Amidst the Madness - How Love Finds A Way

[SortOfBeautiful]

Sarah may not have been extremely muscular, but it was a little discouraging to her to know that she couldn't fight off the middle-aged Cowell's as they dragged her threw the alley. She assumed that they were trying to get her to their car, wherever the hell it may have been parked, but as much as she squirmed and kicked, she just couldn't break free from their tight grasps. Mary was grasping on to her arm so tightly that it began to hurt, and Steve Cowell had one arm around her waist and the other gripping on to her other arm.

"You're hurting me!" She exclaimed, not sure how they weren't unaware of their own strength in their moment of panic, or moment of insanity, whatever the fuck this was.

What happened next all went so fast. Sarah could do nothing to intervene as Owen was suddenly at her defense, shoving the couple away from her as they stumbled back. Steve's pistol seemed to have come out of nowhere, and Sarah had no idea why the hell he was pointing it at Owen. He was not the bad guy, here!

"Hey!" She shouted, trying to make some fucking sense of all this before things turned even worse. Sarah gasped loudly and covered her mouth when Owen's fist made contact with Steve's face, knocking the older man to the ground roughly. She'd seen many men fight before with drunken punches in a bar, but that punch he fired wasn't because someone spilled a beer on him. There was a hint of possession his arrival to her side, and protection. And as soon as his arm grabbed her and pulled her next to him, not even a second went by where Sarah wrapped her arms around him immediately. She held on to that man tightly, hugging his side as she stared down at the Cowell's with wide, fearful eyes.

They both waited for answers. Owen, no doubt, was probably more confused and reeling with questions after what he had witnessed with the Messins couple. But Sarah was more concerned about the blood, and the fact that a family friend was trying to abduct her without explanation.

"You're not dead." Mary said to Owen, almost in surprise, and she looked down at her husband, then back at the couple again. "They're dead...they're dead." Mary kept repeating, and Sarah noticed that the older woman was shaking violently. God, she could hardly stand still as she sobbed and sniffled. Shamefully, Sarah was more annoyed than she was concerned. She didn't have the patience to try to understand or decipher what the hell this woman was rambling on about.

The sounds of screams were heard behind them back onto the main street, then a few horns, broken glass, and more screams. That horrific, frightening sound would forever be implanted in her head, and it made Sarah's heart race. And not in the good way, as it did when it pounded for Owen. Her arms loosened their grip around Owen but she didn't dare pull away from his arms in fear that the second she let go, she'd be out of his protection.

"We need to go!" Mary Cowell's voice was more clear, more demanding this time and less weepy. She seemed to be just as panicked as Sarah, and anxious to get the hell out of there. They all were, only Sarah and Owen didn't exactly know why.

"Everyone's gone mad. They--they ate Susie. Oh god, they ate my baby! And they won't die. They keep comin' back!"

If Sarah's heart was pounding in her chest before, it was seriously about to burst now. While none of Mrs. Cowell's words made any sense to her, she didn't like what she was implying. All of this had to be some kind of sick joke, some kind of misunderstanding...

But Ron Driver proved her wrong.

The second Mary saw that star athlete running their way, she was already moving toward her husband's gun on the ground. It was clear she was inexperienced as she held Steve's pistol and pointed it at Ron, and Sarah was quick to grab hold of Owen and tug him out of the way and behind Mary before she killed them all.

"Mary, don't! It's just Ron." Sarah tried to calm the woman, but stopped when she got a closer look at Ron's face. He was moving fast, but she could easily see in that shaded alleyway that he was covered in blood, some of which wasn't even his. His neck looked as if half of it was missing, barely holding his head upright on his neck. And then Mary figured out how to the fire the weapon.

The first shot...well, who knew where the hell that bullet hit, because it definitely hadn't reached it's target. The second bullet speared straight through Ron's shoulder. They all watched as his shoulder and arm jerked back, but it had only slowed him for a second. He was just too fast, and before another shot could be fired, that large football player tackled Mary.

The woman's screams matched those around them, and her hands came up defensively as she kicked and punched her attacker. Sarah's own screams chimed in when Ron's teeth sunk in to Mary's arm, and she practically stepped over the gun at her feet as she stumbled backward. Without even thinking, Sarah was holding that pistol out in front of her with trembling hands. As if just holding it would make Ron stop and come to his senses. But she couldn't do it, she couldn't shoot Ron Driver. It was only hours ago that she had seen him in the bar, and now here he was eating and attacking an innocent woman. Or at least, that was the best way she could describe it. Eating. All at once, half of what Mary had rambled on about was beginning to make some sense.

Sarah finally recognized that Owen was shouting over the girl's screams, calling Ron's name and trying to shove him off of Mary. But Ron's determination and fixation on the woman was far too strong as he just snapped at Owen, and he created the most inhumane, disturbing snarl that she'd ever heard.

As soon as Ron snapped another bite into Mary's forearm, Sarah's finger squeezed the trigger.

Her blue eyes had been squeezed shut as she held the trigger down, frozen in fear of what she had just done as she completely missed the sight of Ron's blood splattering on the brick wall of that alley, and his body fell back onto the ground with a loud thud. She hadn't seen it, but she'd heard it. And when the screams stopped, and all that was heard was Owen's heavy panting and Mary's sobs, Sarah reopened her eyes to the most repulsive, sickening, disturbing thing she'd ever seen. And she was a fucking nurse.

Ron's handsome, young face was no long recognizable with the blood pooling beneath his head. And that pistol in Sarah's shaking hands dropped on the ground again as if the weapon weighed too much for her to carry.

As that pretty blonde turned and bent at her waist, she leaned over in a moment of sickness while Steve was finally coming around and able to stand on his feet again to come to his wife's aid.

"We need to go." Mary repeated, holding her bloodied arm at her chest.

 

[Light Ice]

Madness.

It'd descended on them in a rush of circumstance. A moment ago his only concern had been the ache of his erection and evading the stone-cold truth of his attraction to Sarah. She'd had him, deer in headlights, with hands poised on cocked and perfect hips and the blue of her eyes piercing his face with the conviction of truth. Petite, slim-bodied, and gorgeous Sarah had all at once reminded him of his Training Instructor at Boot. Certain. Ready. Daring. He'd felt in that moment if he'd so much as stammered his reply she'd have pulled his bottom lip clean over his head and kicked him straight in his swollen balls.

