Allison2016

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Allison smiled at Frank's appreciation for the meal. Cooking for herself alone these days, she didn't often go to this extent and effort. It wasn't about rationing, particularly with the fall harvest. There was plenty of food in the pantry and root cellar, as well as a lot of meat on the hoof running about the property.

When she asked him about staying a while, Frank told Allison that he not only accepted but would earn his keep. She chuckled, telling him, "Well, there's plenty of work. Some of the crops have been rotting on the vine or limb. If you could help me with that, that would be wonderful."

The well-trained Australian Shepherds had been sitting in their pen watching the humans eat, the yearning to leave the enclosure evident in how their bodies were practically trembling. Allison stood, scraped the leftovers fairly evenly onto three plates, and set them out a couple feet from one another on the ground. Looking to the dogs, she said sharply, "Eat!"

In a flash, the dogs shot out of the pen, each of them to one of the plates. It only took seconds for them to devour what Allison and Frank had taken twenty minutes or so to enjoy. She told her new companion, "I have chores to do, but first we need to tend to your needs. Come with me."

Allison led Frank to the home's backdoor and Mud Room. She indicated a man's robe hanging on a wall peg, telling him, "You can wear this after you shower. Strip. Down to your birthday suit."

She smiled at his reaction, then pushed a door open to reveal a small bathroom. "You can shower in here. Head to toe suds. I know you think you're immune, as am I, but that doesn't mean you're not carrying one of the variants that can live for weeks without a host. There's a garbage bag. Put your clothes in it and we'll burn them out in the yard."

She looked to Robert, who was grabbing at Frank's face and collar with nimble fingers. "I don't have clothes for the little one, but we'll figure something out. I'm sure there's something we can fashion to work."

Pushing open another door, this one showing the kitchen beyond, Allison said, "When you're done, come in here. I'm prepping vegies for canning. We'll find you something to wear. You look to be about Grampa's size. He passed away before the pandemic, so his clothes are still in his closet."

Allison felt a wave of emotion sweep over her suddenly. The cause was obvious. Losing Gramma had been hard on her. She had been a unique individual. One of her quirks had been her refusal to discard any of her long-deceased husband's possessions, even his clothes. The clothes that had belonged to family members who stayed her during the pandemic had been burned, of course, which left only Grampa's wardrobe to serve Frank.

"Okay, so..." she said, stepping backwards into the kitchen. "You're going to want to hurry. The hot water heater isn't that big. When you're done, if you want, there's a pack of disposal razors if you want to shave." She gave little Robert a last look and smile, then turned to leave Frank to take care of business."

"The Last Plague" (closed)

"Are you shitting me?" Frank exclaimed when Allison directed him into the dog pen.

"I'm sorry," she responded with a sincere but serious tone. "I don't want to do this to you and, in particular, to your child. But..."

Frank complied, though, even closing the gate behind him himself. Allison stepped up to the pen as he reiterated about the supplies she'd promised and added some more. When he asked if the two of them would be in the pen overnight, Allison hesitated before saying, "Yes. But I'll make you very comfortable. Tomorrow ... well, tomorrow we'll figure this all out, I promise."

Allison locked the pen's door, told Frank she'd returned shortly, and headed away without looking back. She went into the house to gather what she'd promised and more, putting the items together on the home's front porch. When she was done with that, she headed for the garage, dragged a small two wheeled trailer over to an electric vehicle. It looked like an oversized golf cart with a small cargo area where a normal golf cart's back seat and bag carriers should have been.

Transferring all of what she'd gathered to the trailer, she drove back to the pen, parked, flipped down the trailer's tripod stand to give it a third leg (the other two being the tires, of course), and unhooked the trailer. Unlocking the trailer from the cart and then unlocking the pen, Allison stepped back and told Frank, "This is for you. I think it'll make the night comfortable."

In addition to what they'd already talked about, there was a heavy duty plastic tarp that was large enough to fully cover the doghouse and keep any draft out; extra blankets, sheets, and two pillows; a thick foam pad that had served as one of her relative's mattresses before dying from I-55; a second small propane heater with one-use tanks; and some battery operated lanterns that, like the golf cart, were recharged as necessary by the solar panels attached to the home's roof.

"If you use the propane heater to heat the house, you have to let some fresh air in," Allison warned. "Carbon monoxide. You probably know that."

After Frank had moved all of this and more into the pen, Allison locked him inside again, mounted the cart, and headed off down the driveway without another word. She felt horrible about locking an infant inside a dog cage -- Frank, too -- but what was she supposed to do? If she hadn't seen the child in the now-dead woman's arms in the first place, she might have let the gunfight play out without intervention.

Night had come earlier, yet Allison made the trip to and into the woods without the cart's headlights. She knew the driveway and the property around it like the back of her hand and rarely had to use flashlights or lanterns to get around. At the far side of the woods, she stopped and simply listened for several minutes for anything that might seem out of the ordinary. The pickup truck had nearly burned out by now with only some of the interior's seat and three of the four melted tires still flickering with flames.

Allison wondered what to do about the 5 dead men laying in various locations about their former vehicle. She knew the bodies should be burned, but she wasn't eager to handle them all, even while dressed in protective gear. She could leave them where they were for the animals and bugs. There were plenty of now-feral dogs and other natural scavengers in this area, from insects and rodents to Turkey Vultures and Bald Eagles.

She finally chose pushing them off into the ditch on the far side of the road. She was initially concerned with the bodies fouling the water in the ditch and possibly causing disease, but she knew that that wouldn't affect the farm which was on a slightly higher elevation than the land south of the property.

She donned her protective gear -- it had begun life as dress for slaughtering animals -- and crossed the ditch on her side of the road. One after another, Allison dragged or rolled the dead men off the road and down the embankment. She'd considered searching them for things of value -- not money or gold or whatnot, but papers with information or maps and such. She decided instead not to spend that additional time in proximity to them.

