Warm Skins

Authors Note: Well, I can see now why there's hardly any stories involving survival and apocalyptic themes on this site. I had to edit out most of the violence so I don't know, I hope this reads like a genuine survival love story regardless. Had I known there was a prohibition, I wouldn't have written this story. But I have, so.

As a disclaimer, this story has some violence and abusive language. It's been toned down, but as a "zombie" story essentially, it can't be written without it. Please feel free to opt out from reading if you find that offensive.

This story is a lot longer than my usual ones and the sex doesn't happen until later. This is more plot driven so if you're looking for a quick fix, you'll be sorely disappointed. I really enjoyed writing this and I'm glad to be back after being gone for awhile. Hope you guys enjoy!

*****

The sun was coming down. Gabe and his boys had to make this quick. They'd come across some five scavengers in their territory during their patrol. Nothing unusual. Unfortunately, for the poor bastards, Gabe recognized them as members of their rival camp. Usually, they'd gut, loot, and leave the corpses to dry when they found stragglers bold or stupid enough to cross into their lands, but Gabe was a man of custom.

He settled on making an example of these people by stringing them up over the collapsed traffic lights above their heads. Right there in the center of the city; in clear view of any more daring vermin.

Gabe sat on his haunches and studied the pack of halfwits as his men tied nooses around their neck; their begging and gross sobbing broke the cold silence of the empty city. Two women and three men all either too young, old, scrawny, or innocuous to be a proper scavenging party for these parts of the woods. They all wailed and whined.

Except one.

His keen ugly eyes paused on the quiet figure just a few feet before him. The girl was petrified, but even as the rope tightened around her throat in a sickening and audible squeeze, her wide eyes remained rooted onto the ground below her and her lips sealed shut. She stood still and calm with both feet atop the tin bucket they'd placed below each of them. No flailing. No shaking.

As if she knew better than to let all the air out of her body before the rope tightened further. As if she were ready to hold her breath.

Gabe grinned. A survivor at its finest. But it wouldn't matter. If her delicate neck didn't snap and kill her first, the lack of oxygen going to her head would. Holding her breath would make no difference, but Gabe had to commend her laughable tenacity. This one would be exciting to watch as the lights faded from her eyes.

He placed both his palms on the top of his knees and pushed himself up. "I know which camp you bumbling cunts came from. Ethan must be growing old and demented if he really thought he could send out a pathetic group like this to field out our territory. Your leader has led you to your deaths today. So, in return, I'll lift up you from the ground as high as I can so that he can see you all from his piece of shit throne. You can spit at him over the horizon. How's that?"

"Please! W-We were just passing through! We won't come back, please just let us go!" One of the men begged. His glasses were crooked and cracked and the fear in his eyes only amused Gabe.

"I'm sure you were, my friend. But you knew who's territory you were crossing yet you crossed it anyway. That kind of arrogance is costly, wouldn't you say? Especially after last months raid. I'm sure you all remember? You killed all my men and stole all our shit. It was very upsetting what happened." Gabe shook his head in pseudo disappointment.

"We were only taking back what was ours, you shit eating vulture!" A man with a patchy beard and cracked lips shouted. Gabe turned his attention on the smaller man struggling to keep his footing on the bucket below him. He trembled unsteadily while he danced on his toes.

Gabe sauntered over to the man and stood in front of him. "What was yours, you say? My friend, nothing in this world can be claimed anymore. There's only pillage, war, and survival left for the rest of us that are lucky enough to die by another mans hand. Your people have grown too used to the spoils in the meantime, however. I think it's time we show you that nothing is yours."

Gabe paused and watched the man grow pale and break into a cold sweat. The fearlessness that was once there had all but dissipated now as he stared at him, and the shaking in the mans legs had become so violent that he made the bucket rattle against the ground.

Gabe grinned. "Let's start with your life first." And then he kicked the bucket from under him. The rest of the man's companions screamed and cried to no avail.

"All right, enough fucking around. Hang these fuckers. It'll be dark soon." Gabe said over his shoulder as he turned around. One by one he heard the sound of his men overturning the buckets and the familiar pitch of sputtering and gurgling. Then, he heard the thump of bodies fall to the ground.

