Lovin' in the Apocalypse Ch. 03

Last time on, Lovin' in the Apocalypse!

Tom and Rachel enter a new home and try to settle in. Rachel battles against rising anxiety as Tom remains optimistic.

Meanwhile, Kelsey is dumped by her adulterous lover during a time of emotional vulnerability.

Will the wayward survivors find peace in this place or is one gunshot a signal of disaster? Find out now!

Chapter 3: A Sturdy Defense

"Where are you going?" Rachel fumbled in the dark for the pack of matches.

"Where do you think? That was a gunshot. We need to know why." Tom was pulling on his boots. The sounds of people coming awake in a panic were all around them.

The lantern bloomed to life in their comfortable shack. "Yeah, I know but don't you think they've got it covered? Why do you have to go?"

Tom pulled his shirt on and stood up. "Because if they fired a shot, there's big trouble. They have crossbows and other shit. Firing a gun is just crazy and the last line of defense. And you know, I'd rather know what's happening without having to be told."

"That's fair. Give me a minute."

Rachel got up and dressed quickly. They stepped out into the cool night and joined a small group of concerned people. They all moved towards the area the shot came from. Tom got a weird feeling, the lot of them were not unlike a mob of infected. They moved together and muttered about the one thing they all wanted to see. The hair on his neck stood up and Tom looked over towards a house that sat near one of the barrier walls. It took him a few seconds to recognize the man standing alone and watching the crowd move along.

"Hey, look over there! It's Gregg. Come on." Tom grabbed Rachel's hand and moved them out of the crowd. They jogged over to Gregg who was holding his rifle on his chest as if he was ready to jump into action. "Hey man. Do you know what's going on?"

"I know what you know." Gregg grumbled. He nodded his head towards the group of people. "Not very smart. Moving like a herd of sheep towards danger."

"That's a little harsh, don't you think? They're just scared and want to know why." Rachel glared at the predictably grumpy man. She just met him but knew he was the type of guy who made everyone around him miserable.

Gregg took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and let it out slowly. "I don't know why they fired a shot. It could have been an accident. But it could be worse. A warning shot, maybe."

Almost as if it was waiting on someone to speak it to existence, an eruption of automatic gunfire burst out into the night. The three of them froze in terror as the implications sank in for each of them.

"Oh shit." Gregg sounded breathless. "Oh shit." He began to run towards the noise as the crowd of people broke apart, screaming as they fled back to their homes.

Tom began to follow but Rachel's hand stopped him like an anchor. "What? Come on." Tom tried to pull her along but she stood firm.

"No Tom. I don't want to."

"Come on! If we don't help, we might as well leave!"

"Okay! Let's leave. We can sneak out now and we never have to see these people die. This is our chance to get out clean." Rachel's eyes were wide and filled with emotions she could not speak. The people here were good and felt like a family. It would have been better to discover a den of vipers. That way, Rachel would not be damaged when they all eventually die. She longed to be back at the firetruck, before they made the terrible decision to come here.

Tom stopped trying to pull her along and stood there for a moment. When his thoughts were together, Tom pulled her into a hug. Rachel was stiff in his arms, not accepting the offered comfort. He whispered to her, "I know why you don't want to do this. I still see their faces too. But we're here now and I got to help keep this place safe. I'm tired of running. If this place falls, it won't be because I didn't help. Not like last time..." Tom pulled away, gave Rachel a kiss on the forehead. "Wait in the shack, I'll find you if things go bad."

Rachel felt like her feet were sunk into swamp mud. A small tug of war was happening in her head. On one side, she felt strong and could run towards the danger. That side felt good but dangerous. They were not invincible, even if they sometimes wondered about how they could keep getting lucky. The other side was more practical and felt cowardly. She knew that running into danger would end in blood and one of these days, it might be Tom who gets the bite. Rachel knew they were already playing on borrowed time. She felt like following him would lead to his death. But what if he got bit or surrounded and she was not there? He would be gone forever and she would not get to know why. Rachel mentally forced her legs to loosen and she ran for Tom and the impending fate.

