LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series (28 page)

Slowly, I pull back a bit and then slide in once more, all the way in. She lets out a moan, followed by “Yes!” I pull back again and continue to have at her, listening to her as her fingers turn to claws running down my stomach. She clamps down on my right wrist and closes her eyes as I pick up the pace, rocking with her body. I can feel her hips twisting and shifting and it’s absolutely incredible. Harder and faster, I press deeper and deeper, listening to her frenzy of noise. Her back is beginning to arch again as I’m slamming into her. She’s screaming out and releases my wrist, running her hands through her hair as she moans, her body clinching down around my cock and milking me.

Again and again, I ram her harder and harder, not caring about whether it feels good for her or not. I go as far as I want to and I don’t care what it is she wants anymore. I grab her arm and pull her up to me. I want to kiss her. I want her to moan into my lips. She complies more than willingly, wrapping her right arm around my lower back and grabs onto my shoulder with her left hand, sinking her fingernails into my shoulder. Her eyes are still closed, almost as if she’s in some sort of sex-induced trance as I keep ramming her. Rubbing against my chest, her nipples are as hard as bolts and I press my lips to her, feeling her hungry gasps.

“More,” she whispers as I push into her again, unleashing a gasp and a moan. I kiss her again, feeling her breath as she moans. Her tongue dances with mine, caressing one another as I continue harder still. She screams loud and for the first time, I’m wondering if I’m hurting her. I nibble at her lips as she comes in close again, her hips swaying and meeting my thrusts hungrily.

Eventually, I can take no more. I keep my senses not to release inside of her. I gently lower her onto her back. Her eyes are still closed as I risk one last thrust before pulling out. There’s no way that I’m going to explode all over her, but she grabs my warm cock and holds it in place. I shiver and feel my whole body quake as I release all over her stomach. There’s not an ounce of fat on her body and I look at her abs and feel her still stroking my cock, even after I am spent. There’s so much. It has been so long.

She sits up and runs her free hand over her stomach and smiles at me. “You fucker,” she leans closer and gives me a kiss that is so passionate and so full of fire that I’m afraid that she’s going to cause me to melt. “You can do all that and you just now decide to show me?” She shakes her head before kissing me again, her warm hands cupping my face. Her lips are soft and her tongue is warm. I like it. I want more of it. I don’t want to go back to the world. I don’t want to face the reality of this world that we’re stuck in. I want to stay here with her for a while longer. She looks into my eyes and I know that she’s seen my thoughts wandering through my eyes. “I was afraid that you were going to make me do all the work back there in the shower,” Lindsay gives me a flirtatious smile.

“You’re pretty damn irresistible,” I confess.

“Good.” She leans close and whispers into my ear, “because so are you.”

I reach up and feel her breast again. “Did you go all the way?” I ask her, worried that I was too wrapped up in myself to care.

“Oh I went all the way and then some,” she grins happily. “You have one satisfied customer here, Charlie.”

“Good,” I allow myself to laugh, to enjoy this moment.

“You’ve got half an hour, old man.” She lays back on the counter. “Then I’m fucking your brains out for the rest of the night.”

As promised, after I return to my shower and back to her, she pounces on me and I don’t protest. This time she takes control and although it is still carnal and driven by primal desire, she gives herself to me in a more sensual and caring way that sets my head to spinning. After, we both pass out, waking up again when the sun is shining through the door and after some caressing I can’t help myself and bend her over the counter once more and fuck her, interrupting her attempt to dress. I pull her hair and listen to her moan. I’m looking for limits, thresholds that can’t be crossed with Lindsay, but I don’t think she has one. She’s addicted to sex, I think. She tells me that there’s no point being prudish about it, that the world has ended. Her philosophy is to have fun while the world slips into oblivion. I can’t say that I disapprove.

The Ohio River is a vast, dark green snake that slithers across the world and I wonder just how it might have looked before everything around it died. The Norse believed that the entire world was circled by a great serpent, slithering like this one before me. I could see that. There’s plenty that is strange in this world, so why not a giant snake?

The banks of the river have started to heavily erode the rootless world that had once constricted and confined it. I had never seen the Ohio River before now. I have read about it in history books and pieces of American literature that I’d perused over my years of being a college professor, but I had never actually gotten to see it before now. It feels like a shame really, because this disgusting, polluted thing before me is not beautiful, it is not majestic, and it certainly is not something that I would ever want to see again. In fact, I find myself saddened at the sight of it.

All along the banks of the river, garbage and corpses have been left to decay. Cars and buildings have collapsed along the banks into the great swell of flowing water, and the remains endure. The rear ends of cars stick up along the banks, the front end of them completely consumed by the water. There is a house nearby that has collapsed into the river with the earth around it. Half of it remains, but the roof and the other half have been dragged into the depths. I wonder how long the river will erode the sides of the banks until it’s nothing but a wide puddle, slowly making its way toward the Mississippi. I thank God that we won’t have to cross that.