Done with that, she checked Frank's car for anything more that he might have taken earlier had he been able to carry it. There wasn't much. Allison found a stuffed animal in the backseat, a raggedy old giraffe, that surely belonged to little Robert. She gathered it up and dropped it into one of the large plastic garbage bags she'd brought with her, along with some baby clothes and other items she found inside the car or in its trunk.

Next came dealing with Jennifer. The woman was small in stature, and Allison found lifting and carrying her to the cart easier than she'd expected. The phrase dead weight came to mind as she handled the woman's corpse. Allison laid her on one edge of a bed sheet spread across the ground, rolled her up inside it, and taped it securely clothes with duct tape at each end and in the middle. It wasn't the most respectful way to handle a body, but it was the best way she could muster on a dark, cold night.

Allison lifted Jennifer's body into the cart's tail end and drove back into the forest. She stopped to gather up Frank's hidden stash, then walked the well known trail to retrieve the backpack and weapons she'd left earlier. Back in the cart, she headed for the house and parked in the garage, closing the doors to keep night creatures away from the dead woman's corpse.

She considered returning to the pen to check on Frank but didn't. Allison didn't want to face questions about the man's lost companion right now. As the night had been passing by, the shock of what had happened this night was beginning to give way to emotions about it, and by the time Allison was in the Mud Room stripping out of her protective gear and dressing down further for a hot, soapy bath, she was trembling deep to her core.

Once in the hot, steaming water, she began crying. She'd killed people tonight. She'd locked an infant inside a dog pen. And she'd taken in a strange man who, for all she knew, would take the first opportunity to rape and kill her before taking over her ancestral home, as well as its valuable resources.

Allison eventually made her way to her bed, laid down beneath layers of warm blankets, and passed out in no time at all...

...................

She awoke before her alarm went off, not an unusual occurrence. Immediately recalling the previous night's happenings and the guests outside, Allison hopped up, dressed quickly, and headed for the front door to look out upon the dog pens. She saw nothing that concerned her and turned back to the kitchen to prepare a breakfast for both her and her guests.

Twenty minutes later, she delivered a platter of food to an old picnic table a couple of dozen yards from the dog pen: bacon, link sausages, scrambled eggs, goat milk, and some of Frank's own horded coffee, which she'd taken from one of the bags he'd left in the woods the night before.

"I'm sorry again about leaving you out here last night," Allison told him as she was unlocking the cage. "It was regrettable but, I think, necessary. How's Robert? Stayed warm I hope?"

She opened the door, told Frank of the breakfast on the nearby table, then updated him, "Jennifer's body is in the garage. We have a family plot ... cemetery, out back a bit. She's very welcome there."

The closest Allison had gotten to Robert thus far was when she sat across from him at the picnic table. She indicated a bottle of warm milk and some pureed offerings for Robert: peas, pumpkin, blueberries. "I don't really know much about what infants eat. I was the oldest of the McGee grandchildren, but I don't honestly remember a lot of the detail stuff from when they were little like your Robert. I mostly remember tag and hide and go seek and fishing and working on the ranch. You know, older stuff."

She went quiet, nibbling at food she'd filled her own plate with while Frank ate more energetically on the other side of the table. Allison wondered when his last good meal was. She knew, or at least suspected, that things were tough out there in the world these days.

The United States had been one of the world's largest food producing nations prior to the pandemic, able to feed its people with ease; it exported 20% of what it produced, helping to feed the world beyond its borders as well. There were children in American who went to bed hungry at night, of course, but that was less about the country's ability to feed them and more about corporate greed and governmental failure.

But with the collapse of society, food production crashed, and despite there being so few people to feed anymore -- the estimate was that I-55 had already killed well over 90% of the US population and was still killing more -- people were still starving to death. There was no commercial food production anymore, and what had been out there in warehouses and stores had all been pillaged by now. Some individuals and communities of Immunes were producing their own food, much like Allison and her family had been doing for the past many months, but they were constantly under pressure from armed bandits and organized militias that stole their food for themselves.

When they were finished eating, Allison told Frank, "I have a room in the house for you and Robert."

She paused for his reaction, then explained with a serious tone, "I've been alone here for a while. Two months, actually. I, um ... I don't do well alone. My family and I were very close. My grandmother raised me here amongst cousins and aunts and uncles who were always dropping in for dinner and overnights or weekends and vacations. I think I already told you this, about being raised here while my folks worked overseas, didn't I?"

Allison contemplated how she wanted to continue. She went on, "I don't know you, Frank. But ... seeing you with Robert ... seeing your concern for Jennifer ... they both tell me that I can trust you. If you want, you can stay here a while: a night, a couple ... more. I think it's too early for us to be talking about you staying long term, but ... for now..."

She ended there, unsure of what else she should say. For all she knew, Frank wanted only to find another vehicle and take off for whatever destination he and Jennifer had had in mind. But honestly, Allison yearned for company, companionship even. She would be lying to herself if she hadn't considered the fact that she was a woman, Frank was a man, and -- with Jennifer now deceased -- he was without a mate, just as she had been for almost three years.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank observed, "I imagine the number of head is based upon how many the land will serve?"

"Yeah, that's right," Allison answered. "We used to have more of just about everything, but with being unable to purchase feed for the stock and, of course, the food that we didn't raise for ourselves here, we began slaughtering at a faster pace."

She gestured toward a small building, saying, "We converted one of the equipment buildings into a smoke house, so that we could slaughter, slice, and jerk carcasses. We were afraid we'd lose electricity from the grid to the walk-in freezer -- which we eventually did -- so we dried everything we didn't eat fresh."

When the Stooges rose from the shadows and ran toward them in the dimming, early evening light, Allison smiled with delight. She loved those dogs and knowing that they wouldn't harm someone in her company, she anticipated that Frank would like them, too. His expression and body language told a different story, though.