Gabe halted to a stop at this sound. He hadn't heard the snap of a rope or his men bicker about a blundered knot. He turned around and immediately pulled out the handgun on his hip when the sight of most of his men dead on the ground came to view. Arrows riddled their bodies.

Before he could yell for the rest of his men to position themselves, more arrows suddenly pelted them. One by one, his men dropped like flies. Whoever was shooting at them was trained and precise. Then the gunfire began. Gabe gritted his rotted teeth and dove behind the wreckage of a car and shot out into the open over the hood.

He couldn't see them - had no idea where they were. He cursed inwardly and yelled at his men to keep firing. It'd all happened too fast. By the time he reloaded and bent over the car to aim again, someone was jumping onto the hood and swinging a bat riddled with nails right into his face.

The force threw him flat onto his back and he screamed in agony at the pain, and when he looked up at his assailant, all he saw were cold dead eyes set on him. But the person they belonged to was very much alive. He raised his hand in surrender as the assailant raised the bat over their head once more and cracked down on him.

When Dakota finished and laid the bat on her shoulder to look at her work, she couldn't even recognize the man she'd been hunting down for months anymore.

Gabriel Buchanan was dead.

Dakota glanced around; surveying the aftermath of her ambush. She'd counted seven men including Gabriel when she finally caught up to them. Taking his men out had been relatively easy, but she'd wanted to refrain from using her gun or allowing them to pull out theirs as much as possible. With the ruckus, now, she had to leave. And quickly.

She could already hear the telltale moans and screeches of the undead approaching. Suddenly, a gasp perked her ear and she turned around.

It'd come from the people still suspended from the ropes. She couldn't believe they weren't dead yet. Then again, it hadn't taken her that long to wipe out Gabriel's whole team.

Watching them in silence, she contemplated her choices. She still needed to stay in this part of the city, but now with the commotion, the place would soon be crawling with the dead. She couldn't fight them on her own.

With a single swipe of her machete, she cut the several ropes tied to the post that held them. They all fell simultaneously and gasped for air; heaving in great gulps. Meanwhile, Dakota stripped the dead bodies of Gabriel's men for valuables and ammunition.

In her haste, she spoke without looking at them. "We'll be surrounded in five minutes. Gather yourselves and take up arms if you want to live. If we head west, there's an abandoned check-point post that we can make a break for. There's enough barricades there to hold these fuckers off. Follow me." And then she was running; leaving the still recovering group she'd saved with little time to pick and choose their fate.

The four of them looked on at each other in silent agreement and grabbed what they could and followed suit; only looking back to bow their heads in mourning for their own who still lay motionless on the ground. The man who'd been hung first. His dry and cracked purple lips lay ajar as his lifeless eyes stared back at them.

Dakota had been right about her timing. The undead were on them in minutes. The distance between them and the check-point was only a couple of blocks, but with every zombie in the vicinity swarming in, the journey through was weary and drawn out.

By mid-evening, Dakota and the unlikely group of survivors were climbing over the fences of the check-point; seemingly having eluded the mob of undead that'd been on them for the past hour.

Safe and secured for now, Dakota took her chance to make certain that there were truly no loose ends. Suddenly, she whipped around and grabbed the closest of the survivors to her and held a gun to their head.

The others immediately raised their guns.

"Drop them or that's two you'll have lost in a day. Who are you people? Tell me what you were doing back there." Dakota demanded. She glanced down at her hostage and saw a woman around her age pinned underneath her forearm. She looked afraid. Dakota could feel her quivering against her.

"Wait, please. We mean no harm," the man with glasses spoke as he motioned for the others to lower their guns, "my name is Peter. We were all just trying to find some medicine when those group of bandits attacked us. We were heading for the pharmaceutical clinic down on Kennington Street. We heard it was the only place in the city that might've still had something. But, there was no other way to get there without having to bypass Frank's territory."

"Medicine?" Dakota inquired. "What kind?"

"J-Just antibiotics. There's a flu going around in our camp. Please, just let Elaine go. We don't have any intentions of killing anyone. Please." The thin man begged.