Cameron sat straight up, his mind reeling in shock. His body was on high alert but he could not figure out why. For the first time in a while, he had been sleeping so heavily that the sleep was a black sheet over his mind. Something woke him though and the sounds of people moving around meant it was something big. Cameron was standing up, getting his balance together when he heard the door to his house open with a burst. Instinct put him in motion as Cameron moved to grab the fireman's ax he kept in his room for protection. He needed to get to Kelsey quickly!

"Dad?" Kelsey's voice called out from the front of the house. Strange. That meant she would have been outside a moment ago. Was she the reason everything was crazy?

"Kelsey? What is going on?" Cameron came out of his room, carrying his boots and backpack. A lit flashlight was tucked under one of his arms.

"Someone fired a gun. Down by the-!"

Kelsey was cut off by the sound of rapid fire gunshots. She spun to face the sound as Cameron numbly dropped his boots.

"Dad?" Kelsey looked at her father with huge, terrified eyes.

Cameron shook himself out of the daze. "Do you remember the plan? Code red?" Kelsey nodded. "Good. We'll operate in that mindset. Begin gathering people into the designated evacuation zones. They may have already started to move but people will panic. You got this?"

"I got it. It's what we practiced for."

Cameron kissed her forehead and hugged her tight. "You be safe, understand? Don't you dare take any chances."

"Okay dad." Kelsey squeezed him tight. "You too, okay?"

Cameron made it to the main gate and joined the throng of motion. People were running around in coordinated efforts, shoring up the walls and offering support to the ones fighting. Cameron climbed a gate tower and looked out to see the occasional red streaks of tracer rounds flying into a horde of infected ones. The horde was massive and got far too close under the cover of darkness. Though it did not seem dire yet, the mob was already spilling over the first line of trenches. Many were impaled on the wooden spikes but the main body of the mob was climbing over the stuck ones.

Rosa, an older woman with long dark hair woven into a braid, was standing at the top of the tower. She was watching the fight through her thin glasses and was holding a sniper rifle at the ready. "Dios mio. Would you look at that?"

Cameron walked to stand next to her. "Where did they come from?"

Rosa flicked a finger towards the distant trees. "From there. After a gunshot told them where to go."

"Where to go? It wasn't a warning?"

"No. I think it was to move them this way." She looked stern and convinced. "Ay, idoita!" Rosa quickly pulled the rifle up and squeezed the trigger. A silenced pop came from the barrel a second after an infected one's head exploded. The near victim down below scrambled to their feet and ran back to safety. "I'm hoping this is not related to those new people you spoke so highly for, councilor."

"I don't think so but it's pretty convenient this happened now, yeah? Gregg was supposedly keeping an eye on them." All the information and updates were coming in too fast. He felt exhausted and his thoughts would not be clear. He did not sleep at all while they were stuck outside the camp. Cameron closed his sore eyes, feeling the missed sleep and knew it would be a long time before his head touched another pillow.

A small radio crackled to life on Rosa's belt. "Councilor. This is Saul on the South end. We've got stragglers moving in quickly. It won't be long before we're surrounded. Should we begin with deterrents? Over."

"Saul, this is Rosa. Send deterrents and tell the others to use guns until the first ones go up. It's pretty bad up here, we'll be shooting for a while. Over."

"Copy."

Cameron grabbed a bow and slung it over his shoulder. "I'm going to make sure evac and rescue are prepared. We got almost a hundred people to move if things go bad." He began to climb back down the ladder. "I'll grab a radio from the office, call if you need me back here."

"Think positive, mijo. We have another meeting tomorrow and no infection will excuse you." She fired her rifle again as he descended.

Kelsey stood by the bus, using a hand held clicker to count the number of people as they squeezed in. The gun fire was tapering off from the front but now that the noise was drawing in the surrounding ones, shots were coming from every side of the encampment. Kelsey kept her thumb on track, not neglecting her duties but she longed to be somewhere more helpful. Anyone could count people, she was capable of so much more. This was a point she could not seem to drive into her father's head. It took her entirely too long to convince him to let her join the scouting teams and he only relented by putting her on his team.