After a moment, he looked to her and admitted, "Scared the shit out of me. He interacted with them, though, speaking to them, "Good dogs, nice dogs."

After the dogs had taken a moment to shuffle and dance around him, Allison ordered them back to their pen, which was more often than not unlocked and open. She told him with an apologetic tone, "Sorry. I forget sometimes that some people don't like dogs, particularly when they come at them as a pack in the dark."

They spoke about Jennifer again, after which Allison pointed off past the big maple tree and said, "We're going that way."

They passed the pen where the dogs were laying down and neared another one, this one open and looking as though it had never been used; there weren't shavings on the ground for dog shit, and the dog house inside looked brand new, except for a layer of leaves on and around it.

"Inside," she told Frank, gesturing the pistol she'd continued to hold toward the open door. When he looked between her and the pen and back, she explained, "I'm going to go out and collect Jennifer and bring her back here for a property burial. In the meantime, though--"

She again waggled the Beretta toward the pen, then let it hang at her side.. She finished, "--I need to know that you're safe and secure ... and since I don't have a castle with a dungeon or a Sheriff's substation with a jail cell ... this is it. Don't worry, I'll bring you some blankets, food, and water. And a camp stove so you can heat up some of that water for formula for the baby."

She stared expectantly at Frank, hoping that he wasn't going to put up a fuss about this. It would be a shame, after all, to have gone what they'd gone through thus far only to have her shoot him dead now.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

"So ... where we're going," Frank asked as they continued forward through the forested portion of the estate. "It's your pre-pandemic home ... or did you just sort of occupy it?"

Allison didn't answer, at least not right away. She was overwhelmed at the moment, uncertain of what she was doing as well as whether what she was doing was good for her in either the short or long term.

First, there were the deaths that had just occurred back there on the highway. During her life, Allison had seen dead people before: three of her four grandparents who'd died of natural causes and, even more tragically, two close friends who'd died of drug overdoses; and via the television -- when there still was television -- hundreds if not thousands of people she didn't know who'd succumb to the ravages of I-55.

But until today, she'd never with her own eyes seen anyone murdered via violence. And more staggering, of course, was the fact that she herself had done the killing. Adding to the confusion overwhelming her, Allison couldn't believe how easy it had been to do. She'd killed 5 men, shot them dead. Pointed her rifle -- and later her pistol -- and pulled the trigger without hesitation or regret.

She was sure that it had been the right thing to do, an act to save lives by taking them.

Second, of course, was what was walking through the woods in front of her. Allison had been alone for months, and now she was inviting a stranger onto her property, into her home. She didn't know anything about this man, other than he claimed to be an immune and had been fleeing the men who she'd just killed. For all she knew, his pursuers had been chasing him with good reason. Frank could be a murderer, a serial killer even; maybe he was the I-55 version of Typhoid Mary.

As she watched him walking before her, Allison wondered whether she should simply shoot him here and now. She could don her protective gear and drag him out to the road to be burned with the other bodies. Hell, she'd already killed 5 men. What was one more.

But, and this was third, what about the baby? What about Little Robert, as Frank had called the child. Allison wasn't the maternal type. Oh, she'd had many nieces and nephews with whom she's spent time pre-pandemic, and many of them had considered her their favorite aunt because she fawned over them when they visited. But at the end of the day, they'd all gone home with their parents, leaving Allison without responsibility regarding them.

If she killed Frank now, shot him in the back and burned his corpse, what was she supposed to do with Robert? It wasn't something she was interested in figuring out. So, for now, the only course of action that made sense was to leave the job of caring for the kid to the man who'd been doing so already.

"It's my family's property," Allison found herself finally answering as they emerged from the trees and looked out over more of the estate. "It belonged to my grandparents."

She hesitated. She wasn't sure she should be telling all this to a stranger. But at the same time, Allison couldn't see the harm. Plus, it had been so long since she'd talked to someone, anyone.

"My grandmother's great-grandfather first settled here in 1901," she continued. "It was all timber then, not like it is today."

Allison found herself scanning the property and imagining what it would have looked like back then. It had begun as a 600-acre allotment, but after some forced sales to the State through imminent domain so that the Power Company could run a high-tension power line, as well as a sale decades later to deal with the hardships of a failing US economy, the estate had been reduced to its current size of just over 300 acres.

They'd just emerged from through the forest that surrounded the entire property and were walking through pasture. To their right was a small flock of sheep; to their right were a dozen head of cattle. As they continued up the drive, Frank would see fenced off pastures containing meat goats to one side and milk goats to the other. When they got close enough to the house, he'd begin seeing free range chickens, ducks, and geese.

The last animals he'd catch sight of were Moe, Larry, and Shemp, the Australian Shepherds that had belonged to Allison's grandmother. There had been another one originally, named Curly, of course, but he had died defending the stock animals from a mountain lion.

Allison had been the one to find Curly bleeding out, after she put a .30-06 bullet through the puma's chest cavity from almost three hundred yards. Her grandmother had been so proud of the shot and of Curly's bravery that she'd had both of them stuffed and displayed. They still stood in one corner of the country home's library, posed as if in battle with each other. Allison had thought it creepy at first, but she'd come to appreciate it later once she'd gotten past the trauma of losing one of her canine friends.

"I grew up here," she said after they'd walked a bit farther. "My parents traveled a lot. Dad was a doctor, mom was a nurse. They worked with Doctors Without Borders off and on for most of my life." An emotionally drawn breath caused her to go silent a moment before she continued, "They isolated here when the pandemic erupted, with me and gramma and some other relatives. But they were already infected. We think they're the ones who brought I-55 into the house. We're not sure. Dad thought so anyway. He blamed himself, even if the others said he was being silly."

Allison had made it a personal policy not to think on that subject. Who brought the virus into the house wasn't important. What was important was that because of I-55, she was the last remaining member of her family. Fault was of no concern.

