When Allison came down the stairs the next morning, she was greeted by the smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs. Having gone to sleep so early the night before, Frank had awoken well before dawn; having recalled that she said she performed a pre-dawn perimeter patrol, he thought he would treat her to a hot breakfast that she didn't have to make herself.

"Good morning, sleepy head," Frank teased as his hostess entered the kitchen. He gestured toward the fridge, informing her, "Milk and juice are still in the fridge. Butter, too. I noticed the container was almost empty yesterday. I assume you make it yourself. Is that something you can teach me?"

They chatted as Frank filled two plates with food and two mugs with steaming coffee. Robert was sitting up in the nearby playpen, babbling again and -- when trying to look up to the newly arrived Allison -- spilling back onto his back before giggling and flailing his little arms and legs.

"I have my list of chores," Frank said, pulling a scrap paper out of the chest pocket of yet another of Allison's grandfather's plaid shirts. "Anything I need to add to it that I didn't do yesterday?"

A casual observer would have thought the two of them had been friends -- or even partners -- for years by the way they so comfortably interacted. Frank asked if he needed to pack her anything to snack on while she did her patrol. He finally sat and dug into his own serving, once again marveling at the joy of a full, hot breakfast.

"I was thinking," he began when they were finishing eating and -- demanding that she stay seated -- Frank began gathering the dirty dishes while Allison partook of a second mug of coffee. He leaned back against the counter as he continued, "There is a lot of work around her, as you told me and as I learned yesterday. You could use more help than just me."

Frank hesitated, wondering if Allison knew where he was going with this. He went on, "The community where Jennifer and I came from ... there are a lot of good people there that we made friends with. Not like the ones who chased us down, obviously. Good people looking for a better life. They're all Immunes, obviously. I doubt very much that there's anyone left alive at this point who isn't immune, unless they're isolated away on some remote island or down in Antarctica."

He sipped at his own coffee as he studied Allison, then added, "Just something to think about."

It was most definitely a nice surprise waking up to the smell of breakfast, particularly to the wondrous scent of coffee. Until Frank had arrived with his bag of grounds, Allison hadn't had a cup of jo in over half a year.

The greater surprise, though, was when Frank suggested that maybe they add more names to the list of hands working the McGee Estate. Allison hadn't expected that, and as he was speaking on the topic, she simply sat there in silence, sipping at her mug while churning the unexpected suggestion around in her brain.

"Just something to think about," he said in way of concluding the suggestion and leaving anymore to said about it to Allison.

She did in fact mull on it a moment before giving the non-committal reply, "I'll give it some thought."

Allison had already made an enormous leap by simply inviting Frank to stay a while, whether it be short, long, or indefinite. The thought of having even more strangers, potentially dangerous strangers, moving to the estate was almost frightening.

"I need to get started on my route," she finally said, not yet ready to speak about the idea any further at the moment. She looked to Robert, who was grasping at the playpen's net wall and trying to pull himself up. "He's a strong child. He'll need that if he's going to help you with the chores soon."

Allison laughed, began to help with cleaning up the table, got told by Frank that he'd handle it, and left the room to gather her things for the patrol. She thanked him for breakfast and interacted with Robert a moment before heading out with a pail of scraps and homemade dog food for the Scrooges.

As she headed down the draw toward the perimeter woods, Allison thought more on what Frank had suggested. It wouldn't have been a bad idea a year ago, before the world began to fall apart. But the collapse of society, the near distinguishing of law and order, the rise of militias and fall of respect had led to a world where it was hard for most people to trust strangers.

Stopping at the forest's edge and looking back on the estate, Allison considered the good that could come from having a half dozen more pairs of hands to get the work done. Of course, each pair of hands came with a mouth to feed, too. Maybe four pairs of hands, four mouths.

Still, Allison didn't know these people. Hell, she still didn't know Frank. For all she knew, he'd been the actual bad guy in the firefight into which she'd been drawn the day two days earlier. And there was always the possibility that in the process of recruiting these good people, some of the bad people Allison had been avoiding since I-55 destroyed her world would end up finding the estate as well.

No, for now she was determined to keep things as they were. Frank would simply have to accept that it was just the two of them for now -- two and a half, actually.

Her mind was churning with thoughts as she went about her patrol, finding nothing of concern as she almost always did these days. When she returned to the house, she found Frank out on the grounds still hard at work on his list, which Allison had added to during breakfast. She found just enough coffee still hot on the wood stove to fill two mugs halfway. She went out to find him and gave one over.

"I'm not ready for more people," she informed him. She sipped at her coffee, then added a simple, "Let's talk about it more later on ... maybe in a couple of days." She emptied her mug, set it aside, and asked, "Okay, what's left to do?"

They finished the morning chores while Robert lay on a blanket and laughed and tugged at the nose and fur of one of the Scrooges who'd decided to babysit the tyke. Occasionally, curious chickens or ducks would wander over toward the blanket, only to flap away when the Australian Shepherd jerked his snout or paw at them in warning.

The three of them eventually headed inside for lunch, and after coming outside again to dig up a hundred pounds or more of carrots, onions, and potatoes, Allison got started on more food preservation. It would occupy her for the rest of the day, even with Frank help in cleaning and chopping.