Then madness. In hindsight it was no savior. The world around him had fallen hard into the belly of a chaos he'd never have anticipated. He'd killed a man; a man he knew. The certainty of his worries and the collective blur of events coalesced in one solitary instant when Sarah pulled the trigger and the handsome face of Ron Driver evaporated in a mist of pink brain matter, bright red blood, and white skull fragments.

Mary Cowell never blinked, didn't so much as recoil when the young man who'd mowed her lawn had his head made into a canoe by the town's most gorgeous bachelorette. Her husband, slowly rising, wrapped her in the comfort of his arms even as his legs wobbled from Owen's strike. He looked like a punch-drunk boxer. And yet, through it all, terror sharpened him quickly. His wife spoke of leaving, leaning into his arms as he bent to reclaim the pistol Sarah'd dropped.

Owen beat him too it and closed his hand around the pistol's cold polymer frame. The Glock settled in his grasp and was all too familiar. The weight of it offering no real comfort. He realized his mouth was suddenly and entirely dry.

It'd taken this long for Owen's mind to catch up with him. Lost, it'd been, in that blur of an instant when Don had run down his wife and taken a mouthful from the meaty column of her throat. At once his instincts came together, sharpened, and the shadow of his former life snapped to the present. It was fitting it was beyond noon. The sun light clean, beating down, chasing away the darkness. He felt clear, finally, and the answer came even as his free hand snuck to claim Sarah's own and pull her once more to his side.

"Come on." He said.

The certainty in his words pleased him.

"Where?" Steve asked. Groggy, but clearing. "We've to get off the streets. They're all over the place."

There were a thousand questions he could have asked. It all started with who comprised "they" and sharpened with "What the fuck is going on?!". There would be a time for that. It wasn't now. They would all sit around and recount the moment their world tilted, irrevocably, on its axis once they were safe. He turned Sarah around in the alleyway and gave the Cowell's their backs as he began leading her through the battered and sun-dried brick to the large, battered steel door at the back of his shop. His hand released Sarah's just long enough to produce his keys and fight with the under-used lock until the door opened.

"Here." He said. "The streets aren't good."

And it was easy to see that he was right. Beyond the mouth of the alley people ran back and forth, most on the far end of the street. They were almost always tailed by others who sprinted at them, hands outstretched and snarling. A car hurtled by, and another, and still one more draped in portions of bunting that had once been hung on the street lamps for the holiday.

Steve and Mary followed them inside, immediately crumpling in the storeroom floor. He sent Sarah after them and closed the door in their wake, locking it.

"Are you alright, Mary?" Steve asked to his wife.

"Just my arm. It hurts but it isn't deep." She answered him. Crying. Her tears softening as the relief and shelter of the shop's storeroom enveloped the four of them.

Their conversation dissolved as he left them, unable to help himself, caught now in the rational task list that had forged itself when his mind had cleared. His hands worked to roll down the metal security gates of the shop. First one window, then the front door, then the other window. The glass displays were not the sort to inspire safety. They were thin. Fragile. His father had installed the metal gate years before for closing up after one of the local boys, Peter Kelly, had thrown a brick through the window after getting drunk one night. Owen locked it.

A nightmare lurked beyond the gates. Men and women, some he knew and some he didn't, ran in all directions. A car burned near the booths, now tattered and knocked over. A woman with glasses ran between one, shrieking, her face lit by terror. After her came a pair of men, their faces a blank mask of rage, gaining ground. They caught her just before the mouth of an alleyway beside Kipper's and tore her to the ground. Owen watched, witnessed, as they collapsed upon her and took bites out of of her back while she screamed. More attackers, the Reilly sisters (easily recognized from their size and identical hair), charged like Rhino's and fell upon the girl. They tore strips of flesh from her face. Her hands. And eventually her shrieking ended and she went still.

Reflexively, Owen ejected the Glock's magazine. Four rounds remained, plus one in the chamber. His brow furrowed darkly.

"Steve," He called out. "Do you have any extra magazines?"

In all this, Sarah was not forgotten. His hand brushed the small of her back, beneath the fabric of her tank, in by far the most intimate affection he had ever given her. She'd only done what he'd done, survived, reacted in a moment in which sanity had slipped from her. It reminded him of war. The difference between those that would rise to the moment and those that would not. It was a strange pride in her that he felt, along with a sudden and knowing compassion. He should have been faster. She never should have had to be the one. He would not forgive himself for it.

Beneath his fingers her smooth skin warmed, and he spread his palm there, bracing her. Lending her, in that moment, what ever strength he could. It was strange and curiously natural to be close to her, to allow her this. To allow himself to be the one. It surprised him how good it felt. How good -she- felt and how much it settled him to feel her beneath his fingers.

She looked shaken. Not hysterical, but shaken. Her blue eyes clear despite the guilt that was etched in them. Unable to help himself, Owen bent, felt himself moving as though it was someone else until his lips brushed the line of her brow.

"Yeah. Just one more." Steve said. He held it up and Owen took it, forcefully, from his hand and tucked it into his back pocket.

"They're dead." Mary said. It must have been the thirtieth time.

"Who?"

"Everyone." Steve this time, looking up at him. He was glad to see the man's sense had returned. There was no wild panic in his eyes.

"They came from the fields. We'd never seen them before. Ryan went out to see them and they just ran him down and started biting at him, tearing him apart. I called out and they hardly looked up. There were so many. They were everywhere." Steve spoke quickly. Fear thick in his voice.

The story was absent detail and still, Owen could see it in his mind. Instead of the street, instead of just now, it was Cowell's farm and monstrous people charging through the grass. He'd never have been able to picture it, gnashing teeth and feral screams, except he'd seen it. They were living it. Outside the town that had been his home was descending steadily into anarchy and horrors.

