Cost of Survival

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of rough, reluctant, dubiously consensual, or non-consensual sex.

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Prologue:

The woman crouched at the treeline. It was twilight, the lengthening shadows and the sparse undergrowth almost completely hid her from view.

Silence.

She stayed frozen in position, her thin face, pinched looking from weeks of foraged feeding was strained as she concentrated. There was only silence, no birds, no animals, not even a breeze stirring the leaves above her.

Finally satisfied she scurried from cover, skittering down the grassy slope in front of her. She covered the hundred yards that separated the trees from the small brook winding its course through the landscape in front of her.

At the water's edge she dropped to her knees and shrugged the dark green backpack off her shoulders and onto the ground beside her. The water seemed fresh and clear but even if it hadn't been, she'd have drunk from it regardless, her last water had run out almost a day ago. From the backpack she fished out two thermoses. One stainless steel, the other a plastic one more apt for a child's lunchbox. She filled them both from the brook before returning them to her backpack. Hanging from her belt was a canteen, this was filled next and only then did she allow herself to drink deeply from it.

After her thirst had been quenched, she upended the canteen over her head, soaking her long blonde hair, enjoying the feel of the cool clean water running down over her face and down the back of her neck. She refilled the canteen and then froze once more, trying to discern if there had been any change to the sounds of the land around her. All seemed as it had been. She hated taking the risk but she wasn't sure when she might get an opportunity like this again.

Hurriedly she stripped off her clothes, hiking boots and socks came off first and then the heavy canvas hunting trousers that she'd looted a month ago. They landed on the grass followed by her black t-shirt and black denim jacket. She paused again, self-conscious despite her isolation before stripping off her bra and panties and adding them to the pile of clothes. She stepped into the water; it was barely a foot deep. Rapidly she began washing herself as best she could, tearing at tufts of grass and using them to scrub at the ingrained grime that seemed to coat every inch of her skin.

After five minutes she felt almost brand new, but cold. She left the water, took a spare t-shirt from her backpack, and started towelling herself dry as best she could. She was small, petite some might have said. Only 5 feet tall and with a build to match. She had always been slim but sparse food and the hard existence of the last few months had stripped her of what little fat she had carried. Now she was lean, hard...wiry. She finished drying herself and dressed.

Backpack once again on her shoulders she hurried back up the slope to the safety of the trees. Once back in cover she began following the course of the brook, keeping it in sight. She hoped that she might find a place to camp that night. It stood to reason that somewhere along the path of the brook there might be shelter, even something for livestock.

With the vision of a roof and walls in her mind she hurried along in the failing light until an all too familiar sound caused her to screech to a halt and drop deeper into cover. Again, she heard it. A mindless, senseless moan. Emotion or pain didn't elicit the sound, it was just a quirk, an audible tic even. Something they all did.

She peered into the dusk and saw them then. Five of them, aimlessly wandering in what seemed to be a paddock. Behind them loomed a large barn. The shelter she had hoped to find. But it wasn't to be, not this night at least. She changed direction, heading further into the trees, leaving the zombies behind her.

Chapter 1:

Celine woke, stiff and sore from the hard ground beneath her. The act of washing herself yesterday had seemed a fantastic idea at the time. Now though, her muscles aching from sleeping damp, it seemed that maybe being clean wasn't the most important thing after all.

The near miss last evening had unnerved her. She slept fitfully, despite her exhaustion, waking several times to peer into the gloom of the night in search of one of the shambling fiends.

The zombie outbreak had occurred only nine months before but it had swept the globe in weeks, decimating the earth's population. Only about five percent of the human race were liable to turn when bitten, the real problem was that if you didn't become a zombie yourself, then the virus caused your organs to shut down one after another within days of being infected.

Celine wasn't sure how many people were left alive now but it was only a tiny fraction, that much she could be sure of. Desolate town after town, city after city. She had passed through so many in the last few months. Only a few survivors left, huddled in groups, desperate, suspicious, and unwelcoming.