Before they knew it, the sun was falling, and it was time for another evening perimeter patrol. Allison suited up and armed up and headed out. Sometimes in the past, she'd wondered if all this security was really necessary. At times, she thought she'd done it just to have something to do that didn't involve planting, picking, or preserving food ... something that took her mind off the fact that she'd been all alone in the world after her last relative's death to the virus.

Now, though, with another human being on the property, Allison didn't have to patrol to preserve her insanity. Yet, as she headed down the draw again, she reminded herself of what had happened two nights ago and how -- if she hadn't been there when Frank and Jennifer were chased into the ditch by 5 armed killers -- the mayhem might have spilled over onto the estate without her knowing or knowing in a timely manner.

No, for the time being she would continue to make her rounds. Maybe she could reduce it to just morning or night, not both. She would have liked to show Frank the route and let him do some of the walking through the woods. But who would stay with Little Bit while she was showing him the ropes? That only made her think about Frank's suggestion that they get some more people to share the burden.

Allison was wearing herself out. She knew that. She'd worked hard all her life, but she'd always had family and sometimes hired hands to share the load. For months now, it had been just her and before that just her and a cousin who, to be honest, hadn't been much use to her. Allison was getting up every morning around 5am, patrolling, working, napping for an hour or so if she could, working more, patrolling again, and finally laying her head down sometime after 7 or 8pm, sometimes much later.

She couldn't continue on this way for much longer, even with a second pair of hands. Frank was going to change everything, of course. But would it be enough? Allison knew she had to put some more thought into his suggestion.

She returned in the dark, dug out some more bones for the Stooges from a box of them she kept, and headed inside. There was no sign of Frank or Robert, but a short search found the former in his bed and the latter in the adjacent playpen, both of them sacked out. She returned to the kitchen, finding it immaculately cleaned and organized. She smiled, thinking Frank makes quite a housewife.

Allison hurried through her shower and skipped the masturbation, needing as much sleep as she could get...



The next morning began as the previous one had, including yet another perimeter patrol, more daily chores, and the harvesting of apples to be preserved as sauce and juice both. The pair sat on the porch to partake of barbequed chicken; Allison had determined that one of the older hens was no longer laying eggs and had brought her career to an end with a hatchet.

"Tell me more about these good people of whom you speak," she said out of the blue as they were watching the sun disappear into the western woods. "I'm not saying I'm ready for something like this. I'm just saying ... I'll listen."

Allison surprised Frank when, out of the blue, she said, "Tell me more about these good people of whom you speak."

He was certain that his hostess had dismissed the idea of bringing on more people outright or at least for the indefinite future.

"I'm not saying I'm ready for something like this," she told him. "I'm just saying ... I'll listen."

The delight in Frank's face was obvious. He'd always been happier living in a group. He'd had a large family with many siblings and cousins. He'd joined the Army and been part of an assault team and, later, a search and rescue team, both of which had required working close together. After his discharge, he'd almost always chosen jobs where he was working closely with others. (Unfortunately, he'd never been able to keep any of those jobs long, for one reason or another which were sometimes his fault but most often not.)

He'd been holding Robert in his arms but now put him in a second smaller playpen he'd fashioned just for the porch. Going inside to fetch two more McGee ales, Frank returned to say, "Okay, first, let me tell you about Greenburg, where Jennifer and I were for the last couple of months."

Allison had heard of Greenburg, which shouldn't have surprised Frank as it was only 50 miles away. She was also aware of the distribution center that served McConnely's, a chain of grocery stores spread across Southern Montana and Northern Wyoming.

"When the pandemic struck and people started going nuts," Frank went on, "the Governor sent a Company from the National Guard to secure the distribution center. Unfortunately, most of them were already infected. Everything went to shit, and after a while a civilian militia came in and took control of the center. They killed all of the soldiers who hadn't already died of I-55 and took control of the town.

"There were maybe 200 people left alive," Frank told her, sipping at his beer. "They weren't all locals, from Greenburg. Some had heard there was food there. Some were passing through and the militia just didn't let them leave. That's what happened to Jennifer and I. I was ... what's that word ... Shanghaied into their military after they learned my history."

He unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled the lapel aside to reveal the Army unit tattoo that he doubted Allison had yet noticed. He explained its significance, then continued, "They put me on unarmed perimeter watches, then scavenging runs, then armed security. I was helping keep the community safe ... helping keep law and order."

He went silent a moment, looking down at his bottle of beer as he recalled some of the things he'd been ordered to do. "It didn't take a genius to see that the militia was not good for the community. People sometimes disappeared. Women were raped, more often than not against Uniforms without anything being done about it.

"When it was suggested that Jennifer could help the community by popping out more children ... presumably Immune children," Frank went on, his tone becoming angrier, "I knew it was time to hit the road. It took a few days to gather what we needed and get hold of a car. I thought I got us out of there without being seen, but ... well, you were there, so you saw how that ended."

He drained the last of his beer, continuing, "Anyway, people. I can name six off the top of my head."

Frank told Allison about three men and three women, though, he said there were others who he thought would benefit the estate. "Howard Cooper's a doctor, a surgeon, if I recall. More than that, he knows more about nutrition than anyone I've ever known. He told me once that he wanted to be a Naturopath, but he doubted that it would pay off his college loans or get him an ocean-going sailboat.