The storeroom was separated from the shop floor, which held the old wooden stairs leading up to the office/apartment where he'd been living. There was food. Water. And somewhere, up in the Office, his father's shotgun lay under lock and key. That was all well and good. It'd serve. By tomorrow the police, someone, would be here to sort it out.

"They killed everyone. Ryan was just the first. Everyone there. Lisa. Toby. Aaron. But they all got up after. They were dead. I know it. Ryan was in pieces, total pieces, but he was after us with them. I mean, a moment before they'd been eating him and now he was trying to help them kill us. I..." Steve trailed off when his wife started to sob.

Owen was hardly aware of his arm tightening around Sarah's hips.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Screams in the distance, speeding cars, panicked words close by...it all felt as if the noise were miles away from Sarah Whitman. She reached forward and placed her small hand on that brick wall to hold herself up, leaning against it heavily. Any kind of sound echoed in her head, almost painfully, and her vision was blurred. And damn it, she couldn't look down at Ron Driver without feeling nauseated all over again.

She had just killed a man. Not just any man, a childhood friend. Ron Driver deserved many things, but a shot to his face was not the fate Sarah had wished, or wanted for him. Or anyone else, for that matter. But it was his life, or Mary's. And with Owen close to becoming Ron's newest victim, Sarah had reacted the only way instincts told her to. Kill, or be killed. Wasn't that a saying? Well, it was certainly one she thought would never apply to her.

"Come on."

Sarah hadn't even realized that Owen had taken her hand until her arm was being pulled, and she instantly stepped beside him to follow. Her small fingers gripped on to his hand tightly, possessively, and she turned her head to the side to look back and see if Mary and Steve would follow.

Once they were in Owen's store, Sarah stood still. She no longer had Owen's strong hand to comfort or guide her anywhere, and she stood there, frozen. It was an odd feeling. The only thing she could compare it to was the feeling she got when she walked into a room and forgot why she was there.

But Steve's concerned voice for his wife is what snapped Sarah to turn around and look back at the couple. She didn't know what the hell to do, or where to go, and she didn't know how to secure that store like Owen did, but she could help Mary. She needed to help Mary, if it meant she could focus on that and not what she had just done back in the alley.

Without even thinking twice, Sarah grabbed a towel off one of the shelves nearby and she rushed to the older woman's side. Already she felt better, needing that distraction. But it didn't stop her shaking hands, or trembling lip.

"Here. It's not deep, but we have to stop the bleeding." Sarah wrapped the folded towel around Mary's forearm, then grabbed the woman's other hand so she could hold it together and apply pressure herself. She knew that the wound needed to be cleaned so she could get a better look at it, but...it was just a bite. Not a cut, or some kind of stab wound. They didn't exactly teach her how to treat bite marks in nursing school.

Owen's voice and body were at Sarah's side again, and she welcomed his hand at the small of her back by leaning back against it. The warmth of his strong hand there coursed through her like electricity. Even despite everything going on around them, she could feel that much. And that strength in just the simplest of touches seemed to pass right into her, giving her some strength of her own. Yes, that hand of his was the only thing keeping her standing upright right now. She worried if he let go of her, she'd collapse at his feet.

"...They all got up after. They were dead. I know it....a moment before they'd been eating him and now he was trying to help them kill us."

Sarah swallowed hard as she stared at Steve with wide blue eyes. She tried to picture what the man was trying to tell them, but only half of it made sense. She realized then that the couple's stories were so cryptic and spotty because they didn't exactly understand what was going on either. They may have witnessed the beginning of that war going on outside, but no one could decipher why any of this was happening. And why people who were dead still walked. Or why they attacked other people.

Slowly, Sarah turned her head and tilted it back, looking up at Owen as if for some kind of answer or solution to all of this. He had to know what to do, right?

"Let's try the phone." Came the brilliant idea of the blue-eyed blonde. Giving the older couple a few minutes to themselves, Sarah grabbed Owen's wrist that was wrapped around her and tugged him with her toward the store counter. The phone was on the floor where she had last left it, upon hearing her mom's terrified screams. Oh god, her mom! She moved much quicker to the phone, falling to her knees as her fingers fumbled to get a good grip on the cheap piece of plastic. Fuck, it wasn't even cordless. When she had the time, she'd remind Owen to get with the modern-age and get a new one.

"It's dead." She discovered after a few attemps, and a heavy breath of disappointment escaped her lips. Sarah slowly brought herself back up on her feet again, using the counter for support as she turned to Owen.

She didn't know how long she stared back at him in silence, just trying to read his face and wait for him to tell her that everything was going to be okay, and it would all pass soon. She needed to hear those words, even if he didn't mean them. And as strong as she'd been thus far, she needed him to hold her. But she feared the second he did, she'd break down.

"Mary is going to need to go to the hospital. If she doesn't by morning.." She whispered, her voice trailing. Although, she guessed Owen already knew that. Sarah also knew that they couldn't leave, not yet. There was too much going on outside, and they wouldn't be able to get to all four of them to his truck without being attacked.

"And I'll pay you back for the towel." Sarah tried to smile, just the corner of her lips curving.

 

[Light Ice]

The light filtered through the windows and cast grate-shaped shadows across the wall. Beyond it, beyond the concrete and wood, lay the storeroom and Mary and Steve Cowell. Right now, in his mind, Owen could see the pair embraced upon the floor surrounded by boxes of hunting jackets, camping equipment, and boots. Steve was a veteran deputy, a trusted man in the community, and he was coming apart. The signs of the strain, the burden of the horrors and the responsibility of his wife's life, were breaking him down. Owen had seen it when he'd spun with the pistol, wild and loose. Shoot first. It was the kind of blind panic that he'd seen in soldiers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine when they'd stepped in shit too deep for their tastes.

His mind was churning as Sarah spoke. A running list forming of options and intentions, good bad or otherwise, that might get them through this safely. The initial instinct had been a good one. The store would be safe, a good place to hold out, until things returned to normal. Still, despite it all, a nagging question tugged at the loose strings in Owen's mind.

They came from the fields...

Who? Tourists? What would tourists be doing in the middle of the Cowell farm fields? They had to be almost 45 minutes south of town, the opposite side of the interstate. It was usually a ghost town this time of year.