She had left St Louis Missouri, where she'd been working as a nurse, when order had finally broken down. The National guard and local law enforcement had been overwhelmed; emergency services had been stretched beyond all breaking points. People had just given up, leaving their posts, looking for loved ones or a hiding place. And who could blame them.

Celine had decided to make for her parents' home in Florida. She had no idea if they were alive or dead but she needed a goal if she wasn't to lose all hope herself and this was it. Get home to her Mom and Dad. She was only twenty-four and had little to no knowledge of survival, not that anyone had in a time like this. While others had looted stores, carrying off luxury items that had no use in this situation, she had gone to a bookstore, grabbing some books on hunting, wilderness survival. The books had saved her life. She'd learnt how to trap small game, what plants were edible, which ones could be used to treat wounds, how to make a fire and shelter. All necessary now she was on her own.

Besides the books, her backpack contained some clothes, some water containers, what bits of food she had left and a map. On her belt was a canteen, a police baton and a small .38 calibre handgun. The few times she had been forced to fight for her life against a zombie, it had been the baton she had used, crushing the skull of her adversary. The handgun was for the other predator that now stalked America, people pushed too far, who wanted what you had and would kill to possess it.

Thankfully she hadn't had to use it yet, at least not to kill. Twice she had fired a warning shot at people, it had proved a sufficient deterrent. Even though she knew the number, she flipped open the gun and counted the shells inside. Four. Not much but better than nothing.

She would have been down to a single bullet if not for the barter she had made a couple of months back. An old white guy had traded her three bullets for her help in stitching up some wounds in his back. He had fallen through a glass window escaping a pack of zombies and while the cuts hadn't been deep, the risk of infection had been a real concern.

The memory of the incident caused her to shudder. After she had finished her side of the bargain and had taken the three precious bullets from his outstretched hands, he had proposed a second arrangement. Holding up a tin can, the label stained and torn so that its contents were a mystery, he suggested a trade, the can for a blowjob. Her mind had been revolted at the idea but the low deep growl of her stomach had overruled her.

Celine had dropped to her knees as he opened up the zipper on his pants. The cock was average in size but extraordinary in its odour. She had gagged slightly as it passed under her nose but Celine had steeled herself to the task and parted her lips, sucking the cock inside her mouth.

He had lasted a long time, longer than her ex-boyfriend, if it had been any other time and place and with a guy she actually found attractive then Celine would have been impressed by his stamina and self-control. As it was, she just wanted him to cum so she could leave with her payment. When he finally did ejaculate, he had grabbed her firmly by the back of her head, holding her in place while he pumped his seed into her mouth. Worse, her starved body had actually gulped the warm gooey mess down her throat before her mind could communicate the order to spit it out.

He had then tossed her the can of food with a wink before stuffing his now shrivelled cock back inside his pants. An hour later, having moved about two miles away from where the old man had been holed up, Celine used her knife to hack into the lid of the can. Peaches, pineapple slices, beans...her imagination had her drooling as the knife point sawed the lid free. Celine had let go of the knife, it slipped through her fingers, clanging of the rocky ground where she sat. Dog food. A can of dog food. She had prostituted herself for a tin of dog food. That had probably been the lowest point for her on her journey so far, pulling a gun on strangers, bashing in the brains of an undead monster, they paled beside the memory of her sitting on that rock, feverishly spooning dog food into her mouth with her fingers.

Chapter 2:

Celine was now in Alabama. Her progress was slow. It wasn't a question of fitness; it was a mixture of caution and fatigue. She had to be careful as she moved through the empty landscape, always alert for danger. She hadn't seen anyone, living or undead in nine days now and that was surprising. She had come across a number of corpses, all of them so decomposed to make it impossible to tell if they had been infected or not. She began to hope that the monsters were dying off, that whatever pathogen had fuelled their transformation was burning out their bodies causing them to die eventually.

Her ability to keep trekking however was becoming a real concern. She'd managed to eke out her meagre supplies but the amount she had been forced to ration herself wasn't enough to sustain the amount of energy required to keep moving forward. She needed to stop somewhere to scavenge or hunt, either way she needed food.