She thought back to what Frank had said about his own experience with the virus. His symptoms and survival told her that his immunity was likely very strong. Because of her parents' medical background, she'd been better educated and informed regarding pandemics, including not just this one but the lesser but still deadly COVID-19 before it.

She understood that Frank's symptoms, movement from one city to another -- each sometimes with its own local variants -- and survival meant that he was likely even more strongly immune than even she was. And the baby, well, that was simply amazing. Through the still-continuing radio reports, Allison had learned that less than 1 in 1000 children under the age of 4 had survived the pandemic, and the survival of newborns was even worse than that. Baby Robert was practically a miracle.

Allison's mind went to the woman lying in the ditch behind them. She felt bad about leaving Frank's mate there like that. But they couldn't have taken the time to bury her, and Allison hadn't been about to handle the woman's dead body without protective gear. She was leery about just walking with Frank and the child, let alone making physical contact with his dead woman.

"We'll go back and take care of Jennifer properly," she said, asking, "Jennifer, right?" After Frank responded, she added, "We're not going to leave her like that. I promise."

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Allison always-sensitive stomach turned a bit at the sight of the blood on the man's hand and arm. He told her softly, "She's already dead."

She couldn't help but wonder if it was her fault the other woman was dead, that she'd acted too late. Looking toward the burning truck and corpses surrounding it, though, Allison was sure she'd done all she could in a timely manner considering what she'd known at the time. She looked toward the infant laying on the ground wrapped up in a coat.

"Is she okay ... he ... whatever?" she asked with a less stern voice than she'd used before.

The man answered, and Allison felt relieved. Then he asked, "So ... what's next?"

She looked in the direction of the man's pursuers again, then told him, "Stay where you are while I check the other guys. I mean it. Don't move."

She waited for him to indicate that he understood and accepted the order, then headed down her side of the ditch until she was directly across from the burning wreck. There was no movement amongst the men. She descended into the ditch, climbed to the road, and slowly circled the scene. She maintained her distance, pressing a mask she'd pulled from a pocket to cover her mouth and nose. The dead could still pose an infection risk, even if they were immune.

Allison found one of the men still breathing and conscious. By the singe marks, he was one of the two men caught in the explosion. She stared down at him a long moment, contemplating the reason he and the others had been chasing the trio. She understood the value and importance of Immunes, of course; they were the future of the human race. But she couldn't abide the idea of Immunes being forced into being part of the rebuilding of society.

She lifted the pistol and popped off one shot into the lone survivor's chest. He gasped a few times, then went silent and still. Allison headed back to the car in the ditch, looking to ensure that the man there was where she'd left him. She stopped before getting to near him.

"You're Immunes?" she asked, needing to her it from his mouth as he looked her in the eye. She waited for his answer, then asked, "You've been infected then? That's how you know for certain. It isn't that you just haven't caught it, right?"

Again, she waited for his response. She studied him a moment before saying, "My name is Allison. Allison McGee." She didn't actually ask him for his name but assumed that he would offer it. Looking to his wreck of a car, she said, "Gather what you need, and let's get out of here."

She waggled her pistol toward the driveway, which was only twenty yards or so from the site. The bridge had been destroyed early in the pandemic to keep people out, and although the weeds had begun growing up through the no-longer-maintained gravel, the drive was still more obvious than not.

"We're heading that way," she told him. "You lead, I'll follow. Until I know you a little bit better, maintain at least 20 feet distance from me, more if your upwind in a breeze."

"The Last Plague" (closed)

"The Last Plague"

CLOSED

Eastern Montana, Thanksgiving Day, 2029: Allison McGee stood in the dining room of her now-deceased grandmother's home staring at an empty table. Last year, there were 12 people sitting around this table, as well as 14 others -- mostly but not exclusively children -- at folding tables or in couches and armchairs in the adjoining room. Next to the annual summer family reunion, Turkey Day had traditionally been the largest gathering of McGees for all of the 26 year old's life.

The virus that would come to be identified as Influenza H5-N5 -- nicknamed "I-55" by the Press -- changed all of that, obviously. To the best of her knowledge, Allison was the only McGee who'd survived the pandemic. Her family wasn't the only one to suffer in this way, of course. I-55 had an unusually long infection period and high transmission rate, meaning that the infected not only passed the bug for months before realizing they were infected but also passed it to just about anyone with whom they were in close proximity via touch, exhalation, or fluid transfer.

In addition, the fatality rate was over 98%. Epidemiologists produced vaccine after vaccine after finally discovering I-55, none of which had an effective rate over 40% or was a long-term solution.

Within six months of the first announced cases, there were infections in every country across the globe, and within a year of that date, 98% of Earth's population was dead.

Allison and half a dozen of her family members had begun isolating here on the farm immediately after the first public announcement of I-55. This wasn't their first pandemic rodeo, of course; they'd lived through the COVID-19 pandemic of a decade earlier, so they'd understood the importance of keeping their distance from others.

Gramma McGee had been as close to a prepper as a normal person could be, so the country home had been fairly well stocked with just about everything the 7 of them required. No one left the farm for over 4 months, and the four times that someone tried to visit the property -- whether their intentions were honorable or nefarious -- they were met with semi-automatic rifle fire before and after a verbal warning to get back down the drive to the highway.

And yet, Allison was standing here all alone on this day that was for years a wonderful family affair. One by one, the others had fallen victim to the plague, apparently having been infected prior to the family's isolation. Allison had at one point shown signs of sickness, too, only to suffer through the symptoms and come out on the other side with a chronic cough and occasional night sweats.

She'd buried her younger cousin Gloria the first day of October, the last of the McGees to succumb to the virus. For almost two months, she'd been all alone here in the house that set in the middle of 110 acres of farmland surrounded on all four sides by forest that varied between 50 to 200 yards in depth.

