Cost of Survival - Road Trip Pt. 02

"Would you and your friends have treated me any better? Worse?"

"I guess worse," she admitted.

"So, any reason I shouldn't walk out, leaving you alive is better'n than I would have made out."

Ahma shook her head, eyes downcast. "No, no reason. You've been more than fair I guess."

She waited to hear him leave, her mind already returning to as state of panic as her predicament resolved itself in her head. He didn't go though and after a minute Ahma raised her head to look up at him again.

"You got yourself some uncommon sense when it comes to tellin' the truth. I got no truck with liars so that's a point in your favor. 'Sides you answered honestly, didn't beg, that shows you got a bit more grit than those three losers you travelled with. Not one of them died well." He seemed to sink within himself, weighing up his options for a full minute before carrying on talking.

"I'll stick around tonight, bit late to be moving on anyway and I still want to spend some time here lookin' for supplies. So, I'll give you the night, make sure that tap I gave you doesn't leave you simple or somethin', we'll see what the morning brings."

"Th-thanks, thank you, thank you," Ahma babbled gratefully.

He waved her words aside, then her gave a few dramatic sniffs in the air, his wide nostrils flaring. Without another word he stalked from the room, leaving the young Japanese woman where she lay, blinking slowly as she tried to remain awake, fearing falling asleep after the blow to her head.

He returned a few minutes later a length of rope coiled up in his big meaty hand.

"Can you stand?" Ahma tentatively tried to, pushing against the wall for support, gathering legs that felt like they were made from rubber beneath her. He stepped forward hand stretching towards her wrists before stopping. Then his hands changed course and he deftly fastened the rope around her waist, tugging it experimentally. The knot held but the gentle tugs nearly pulled Ahma off of her feet, she instinctively reached out, bracing herself against his torso. He was as solidly built as the wall behind her. Even if they'd taken him by surprise, Ahma felt that the results would have been the same, this man wouldn't have fallen against the likes of CJ or Lester.

"Sorry," she muttered, stepping away. "I'm Ahma."

"Uh-huh, weird name. You Korean or something?"

"Japanese," she answered.

"Me, I'm Brutus. American." He grinned then, "Nah, no America left is there. I'm from the Republic of Me." He chuckled at that; Ahma still too groggy for humor. Then they were moving, firm but gentle tugs of the rope pulling her on as he led her though the house and out of its backdoor.

There was a small walled garden behind there. Ahma looked up into the evening sky, realizing that she must have been knocked out for a couple of hours when he'd punched her. Against the external wall of the house was a large water butt, a wooden barrel the former occupants had used for collecting rain water in.

"If'n we are gonna be in the same room together then you need to wash, fuck but you stink, fucking nasty" Brutus explained. He waved her towards the barrel. "Strip an' get in."

Ahma complied. What else could she do. She pulled off her short jacket, then her canvas shoes and the worn socks beneath. Then the ratty jeans came off before she unbuttoned the light blue shirt. Her underwear had long disappeared, soiled, ripped and torn to the point of uselessness. At four foot eleven and with a slender frame she had appeared boyish to the members of her group. However, her 32C breast were large enough, big looking in fact on her petite body, that she'd taken steps to make them less prominent.

As Brutus looked on, Ahma unwound the muslin bandages that she used to flatten and strap down her chest, the young woman giving a sigh of relief as the constraining material was finally off. She shyly looked around, seeking a stone or step she could use to clamber into the barrel. Her legs and arms had grown thinner these last few months, meals being sporadic and often unfulfilling. She'd dropped some weight on her torso as well, the small amount of fat she had carried as a sedentary college student disappearing to move her from the slender category to thin, the rope that Brutus had fastened about her waist sitting on her hips.

"Fuck's sake. Here!" She heard Brutus curse softly before he hoisted her into the air with little apparent effort, depositing her with a splash into the barrel.

The water was cold, clean but so, so cold. Ahma gasped and clutched her arms about herself as the water reached up to the base of her breasts. Then he was pushing down on her head, her groggy state leaving her unable to resist. With a final shove, Brutus sent Ahma's head beneath the water level, holding it there for a count of three before letting the young woman surface spluttering and shaking with cold and shock.

"These as well," Brutus said to her, flinging her stinking clothes into the barrel with her. He stood watching for a moment before releasing his end of the rope.