"Paul Williams -- not the singer, by the way -- is kind of like me, an all-around handy man with experience that simply abounds," Frank went on. "More than that, he's just a good guy who you can always depend on. He's the one who got Jennifer and I the car and cleared the way for us to get out of Greenburg. He's a hard worker.

"And Victor Sokolov would be worth having, too," Frank said, naming his third male choice. "He was a Ukrainian Army officer, here training with our Army on some surface-to-air launcher that was too new for me to have known anything about it. The pandemic stranded him here. He was in the militia with me, but -- just like me -- he knew it was an illegitimate organization and needed to be disbanded. That wasn't going to happen, though ... so ... he'd doing what he's told until he can get away, like Jen and I did."

Frank told Allison about his female choices, too, then finished, "I know how to get us back into Greenburg. I'll go in alone, but once I'm inside, I can make contact with those people you like. I can get in and get out in just a few hours, maybe less."

He looked toward the playpen, then to Allison. With a sincere tone, Frank asked, "If something were to go wrong ... if I wasn't able to get out again ... you'd take care of Little Bit ... right?"

"Okay, first, let me tell you about Greenburg," Frank began.

Allison knew of Greenburg, of course. For years, the McGees had purchases feed and seed from the Mom-n-Pop location there, as well as selling cattle, pigs, and goats to a slaughterhouse there. She'd known of the grocery distribution center, too, though they'd never been patrons of the stores it served.

The McGees had kept up on community events during the first months of the pandemic via television, radio, and the internet. Greenburg had suffered like all communities, small and large, but after the television and internet news ceased and the radio service became little more than a repeated national broadcast, news of what was happening in Greenburg and other, larger cities near the Montana/Wyoming border ceased.

Allison hadn't heard any of what Frank was telling her now, but to be truthful, none of it surprised her. She'd watched her share of post-apocalyptic movies at the end of workdays or during the winter when her days were typically shorter.

Frank talked about the militia and about how it was anything but benevolent. She mused, "Getting out of there was probably the best."

He talked about the people he's most like to see join the team at the McGee ranch. Allison had to admit that it would be good to have a nutrition-knowledgeable doctor around, particularly with a baby present. She knew absolutely nothing about childhood illnesses. Another handyman would be welcome, too. She wasn't that keen on having a foreign fighter join them, but she trusted Frank's opinion about the man.

The women he spoke of piqued Allison's interest as well. Candice Keen had been a nurse before going into teaching. Frank said the woman had six degrees, making her what he called the smartest person he'd ever met.

Priscilla Parker had been an All-Star high school athlete before joining the US Navy with the goal of becoming one of the Service's first female graduates of the SEAL program. An injury -- unrelated to her Navy service -- ended that dream, though. She was in a San Diego Naval Medical Hospital undergoing rehabilitation when the pandemic got bad, and while she should have reported to her station for duty, she instead borrowed a car and drove home to Billings to be with her family. When I-55 took the last of them, she went out looking for resources and, unfortunately, found the Greenburg Militia.

The last suggestion was the most interesting to Allison. Hanna Breed had come from a farming and ranching family and, from Frank's description, sounded like a younger copy of Allison herself. She'd convinced the Militia to put in a huge garden and to begin collecting stock animals from all about the area. Her hope was that Greenburg could eventually feed itself without having to raid homes and communities in the adjacent area.

"I know how to get us back into Greenburg," Frank said.

"You just got out of there, and almost died trying," Allison reminding him with a laugh. She then recalled specifically what Frank said and asked, "We?"

"I'll go in alone," he clarified, "but once I'm inside, I can make contact with those people you like."

She hadn't had enough time to make a decision on any of them yet. How does one choose strangers to come live with them during a pandemic?

"I can get in and get out in just a few hours, maybe less," Frank reassured her. "If something were to go wrong ... if I wasn't able to get out again ... you'd take care of Little Bit ... right?"

Allison hadn't considered that yet, either. She followed Frank's glance toward the infant. If something were to happen to the man, if he wasn't to return, how the hell would she continue to care for the property and care for a baby?

"Tell me more about how you would get back in and get back out again," Allison requested, adding, "keeping in mind that last time you got chased across the countryside and ended up in a shootout and crashed in a ditch, where you only survived because I killed the men chasing you."

They spent more than an hour going over Frank's plan. He'd been thinking the strategy over for a while, and had weighed the dangers enough to present Allison with a plan that sounded feasible. When they were finished going over the operation, she reminded Frank, "I still haven't decided on whether we're doing this or not yet. And if I decide not to, I hope you'll honor my decision. It is, after all, my place and my decision."

It was getting late, and Allison still had her evening patrol to finish. She went inside to prepare, then found herself deciding to blow the tour off this one night. Instead of going downhill toward the highway, Allison headed up the slight rise on which the estate sat until she reached one of her favorite places on the property. Some relative long ago had carved a bench seat out of a gigantic fallen tree.

Allison sat there and watched the red sky in the west slowly go black. The stars filled the sky, presenting a magical look most people didn't get to see because of urban light pollution. She sat there a couple of hours, thinking about Frank's proposal. Allison had never had to be brave about things, and taking this leap required major bravery.

