evan to the right. The balding man stayed with Evan. Liv flashed Evan a pleading look as they separated. He wasn't sure what she expected him to do.

Evan was led into a community locker room / bathroom. The balding man turned to him. He pulled out a hypodermic needle and uncapped it. Seeing Evan's look of panic, he said, "Relax, it's just a broad spectrum antibiotic. Who knows what kind of infections you might have from living out there in the wild."

An antibiotic . . . again, an almost unheard of resource in this world.

After the injection, the man asked, "Can I trust you enough to remove the handcuffs?"

Evan nodded his head.

"Take a shower. There are towels and clean clothes here. Just knock on the door when you are done." The man gestured to a bench where there were several towels and a pile of tan colored cloth.

The men left the room. Evan presumed they were either standing guard or they had locked the door, or both.

Evan tested the shower. It had been so long since he had used one, he had to take a moment to remember how it operated. He was stunned to find that they actually had hot water. As he let the warm water course over his body, he had to admit it was one of the best feelings he had experienced in a long time.

Near as Evan could figure, it had been 20 years since the mutated version of the H5N1 virus had nearly wiped out humanity. It swept across the world in a couple of months, leaving just 20 percent of the population alive. No one escaped infection, but a small number of people were resistant enough to survive it. The sad reality was that ultimately, the effects of the virus would still lead to human extinction. While the virus no longer existed, a victim of its own success given that there were no new hosts to infect, its long term effects would finish the job.

Those that the virus didn't kill outright, it left sterile. As far as Evan was aware, no children had been born on earth in those 20 years. Within the next century, the human race would be gone. Evan was generally younger than most people he encountered, as he had been just 12 when the pandemic began.

Soap and shampoo . . . funny how simple things like this seemed so indulgent now, Evan thought as he used them for the first time since he was a child. He finished his shower and dried off. He found that someone had removed his dirty clothes from the room. He put on the loose draw-string pants, simple tunic and sandals they had left him. The clothing was made of a light, soft material, cotton he guessed, in a dull tan color. He found that his captors had left him with a nearly complete supply of toiletries, with the exception of a razor, an understandable omission.

When he was finished, he knocked on the door. As he was escorted down the hall, he tried to open a conversation with one of the guards, "What am I here for?" He received no answer.

They led him to a different room with a metal door. Inside there was a single bed and a table with two chairs, all of which were bolted to the tile floor. The room was illuminated with dim overhead lighting. In one rear corner was an open interior door, behind which appeared to be a tiny bathroom with a toilet and a sink. The guards left Evan in the room and closed the door.

He wondered what this building had been before the apocalypse. The room seemed to be a prison cell, but it was larger than he would have expected for that purpose.

A while later, guards returned to the room. One was carrying a limp body over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He laid the body on the bed and they left.

Evan saw that the body was Liv. He chuckled a little to himself. He presumed she had been too feisty to handle and they had felt it necessary to wrestle her to the ground and sedate her. He was willing to bet someone else suffered injuries in the process. He admired her pluck, but she needed to pick her battles more wisely.

He took the opportunity to study her. Her face was serene and beautiful. Her long black hair, removed from its braid and the caked-on dirt, was silky and cascaded in almost glowing waves onto the bed. She was remarkably young, seemingly mid-twenties, meaning she must have been just a small child when society had collapsed. Someone must have taken her in and protected her in the early years.

Their captors had dressed her in the same style of pants he was wearing, but she wore a sleeveless top that was cropped midway down her stomach. It seemed like an odd garment to choose. They did not keep it particularly warm in the room, so she was likely to be a little uncomfortable. It seemed to be designed to show off her torso, which admittedly was lovely to look at. It was tight and muscular, yet somehow still feminine.

Something on her wrist caught his attention. He turned her hand palm down. On the back of her wrist was a small tattoo of a black spider. He flipped her hand over and on the underside of her wrist was the same spider, upside down, with a red hourglass shape on its abdomen. He shuddered a little as he understood the reference.

Liv stirred, stretched, and opened her eyes. For just a moment she gazed at Evan with a distant smile. In a flash, a feral look returned to her eyes and she yanked her hand away and sprang to her feet ready to fight. "Stay away from me!" she hissed.

Evan backed away. There was no reason to fight with her now.

"You need to be smarter about when you pick a fight. Attacking the guards earlier was stupid."

She just sneered in response.

Liv saw the bathroom and went to it, closing the door behind her. "What the fuck!" he heard her exclaim from behind the door. Evan wondered what that was about. She came out a few moments later, fuming.

"They fucking shaved me!"

Evan looked at her puzzled, as she still seemed to have all of her hair, till it dawned on him what she meant. A mental image of her bald nether region sprang to his head, making him feel a little aroused and a little uncomfortable. One by-product of his nomadic lifestyle was that he had minimal experience with sex. He had a couple of brief encounters with older women at a settlement he stayed at for a while about 10 years ago. He laughed a little to hide his embarrassment.

"Maybe if you didn't fight so much they would have left you conscious and you would have known what they were doing to you."

"So you just plan to do whatever they fucking tell you, and be their little slave? No thanks, I'd rather die fighting."

"There will be a time for resistance. We need to find out what they plan to do with us. In the meantime, I must say I enjoyed my hot shower."

"Fuck you, there's no 'we'. We are not a fucking team." Then her voice softened, "Wait . . . a real shower? With hot water? Holy shit."

A few minutes later, footsteps approached in the hallway. Once again, they were ordered away from the door. When the door opened, a heavenly meaty smell found Evan's nose. Armed guards entered, followed by several older women in outfits similar to Evan's bearing trays of food. They put the food on the table and left.

Liv sprang to the table, took a quick bite then turned to face Evan. "Back off, this is mine."

"Dammit Liv, there's enough for both of us."

"Fuck you, I'm eating it all."

Evan sighed; this girl was getting tiresome. There was no way he was letting her eat it all, he was too hungry to allow that. He advanced on her warily.

Her foot flashed out, targeting his groin, but he was ready for it and dodged. Her follow-up punch caught him in the ribs, however. That hurt. He backed off. Damn she was quick.

He tried again. She got him in the shin, he blocked the punch to the kidney, and suddenly her foot was at his head. He managed to turn his head just enough so it was only a glancing blow, but he still saw stars and went sprawling. This little terror was kicking his ass. Evan looked at her and she was grinning. "She's enjoying this," he thought.

He moved in one more time. She went for a roundhouse kick, but this time he managed to catch her foot and lift it high overhead, forcing her other foot off the ground. The back of her head hit the edge of the table as she fell, momentarily dazing her. Evan quickly rolled her on her stomach and pinned her underneath him. He grabbed the corner of the bed-sheet and pulled it to him and wrapped it around her wrists and tied it. She came out of her daze and struggled mightily, but he was able to bring her ankles together and hog tie them to her wrists behind her back with the sheet.

"I'm going to fucking kill you . . ." she screamed.

Evan whipped off his tunic and shoved the sleeve in her mouth to shut her up. He knew the sheet wouldn't hold her for long. He sat down at the table and quickly ate all the food on one tray. He recognized the foods from his childhood. Meatloaf, gravy, mashed potatoes and carrots. He had never eaten a more satisfying meal. Evan turned to watch Liv struggle.

Soon, Liv worked her wrists out of the restraint of the sheet. Evan backed away from the table and leaned against the wall, arms crossed and a look of amusement on his face. Liv freed herself from the rest of her bindings. She glared at him as she stomped to the table. Her hunger took over and she wolfed down the other tray of food.