"Can't see you running off right now, I'll be back in a minute," and he left her then, teeth chattering as she waited to grow used to the waters temperature.

When he did return, maybe five minutes later, he came bearing gifts. A couple of bath towels that he dropped beside the barrel and a bar of soap that he tossed to her.

"Guessing towels and cleaning products aint number one on a looters list," he said by way of explanation. "Now, hair first, then the rest of you, finally your clothes. Get going, lights gonna be fadin' soon." He took a seat, literally removing a chair from the kitchen of the house, and settled in to watch as Ahma scrubbed herself clean, the end of the rope back in his hand. She washed her hair as best she could with the soap, then she set to scraping months of grime from her body. Finally, the water almost black from the dirt of her, she did her best to clean off her clothing.

Ahma felt she must be turning blue with the cold as she clambered awkwardly from the rain barrel. As she set foot on the ground she gave a shriek of surprise, a bucket load of cold water hitting her. She raised her head to see what was happening, a second pail of clean cold water catching her as she did.

Somehow without her noticing, Brutus had filled two buckets, using their contents to sluice the dirty water off of her body. Seeing a third bucket wasn't going to be thrown, Ahma made a wobbling dash to where the towels lay, scooping them up and rubbing herself vigorously with them, drying off and warming up in the same action. She managed to wrap the larger of the towels about herself and pick up her wet clothes before Brutus tugged at the rope, pulling her wordlessly toward the house.

"Make yourself useful, go lay a fire in that fireplace," he told her. Ahma did as she was bid, seeing that there was kindling and logs already set to one side, maybe the last act of the former occupants? She built up the fire, glancing behind her occasionally to see his shadow passing back and forth in the kitchen.

"Have you a light?" Ahma called out when everything was ready. Brutus walked in, took a look at her work, judging it as barely acceptable given his expression. Nevertheless, he bent down, taking out a zippo and using it to get the fire going. He then returned to the kitchen, leaving Ahma to stare at the twinkling, dancing flames as the fire took hold.

He came back a minute later, nudging her back with the toe of his boot as she'd become lost in thought, staring at the fire.

"You want this?" He proffered a plate toward her. The idea of food had her stomach knotting and leaping. Ahma grabbed at the plate, seeing strips of dried meat and a cold hard-boiled egg sitting on it. An actual feast! More food than she had eaten combined in the last three days. She began cramming it into her mouth and Brutus cuffed the back of her head non to gently, the blow aggravating her earlier injury and making her see stars for a brief second.

"Slow the fuck down. You'll make yourself sick and then you'll just puke. That'll be the food wasted then. Slow. Fucking. Down."

She did as she was asked, chewing the dried meat slowly, savoring the taste. Brutus passed her the canteen of water and she found the chewing went easier when she softened the meat in her mouth with a sip from the canteen. They ate in silence, the darkness of the evening drawing in as the warmth of the fire filled the room. If the smoke or light from it bothered the big black man, he showed no sign of it. Ahma reasoned that it would want to be a confident predator that would tangle willingly with Brutus. He rose at one point, pulling two single mattresses from rooms upstairs down into the small living room. He didn't offer any explanation but aside from the heat of the fire, she figured it was better to be downstairs with escape option than trapped upstairs should trouble actually arise.

Ahma settled on one mattress while Brutus occupied the other. It wasn't exactly a comfortable silence but she was at a lose as to how to break it. He had given her this night but from the sound of it, tomorrow she would be on her own and the thought of that, knowing her own limitations, terrified her. She also knew that appeals to his better nature were unlikely to meet with success, so she would need to strike some chord, some bond with him before dawn or she was lost.

"It's, it's the ocean I miss the most. I used to love walking by it back in Japan, the sound, the smell. Life seemed easier; problems smaller when I was staring out into that endless blue." She broke the silence, thinking maybe talking about before the zombie plague was a good way to break the ice.

"Never seen it," Brutus grunted.

"Japan?"

"The ocean," he replied.

"Really? Why not?"

"Never had call to go there. Can't ride my bike on water, so what use is it?"

"Oh, sure, right." Ahma felt stuck, trying to find commonality with him. She tried again. "So, what do you miss then?" She expected him to take a second at least to consider the question but he surprised her by answering immediately.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing?" She couldn't wrap her head around his answer.