Each morning before dawn, Allison gathered up Winchester rifle, Browning shotgun, Beretta 9mm, and backpack of ammunition, food, water, and emergency supplies and walked southwest down the quarter mile long driveway toward the woods and the highway beyond it. She always stopped short in the forested area to study the wooded area, the open area beyond it, and -- past a deep ditch that had once included a now-destroyed driveway bridge -- the two-lane road beyond that.

Allison never left the woods, fearful that just as she was looking for others through her rifle scope and binoculars, others who might know of the ranch beyond the woods might be doing the same from their location. She would study the road for indications of automobile travel the night before, then study the horizon for changes that might have occurred in one of the four little towns and one big city that were between 6 and 11 miles from this very point.

Day after day, she thankfully nothing of concern. She would check that the gate was still locked and alarmed with a hidden screecher they'd installed months earlier, then would take a long walk down the trail through the woods that would take her around the entire perimeter of the 300+ acre property. Walking slowly and attentively, she looked for signs of life -- human life -- and, day after day, returned to the ranch house without having seen any at all.

Allison missed people often, of course. But knowing from the sole remaining Governmental radio broadcast on the radio that I-55 was still out there and still killing people, she was in no hurry to have some stranger step up on the home's porch and knock on the door, looking for room or board.

Once her tour was completed, Allison went to work. She picked the food that was ripe, processed it via canning, dehydrating, or hanging as was appropriate, and performed whatever other tasks needed completion. Gramma McGee had taught her how to do all these things from the time that Allison was a little girl. Still, working alone to harvest and process 36 different species or varieties of vegetables, melons, berries, tree nuts, and ground fruit, as well as milk the goats, collect the eggs, and on occasion slaughter and jerk one of the stock animals was an all day job.

Allison couldn't remember the last time she'd just sat down in a comfortable chair and relaxed for more time than it took to finish a mug of coffee -- which was about to run out -- or whatever meal was on a plate before her. She did nap each day, though, but that was mostly to enable her to repeat her perimeter tour as soon as the sun dropped.

Tonight would be no different, of course, holiday or no holiday. Allison gathered up her weapons and pack; the latter was in case she ran into trouble and got stuck out in the woods for the night or, God forbid, a day or more. She headed out the back door as usual, using the drainage ditch to access the draw that ran parallel to the main drive all the way to the woods.

The evening tour was conducted counterclockwise, opposite to the morning one. The southern property line ran much farther along the curving road, meaning she spent more time near it. Tonight, to her shock, that would actually mean something.

Allison had just turned north away from highway and toward the slowly rising property when she heard what she knew was the sound of a fast moving vehicle. Crouching, she snuck through the trees to a point which gave her a clear line of sight to the road. She unslung her long guns and checked them, as well as the pistol, to ensure they were ready for use, then waited as the vehicle neared.

Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer when a small, older sedan came into view over the small hill to the east. She already had the scoped rifle laid out over a downed tree and now looked through the optics to get an idea of what was coming at her.

Almost immediately, Allison realized that the car wasn't alone, as a full-sized pickup truck was very close behind it. Her worst fears were playing out in her head, thoughts of a militia of a dozen armed and violent men coming to seize her place, steal her resources, and rape her to death.

When gunfire erupted, first from one weapon, then from one or two more, Allison's fear spiked and she dropped even more behind the log for cover. The gunfire continued as she hid, but after several seconds she realized that as it continued, the cars were passing by her position, as opposed to coming to a stop near her as she was so horrifically fearing.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a vehicle crash, followed almost immediately by the sound of screeching tires. Allison looked up to find the sedan tail end first in the ditch on her side of the highway about 80 yards to her right. The pickup was stopped in the middle of the road about thirty yards from the crash site, and men with long rifles were leaping out of all four of its doors and bed.

It didn't take a genius to understand that the truck's occupants had been in pursuit of the occupants of the sedan. As she watched, the former began riddling the latter with gunfire, punching holes through aluminum and blowing out windows. A hole through the radiator send a spray of steam out and up, and first one, then another front tire went instantly flat as bullets ripped through them.

As she watched, Allison couldn't help but wonder who the bad guys in this shootout were. There had to be good guys and bad guys, right? she wondered as the gunfire continued. Maybe both of them are bad guys?

Then, as if it wasn't already beating hard, her heart skipped a beat when she she saw a back door of the sedan open and woman slip out into to the ditch, holding a child in her arms! The driver, a male, came spilling out as well, doing his best to hide behind the front door as he popped shots off at his assailants with a small pistol.

Allison was quickly calculating the whole good guy-bad guy equation when one of the men at the truck hollered to his accomplices to cease fire. Once they had, he hollered toward the other vehicle, "All we want is the woman and the child! Give'em up, and we'll let you leave with all the stuff you stole from us."

Allison added the stole from us factor and wondered if maybe she'd made a mistake in her math. The man responded, "They're my family! My wife and child!"

"They're Immunes!" the man standing tall in the bed of the truck hollered back. "They're what we need to start over."

"You're not taking my wife and kid!" the man said, popping off another shot. Even from this distance, Allison could tell by the man's body language that he had just used his last bullet. He slid down into the ditch closer to the woman and child, huddling them down lower.

By now, Allison had reached her conclusion as to who was who and what needed to be done about it. She'd shot her rifle at people before but never with the intention of actually hitting someone. Surprisingly, though, she found aiming the Winchester .30-06 carefully at the man leading the bad guys and gently squeezing the trigger to be very easy. The gun kicked against her shoulder, and as she peeked over the scope, the found the man tipping away and falling out of the truck to thud on the pavement's centerline.

Allison was obviously outnumbered, so she didn't waste time waiting for a response. She simply picked another target, took and released a breath, and fired. Then again. By now, the remaining two men had deduced her general location and had fled to the other side of the pickup truck. Allison knew they had to be killed, too, but she wasn't about to expose herself in an effort to chase after them.