It bothered him. It bothered him because they didn't know what it was or how far it had spread. They didn't know if it was contagious. If it hadn't started in Royal Oaks where had it started? Royal Oaks certainly wouldn't be a priority if it was elsewhere. It was a small town. Tiny, really.

Abruptly, he looked back to Sarah, caught the fragility in the blue of her eyes. The sudden weakness in her smile.

"I'm taking it out of your first check." He said, automatically.

They'd never shared many jokes but he smiled, unable to help himself. It touched his eyes, felt sincere, warmed him through his gut as his eyes studied the perfect elegance of her face. A timeless, natural, easy beauty that he'd never really known before. It was strange to him that he saw it so clearly now, amidst the madness, while the world shook over their heads and their neighbors ran by the big glass windows of the store.

And then he was up the stairs with her in his wake. The weight of his strides far lighter than her own, slowing until they were beside one another, ascending into the apartment.

The apartment was really little more than an office that he'd thrown a cot in the back. Compared to the home his parents had built it was downright spartan, absent pictures or posters. The walls were a neutral sea-green paint. The trim was clean and white. Despite the face he spent most nights here it looked hardly lived in, absolutely pristine. Everything was precisely placed. Everything was kept with meticulous, intense care.

Here, further away from the couple, Owen began speaking. His attention turned from the apartment's closet, where he suspected his father's shotgun was buried, to her face.

There were a thousand things that he'd wanted to say. Twisted, in his mind, the answers came as steadily as anything. Owen couldn't speak them. They tangled up before they left his lips, came in bursts and stutters in his mind. Fear touched through him again, like before, when she'd ambushed him beside the counter. All at once he was empty, naked, standing there while this gorgeous girl who counted on him looked into his face expecting comfort or truth.

In an instant the reaction came. It started in his toes, ripped through him, lit every synapse on fire until his mind went and he was moving. There was only the vaguest sensation of his steps to her across the carpeted floor, the faintest hint of realization before his strong hands found her once more.

It was different this time. The sink of his strong fingers in her rounded hips fierce now, possessive. Owen gathered her in his arms, pulled her against him, felt the crush of her lean body into the rugged stretch of his own as he lifted her onto her toes and bent. The crush of their lips sudden. Instinctive. And he found, despite the long years without practice, that his body knew still how to kiss a girl. To claim her. To devour the sweetness of her mouth until they were a tangle of tongues amidst the tiny office. Gone, in the instant, was the chaos of the day. The confusion. The evasion. Evaporated as he held her tight amidst the light as it filtered through the tan plastic blinds and cast the room in a hazy, summer's shade. He kissed her as everything lit up inside him, every part of him sudden and intensely alive.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

"I'm taking it out of your first check."

Sarah laughed loudly. It didn't even sound recognizable, like the sound came from someone else. But even if the easy laughter surprised her, she didn't stifle it or try to hold it in. It felt good, coming from deep within throat as her lips curved wider. And what was so amusing was that even though Owen was smiling as they tried to bring some light in the darkness that smothered them, she knew that he was also serious, too.

But god, just seeing him smile back at her was always worth it. It always made her feel proud to know that she had been the one to help put it there, and that warm feeling didn't change even despite their surroundings.

Sarah followed him up the stairs to the loft that she had been in before, but never longer than a minute. She didn't know why they were walking up there, but she didn't ask. Maybe it was to talk in private about Mary's fate. Maybe to find another phone. Or maybe it was just something to do until they figured out what the hell was going on, and what they were going to do about it.

Once Sarah stepped passed Owen, standing in front of him, her pretty blonde head looked around. Nothing of interest caught her eyes. It wasn't until she turned her head again to look back at Owen that she realized that he was looking at her with intense eyes. Yes, there was that look again, burning right through her. Her heart skipped a beat, and then another, and it took all she had in her just to focus on breathing in and out as her breath caught in her throat.

He offered her no words of comfort or assurance, and that silence pained her deep inside her pounding chest. While he may have been there at her side, she still needed more from him. All of the faint smiles, lightest of touches, or holding of her hand...it would help her, but it wouldn't be enough. It was never enough with Owen, it seemed. Even before the attacks started happening, she ached and waited every moment together for him to make his move. But instead, he always turned his back away from her, shutting her out.

But this time he didn't.

She had already mentally pictured in her head how he would turn and look away from her, leaving her standing there alone in that cold room with shaky hands and a pouting lip. But instead, his hands reached forward and found her, pulling her to him like he had every right to. Sarah's lips parted in a gasp, but his own were soon covering them, crushing their mouths into a firm kiss.

Was he kissing her because he wanted this, or because she needed it? Sarah didn't know, and just feeling his warm mouth pressed against her own, she didn't care.

Finally, she kissed him back. Slow, and deep as Sarah stood on the tip of her toes to hungrily get as much as that wonderful mouth as she could. Neither of them pulled away, not even to question with their eyes whether or not it was right to do such a thing given their surroundings. And damn it, Sarah felt no shame. How could she? All she felt was his soft, moist lips, kissing her with more fire than she even knew to be possible. He kissed her, claiming those pretty, girlish lips to prove that no other man could light that fire for her quite as hot as he could. As many times as she had fantasized in her head what this would feel like, her imagination could never measure up to the masculine, yet soft lips that belonged to Owen Shepard.

And she soon found that kissing him was addictive. She worried that if she pulled away, even for just a second, this would all be some kind of dream. She tingled all the way from her head to her toes, and each firm press to her sweet mouth only drove her to kiss him back more deeply and taste him with her tongue.

"Mmm," She whimpered with a soft sigh through her nose, and her hands reached up to grip his shoulders as if she needed something to hang on to. Or maybe she just needed to be touching him. God, just feeling her hands on him sent electricity right through her, making her tingle all over again. Wait, how could she have goosebumps, when she was so damn warm? The heat of his lips as she explored the shape of them and the warmth of his hands had her practically melting against him. Sarah leaned forward heavily, pressing her breasts to his chest as her back arched and curved just slightly beneath his hands around her.