Kelsey saw the two armored Jeeps peel out like they were on fire and was again annoyed by her task. The deterrent teams were the best of their fighters. Experienced and quick thinking, those 8 people were responsible for disrupting the waves of infected ones that were drawn by the heavy gun fire. Kelsey wanted to be trained to be that effective but her father insisted on keeping her close by and sheltered. She was an adult now, by the old standards and the new ones. She was 17 when this whole thing started and after two winters, that would put her well over adult age. Not to mention, a few of the people slightly younger than her in the camp were treated as adults.

"Hey Kelsey." A flat, emotionless voice spoke and broke Kelsey's brooding. Laura stood there with a squirming bundle of blankets in her arms.

"Oh! Hi, Laura." Kelsey could not quite look at the woman's exhausted eyes. Her own heart leapt up into her throat as she tried to seem normal.

"Do you know what's happening? Gregg didn't say."

Did Kelsey imagine the inflection when Laura said Gregg's name or was she being paranoid? "My dad just told me to do this, I'm not sure about anything else."

Kelsey felt like her chest was going to explode. The immediate danger had pushed the recent moment with Gregg from her thoughts but here was his wife and baby. The pain washed in again, fresh with a new knife twist. Kelsey knew better than to believe Gregg was going to offer her more than a good time. She knew what they were doing was wrong but at some point along the way, she developed feelings for the man. Kelsey used to call him a liar when he would make precoiltal promises but she apparently took some of it to heart. He was so sweet to her and made her feel needed in a way no one ever had. Could all of that really be just a lie?

A loaded silence hovered over the women for a few moments before someone in line complained about the lag. Laura gave Kelsey a long, tired look before carefully climbing into the bus. She did not look back and Kelsey was glad. Any longer under that stare would have made the young woman squirm. The two of them never got along and that was before Gregg told Kelsey that she was suspicious. If only that argument would have gone all the way. If they had broken up, Kelsey could have been there to take Laura's place. Or, this was a dangerous world. If something were to happen to Laura...

Kelsey slammed the lid on that line of thinking and was momentarily shocked at the emergence of it. That line of thinking was worse than anything she has already done to the poor woman. Laura did not deserve to be treated as an annoying placeholder to be thrown aside. But wait. Was that not what Gregg just did to her? Kelsey clicked the counter two times and tried to forget the awkward moment. The emotions in her boiled into a stew of hurt, frustration and anger. This was just so unfair.

"Here." Gregg shoved a compound bow into Tom's hands. "Know how to use that?"

"Yeah, I used to deer hunt with one." Tom tested the draw and found it to be a little loose. It would work though it needed some maintenance.

"I never shot one." Rachel said as she stepped up beside Tom.

"No offense, you're probably not long enough." Gregg spread his arms to show he meant arm span. "These are 70lbs bows. But you might be able to pull this." Gregg handed Rachel a crossbow and a satchel of bolts. She took both without a comment. "Just sure up the lines and pop one when you can. Hopefully the deterrents will go up soon and we'll just have to clean up."

Rachel was impressed to the point of shock. The walls were holding, the infected barely managing to make it to them. Countless bodies littered the trenches and pikes but the defenses were holding. She looked at Tom with huge eyes and he gave her a cautious smile. He loaded an arrow and fired it with the confidence of a seasoned archer. His arrow sailed over the head of an infected but just barely. His second shot landed perfectly. Rachel was able to seat the crossbow but it took all she had. The effort left her shoulders burning but she managed and placed the metal bolt in the slot. Rachel took her time, lined up her shot and squeezed the trigger. The crossbow had more kickback than she was expecting but her bolt flew straight and dropped one of the infected.

Rachel felt her lips move but stopped just short of a full grin. The uneasiness of this new place would not leave her alone. "Got 'em."

"Nice one, Ray!" Tom laughed as he loaded his bow and shot it again. Now that his aim was dialed in, he rarely missed. Still, he was out of practice with a bow and a stabbing soreness was starting between his shoulders.

Just as Tom was beginning to wonder how long they would be able to keep this up, an explosion cracked out into the night. The moment seemed to float in a dreamlike state. Both Tom and Rachel's jaws dropped as their minds tried to believe the information coming in from their eyes. Scarlet lights first bloomed then streaked across the sky in a moment of beauty. The red lights flickered as they began to fall from the sky. They were immediately replaced by another burst of green and yellow.