"Working nine to five for shit money. Bills out my ass. Don't do this, can't do that. Now I do as I want, not havin' to answer to no-one. Life is fuckin' sweet. This is what it was like when folks came out here tryin' to settle, tame the west and all that shit. Them versus the elements an' whatever shit was out there lookin' to kill them. They had real freedom back then, same as I got now. So yeah, nothin' at all to miss."

He sighed, scratching at his beard. Then he moved closer to her, putting her wrist together, arms out before her. Brutus adjusted the rope around her waist, there was still a loop about her beneath the towel. Now though one end of the rope was used to bind her wrists together, the other end remaining in his hands.

"In case I fall asleep. Thinkin' you got more sense than to try somethin' stupid like attack me but then aint nothin' sure in this life so I aint gonna take the risk." He settled back down on his mattress, scratching at his beard once again. "Well, you don't stink no more and I fed you like you should a guest. So, you feel like talkin', then why don't you tell me your story from Japan to now. If'n I'm lucky, that shit will put me to sleep."

For the next twenty minutes Ahma did just that. She spoke of her life in Japan, her family that still, hopefully, lived there. She talked about coming here to study, friends, the college. Then she talked about what she had been through, what her and her group had devolved into. He never spoke at all, never moving, she couldn't be sure he was even awake. As she tailed off, reaching the point in her story where he'd slaughtered the remnants of her group, he grunted, half turning his head so as to see her face.

"So, in college, you were experimenting and shit. Yeah? Boys and girls? Right?"

"Wh-what? No, no. How... wh-how, ummm, how did you know that?"

"Lucky guess. I used to read Playboy, watch too much porn," he gave a low chuckle at that. "So, go on. Girls or boys? Which one got your engine purring loudest?"

"Ummm girls I guess, it depended on the person," Ahma flushed deep red in embarrassment, encouraging another throaty chuckle from the reclining black man as she did.

"Jake and Wendy, the first two you took up with after the Zombies. Which one were you fuckin' or was it both?"

"No, absolutely not. They were good people. That came later, others, what I had to do to survive, to have some worth in the group." Her voice, indignant, rose up at this point.

"Yeah, well good for you. Cos you are here and they're all food for crows. You're a survivor, skinny as a stream of piss, but you're still alive."

Ahma waited a moment, her heart beating in her chest, loud in her own ears, she screwed up her courage and then she dropped a not-so-subtle hint. "Yes, and I'm still willing to do what I need to, to survive."

There came another long uncomfortable silence, Ahma panicking that this, her only bargaining chip, might be considered worthless by this man. If he was a loner, roaming free without the encumbrances of responsibility as he had intimated earlier, maybe he didn't want her as companion. Maybe he wasn't interested in her one way or another. She could feel the pinprick of tears of frustration building at the corners of her eyes and she slid her glasses off to surreptitiously wipe them aside. As Ahma replaced her glasses, Brutus spoke.

"It aint that easy," he said and she choked back a sob, certain now that this small town in the middle of nowhere was where she would finally meet her end, through starvation, exposure or perhaps suicide if she had the courage to try.

"I aint like those three pump chumps you opened your legs for before this. I'm lookin' for more from a woman than just a wet pussy." Brutus spoke over her stifled sobs and Ahma barely heard his words, taking a few moments to realize that the door hadn't been closed completely on her.

"Wh-what else are you looking for?" She stuttered out the enquiry, already convinced whatever shill, trait or talent he sought she wouldn't possess. But there was a chance.

"First off, she needs to be a survivor. Do what needs to be done to keep breathin', to see the next sunrise. 'Spose I can say you dat, given you sittin' here, last of twenty strong group."

"Yes, yes that's right, I am," she said eagerly. Hope burning a little brighter in her chest now.

"She gots to be ready to help out. I got a small community going, my family, some others. She needs to be prepared to help out, take on a share of the work for a share of what we got."

"I could do that, I will help, will learn. I will definitely try to help." She couldn't believe her ears. A community, that sounded like a group committed to one location. No more wandering from place to place, picking up scraps from buildings that had been thoroughly looted already, more than once.

"Then she'd need to know that we share everything. Food, work, men, women."