This was what she had wanted, she just hadn't been prepared for him to to feel this good.

Owen Shepard may not have been a good talker, but fuck, could he kiss. Almost immediately, Sarah forgave him for the all of the back turning, and checking out her ass when he thought she wasn't looking. She'd go through it all over again, if she could get another kiss like this. But only from these lips.

Reluctantly, and slowly, Sarah pulled her mouth away from his with a heavy breath. Standing down flat on her feet again, her blonde head tilted back to look up at him with bright, intense blue eyes. Her lips parted so she could speak, but she instead licked her lips first, the taste of him still lingering.

"God, Owen. I needed that." She whispered, even if she was only inches from him. Her eyes lowered from his, already eyeing his lips again and missing its softness.

 

[Light Ice]

He’d needed it. The feel of her mouth crushed to his, soft and girlish, even caught in the torrent of disaster it felt right. Necessary. How long had it been since he’d kissed a girl? The answer ran from him as quickly as it could and he abandoned it, deemed it unnecessary, as she settled back on her heels and that distance was between them once more.

Outside the chaos was swirling steadily towards some grim climax. From the windows, should he cared to have looked, he’d have seen the town where he’d been born falling upon itself as hordes of people chased one another down, mauled them, and ate their flesh. The sounds of it filtered up to the office he’d been using as a home. It assaulted the air and the walls. There were primal snarls and the sounds of screams in the distance. It’d taken maybe five minutes for the wave to pass through main street and descend on the rest of town proper.

And that’s what it was. A wave.

They’d come from the fields and the roads to the south, like a herd, and descended on the town. Outsiders. In these precious moments of clarity his mind churned over what he’d heard and what he had seen. They’d come, like tourists, onto the town and spread whatever madness they’d brought with them. It –was- madness, after all. It’d struck Don and then his wife, risen them up from cold death and turned them into feral killers.

Owen felt his thoughts slipping from him again as her little hands found his, blue eyes searching his face. The moment of clarity, of understanding, somehow holding as her stare opened up to him like the ocean and he felt himself falling into it. All at once his hands were gripping hers, covering them in his strong fingers, before letting them go so that the words that he summoned could simply out themselves.

“I need to find Dad’s shotgun, Sarah. I want you to go downstairs and start putting together four kits. Use the expensive, big frame rucksacks that we have and the best sleeping bags.”

And all at once Owen was pulling a pad of legal paper from his desk and scribbling on it. The list began to run long but he didn’t stop. His shorthand, which was notoriously bad, ran in masculine scrawls of small, blocky letters. His father had always struggled to read it. Sarah had always found it easy. It was one of the small things he’d overlooked in her.

One of the many things.

He felt himself promise not to overlook her anymore.

“Take this list. Circle anything we’re missing.” He said as his fingers tore the sheet free and pressed the thin paper into her hands.

Their eyes met. She was waiting on him, understanding but expectant. He’d always struggled with this part. It was something that had helped doom his first marriage. In his mind Owen knew what she’d wanted and what he’d felt, what was lingering there between them like a deer caught in proverbial headlights. The long mystery of his attraction to her was out in the open, promising to be solved.

Still, he couldn’t tear himself from the practicality of the moment. Outside the world that he knew was burning and while he hoped, desperately hoped, that there would be help and order in the morning there was no confidence he could summon in the idea. No complacency. Training, which had found him eager and suitable, wrapped with his meticulous nature as the words left him. Acknowledging her. The moment. And the promise that they’d talk before the night was done.

“Just incase.” He said to her. The hazy light through the shutters was unable to hide the blush in her cheeks, her neck, and the top of her tank-top bound breasts. She was beautiful. Surprised – watching him.

“Tomorrow we’ll load the truck and drive out to your house, Sarah. We’ll get us all in one place. After that, after we get through this, I’ll kiss you as many times as you let me.”

She’d given him that clarity. She’d inspired the moment. It was in the gentle curve of her mouth and the brightness of her eyes despite the madness, the way she made him feel even as adrenaline and fear twisted their potent cocktail in his veins and surged through him. Now, she’d given him truth as well. The relief of speaking it became a palpable sensation ripping through him.

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Steve held her hand until she settled, until the dull pain of the bites and the relative safety of the storeroom settled on her like a heavy blanket and smothered the fear back down. It was not in him to fault her for panicking. They had been married eleven years and throughout those she had worked hard to forgive him his own. He was not, by most standards, a heroic man. The Deputy’s job in Royal Oaks was respected, well-paying, and mostly quiet. It had been the latter which had appealed to him the most. There was simply little work to be done.

The ways they mostly helped people didn’t feel like much work at all.

He’d been glad that he had not shot Owen Shepard. Owen didn’t have many friends and Steve wasn’t amongst them but he respected the youngest Shepard liked he’d respected his father. He didn’t have the friendly disposition or the socially heroic persona that his father had but he was hard working, honest, and did his best to fill in what voids Senior had left in the community. That was a hard job, Steve reckoned, and he’d admired Owen for the way he’d done it.

But in the moment he was glad because Owen had been a soldier. A man who had killed people, survived, and overcome. He was the kind of man that people could follow, that he could follow, and that meant that Steve did not have to try. Already his wife was looking at him more kindly. Already the panic that she’d let get away from her when it was just the two of them had slipped into some profound sense of security.

Mostly, he was relieved that there was a steel barrier between them and the horrors of outside. He had not had it in him, neither the words nor the courage, to tell Owen what else he had seen. There wasn’t a kind way to break it to the pair that there were thousands more of these horrors shambling their way into town. There wasn’t an easy way to break it to Sarah, who was really nothing more than a kid, that her entire family had been swept up and butchered out in the streets.

“Love,” He said as he squeezed her hand.

Mary looked up at him and offered a weary smile.

“I’m alright,” She said. “It hurts and I’m tired but I’m alright.”

He nodded at her.

“I’m going to go see what they’re doing. Lay down, alright?”

“Yeah, alright.” And then suddenly her eyes sharpened. “Are you going to get your gun back from Owen?”