Dakota considered Peter's words and chewed on her options. Should she believe him? Looking at the group she'd unwillingly saved, it could've been entirely true that they were only out here to scavenge. But even then they weren't fit for that either. They reeked of inexperience.

"How bad?" Dakota asked.

"I'm sorry?" Peter replied.

"The flu. How bad is it?"

"I-It's taken a quarter of our camp. More and more are starting to show signs. We've run out of basic antibiotics and our sick wait in the streets in lines for treatment."

Dakota stared at the group with hesitation, as if making a decision. Then, she shrugged her backpack off her shoulders until it hung loosely on the nook of her left arm where she held the girl. Slowly, she lowered her head without breaking eye contact or lowering her gun and whispered into her hostages ear.

"Reach into the front pocket and toss it over to them."

Elaine twitched at Dakota's sudden closeness and her cool breath against her ear. Apprehensively, she did what she was told. Reaching her slender hand into the front pocket of the strange woman's backpack, she rummaged through the space until her hands bumped into something. Pulling it out, her eyes widened along with her fellow companions as they realized that what was in her hand were the antibiotics they'd been searching for.

"There's more in that pocket. Take them. You heard right about the clinic, but you weren't the only ones who had their ears open. Thanks to you, I was able to snuff out Gabriel's sorry ass, so consider this a handout for the trouble." Dakota declared.

She made a move to give the girl back to her people when she was done. When she went to shove her, however, a gunshot rang in the air and a searing pain flared up in her right leg; consuming her whole thigh. Immediately, she realized she'd been shot.

Dakota collapsed to the ground and tried to scurry behind cover; clutching her gushing thigh with one hand. She noticed the shot had come from behind. Another one hit her shoulder. She fell down completely and gritted through her teeth as she tried to bear the pain that throbbed in her shoulder and thigh.

In the chaos, she could faintly hear the scrambling and shouting of people. A shadow loomed over her and when she raised her eyes at the figure, the impending image of the butt-stock of a rifle rushing down towards her vision was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

~

Dakota hated sleeping. Behind her eyelids, a nightmare far worse than her reality plagued her each night. Memories and manifestations of a hellish time from before would creep into her visions and taunt her. In her dreams, she was a prisoner tortured repeatedly in an endless cycle of agony. The dreams would play out differently each time, but they always ended the same.

She would sit before a faint campfire that burned slow. The flames light would only ever reach her feet. Whatever she did to stoke the fire, it would remain weak and small. Darkness consumed everything else around her. Each time, she would give up on feeding the fire and look into it for comfort; bewitched by its rhythmic inferno.

And then, when she let herself give into the flames completely, the fire would suddenly ignite into a powerful blaze and an arm charred black with putrid flesh hanging from its limb would reach out and grab her by the neck; strangling her in a fiery grip that scorched her skin.

And then she'd wake up - always in a cold sweat.

This time, it was no different.

Dakota shot straight up and gasped just as the imaginary hand in her dream reached out to choke her. She clasped her throat and felt relief at finding nothing but her own hands there. She massaged her throat, feeling how wet her skin was. She was absolutely drenched in sweat. Breathless and shaken, she tried to gather her bearings.

She was suddenly aware of a presence next to her.

When she turned her head, a young woman was sat beside her bed in a small wooden chair. Her ash blonde hair was tied back in a messy ponytail with loose wisps poking out here and there. The faint rim of a rope burn circled her neck. But it was her complexion that caught Dakota's eye. Clear and fresh. A rare sight in the days that they lived in now.

Since the infection, everything rotted and people carried the challenges of the new environment in their skin and behavior. They became crude and rough.

Seeing that unadulterated youth again roused a sense of nostalgia in Dakota. The woman before her blinked. The look on her face was that of bewilderment and shock and the more Dakota gaped at her, the more she realized it was the woman from before...what was her name again?

Turning away to adjust her eyes to the room, Dakota realized she was in a tent of some sort.

The mysterious woman composed herself. "You were talking and tossing in your sleep. Was it a nightmare?"