She simply remained behind the log for a long moment, looking for a solution. The man and woman -- and child, of course -- were of no use to her as they remained crouched down in the ditch. Then, she remembered a favorite scene from the Bruce Willis movie, The Jackal.

She relocated to a place much closer to the crash site, one that gave her a better view of the truck's underside. She popped off three shots before she managed to hit the gas tank. As fuel poured out onto the pavement, Allison fired twice more before flames erupted under the truck.

A moment later, the vehicle's gas tank exploded, sending both men back from it several feet. One appeared to be unconscious, but the second rose unsteadily and tried to run away down the highway. Allison aimed a last time and took her time putting a bullet through his back.

She set the rifle aside and pulled her pistol. (She'd left the shotgun and pack already, so she knew she'd be coming back for them later anyway.) Making her way to the tree line and revealing herself to the couple, Allison aimed the Beretta at them and told them with a stern voice, "Run away or move closer to me, and I'll kill all three of you, including the kid!"

"Revolution: Wilderness"

The door to the bathroom was opening even before Kimmie considered a response to Roger's request to enter. She was already in the antique, clawfoot bathtub, laying back immersed deep enough to hide her bosom. She could remember long, luxurious baths pre-Blackout, the water infused with soothing oils, bubbles floating on the surface, soft music in the background, and candles surrounding her in an otherwise unlit room. This was not that, though, with the one exception that this bathroom also lacked electric lights, replaced by a pair of scented candles lit by Roger's housekeeper as she prepared the room per his sudden orders earlier while Kimmie was at the Clinic.

"I see you've upgraded," she said, nodding her head toward the source of the hot water in which she now laid, a wood stove and hot water tank paired together via steel piping. Neither of the units were here the last time Kimmie had been. "Efficient."

Kimmie looked to the platter of food and drink Roger carried. Her stomach turned over at the recollection that she hadn't eaten since about midday the day before. Knowing he was doing this for her, Kimmie said softly, "Thank you."

She knew what he wanted to see and, wanting to get this over and done with as soon as possible gave it to him. Kimmie rose higher in the tub until her firm, B-cup breasts rose into view. She gave Roger a moment to appreciate the view, then asked, "Would you like to join me ... or ... should I finish up so that we can go to your bed?"

"Revolution: Wilderness"

"Have you eaten this morning, Miss Wright?"

Kimmie considered Roger's question a moment. She hated opening and, potentially, gratefully showing him any appreciation for anything. But it had been almost 16 hours since she'd put any food in her belly, and just the mention of food now made her stomach roll over anxiously. She was about to give Roger a blunt No as an answer, but he turned his attention back to the Doctor, making inquiries as to whether it wouldn't be better for Lizzie to remain in the clinic overnight.

Again, Kimmie's jaws clenched tightly in a combination of blood pressure-increasing emotions. Just as the Doctor did, she knew this was simply Roger's way of keeping her in town for the night. Kimmie had hoped to deliver the little girl to the clinic for treatment, drop her panties to pay for the potentially life-saving service, and then get the hell out of town, all just as quickly as possible.

That didn't happen, though. Before long, she was reluctantly taking Roger's hand as she exited the unstable vehicle. The man asked politely, "Shall we, Miss Wright ... Kimberly?"

She led the way up the walk to the house, stopping at the door to allow her host to open it. She hesitated before passing over the threshold, as if still deciding whether or not to enter the house at all. But, enter she did, feeling an anxious chill rush up her spine again.

Inside, you would never have known the Blackout had occurred if it weren't for two major changes to the home's interior. To Kimmie's left was the living room, to her right the dining room, and directly before her the stairs to the second floor and the hall to the kitchen. In none of these rooms did you see anything that had once used electricity, with the exception of some of the fixtures in the walls or ceiling, such as lights, sockets, and switches. None of these had a purpose anymore, of course, but removing them would have been a waste of time and, in some instances, would have resulted in holes in the walls or ceilings.

The other post-Blackout change was the lighting: oil lamps and candles abounded throughout the home. In addition to light, they offered the fireplace a bit of help in keeping the home warm, Kimmie imagined. She could just imagine the amount of firewood Roger had burned through this past winter to keep the place comfortable. She could just imagine how many trips his one-armed slave had made out to the wood pile, too.

As she had in the past, Kimmie thought to herself, I wonder where Sykes sleeps at night? The basement, all dank and dark and cold? She somehow doubted that Roger allowed the indentured servant to sleep in one of the actual bedrooms. She wouldn't know, though; Kimmie had only ever been in the home's living room, master bedroom, kitchen, and dining room before. Oh, and the bathroom, too.

"I'll get bathed,"

She headed almost immediately for the bathroom and its big bathtub. Kimmie wanted to get this done and over with, and Roger always had her bathe -- sometimes with his company, either near the tub or in it -- if he had gone to the bother of actually bringing her to his home for her payment. She shed her jacket, laying it over the back of the couch, and began unbuttoning her unflattering yet very utilitarian flannel shirt on the way to the bathroom off the hall.

"Revolution: Wilderness"

Location note

I was asked in PM by a random reader whether or not the Bentonville of our story is the one where you would find the home of Walmart. No, it isn't. All of the location names in our story are fictitious. In fact, I'm not even identifying which State we are in. We are on the east side of the Rockies if that helps.

Kimmie was conflicted about her feelings upon seeing Roger Hamilton at the entrance to Bentonville. The good news was that the Lieutenant or Captain or Major or whatever he called himself these days would, undoubtedly permit her access to the town and to its Doctor. The bad news was that it was to him that she would have to pay the price about which she and Laura had spoken.

Of course, there were worst men in this world for whom she could open her thighs, so, there was that at least.

"It's nice to see you again, Miss Wright," he greeted her as she pedaled around the line of people looking for entry into the trading town.

"Thank you," Kimmie said with a non-committal tone. Needing him to believe she felt the same way about him, she forced a smile and responded, "It's nice to see you as well."

"And how is the family...?