Eventually, she headed back down to the house, and finding Frank in the living room playing with Robert, Allison told him with a firm tone, "Okay. Let's do this. I approve of all of your people ... except maybe the Ukranian. Tell me more about what he has to offer."

They talked about Victor some more, after which Allison said, "Fine. He can come, too." She considered the list a moment more, then added, "If there are others you think should come ... you have my permission. But keep in mind something important. Robert will be living here with you ... with me ... with the others. Anyone you bring here poses a threat to the health and life of that little boy. Use your common sense."

They chatted a bit more before they set about feeding the dogs, securing the property, and closing up the house again. Robert was dead to the world and was put down in the crib without complications. When Frank turned away from the boy, Allison was standing close to him ... intimately close.

"I don't want to imagine that you might not come back again," she said softly, moving closer to Frank. She reached out a hand to his chest, caressing it softly as she informed him, "I haven't been with a man in a long time. If you thought you'd want to be with me..."

Frank spoke more about his plan, giving greater detail. In the end, Allison told him she was still unsure. As they were putting Robert down for the night, though, she told him the plan was a go. She asked more about Victor, to which Frank successfully argued his inclusion. Then, Allison stepped close to Frank, telling him, "I haven't been with a man in a long time. If you thought you'd want to be with me..."

Frank didn't have to think about whether he'd want to be with Allison; he'd decided the answer to that question was a most definite yes clear back when she'd first asked if he wanted to stay on. He'd chastised himself for thinking about fucking Allison barely 24 hours after his partner of several months had been shot to death. But Frank had saw no reason why he couldn't continue to mourn for Jennifer after he'd fucked Allison. It wasn't as if he was cheating on her.

"I want to be with you, Allison," he whispered in response, moving closer to press his lips to hers while his hands found her hips. The kiss was soft but erotic, the tips of their tongues dancing with one another. When they disengaged, Frank whispered, "I need to shower. Care to join me?"

"I want to be with you, Allison," Frank whispered, embracing and kissing her before inviting her to shower with him.

Smiling wide with delight, she answered, "Love to."



Rolling off Frank to stare at her bedroom's ceiling, Allison laughed with absolute joy. She hadn't had such great sex in years, if ever. Her bared breasts rose and fell with deep breaths, the light of nearby candles glistening off her sweat-drenched skin. She turned her head to look at Frank, growling, "Oh my god..."

Allison rolled out of her bed and turned to stare down upon him before saying, "I need water. You need water? You need water."

She spun and padded across the cold hardwood floor, her shapely, bare, pear-shaped ass swaying with each step. Again, before leaving the room, she called out, "OH my God!"

When she returned with two tall glasses of cold water from the fridge, she handed one off and sat on the mattress on her knees over Frank. She was all smiles, reaching out to caress his chest and belly, both of them as sweaty as her own.

"That was magnificent, Frank," she purred. "Thank you."

Frank watched Allison rise from the bed and head for the exit. She was a beautiful woman, shapely and strong, unlike the more petite Jennifer with whom he'd been gettin' nasty for the last many months. Allison's life here had given her an energy that she'd put into making love to Frank, and her isolation and loneliness had given her a drive that had led to multiple orgasms for each of them.

Simply put, they'd fucked each other's brains out for over an hour, until each of them were covered in sweat and desperately in need of the water she was currently chasing down.

When she returned to the bed and handed him a tall glass, Allison told him, "That was magnificent, Frank. Thank you."

"Thank you?" he laughed. He gulped at his water, then responded, "It's been a long time since a woman thanked me for sex. I kinda like that."

He laughed, finished the glass, set it aside, and took a moment to ogle her womanly features. He returned the compliment with, "You're an amazing woman, Allison. I'm happy I met you. Very happy."

Frank had a quick recollection of having said those same words to Jennifer not long after they'd met. It hadn't been after or about sex, though. He had had some time to discover who and what she was, a loving woman willing to take in someone else's child and raise it as her own, a woman desperate to regain a sense of the pre-pandemic life that I-55 had taken from her and from so many others.

Jennifer had been a good woman, and Frank was sorrowful that she'd passed, particularly in such a violent way and, more tragically, because she'd put her faith in him and joined his flight from Greenburg without the proper protections. Frank had gotten Jennifer killed; he accepted that. It was that that was behind him wanting to get the others away from that town and the militia that ran it.

There was a crack of thunder off in the distance that caused Frank to flinch, then chuckle in embarrassment. He rose to his haunches and one outstretched hand, reached for Allison's head to pull their mouths together for a kiss, then told her, "I want to check that out."

Rising naked as his new lover also had, Frank went to the window and pulled the drapes aside. A moment later, a flash of lightning lit up the sky in the far east. It took several seconds for the soft rumble of the thunder to reach them. He mused, more to himself than to Allison, "That might help."

Frank looked back to his new housemate, again taking in her beauty. He wanted nothing more than to return to her and resume fucking her, but a thought had gotten into his brain and he couldn't get it out. Looking back out the window after catching another flash out of the corner of his eye, he counted the seconds before the thunder reached him.