Dakota eyed her; noticing how smooth and clear her voice was. The fear she'd last seen in the girls eyes were gone now, only caution and curiosity filled her blue eyes. Ruffling her short tawny brown hair, Dakota ignored the girls question and scanned around the room. "Where am I? If I'm not dead then I'm being held captive. Why?" A sharp pain suddenly settled in her shoulder and thigh and she groaned. That's right, she'd been shot.

"Please, don't move. It's only been a day since the doctor stitched those up."

The woman reached for Dakota's shoulder to press her back down, but was met with a death grip on her wrist and a piercing glare. For several long minutes, they stared at each other before the woman retracted her hand and folded it in her lap. Subtly, she massaged her bruised wrist. Dakota's grip was strong and painful even with her injuries.

"My name's Elaine. Elaine Waters," she spoke up after awhile, "you're in our camp's medical center. You've been unconscious since yesterday. You've been treated for your wounds but you mustn't move around too much. The stitches will reopen."

"Where are my things?"

"They're being kept safe, don't worry. Your clothes were...quite dirty...so they're being washed at this very moment. Today is laundry day. Everything will be returned to you soon. In the meantime, we've prepared some clothes for you...if you'd like." Elaine's inquisitive blue eyes looked on at Dakota with an innocence that resembled a child's. But Dakota was sure that the woman was somewhere around her age.

After no response, Elaine reached towards the foot of the bed and, with both hands, gently placed the bundle of clothes that lay there closer to Dakota with a small smile; as if reassuring her that she spoke the truth. Dakota eyed her.

"You still haven't answered my question," Dakota finally spoke, causing Elaine to tilt her head, "what am I doing here?"

At that moment, the canvas of the tent pulled back and three people entered in. A woman appeared to lead them. She was dark of hair and tall. Small scars riddled her face. One look at Dakota and the woman was scowling. "Why didn't you announce she was conscious? You were told to let us know when she awoke."

Elaine shot up from her seat in shock of their sudden appearance. "I-I'm sorry. She just woke up now..."

The woman sighed. "Step away from her, Elaine. We'll take care of this from here."

"Don't talk like I'm not just laying here. It's insulting." Dakota interrupted with a yawn. She had the gruff woman's attention again. She wasn't sure what it was, but she found the woman aggravating. "What the hell do you people want?"

"You're not in a position to be asking questions. If it were up to me, I would've left you to bleed out in your filth. Now get dressed. You have three minutes."

"Sloan," spoke up the man beside her, "Ethan asked for us to bring Elaine as well."

The woman, Sloan, glanced at the diminutive blonde for a moment as if considering something, and then nodded. "So be it."

And just as abruptly, the woman and her entourage left.

Dakota leaned back against the frame of the bed and sighed. She would've much rather taken death than be the hog-tied pig captive she was now. It would've been much less of a bother. Wincing, she reached for the neatly folded pile of clothes and began to undress.

The movement brought back Elaine's attention on her and she stepped forward to offer her assistance. Immediately, Dakota drew back before shooting out another rigid glare. "Keep to yourself. I can manage at least this much."

Like a slapped child, Elaine obeyed and cast her startled eyes to the side while Dakota openly undressed in front of her.

The camp these people had made for themselves was bigger than your average camp of stragglers. It was a full and functioning community pervaded within a dilapidated college town. It'd been awhile since Dakota had last seen a mass and organized congregation of people like this since Frank's place.

These people had cooked themselves up a bustling little society. The buildings had long been abandoned and damaged and rows of junk, vegetation, and broken down cars riddled the town. But despite it, their repairs and overbuild were not in vain. It made the place anew and sustainable.

Dakota looked on in silence as she was led through by Sloan and her men with Elaine close behind. As expected, they'd put her in handcuffs before they set off.

Children roamed freely and gleefully in the streets. Adults huddled together in casual conversation or hustled about in carefree bliss. But as spirited did these parts of the camp seem, between the cracks, she could see the sick among them. Back at the medical tent, they were clear as day. This place was a ticking time bomb and Dakota had to get out of it soon.

Sloan and her men led her to one of the many small institutions clustered around the college town. Engraved in a corroded bronze plaque that hung largely above the building doors were the words, 'College of Humanities.'