She set up a small camp in a wooded area that afternoon and laid out her snares. Celine slept for a while. The site she'd selected was sheltered on all sides by a tight screen of rocks and some bushes so she felt secure enough that nothing would stumble into her campsite. That evening she checked her snares. Of the five she had laid out, only one yielded anything. A squirrel and a scrawny one at that, but it was better than nothing. Back at the camp she prepared the squirrel and lit a small fire, the light from it mostly obscured, the smoke broken up by a small canopy of branches she had put in place as a shelter.

The sun was just setting as she placed the meat on a spit above the fire. Celine settled back, enjoying the warmth of the flames as her food cooked. A twig snapped and she tensed immediately, her hand gripping the butt of the gun in her belt. A second sound, a scuffing noise, unmistakably a footstep on the loose shale nearby. She didn't make a sound but she slowly drew the gun out.

"Hello, hey, whoever is in the camp." a voice called out, a man's voice.

Celine remained silent, she knew that whoever was there was aware of her camp, but the idea of confirming it to the man by answering wasn't something she was prepared to do yet.

"Hey, look, no need to be scared, we don't want any trouble. We just smelled the smoke and came to see who was here."

She grimaced at the words; she'd never considered the smell of the smoke would draw someone towards her. Apparently, the author survival books hadn't thought to mention that fact.

"What do you want?" Celine finally called out. There was a pause, Celine could hear a whispered conversation before the man called out again.

"Not looking for anything. We are just passing through. Done a bit of hunting. Don't mean you no harm, but if you are in a mind for trade, we might trade some of what we got for a spot by your fire for a while."

Celine was nervous but the chance of bartering for some more food was something she couldn't pass up. If she didn't eat properly soon, she'd be dead regardless. Time to roll the dice.

"Okay you can come in but I see a weapon then I'll shoot. Deal?"

"Deal." came the reply and moments later two men stepped through the rocks. Celine had taken up position on the far side of the small fire, she kept the gun in her hand but pointing down for the moment.

The two men were younger than her, nineteen, twenty at the most and clearly related. Brothers perhaps? Both were black, tall, and well built, their features held none of the marks of hunger that marred her own. Both had bows and knives, the bows were slung over their shoulders and the knives were still belted to their waists. The slightly older looking man also carried a small deer carcass over his shoulder, it had already been skinned and dressed.

"Evening, I'm Daniel, this is my little brother Tevin." the man said. Slowly, so as to make sure Celine didn't misunderstand his intentions he stooped down and laid the carcass on a flattish rock.

"Hey, umm I'm Celine." she answered. She felt a bit self-conscious holding a gun while making small talk but that was the way of things now.

"Nice to meet you." it was Tevin who spoke this time, "okay for us to sit down?"

Celine nodded and the two men slowly laid their bows to one side before sitting down beside the fire.

"You said something about a trade?" Celine asked, "I don't have much but I'm a trained nurse, so if you need anything like medical attention or something, then I can offer that."

"For real? A nurse?" Daniel asked, smiling broadly as Celine confirmed it with a nod of her head.

"Well, we are both healthy as you can see." Daniel continued, "But you look like you could eat and that...squirrel, is it? That ain't gonna satisfy you. How's this for a trade, we give you some meat and you let us have the use of your camp? Saves us looking for a spot for ourselves and you picked a good place to set up."

"Enough meat for tonight and for another meal tomorrow?" Celine asked.

"Deal." Daniel replied with a smile. He nodded towards Tevin who turned towards the carcass and then stopped and turned back towards her.

"I'm gonna just take my knife out now, hack off a bit of this deer. You good with that? Don't want you shooting me or nothing." Celine nodded okay.

Tevin started cutting off a haunch of bloody meat, while he did that Daniel told Celine he was stepping outside the camp to fetch more wood, her small fire wasn't going to cook a large slab of meat anytime soon.

Soon the two men had the fire burning strongly and a number of large cuts of meat were sizzling against the open flame. As Celine stared at the dinner slowly cooking Daniel cleared his throat to get her attention.

"Interest you in some?" he asked.