He didn’t want it back, truthfully, but all at once he saw that fear in Mary’s eyes. She hadn’t bought entirely into the four of them surviving this together after all.

“Yeah,” he heard himself say. “I will.”

He kissed her forehead and rose, felt her press her hand to his side as he did so. The shop floor’s windows were now covered by the rolling barrier that they must have pulled down but it didn’t hide the blood soaked streets. Now, mercifully, empty of walkers. It didn’t hide Sarah, either, whose beauty was now pensive and adult as she laid out four large hiking bags.

He went over to help. Delaying, in his mind, the confrontation with Owen over the Glock pistol he’d nearly shot him with. Sarah was moving through the racks steadily, hunting for things. The store had devolved into a camping supply store of sorts but doubled as a sundries and canned grocery store. It’d used to have rifles and shotguns, even a few pistols, but the Old Shepard had done away with that. It was less expensive to operate without the State of Michigan breathing down your neck regarding sales and most of the town was already armed to the gills, anyway. The only way to buy a piece was to ship it in from out of town now.

Damned unfortunate, Steve thought. That’d spared him the task of talking shop with Owen Shepard.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

The taste of Owen's mouth still lingered on her lips as her blonde head tilted back, and she didn't dare lick it away. Her first kiss with him was one that she hoped wouldn't be her last. But if there were anyone else to follow, Owen Shepard set a high, almost unreachable bar.

She looked up at him for him to say something, to confirm that he might've felt something too when she kissed him back. But as he looked back at her, staring at her like something inside of him had been awoken, she realized that he didn't need to say anything. That look said it all, and it warmed her heart to even see him look at her in a way that she'd never seen him give anyone else. And there was also that look like there was so much he wanted to do, and say, but with the chaos going on around them he didn't know how. Well, there was no rush. They weren't going anywhere any time soon.

Sarah looked back up at him with that, What now? expression, and that's when he gave her the instruction to go downstairs and get a few bags together. She followed and stood beside him as he illegibly scribbled a few words down on a piece of yellow paper, and her brow raised as she made out what kind of list he was making for her. It was the kind of list that one needed in an emergency that they didn't exactly plan on getting out of very soon.

“Take this list. Circle anything we’re missing.”

Sarah let him hand her the paper as she stared down at it, almost in disbelief. A compass? A tarp? Surely, in his mind, he was prepared for things to go down a little differently. Far much more different than Sarah even cared to think about right now. But at least one of them was thinking ahead, and she hoped to god that they would never need any of these things.

"Are you sure this is really necessary, Owen?" She asked, though she knew he wouldn't be telling her to do this, if he thought it wasn't.

"Just incase."

Her blue eyes lifted again, expressing worry in them as she looked back at him. But his face was strong, and calm as ever. And his confidence, at least physically, helped her be glad that he was by her side. Who knew where she'd be right now, if not with him. It was something that she didn't even care to think about, and was happy now to have some kind of task to keep her worried mind at bay.

“Tomorrow we’ll load the truck and drive out to your house, Sarah. We’ll get us all in one place. After that, after we get through this, I’ll kiss you as many times as you let me.”

Relieved, just at the thought of going home, Sarah nodded. There was just so much confusion; with the violence going on outside the store's walls, the unknown fate of her parents, and then there was Owen. His kiss had made her feel more alive, as if the threat of death around them wasn't enough. And as much as she wanted to explore more of those wonderful lips, and see what kind of fire they could ignite with the sparks that flowed through them...first things, first.

"I think you know me well enough to know that I'm going to hold you to that promise." Folding that paper in half with her fingers, Sarah's lips curled into a little smile as her blushing, pretty face gave him one last look before she turned and took that list with her down to the store.

Sarah hadn't officially started working in that store yet with Owen, but she'd roamed the aisles behind his trail enough times to get the jest of where most of the things were. After finding the right bags to use, Sarah circled the store to find what she needed to fill them. She'd only found the flashlights and batteries before Steve joined her and offered his help. When he couldn't make out the handwriting on that folded piece of paper, Sarah smiled with some amusement, almost forgetting that others couldn't read the lazy letters.

"That says 'Compass'. I honestly don't know if he even has any, but if he does, they'd probably be over there." Sarah pointed to the next aisle over, and it was hard not to notice Steve looking at her with question in his eyes. It was almost the same look that she had given Owen when he handed her that list. "Just incase." She repeated the same words that Owen had given her, and gave Steve her back as she turned to the opposite direction to find those first aid kits that were next on the list.

On her way through the aisle, her blue eyes scanning the shelves, Sarah could hear Mary's groans. Hurriedly, she grabbed a whole stack of those kits and carried them with her into the back room where Mary was laying on the floor, holding her arm to her stomach with that towel still wrapped around it. Perhaps she should have searched for a first aid kit to begin with to help Mary, but Sarah hadn't exactly been in her right mind when they came storming through Owen's store. After fucking shooting Ron Driver. Three times. The memory made her shake, and feel nauseous all over again.

"Hey, Mary. You okay? Let me take a look." Sarah dropped to her knees beside the woman, making her sit up a little so she could unwrap the towel from around her arm. The older woman wasn't bleeding as bad as before, but it definitely hadn't stopped. And Sarah's bright eyes widened when she saw how much her arm had swollen. It hurt just to look at it.

Even after cleaning Mary's wound some more, Ron's bite having made his mark on that sweet woman, Sarah noticed the change in color in her flesh, too. She'd never seen an infection spread that fucking fast before. She expected it to look something like this maybe by tomorrow, but not now. Not this soon. Still, Sarah tried not to wear that worry on her face as she washed the wound with water from the water cooler in the back room, bandaged Mary back up, gave her a few pain killers, and told her to lay back down.


Soon enough, Owen had come back down to help Sarah and Steve find the rest of the supplies that they hadn't been able to locate. Around that time is when the power went out. Looking outside, it was easy to see that the whole street's power had gone out, but without any power or a working phone, none of them would know just exactly what was going on outside of Royal Oaks.

They fumbled around in the darkness for a few minutes before flashlights were found, giving them just enough light to find their way around and see each other. Sarah found herself watching Owen a lot, without reason, other than the fact that she felt safer knowing he was right there with her.