"Sure, sure, no problem," Ahma was barely listening now, already picturing a zombie free utopia.

"Sharin' it all, nothing left idle... sharing wombs, keepin' them from growin' idle. Keepin' them filled, keepin' the women bred."

"Sh-uurre... wait, sorry English is, is my second language. Does bred mean, you mean pregnant, keeping women pregnant?"

Brutus just gazed up at the ceiling, following flickering shadows dancing across it, thrown there by the firelight. "Exactly that," he said matter of factly. Ahma was speechless, as he'd listed his requirements, she'd found herself scrambling up from the mattress, getting onto her knees awkwardly, her hands bound before her. Now she looked at him open mouthed, disbelief robbing her of speech.

"How about this. I'll give you a minute, then I'll tug on your lead. Either you gonna come here like a good doggy or you aint. One gets you on the back of my motorcycle tomorrow, other one leaves you free and clear to make your own life. Yeah, let's do that."

Starving slowly or impregnated by strangers. What sort of a fucked-up choice was that to be laid at anyone's feet? Sixty seconds to decide. Sixty minutes, sixty hours... how was she supposed to reason out these as choices?

Ahma closed her eyes, breathing slowly and deeply. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Buy an iPhone, there was a price. Commit a crime, there was a price. Now it seemed that to save her own life, there was a price. The irony being that the price to save her life was to help create another life.

There was a distinct tug on the rope around her waist. Ahma lifted her hands to the crude knot that help the towel in place about her, the knot coming loose, the towel falling to the mattress she knelt on. She began the short crawl to where he lay, hips swaying as she sought for balance, her secured wrists making her movement awkward.

Brutus remained reclined, as if disinterested in her decision. Ahma figured it was best to leap straight in. From her experiences since coming to the USA, she'd learnt that American men favored receiving head, enjoying having a blowjob prior to sex. It seemed safe ground to her, especially as Brutus seemed unwilling to express an opinion, or even move for that matter. She knelt beside his waist, her hands trying to unbuckle his belt, however the fact that her hands were tied made her attempt clumsy so she abandoned that. Her hands were damp now with perspiration, the heat of the fire and the pressure for her performance making her wish she could rub her palms dry. That was when she noticed the flecks that had appeared on her skin. Dark, irregularly sized... she couldn't place them for a moment, only knowing they must have been deposited on her from Brutus's clothing or belt as she'd touched it.

Blood. Dried blood. It was flaking off of Brutus's clothing. CJ's or Lester's or Dillon's blood. Or all three of them, their wounds splashing blood onto their attacker, drying out and now sprinkling onto her.

She wanted to scream. Better yet she wanted to wash up. If she stopped now, pleaded an excuse, walked away... she knew he'd leave her behind. This man, this bad man, this Brutus. He wanted to dominate her, make Ahma his doggy, make her trade her body for survival. There would be no pity, not after Ahma had already conspired to kill him. She had one shot and one shot only.

The sweat on her hands liquefied the flecks of dried blood so that as her trembling fingers worked the fly on his pants down, the flecks had turned to splotches of blood that stained parts of her hands. Those same blood-stained hands now pulled out Brutus's cock from within his pants. Small, dainty, bloodied hands holding a big, fat, black dick that grew bigger still as her hands closed around it. It's size and her bonds made the black cock unwieldly, Ahma dropping her head down so that her mouth closed over the head of the cock, anchoring it's not insignificant weight while her hands sought better purchase. She shuddered at the taste of his flesh in her mouth, already her overactive imagination making her think she could pick up the metallic taste of blood on her lips.

Ahma got a little shiver, it started in her gut, emanating out like a ripple in a pond. Her limbs trembled for a moment as the shivering wave of disgust ran through her entire form. The disgust wasn't aimed at the dangerous black man whose large cock spilled out from the grip of her small hands. The contempt she felt was pure self-loathing. She paused as her trembling muscles returned to normal, the shiver had stopped if not the feelings of contempt she felt for her actions. It was the briefest of pauses, no doubt Brutus barely noticed the breather she took, her lips just brushing his mushroom shaped cock head. A brief pause in time but a lifetime in her mind as she considered her fall from grace. Self-loathing, contempt... hating her choices in life. The key though was life, she chose life, in whatever form it took. Decision made. No more time for recriminations.