Kimmie cringed at the question, fearful of just what Roger might ask during the friendly conversation he was initiating. Although Roger had never asked and Kimmie had never offered, she was fairly certain that he understood that she was not only a lesbian but was Laura's lover. That didn't stop him from demanding to put his cock in her as payment for goods and services on her necessity-only visits to Bentonville, though. Sometimes she wondered if his excessive generosity at times wasn't based upon the misogynistic thrill he got from violating her body in that way.

Of course, maybe it wasn't misogyny. Maybe he didn't know and simply lusted for her?

"The twins growing up, becoming young adults...?" he continued.

"Yes." Kimmie responded simply. She knew Roger wanted Nicky for the Militia. She also knew she'd kill Roger before she'd ever let that happen. The Family had had a hard winter, and they were on the verge of starvation now as Spring was nearing. But Kimmie would rather quit eating or eat dirt and straw than to fill the cupboard with food bought from Nicky's pay as a Bentonville Militiaman.

"Your friend, Laura..." Roger began, hesitating.

Kimmie clenched her jaws, fearful of where Roger was taking the conversation. It was bad enough that she let him fuck her without the knowledge that she played for the other team. She couldn't even imagine the sexual tension between them if Roger was actually aware of her preference.

Of course, unknown to her, Roger was already fully aware of her relationship with Laura and had been since before the first time he'd found release deep inside her.

Still referring to Laura, Roger asked, "She's taking care of the little one I presume ... Lizzie, correct?"

Kimmie threw her leg over the trike's seat to put both feet on the ground, giving Roger a clear line of sight to the cart behind her mode of transport. Coincidentally, the 6-year-old moved about at that moment, pulling the blanket from her head and exposing herself to his view.

"Lizzie's sick, Major," Kimmie said, recalling what the US Army insignia on his jacket had meant when there had been a US Army. "May I take her to your--?"

She wasn't able to finish her question before Roger turned and whistled loudly to another militia member. A man with the inverted chevrons of what Kimmie thought were Sergeant insignia hurried over as his superior officer ordered, "Get Miss Wright and her girl to the Doctor ... now!"

Roger looked to Kimmie again and handed her a pass. He asked her if she understood the ramifications of losing it, to which she smiled and answered simply, "Of course, Major."

He told her to go with the militiaman, finishing, "I'll come check on you shortly."

Kimmie was tempted to respond, Really, that isn't necessary, I'll be fine. But she knew that there was still payment to be made for the Doctor's services and any potentially-rare medications that might be necessary. Instead she only said, "Thank you, Major."

At the clinic, Kimmie described the little girl's medical situation to the Doctor, adding at the end, "Please, whatever it takes to save my daughter."

Lizzie wasn't Kimmie's daughter -- not biologically anyway. Kimmie and Laura had liberated the then-2-year-old from the most heinous of individuals created by the aftermath of the Blackout, a slave trader. The entire story behind the child Kimmie and Laura would themselves name Elizabeth wasn't known, but the assumption was that she'd been taken from her mother by the slaver, either after the former had died or the latter had killed the woman.

Lizzie's addition had increased what came to be known as the Family to 9: 3 adult women (including Kimmie and Laura, of course), 2 adult men, Nicky, Carla, and another orphaned female Camper. At the time of the Blackout, Nicky and Carla -- whose parents had lived in Dallas -- had been at Outdoor School just 15 miles from their favorite Aunt Laura's house. (Laura had not only been a Camper during the summers of 4th, 5th, and 6th grades but she'd been a Counselor for 6 summers as well during high school and college.)

Kimmie had just moved into Laura's apartment a couple of months before the power died forever, and (when the extent of the Blackout became known) the pair of them had hurried to the Camp to get the twins. They'd returned to the apartment, only to leave again when the cities became battlegrounds over food, water, and other now limited and in many cases no-longer-produced resources.

They'd fled to the Rockies, back to the Summer Camp ironically. They'd found food and supplies there and thought they could live there for years if necessary. But after just a few months, the camp suffered the same fate as the cities had when a band of two dozen armed men and women (with children in tow as well) marched up the hill to the Camp with the intention of taking it for themselves.

Kimmie, Laura, Nicky, Carla, and the other 5 headed deeper into the Rockies to escape the cruelties of Man. That escape was short lived, though, when they came across a trio of heavily armed men with two dozen men, women, and children they had captured, bound, and gagged, presumably for the purpose of sale. Kimmie had been flabbergasted at just how quickly society was breaking down, as if it was some bad Hollywood post-apocalyptic movie.

As if enslaving these people wasn't already bad enough, one of the men took an infant out into woods and simply left it there to die or be eaten by wild animals or both. Laura had been the one to see the tragic act, later sneaking over to snatch up the baby and bring it to their own camp half a mile down a deer path. None of their group every learned of the fate of the other hostages which, presumably, had included the mother of the child as well.

And things only got worse. A week or so after discovering the baby they named Elizabeth, one of the males in the group raped the third adult female. A day after that, the second male stabbed to death the rapist. He'd apparently thought his chivalrous bravery might get him some thanks in a sexual sense, because he began pressuring the raped woman into a relationship with him. One night, unable to take what she was seeing anymore, Kimmie landed a heavy, solid tree limb over the man's head, knocking him unconscious.

"We're outta here, right now!" she'd told the others. Within minutes they were packed up and heading down the trail, leaving the man behind them. (No one would ever see him again, let alone learn whether or not Kimmie had killed him with the blow to his skull.)

Ironically, the raped woman (who it turned out had had serious mental problems for years) became unrealistically and rather insanely jealous of Kimmie in regard to the man who'd wanted her to be his woman. She began treating Kimmie harshly, accusing her of having ruined her life by killing her man. The harassment soon spread to Laura, then to the twins, and then even to Baby Lizzie, for whom many allowances had had to be made to find her appropriate food and shelter.