He was no meteorologist, of course, but he'd learned a few things over the course of his life, and one of them had been how to calculate the distance to the heart of a storm based on the time between the flash of the lightning and the rumble of the associated thunder.

"I need to go now," he said, turning and heading around the end of the bed and then sitting on it next to Allison. He kissed her again, passionately, then explained, "There's a chance that that storm is going to be over the top of Greenburg tonight. A chance. I can't be certain. But if it is, it will help hide what I'm trying to do. I need to go. Right now."

They had already settled on a plan to get the others away from Greenburg, but they'd set a date for 11 days from now when there was a New Moon and Frank wouldn't be lit up by the moon's reflection of light down upon him. This was better, he told Allison; the storm would block out the moon and the thunder would cover the sounds of the work he had to perform.

"I have to go now," he repeated after they discussed it some more. Frank kissed Allison, pulling the bedding up to wrap it around her now-gooseflesh covered body. "I'll be back. I promise." He pulled her body to his, kissing her erotically again as his hands caressed her under the sheet. "If you think I'm going to risk never having another night like this..."



Less than an hour later, Frank was ready to leave. He'd dressed in the darkest colored clothes that Grampa had had to offer and even darkened his face and the backs of his hands using the last vestiges of shoe polish from a can that Allison told him was probably more than forty years old.

He'd come up with his plan after discovering an old 125cc dirt bike under a cover out in one of the outbuildings the day before. Allison had told him they kept it for when the younger relatives visited, taking it up and down the driveway or sometimes to a local dirt bike track. No one had used it in almost two years, and yet after Frank spent a couple of hours doing some routine maintenance on it and filling the tank, it fired up and roared after just one kick on the starter.

"It's Saturday night," he told Allison as they prepared a backpack for him in the kitchen. "Believe it or not, things haven't changed a lot in Greenburg when it comes to the days of the week. The citizenry still works harder than they should have to Monday to Saturday, Saturday nights are for partying and getting drunk, and Sunday is a day of rest.

"The Militia's patrols are at their lowest Saturday nights," Frank reassured her, "and even the one's on duty will be drinking and will have ... company if you know what I mean. This is what you and I were planning, a Saturday night mission. Only thing that's changed is I gotta go now."

The farewell wasn't easy after the night they'd just had together, but Frank knew it was the right thing to do and he hoped that Allison knew it, too. Returning to the outbuilding, he topped the tank off, donned the backpack, slipped Allison's shotgun down into a makeshift scabbard he'd mounted to the bike's frame, and pulled her close for one more long, passionate kiss.

"I gotta go," he whispered to her. One more kiss, and he kicked the bike into first. Before he shot it off into the night, he promised with the well-known and often repeated Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, "I'll be back."

And he was gone.

"It's been a long time since a woman thanked me for sex," Frank told Allison. "I kinda like that."

"I find that hard to believe," she laughed, clarifying, "Not that you like that, but that a woman hasn't complimented on what you do between the sheets ... above the sheets ... atop the dresser."

She laughed again about how adventurous they'd been over the last hour or so. Frank laughed, too, telling her, "You're an amazing woman, Allison. I'm happy I met you. Very happy."

"Me, too," she said, taking and squeezing his hand. "Me, too."

There was a crack of thunder, and Frank flinched. Allison did, too, but not because of the thunder. She'd seen the lightning through the drapes and had been expecting the soft rumble; it was Frank's reaction that had startled Allison, causing her to giggle.

"I want to check that out," Frank said, standing and crossing to the window.

Just as he'd found joy in ogling Allison's body, she now looked his over with admiration. He was a solidly built man, created by a life of hard work and healthy care of himself. It was easy to understand how he'd had the energy for their love making session.

She heard him mumble, "That might help."

"What's that?" she asked. Frank didn't seem to hear her. She watched him with curiosity.

Then he turned and headed back to her, saying, "I need to go now."

"Now?" Allison asked with surprise. "It's not time. We talked about this."

Frank talked about the storm being over Greenburg and about how it would help him penetrate the militia's defenses. Allison didn't like this spur of the moment decision making. She and her family had been planners; nearly everything that took place on the estate had been scheduled on a series of wall calendar for years, decades even.

But she understood what Frank meant about the storm and reluctantly agreed that the time was right. They dressed, packed a bag with food, flashlights, and shells for the shotgun, and headed out to the shed where Grampa's bike had been gathering dust until Frank found it yesterday.

"I'm still not sure about this," she once again said about his choice of transportation. "No one's ridden this thing for more than ten or fifteen minutes in years."

But the dirt bike fired up on a single kick, and after one last embrace, Allison watched as Frank disappeared into the night. She listened to the sound of the motorcycle's unmuffled tailpipe until it vanished into the night. Allison was left with just the sound of the distant thunder and the more closely located cry of an owl that had been haunting the property for years.

Back inside, Allison went directly to Robert's crib, finding him still soundly asleep. She changed into a comfy pair of flannel pajamas and returned to her bed, only to lay there staring at the ceiling as the flame of a candle danced upon it.

Too wired to sleep, Allison eventually rose, donned a warm robe, and went out to the front porch to watch the storm. Frank's optimism had won out, she realized soon enough; the storm was indeed moving in a southerly direction, right toward Greenburg. By the time he got there, she surmised, he'd been right in the midst of lightly, thunder, and possibly rain showers. It would be miserable for him, but it might just keep him safe from detection and enable him to succeed in his mission.