But this river is another story. We have to cross it. Rather than back tracking all the way to Cincinnati, I have taken Lindsay on a two day journey to the town just down the road. I don’t know if the little three-way intersection has a name, but it’s the largest bridge I could find on the map. I stare across the river, a flow of death and destruction, to where Kentucky is waiting for us. I’m eager to put Ohio behind me. It has been a state of horrors and agony. I’m ready to be farther down the road, closer to the girls and closer to the end. I look at the river and try to imagine how much farther I have to go, but then I decide that it’s best not to worry myself too much about it. It’s a long way to Florida. We need a car.

“Do you think there will be more of them by the bridge?” Lindsay steps closer to me, touching my arm gently, lovingly.

We can see the suspension and metal towers of the bridge toward the east. I’m afraid that every other bridge we might come across will have been wiped off the map by the year of erosion. The small town of Aberdeen just south of the bridge would no doubt have people in it. It’s small and barely a dot on the map, but it’s by the only bridge east of Cincinnati that crosses the Ohio. Enormous bridges are all that will be left and only for a little while longer. It’s hard to imagine what future generations will make of the great towers sitting in the center of the river. But soon, that’s all that will be left once the shores erode.

“No doubt,” I say, moving onward. Her arm lingers on my own for a moment longer before it slips free and I feel a wave of relief over me.

Two days ago, I fucked Lindsay and it was an incredible experience. I fucked her three times before we left the improvement store we’d taken shelter in for the night. It had been the single greatest experience in the past year and a half, since the world began to slip into the anarchy that now held it prisoner. There were few things that I had cherished more than that release and the sight of her naked body was one to absolutely relish and savor, but the moment we marched out into the scorched world, I felt nothing but a massive surge of guilt and disgust over what I had done.

Every time I look at her, I see how young she is, how close to the same age of my daughters she is. Had I met Tiffany sooner or slipped up just once in my life, then Lindsay could easily be my daughter. I could easily be her father. Maybe not in the sense of her physical father, but she would be young enough to be my daughter. The difference in age is enough to make my skin crawl and I can’t help but feel like I used her. I used a young woman to get what I wanted and I had loved the whole act, all through to the end when we lay together naked, my arms wrapped around her, holding her close, feeling every breath of hers. I had savored it like a wolf on a fresh kill. There was something savage and primal about using her for my own gratification that made me feel like a monster. I hate myself for using her like that. She deserves better.

The truth is, I don’t love her. I love Tiffany and I always will. She had been the light of my life and because I am so certain that she was and is the one for me, there is no way that I could ever love Lindsay. To me, intimacy on an emotional level is forbidden, gone. It’s not a possibility for anyone. The moment I watched them lower my wife’s body into the ground, that part of my heart and mind died with her. I don’t love Lindsay. I want to be able to love her, but it’s not possible and I know it as a solid fact. I simply used her, even if she had made it abundantly clear that it was also what she wanted. Just like any transaction, there is someone who always makes a profit. No one is ever equal when there is a deal struck, and I got the better deal, without a question.

Even if I turn around right now and tell Lindsay that I don’t love her and that I never will, I fear that she wouldn’t believe me. She would see me as some sort of romantic problem to solve in this apocalyptic landscape. People look for hope in the wrong places and I know that she is looking at me as a possible future for her. I’m afraid of that future with her. I’m afraid of what will happen when we reach Florida. I don’t know what her place will be in that world and I don’t think she has even thought that far ahead. I’m not going to settle down with her, at least I don’t think I will. Maybe. Maybe the desire for a companion will be enough to make me find some sort of place for her in my heart, something deeper than wanton lust.

“Are you okay?” Lindsay asks, walking side by side with me. She has, ever since we left the improvement store. Last night, she cuddled up next to me and wrapped her arms around me before falling asleep peacefully. I think she knows that everything is not well with me. I can feel her sensing that there’s a problem.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just worried about what’s up ahead.”

“You think there will be trouble?” she asks.

“There aren’t many bridges left across the river,” I answer. “Big bridges like these are only going to last a little while longer. They’re the last chance for everyone like us to make it south. Or north.”

Aberdeen has been burnt to the ground, but from the ashes, a society seems to have taken form, or at least did for a while. Someone has built what looks like a watchtower overlooking the onramp to the bridge. We stick to the ruined and exhausted cars on the interstate, and as we approach, I’m worried that there might be a scope trained on us. Beyond the watchtower, there are dozens of tents lined up in rows with a makeshift fence wrapped around it. The overpass acts as a sort of causeway for whoever had been watching over the gate. But someone has rammed through the gate and left the camp open for those who wish to come and go as they please. Lindsay hands me the binoculars I stole from her in the first place and lets me get a look for myself.

There’s no one in the watchtower and there are no signs of life in the camp. It’s abandoned and it looks like it’s been that way for a while. I search for any sign that we might not be alone. We’re still too far away for me to get an accurate view of the place. Fear and paranoia swirl in my mind. Where are the people who set up camp here? Why did they leave?

“I don’t like this,” Lindsay mutters softly. She pulls her bow out and plucks an arrow just in case.