"I should probably stay with Mary tonight, look after her incase her infection gets worse." Sarah offered. Even there was another body she'd rather lay by tonight, the young blonde sincerely was worried about her.

"That won't be necessary," Steve insisted, shaking his head as Sarah leaned back against the counter for the support of her body that felt as if it were so heavy right now. "I'll take care of my wife, but I'd feel much safer tonight if I had my gun back." He finally gathered the courage to bring up, staring a hole into Owen.

 

[Light Ice]

For a long moment he lingered without purpose, wrapped in the many little details of her that still lingered sharp around him. She had a softness to her, a lingering girlishness, that crept its way into everything she touched. The room, a starkly masculine place, seemed lighter for her presence. The air was sweet from her shampoo and perfume. All at once she'd forged a mark there, as she did in all the places of this world he'd been with her, and Owen was resigned to the simple truth that he'd never look at the office without replaying the satisfaction of that kiss a thousand times in his mind.

It was the sound of movement on the streets that mercifully ripped him from his own thoughts. All at once, with the sound of a tipped over trashcan, he remembered why it was that he sent her downstairs without him. The window's blinds parted against his fingers as he moved to them, swaying faintly even as he pressed his face close and looked out onto the main street of his town.

Owen saw Charlie Addison, a father of two and neighbor, on the street besides the upended trashcan. It was a red, white, and blue cylinder with a black trashbag inside and hadn't been full as it tipped. The container rolled towards one side and then the other, wobbling without actually turning entirely over, and settled with slow resignation to lay on its side. For a moment he thought to call out to Charlie, to get him inside, but on closer inspection Owen could see the blood along his clothes and the wounds present on his jawline and neck.

Charlie Addison was one of them.

But aside from Charlie there wasn't anyone in the streets. It stretched empty. A car had swerved into one of the brick building facades and sat with its driver's door ominously open. A fire burned down the way at the Ice Cream parlor, flames licking lazily out the white-trimmed windows as smoke curled skyward. It was an apocalyptical scene. Upended tables and tattered, ruined booth stations where the celebration had been slated to begin.

There were no children playing with sparklers.

Worse, still, was that there were no sirens. The firetruck from the Station wasn't coming. There were no Sheriff's cruisers making their way to the scene. Instead, along the street, there was a sudden and uneasy quiet. An absolute quiet. It reminded him of a village he'd walked outside Afghanistan after the planes had done their work. Ruined. Quiet. Filled with the sounds and smells of death.

If his worst fears were being realized - if the attack had come like a wave, they'd be wise to get ahead of it. They'd have to move, to travel, and they'd need more than just a few camping supplies in order to do so. In his mind there was already a list of priorities being assembled, sorted, and clung to. The rush of thoughts were born of the desire to survive and smothered all the rest of his concerns naturally. His training won out, defaulted his mind to the case, and he recognized and allowed it as he had in the hard times before this.

In the closet, up above, his father's shotgun rested.

Inside were his clothes, hung neatly on hangers. The evidence that this office had become a home of sorts. Boxes lined the shelf of the closet above him and he reached to push them aside, ignoring dust as it kicked up off the tired wood. For a moment, just a moment, Owen feared the shotgun would not be there. The irrational concern echoed in his mind as his fingers sought it out in its new resting place. Had he lost it? Had he misplaced his father's shotgun when he'd moved it from its home beneath the counter of the store? He feared that he had. He'd had no care to maintain it. No care to use it. No care to keep it. It was his father's and even holding it felt foreign. He could have set it aside or boxed it away. He could have.

But he didn't. His fingers touched the rounded barrel and in a moment he had drawn it into his hands and out of the dust. The wooden stock was heavy and despite disuse the pump operated smoothly as his hand pressed it down. He looked long and hard and found it in good shape. The barrel clear. The action clean and oiled. There were three boxes of shells, fifteen total, and he took them. The red plastic tubes were 00 Buckshot. He went downstairs. It'd serve.

For now.

-------------------------------------------------------​

They'd spent the entire day getting the kits arranged and loaded. Owen, for his part, had worked almost entirely in silence amongst them. The thoughts that twisted their way through his mind worked well to silence the desire to look at her. To watch her. To catch glimpses of her lean little form moving amidst the shelves and think of the chance he'd next have to kiss her. The truth of the matter was that he'd felt the change between them. There was no denying it. From this day on everything about Sarah would be different. She'd no longer be the girl that followed him around for his kindnesses and suffered his many faults quietly. In kissing her, in taking her lean waist in his big hands, he'd made a quiet promise to get her through this alright.

And Owen took promises seriously.

They'd four backpacks loaded when it was done. Duffle bags with extra gear set on the floor beside them. For a moment he allowed himself to be happy with it, just for a moment, but already he felt the part of him that'd survived overseas rear up and slap him down with modesty. They had a long way to go if his fears were realized. There was a lot more to do.

The sun set on Royal Oaks and he did not see it. For a few minutes the blush of pink and purple washed the street in hazy summer dusk and then the dark raced steadily on. The group hadn't spoke much since those first minutes. Shock, and fear, had taken hold of them and Owen wouldn't lie and say he didn't feel it. In his mind he'd hoped that someone, anyone, would come to the store's door looking for help. He hoped that there'd be a cop or a soldier checking in, rolling down the street with guns drawn.

But nobody came.

Nothing came.

Only the night.

Finally, as ever, Sarah broke the ice. The concern in her voice smothered skillfully and Steve caught only her neighborly offer without picking up on what drove it. Owen caught it, though, and briefly let his eyes track the elegant lines of her pretty face to measure the worry. What he saw in her eyes frightened him and he found himself looking to the break in the wall leading into the storeroom where Mary waited for her husband.

"I'll take care of my wife, but I'd feel much safer tonight if I had my gun back." Steve offered then.

And Owen looked back to see the man looking intently at him. A part of Owen, deep in the back of his mind, had the urge to yield immediately. Steve was a Sheriff's Deputy. An Officer of the Law. The request wasn't so much a request as a formality in the civilian chain of command. When a cop asked you for something, or told you to do something, you did it.