Eventually, Allison felt her eyelids getting heavy. She returned to check Robert, then laid down. She was asleep in no time.

Frank used the motorcycle's headlight for most of the trek toward Greenburg. He didn't expect any patrols farther out from the town than maybe a couple of miles, and on a Saturday night there might not be any at all.

Having been part of the Militia's perimeter patrol and scavenging teams, he was familiar with what would be ahead of him, regardless of the day of the week. When he was just two miles from Greenburg's outskirts, he turned off the headlight and slowed his speed to match the danger of running into or over something. He began idling the bike's motor to quiet the noise, then wrenching back on the accelerator when the storm's rumbling exploded across the landscape, increasing his speed to propel him further. Then, it was only a matter of repeating the procedure with the next roll of thunder.

When he was just under half a mile from the town's westside highway blockade, Frank pulled off the road and hid the bike behind an abandoned car. From there, he'd approach on foot along the shoulder. His path moved deeper into the cover of the scattered shrubbery the closer he got to the blockade.

Frank paused once he sighted the guard post. Once upon a time, it had been the security shack for the distribution center, but after the Militia took over the town and set up check points around Greenburg, they'd moved it here. He looked for evidence of an active watch, and neither seeing nor hearing anything, not even a lantern or candle, he approached slowly until he was close enough to see inside the window.

He nearly cracked up laughing at what he saw, one of the guards on his knees sucking the cock of the other. Frank would have expected the pair to have one of the town's reluctant whores out here servicing them, but then most people knew what they liked and who was he to say what that was.

Frank crept around the little shack toward the door. He scanned the area between the post and the town as he listened to the man in the chair moaning in pleasure. He could have left the two to their fun and headed townward, but Frank knew that if he succeeded in his mission, he and the others would be coming back this way again.

He didn't want complications if the alarm had been raised in Greenburg. So as he listened to the man being serviced grunt out in ecstasy, Frank threw the door open, grabbed the kneeling man hair, pulled his head back, and slit his throat with a butcher knife he'd secreted away from Allison's kitchen. Flipping the blade in his hand as the orgasming man's eyes opened in horror, he stabbed the second guard in the chest. The blade slipped between ribs and cut into the man's heart. He was dead almost immediately.

Frank backed away, leaving the knife where it had sunk. He'd been splashed with blood and took a moment to clean it off his hands, arms, and chest. He took them men's guns and extra ammo and, knowing there was no time to waste, hurried down the road toward the small city.

Just a quarter mile from the first houses, Frank left the road and descended to the bank of the Muddy River. This time of the year, particularly after the region's sixth year of drought, the river was little more than a trickle, at the most three feet wide in some places. Using a flashlight Allison had provided him, Frank picked a path that eventually took him to a storm drainpipe that jutted out from a high point in the bank. It was covered with a locked grate. He knew about the grate because one of his duties as a newbie was coming down to the drain occasionally, unlock the grate, and clear away the debris -- natural and otherwise -- that accumulated there and blocked the flow.

This was where the storm came in. The rains had only just begun, so the flow wasn't at its peak quite yet. It was the thunder that had drawn Frank's interest. Taking out another tool he'd taken from the ranch, a 12-pound sledgehammer, he waited for a flash of lightning, then counted the seconds until the boom of the thunder.

Waiting a full minute for the next flash, Frank raised the hammer, counting, then brought it down just as the rumble swept over him. The strike bent the fuck out of the gate's latching mechanism but neither destroyed the weld nor broke the lock. He waited for the next flash, again counted, then brought the hammer down a second time. This time the weld gave way, and with the bent but still functioning lock in position, the gate swung open.

Frank tossed the hammer aside and retrieved the shotgun from the bank. He headed up the drainpipe, this time using both the flashlight in his left hand and the headlamp wrapped around his skull and sending a beam forward from his forehead.

He didn't actually know the path he needed to take, but he knew the general layout of the streets and homes above. After several minutes of making turns this way and that, he stopped below a storm drain grate that he hoped was near to his destination. Frank slung the shotgun and climbed the access ladder, stopping to peek out of the grate as best he could.

Seeing and hearing nothing of concern, he rose higher, pressed his back to the grate, and used all of his strength to push it up out of its frame. Once it had moved, he paused, looked and listened, then moved it some more. He was eventually able to poke his head out, and again he neither saw nor heard anything of concern.

Frank smiled when he realized that he was less than two blocks from his first destination. Rising out of the storm drain, he headed close to the nearest house, then through the lawns and hedges and occasionally over a short fence until he was squatting outside the window of his first female rescuee.

Priscilla Parker emerged from her home's bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, barely hiding her generous womanly features. She was dabbing a second, smaller towel at her wet hair when she flinched at the tapping on her bedroom window. A face practically pressed to the glass initially freaked her out, only to then panic her for reasons other than being spied upon while almost naked.

She hurried to the bedroom door, looking down the hallway, then -- seeing the coast clear -- rushed to the window and opened it, immediately asking in a soft growl, "What the fuck are you doing here, Frank. They're looking for you."