“It’s the perfect spot to set up a trap,” I nod in agreement.

“What do we do?” Lindsay turns and looks at me.

“What would you do in Dayton if you knew there was a trap set up and waiting for travelers?” I ask her, genuinely wondering what her strategy would be for that. I’m out of ideas. I don’t want to lose my last hand.

“Watch them for a while,” Lindsay shrugs. “Find a weakness and start picking them off.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.” I shake my head.

“So then let’s go have a look,” Lindsay shakes her head and starts walking.

I follow after her with my machete ready. If we’re going to die, this seems like a good place for us to meet that end. But, when I think about the bear trap that took my hand in Blanchester, that town hadn’t been remarkable, or dangerous looking. That was the closest call I have had yet, and when I think about it, it wasn’t a good place to die. It wasn’t violent or worthy of a death. It had just been a place with a psychotic loner who really wanted to teach me a lesson.

The overpass is empty. I suspect snipers hide in wait, but there are none. We walk through the buckled gates and when I wait for armed murderers to hop out from behind the shadows, I am disappointed again. Instead, we are met with the mundane emptiness of an abandoned camp. Whatever happened looked to be violent and anticipated. There are dead bodies strewn all across the underpass, leaning against the sloped concrete borders, chips in the asphalt where bullets have left their mark. I do not find a single gun, but most of the dried out corpses that remain are filled with holes. At the heart of the camp, there is a heap of bodies that were lit on fire and burned. I wonder if this camp was full of helpless refugees like I’m inclined to assume. There is a whisper in the back of my mind that warrants my attention. What if they weren’t helpless refugees? What if they were a camp of cannibals, feeding on those moving along the river and someone grew tired of them? I decide not to judge them as we turn and make the steep climb to the overpass where there are dozens more bodies.

They are strewn across the road, many of them flattened by vehicles that have since made the journey across the bridge. There are several who are leaning against the concrete barricades with bullet holes in their stomachs. Their flesh has turned a nasty, dirty gray and they all remind me of mummies. One thing that comforts me is that there are only a few that have been chewed or gnawed upon. Most of them are still exactly where they fell.

“We should loot the camp,” Lindsay suggests.

“Why bother?” I shake my head. “Flattened corpses. Others have passed through here since this happened. They would have already taken everything.”

“You don’t know that,” Lindsay spits back.

A crack ripples across the air and we both immediately abandon the argument and hunker down behind an old sedan. I listen for the impact in the surrounding area, a bullet pelting metal, or the asphalt, or the concrete. There is no register around us, but it doesn’t belay my concern. Soon there are a series of random cracks, gunshots echoing across the river. There is a loud, metallic smash, followed by another bang. More gunshots echo over us and Lindsay gives me a nudge.

“Someone’s trying to cross the river,” she hisses.

Someone’s trying to head north? I scoot to the edge of the car and peek my head around the bumper. There are dozens of abandoned cars along the bridge, but at the far end of the bridge, I see a sand-colored pickup truck slamming into a van, shoving it aside in its attempt to keep moving along the bridge. There is a person in the back of the truck with a rifle, firing to the north. I don’t like the look of it. Whatever is chasing them is certainly heading our way. I turn back to Lindsay and try to figure out what to do next.

“They’re heading this way,” Lindsay reminds me, checking for herself.

“I know,” I answer, very aware of the development.

There are more gunshots and I can hear voices now, shouts that are filled with panic and the kind of anger that comes with desperation. The truck is revving its engine and spins out before plowing into another vehicle, pushing it aside before putting the vehicle in reverse and making its way deeper onto the bridge. There’s another shout for the driver to hurry it up before more gunshots fill the air. “Who has that much ammo left?” Lindsay hisses at me.

“Not the kind of people we want to be around,” I answer.

I pull myself up and start working my way forward, despite the protests of Lindsay. I have no clue what my plan is, but I know that the moment they come down to the camp, they’re going to stop and try to loot the place, just like Lindsay wanted to. Whatever or whoever is following them will be hot on their tails and I don’t want to be here when that happens. I duck down behind a semi-truck that was abandoned strategically to provide the overpass defenders with some cover. It’s mangled and riddled with bullet holes from the wrong side. Someone was using it for target practice.

Lindsay doesn’t follow me, which I’m relieved by. If I get spotted, or shot at, she might have a chance to escape. I hear another crash and chance a look. The pickup is squeezing through two other pickups, barely making it through as the doors scream against its brothers. The man in the back of the truck is reloading, with his attention fully given to the north. I risk another rush and make it to the back of a minivan on the opposite side of the road. Suddenly, there is a ton of gunfire chasing after me, peppering the street as flecks of asphalt fill the air.

“Shit,” I hiss.

“We got a guy up ahead,” I hear someone clearly shout before the loud clanking of bullets hitting the minivan fills the air. Windows shatter and a rain of glittering glass cascades all around me as I look back toward where Lindsay is hiding.

“I don’t fucking care!” another voice shouts. “Get us the fuck out of here!”