Once again, Kimmie turned to violence to solve the situation. Inviting the woman out to forage in the forest, Kimmie pushed her down a steep, forested drop. Although she didn't check on the woman, Kimmie was fairly sure the fall and the subsequent collisions with tree trunks, rocks, and downed logs had killed her. Kimmie didn't care. She was relieved, actually.

And once again, they were moving. Weeks later, they found the abandoned cabin in the woods. They'd been there since. Not long after having taken up resident, they'd gotten their first visit from Roger Hamilton and the Bentonville Militia. It was made clear to them that because the area was under the Militia's protection, they would be required to pay a tax.

Laura had told Kimmie after the Militia departed that they could just move again, but Kimmie didn't think they'd ever find a place any safer. So, they'd stayed, and they were coming up on their 6th year anniversary of being residents of the cabin.

Now, as she watched over the still unconscious and feverish Lizzie, Kimmie heard the doctor murmur in response to her last statement, "Whatever it takes, huh?"

Kimmie felt a chill run up her spine as gooseflesh exploded over her arms, neck, and even her legs. She knew what the Doctor was going to suggest: payment. Before he could, she held the plastic gambling token up before her, informing him, "I'm a guest of Major Hamilton."

That caused the Doctor's face to bind up in a disappointed expression. He turned away from his ogling of her hourglass figure and murmured again: "Your daughter will be fine. She's having a reaction to a tick bite is all. She needs rest and medication, which I'd be happy to furnish to a guest of the Major."

Kimmie detected the sarcastic and somewhat disappointed tone the horny doctor used but ignored it, saying only, "Thank you, Doctor."

"Revolution: Wilderness"

"Revolution: Wilderness"

Closed to KingOfNowhere and myself

Note to readers

This is a totally fresh reboot of a thread
that KingOfNowhere and I were in with a writer
who unfortunately had to quit RPG.
We love this story concept, though,
so we are continuing it together.
We hope you follow it and enjoy.

Kimberly Wright's day had begun just as most had for the past three years: she was up well before dawn and well before any of the others in the family; she stoked the fire and added fuel; she dressed warmly to collect water from the nearby creek, one bucket of which would be poured into the kettle dangling over the growing flames; she again left the cabin to milk the goat, collect the chicken eggs, and dig potatoes from the still mostly-frozen ground; and (her last act before the others began to rouse) started breakfast. Nothing new; nothing different.

One by one, the others in Kimmie's unusual family began slipping out of their beds, dressing, and making their ways either into the kitchen, out to the barn, or into the fields to perform their own morning chores. She told Nicolas and Carla as they headed for the door, "We need to get the rest of the potatoes out of the ground before it thaws, or they'd start rotting."

The 18-year-old male and female twins confirmed the order and headed out. Still in the kitchen, their 28-year-old aunt, Laura, pulled clothing down from a drying line that ran diagonally in one corner. She asked, "Are we going on a run today?"

"I don't think we have a choice," Kimmie answered with obvious reluctance. She looked to a nearby bed and to the 6-year-old child still sound asleep in it. Pressing the back of her hand to Elizabeth's forehead, Kimmie reported, "Lizzie's still burning up. We have to find some meds to get her fever under control."

"We still don't know what's wrong with her?" Laura asked as she distributed the relatively clean clothes to the beds of those they belonged to. Seeing Kimmie only shake her head, Laura asked, "If we don't know what's wrong with her, how we supposed to treat her?"

Kimmie looked to the woman with whom she had shared a bed since shortly after the Blackout. Over these 8 years together, they'd learned to practically read each other's thoughts. Laura knew what Kimmie's plan was, and she didn't like it. She offered, "We can try someone else, somewhere else."

"No, we can't," Kimmie contradicted her. "Our only choice is Bentonville. They have the only doctor for, what, a hundred miles?"

"The price..." Laura began without finishing the thought.

"I'm willing to pay it," Kimmie said. She saw her lover open her mouth to speak and cut her off: "No! I will pay it."

She went to the door and called the others back inside to eat, and the family sat down to a breakfast. It wasn't much in regard to either variety or quantity. They'd eaten everything else they had over the long, cold, hard winter, so breakfasts recently had been mostly the same: half a potato, 1 egg, a small glass of goat's milk, and a similar volume of apple sauce. Today Kimmie ate only the first and last of the items, giving her share to the children, of whom she considered not just Lizzie but Nicky and Carla, too.

"I'm going into Bentonville today," Kimmie told the twins as the family set about cleaning up the table and dishes. The expressions and reactions displayed the children's lack of enthusiasm for the idea. Nicky demanded that he be allowed to go, to do his part as the man of the house, but Kimmie shot down that idea, just as she always had before. "We'll be gone likely until close to dark. I'm taking Lizzie with me. She needs to see a doctor."

That led to an animated discussion on the topic. The twins were unfortunately well aware of how dangerous the nearby town could be. Although neither of them had ever asked, Kimmie suspected that one or both of them might also have been aware of the price Kimmie often paid for goods and/or services on her ventures to the Bentonville.

Eventually, Kimmie brought talk on the subject to an end and sent the twins off to finish digging up the potato crop. She dressed against the cold and armed herself with the sword she'd made from a piece of farm equipment. Other than her knife, it was her only weapon after having used the last of the ammunition to her revolver more than 2 years ago.

"Be careful," Laura whispered to her lover after giving her a soft but meaningful kiss. Laura had already bundled up Lizzie, and together the pair took the sick and still sleeping (or unconscious?) girl out to the cart attached to the backside of a Schwinn adult tricycle. The padded the wire frame trailer and added yet another thick blanket to both cushion and warm Lizzie. One last kiss from her life partner, and Laura said, "If you're not back before dark, I'm taking the children, the car, and the television, and leaving you."

They laughed together, hugged, and then parted as Kimmie pushed one of the bike's pedal down to begin the more than 6 mile ride to town and, hopeful, an end to the little girl's suffering.