He told Priscilla what she needed to know at this very moment, leading to her standing tall and asking in a shocked tone, "Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Frank reassured her that he wasn't, offering her some more details. A man's voice from a distant room caused her yet another freak out, and lifting a finger to Frank in a wait gesture, she hurried to the open bedroom door and called, "I'll be right there. I'm just putting on something sexy for you."

Returning to the window, Priscilla told Frank the obvious, that she had a male guest -- he knew who it would be, of course -- and then demanded more details. He shared and she contemplated, and the decision was an easy one to make.

"Keep outta sight so that he doesn't see you," she said, before slamming the window down again. She hurried across the room, dropped her towel without caring whether or not Frank was still looking through the glass, and slipped into a sleeping tee shirt. Again, responding to the man's call from another room, she hollered, "Coming! Almost done."

Then, pausing to look back at the window one last time before returning to her dresser, Priscilla opened the bottom drawer, dug down under some heavy, warm clothes, and pulled out an unsheathed and ominous looking hunting knife. She glanced one more time toward the window before heading toward the bedroom door with the knife behind her back.

She returned less than a minute later. The tee, her hands, and her face were fouled with blood. She headed straight for the window, opened it wide, and growled, "Get the fuck in here and tell me what the fuck is going through that whacked out brain of yours."

As Frank entered and talked, Priscilla headed for the bathroom yet again. Without closing the door and, again, not caring whether or not her second male guest of the evening was getting an eyeful, she stripped out of the bloodied clothes, cleaned up, emerged naked, and this time dressed in warm clothes suitable for sneaking around Greenburg in the dark. Once dressed, she began filling a backpack with things she thought she might need: extra clothes, the still bloody knife (though she did wipe it off), and some girly things from her bathroom.

"This is crazy, you know," she responded when she was finally ready to go. Yet, she smiled and said, "I'm in ...however ... I have someone who has to go with us or I'm not going."

Priscilla didn't give Frank an option to discuss her additions to the list of escapees, instead heading for the bedroom door as she said, "We can use the back."

As they emerged from the hallway into the living room, Frank would get his first look at Priscilla's handywork. Her male guest, the man who'd been forcing her to suck and fuck him in exchange for a choice position in the Construction Brigade, lay back on the couch with his throat cut open down to the bone.

Priscilla killed lights as she went -- her house was one of only a couple of dozen that the Militia allowed to have electricity 24/7 -- and by the time they reached the backdoor, they were standing in near darkness. She cracked the door, looked and listened, then asked, "I probably don't have to tell you to be quiet, right?"

She headed out, down the steps and concrete path to the back gate, and out into the alley that ran the length of the block to the last house on it. Circling around to the back door, Priscilla knocked lightly a couple of times before a light came on inside. The face of a woman in her teens or early 20s appeared, and after she'd determined that the person at the door was a friend, she hurried to it and opened it, asking, "What's wrong, Pris?"

Priscilla pushed her way in, gesturing Frank to follow as she said, "Beverly, this is Frank. He's a friend. Frank, Bev." To the other woman she said, "Go get Connor. Pack a bag, a backpack, something easy to carry a long ways, and be quick about it. We're getting out of here."

Beverly looked absolutely lost, and it took a minute of conversation between the two women before Priscilla had convinced the other female of the safety and sanity of what they were doing. As they were talking, Connor entered the kitchen and asked what was going on. Priscilla repeated what was necessary to get things rolling, then ushered them both toward the hallway that led to their bedrooms.

Five minutes later, the three of them were back in the kitchen again. Priscilla looked to Frank, demanding, "Explain precisely how to get to that storm drain cover you were telling me about." To Beverly and Connor, she said, "Listen close. Go where he tells you, go down the drain, and stay at the bottom. We'll be there in an hour or so, maybe more, maybe less. But you stay there. If we don't get back to you before sunrise, something went wrong. You sneak back here again and pretend this never happened, understand?"

Beverly began to ask, "But whaddaya mean if--"

"Do you understand?" Priscilla cut her off. "If we don't get back to you by sunrise, something went wrong, and I don't want the two of you being punished for something that wasn't your idea in the first place ... got it?"

Beverly nodded, and Connor verbally agreed. Priscilla looked to Frank again and repeated, "Explain to them how to get to the storm drain. They'll be fine on their own while we go get the others."

Frank's eye widened at the sight of Priscilla dropping her towel and exposing her naked form. He'd always suspected she had a fantastic body; she'd been an athlete and wanna-be Navy SEAL, and even today, years later, she still exercised every day. As she slipped into a long tee shirt, Frank realized that Pris and Allison had very similar forms, both created through a life of hard work, even if those forms of work -- ranching and athletics -- were very much different from one another.

If he thought he'd been surprised by Pris exposing herself, Frank was even more so shocked when she first headed out of the room packing a big knife, then returned less than a minute later with it and herself covered in blood. Frank had never considered whether or not Pris had the ability to kill a man, let alone stabbing him in cold blood. Why the fuck would he every have contemplated that? Now, though, he knew.

She ordered him into her bedroom before once again gettin' neked to clean herself up. Frank explained more of the details, including how he'd used the storm drain and how he had 5 more people on his list of rescuees.