"Fireworks?!" Rachel turned to Tom. "What the fuck?"

Tom's face lit in a beaming grin. "What did Gregg say about deterrents?"

Sure enough, the fighters on the walls stopped shooting and the infected mobs turned to face the lights and sounds. As if they were ordered by a general, they turned as one and marched back the way they had come. From several areas around the camp, mortars soared up to the stars before joining them in blasts of lights. They moved away too, as if the teams were lighting the fuses and running 100 feet to light another. After half an hour, they could no longer hear the fireworks but could just make out a few sparks of color that made it up over the treetops.

Tom and Rachel helped the fighters as they dispatched the remaining infected. Those that were too injured to walk were trying to crawl but more than a few were just too messed up to even move. Those were hard to look at. Even as they bled out, the infected still begged for food. They were unconcerned with the damage done to them and were mostly immobilized but the infected were still dangerous. A young man screamed out as an unseen infected sunk it's rotting teeth into his ankle. The infected was mostly dead, it's body was riddled with bullet holes but it had held on to life for just one more bite.

The young man kicked the infected so hard, it finished the job but the damage was done. He quickly pulled his pants leg up and revealed the round and bloody wound. He screamed again while staring at his bloody ankle. A few others came over but could offer no aid or comfort. They also kept their distance from the increasingly panicking man. He screamed at them to help him but no one approached. Tom wrapped an arm around Rachel's shoulder and turned her away from the scene. He glanced back to see the young man drop to his knees with his face in his hands. He understood it was over. One of the other survivors moved in and placed a hand on his shoulder. A small gesture but an enormously kind one.

Rachel walked numbly, trying not to hear the tragedy happening behind her. She remembered the small flicker of hope that ignited in her heart when they were looking at the fireworks. But even though the walls stood and the camp survived, not everyone will. No matter what they did, no one could be safe. The despair she tried to hold in check was getting too big for her. Her mind was desperate for relief but she could not find a moment to let her guard down. Rachel did not know what to do and was thankful that Tom was there so she would not have to make her own choices. He could be controlling at times but she really did not mind it. She found it easier to just move with his touch rather than rely on herself.

Gregg caught up with them as the sun was finally up enough to show the carnage from the night before. They all looked over the killing field with similar refugee stares. "We lost three people. Two here and one from the deterrent teams." Gregg lit a cigarette without offering the couple any. "Hell of a start to your arrival."

"Are you suggesting we had anything to do with this?" Tom did not sound aggressive or insulted, just tired.

Gregg was silent for a few moments. "If I thought that, you wouldn't be here. I guess it's just bad timing, not that there's any good timing left. You two didn't dip out last night, it would have been a perfect diversion. I guess that means you're here to stay?"

"Yeah." Tom answered immediately. "We're here." He squeezed Rachel's hand in conformation but hers remained limp in his grip.

About two miles down the road, in a roadside service station, a small fire was burning in a cast iron pot. The thick grey smoke rolled out of an open window and was obscured by the thick trees that surrounded the building. The fire was measly, barely more than embers as it dies from neglect. A charred aluminum can sat on its side, scraped and licked clean. The broken pieces of a liquor bottle fanned out away from the fire without any remaining liquid to stain the floor. Heavy breathing, grunting and moaning was thick in the air as the inhabitants of this sad place threw all caution to the wind.

"Did you see the fucking size of that thing Dave?!" A lanky man with shaggy black hair said between grunts of breath. He was on his knees. "Had to be a million!" He snorted a donkey like laugh.

"That's not possible, E. Probably a good hundred thousand though." Dave, a short man with a buzzed head, was sitting on his bare ass.

The woman between the two men lifted her mouth off of Dave's cock. "You're joking, right? A hundred thousand would have leveled the forest."

Dave grabbed Andy's bleached hair and moved her back to his cock. He preferred her mouth full instead of running. "It don't damn matter one way or the other! The point is that was the largest one we ever rangled!"

"Yeah. You think they gonna survive?" E was straddling the back of Andy's thighs and thrusting into her pussy from behind. He liked this position because she squeezed him extra tight. He wished she would let him in that sweet looking asshole though.