Celine was confused for a moment before she saw the hip flask, he was proffering towards her. She shook her head and watched as he took a swig from the flask before offering it to Tevin who followed suit.

"Our own brand, make it from potatoes." Daniel explained, retrieving the flask from Tevin who had taken a second swallow from it. "Strong stuff, tastes terrible but it warms a body up."

While she waited for the food to cook Celine asked the men for details of the surrounding area. She didn't want to give them any indication of where she was headed but she thought it was smart to get as good an idea of the lay of the land as possible. When she asked about Zombie activity in the area, she was surprised to see both men chuckle.

"Haven't seen any of those moaning fucks for going on two months now." Daniel said, "Killed the few that were around here and none seemed keen to move into the area. Been a good long time since we met any strangers around here apart from you. Guess there ain't many people left and besides, who wants to come here anyway?" He laughed at his own joke and Celine found herself smiling in concert with him.

Soon Tevin declared the food was done and Celine began tearing into the hot meat, ignoring the burning sensation of her fingers, lips, and tongue. It was just too good and she was just so hungry. She wolfed down the food and was grateful to see that Tevin had another piece already half cooked on the fire for her. Once again, Daniel offered her a drink from the flask. The food had calmed her anxiety so she leaned over to take the flask from him. Their fingers brushed during the exchange and Celine felt her stomach lurch at the contact. It had been a long-long time since she'd spoken at this length with anyone, much less physically touched them. She took a long pull from the flask to cover her embarrassment and as the raw alcohol hit the back of her throat she began coughing. Daniel lurched forward to rescue the flask, fearful she would drop it, but Celine waved him away with one hand before taking a second gulp.

She wiped her mouth with the back of hand and handed the flask back to him. Tevin then handed her the second portion of meat.

A while later Celine was leaning back against the rocks, her stomach full for the first time since- since she couldn't remember truth to tell. She still had the gun in her hand but she was feeling a lot better now, her paranoia and fear had been supressed by the companionable atmosphere, food, and drink. She was just feeling good.

Celine jerked awake. The heat from the fire along with everything else had caused her to fall asleep. Panicked, her eyes darted around for her gun. It must have slipped from her grasp while she slept, it now lay at her feet. She scooped it up and looked across towards where the brothers had been.

Tevin was curled up on the ground, He had a blanket wrapped around him and was snoring lightly. Daniel must have taken first watch. He was sitting on his blanket and looking directly at her. Celine cuffed the sleep from her eyes with one hand, slipping the gun into her belt with the other. If they had meant her harm then they'd already had their chance. Even as she pushed the gun securely into place, her head snapped back up towards Daniel as her brain finally processed what she had seen. Daniel had his pants open and was stroking a very large thick black cock as he watched her. Celine flushed red but Daniel didn't seem even mildly embarrassed.

"Hey." he said, "Looks like you needed that sleep. Sorry but you know, I was bored and you looked fuckin hot lying there so I started jerking off."

Celine wasn't sure how someone was supposed to reply to a statement like that. She was no virgin; she'd had an active sex life pre-zombie apocalypse although she'd never dated or slept with a black guy. But she hadn't a clue what to say to what was, she presumed, a compliment.

"Uh, thanks I guess." she muttered. She felt awkward so followed that up with "I've looked better you know, but I haven't been able to get a hair appointment for ages now."

Daniel barked out a laugh and his hand began stroking himself once again. Celine licked her lips and considered what to do next.

"So, uh, how'd you feel about a trade?" she asked, pointedly looking at his crotch as she said it.

"Nah girl!" he answered to her surprise and disappointment as well. Celine was as much surprised at her sense of disappointment over his refusal as she was the refusal itself.

Daniel must have seen the look on her face because he continued explaining.

"I'll trade for food, for supplies, whatever. That's normal you know? But not gonna trade for sex. Not now, not the way things are in the world. There ain't many people left and we all need some normality. Everyone needs to feel another person, in them, around them. It's basic nature. So, I won't trade to fuck you. But, if you want me, you want my cock? Then yeah girl, I fuckin want you too."