Pris accepted the offer of rescue but only before adding, "I have someone who has to go with us or I'm not going."

Frank was about to argue that they needed to keep this operation small, but then he remembered what Allison had said about bringing more people who he thought were appropriately suitable. Before he could argue one way or the other, though, they were heading out of the house and down the alley.

They ended up at and then inside a house on the corner, where Pris introduced Beverly and Connor. Frank knew they both by sight and Connor by name, though he wouldn't say he was very familiar with either of them. After some conversation and more orders from the woman currently calling the shots, the pair were packing backpacks as Pris had.

"Explain precisely how to get to that storm drain cover you were telling me about," she ordered Frank, telling Beverly and Connor to pay attention. She explained what happened if she and Frank didn't reach them before sunlight, explaining, "I don't want the two of you being punished for something that wasn't your idea in the first place ... got it?"

Frank saw that it was his turn and described the route back to and around Pris's house, then down the block to the open storm drain. (He didn't want the pair going through Pris's house because of the guy's whose blood was now staining everything near him corpse.) Frank handed them one of his flashlights, only to learn that Connor had scrounged up two of their own while packing.

"Like Pris said," he warned, "stay hid, stay quiet ... and if we don't reach you, I've failed and you need to get back here."

Frank intentionally put the potential for failure on him, not him and Pris. This was his plan, and if it crapped out on them and got them caught or killed, only he was to blame. He moved to the kitchen's backdoor and told them, "Get going, and stay quiet. Check for patrols before you move out into the open."

The pair headed out, and Frank looked to Pris. "I'd planned on going to Candy King's place next, but our little detour puts us closer to Doc Cooper's place, so..."

They headed out the back but in the opposite direction that Bev and Cooper had taken. As Frank had suspected, there were virtually no patrols out tonight; they traveled three blocks and only saw one pair of men strolling down the middle of one street, laughing and joking while sucking on a bottle of moonshine made right here in Greenburg.

They arrived at the back of Howard Cooper's place. Pre-pandemic it had been one of the town's two clinics. Today it was the only remaining one and was Doc Cooper's residence as well. Frank tested the door know and found it unlocked. Looking to Pris, he said, "He never locked it. Who's going to hurt the town's only doctor, right? No one's going to steal his drugs either. The Militia makes its own crack and sugar-heroine."

He was pretty sure Pris knew all about the locally produced, poppy-free version of heroine that had hit the streets about a year before the pandemic. It had become the rage amongst heroine addicts because of it cheaper cost and led to a new drug war between the local producers/distributors and the traditional distributors of heroine imported from overseas.

Quietly, Frank entered the back hallway of the clinic, creeping along slowly and listening for movement and voices. It was almost midnight by now and there shouldn't have been any patients in the clinic, but emergencies did happen, and when they did, those who'd suffered in them ended up here, sometimes overnight.

Frank had just reached the end of the hallway when a woman suddenly appeared from around the corner. She stopped short, eyes and mouth open wide, and was just in the process of screaming when Frank surged forward to grasp her body with one hand and cover her mouth with the other.

He thought he had things under control until she kneed him solidly in the crotch. Emitting an oof of pain but still maintaining control of the woman, he let his greater weight and position take them both down to the floor, where he groaned for a long moment before another male voice asked harshly, "Frank King, what the fuck are you doing to my wife?"

Unable to form words, Frank removed his hand from around the woman's body and gestured wait with a raised finger. By the time he was able to speak, the situation had already been explained to the Doc. Frank released his hold on the woman and rolled to his side in a semi-fetal position. He moaned, "Sorry ... didn't mean to scare anyone."

It didn't take anything at all to get Howard to agree to leave Greensburg. He had been very vocal about the Militia being selective about who got medical care, even finding himself needing stitches over his left eye after an altercation with a Militiaman who'd hit him with the butt of his gun.

He was reluctant to leave all of these people without a doctor, but he knew they'd find another one; he'd heard rumors about a pending trade of National Guard gear to the Denver Militia in exchange for this, that, and the other thing, and knowing that Denver -- now with a population of over 6,000 -- had at least a half dozen doctors, he knew that his flight from Greenburg would force the Militia to trade for a new doctor as well or instead.

Howard's wife -- who apparently had also been subject of a recent Militia trade -- was more than happy to throw together a bag. The Doc put the other pair to work filling bags with antibiotics, pain killers, flu medicines, anti-virals, and more, while he did the same with medical equipment. Frank warned that they couldn't carry the entire clinic away, but Howard was insistent that they take the items he'd picked out.

When they were ready to leave, all four of them had their hands full. They backtracked, first to Bev's house, then to Pris's. Sneaking through the dark to the storm drain, Frank called down and got a response from Cooper. He told the younger man, "We're sending someone down and lowering bags to you. Do you best not to drop them."

Doc's wife descended the later, followed by Doc who stopped in the middle to act as middle man for the passing of the bags to the bottom of the pipe. When they were done, Frank told Pris, "You don't have to go with me. You can stay here. I'll be back with the others."

OOC for any readers we might have. KingOfNowhere and I have been having a lot of fun with this roleplay, but I presented him with another story and he jumped at it, so we are going to switch over to it ... just as soon as I can again find the image around which the story is based. Sorry if this disappoints anyone.