Still, Owen had been prepared for this. Steve was a poor shot at best and still, while clearly settled, more shaken than he'd have liked. The Glock that Owen wore in his waistband was a simple, reliable, but inelegant weapon that didn't provide a man much mercy for shaky hands.

"I'll do you better, Steve." He said.

And reaching behind the counter he produced the Mossberg he'd retrieved upstairs. The old wooden stock was offered towards the man.

"Fifteen shells. I loaded the first five."

"Not a fair trade." Steve said, but he clearly looked pleased as he took up the shotgun.

"There's more to it."

That caught both Steve and Sarah's attention. He didn't leave them hanging in suspense.

"I haven't heard a siren or a voice since this morning from outside. It's probably alright, we'll probably find the entire National Guard on our doorstep in the morning, but if we don't then we're better off getting ourselves ready to move on. I think if we're quiet, and if we're fast, we can get down the street to the Sheriff's station. Steve, do you have your keys on you?"

Steve nodded suddenly and retrieved them from his pocket. "I do."

"Good." Owen said. "Then we can get into the cages and bring back what we can. We go, we get in and out, and we get back."

Sarah's face conveyed a fear that Owen hadn't expected. His words were steady.

"We'll go out the front door. Sarah will close the gate after us. Sarah, go upstairs and use the window. Watch for us. Before we leave the Sheriff's station we'll flash a flashlight twice. You flash twice back if the street is clear. Once if it isn't. If it isn't then we'll work our way out back and you can let us in the storeroom."

Steve was nodding. Pleased. For all his faults as an Officer, he wasn't a coward, and Owen was glad for it in that moment. Sarah didn't look convinced.

"Alright?" He asked her.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Steve's response had been something that Sarah couldn't necessarily reply to. She learned long ago that she had little influence over the stubborn Owen Shepard. He did what we wanted. And while she may have seen the change in his face whenever her soft lips pouted, or whenever she swayed her hips just a little too much, he still got his way. Of course, that had always been hard for the young blonde who was used to getting what she wanted as well, but...perhaps that was the fun, and also the frustration in being Owen Shepard's friend. If it had taken her weeks to finally convince him to give her a job, she could only imagine how much convincing would have to be done in order to get him to give up a gun.

And a part of Sarah, a selfish part of her, wanted Owen to keep it. She knew it was wrong; the old man had an injured wife to protect. But who was more susceptible to defending her if the time called for it - a man she barely knew, or a man who had kissed her right up those stairs and promised her safety?

Sarah tried to make room in one of the bags to stuff more supplies inside while Steve and Owen talked it out. She didn't think she had the right to be involved in any of the decision-making when it came to the guns, but...but stayed close enough to listen, anyway.

"Not a fair trade." Came Steve, and Sarah wondered how the hell Owen would talk his way out of this one. That was usually her job.

"There's more to it."

Sarah noted the pause, and her blonde head raised to look up at him. She never was good at knowing what was going on inside that head of his, and now was no exception.

"I haven't heard a siren or a voice since this morning from outside. It's probably alright, we'll probably find the entire National Guard on our doorstep in the morning, but if we don't then we're better off getting ourselves ready to move on. I think if we're quiet, and if we're fast, we can get down the street to the Sheriff's station. Steve, do you have your keys on you?"

Sarah's chest tightened instantly, and her stomach turned. She assumed that Owen was including her in on this, wanting her to go with, even if leaving the safety of these walls scared the shit out of her. Did Owen know something she didn't? Did he really doubt that much that someone wouldn't come for them by morning? But when he gave her instruction on what to do, Sarah realized that she wasn't included in on his plan at all. Stay behind, wait around, and flash a fucking light? It sounded stupid. And worst of all, she hated having no control of what happened to him out there

Owen could recognize that look of doubt and skepticism on Sarah's pretty face as she glared back at him a little.

"Alright?" He was asking, though Sarah doubted there was much room for debate. She wanted to question why she had to stay behind, instead of Steve, but she already knew the answer. He could shoot a gun, and his was part of Owen's 'offer'.

"Yeah, alright." Sarah said finally, forcing a nod. Owen gave her a long look, but she didn't get to look back at him for long before she was mumbling something under her breath and walking away to go search for a fucking flash light that she hadn't already packed away.

She wasn't sure how many minutes Steve and Owen stood there talking, but she felt Owen step beside her just as she was stuffing two D batteries in one of the flashlights she had found.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Owen?" Sarah slowly turned, her head having to tilt back to look up at him. "I mean, I don't think we should separate." Sarah's voice was low, speaking only to him and not wanting to start a scene. But she wouldn't be the same blonde he knew if she didn't speak out a bit. "What if something happens to you guys out there? Then me and Mary are stuck in here, defenseless. Without a gun, and without a ride. Then what?" Sarah sighed, her bottom lip pouting again a little when one of his strong hands came up to her soft face. Incase he got any ideas, she brought her own hand up, holding her small palm against his strong chest to keep him from moving any closer. She remembered the warmth of those lips, the feel of his hands on her, and it took all the strength she had in her just to keep him at a distance.

"You don't get to kiss me. Not until you get back. And you are coming back, Owen. Or I'll come out there and shoot you myself if anything happens to you." It was Sarah's submission, and despite how fucking scared she was, her lips curved just slightly to smile a little before she buried her pretty face into his shirt. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, and she sighed heavily as she felt his lips kissing hair.



Sarah felt the emptiness in that small store just as well as deep inside her gut when Owen and Steve left. She felt anxious, nervous, and scared shitless as she stared out that window upstairs and fumbled her fingers with impatience. She watched Owen drive his truck down the street with his lights off. There was little movement on the street, and she hoped it stayed that way.

But it didn't stay quiet for long until Sarah could hear Mary's painful groans from downstairs.

 

[Light Ice]

The door closed behind him and for once he found himself afraid of all that he didn’t know about the world and what was in it. Something, irrevocably, had changed in him when the soft little woman he’d always seen had yielded to him some piece that he could claim. Something else had changed in him, entirely, when he’d killed a man he knew with every certainty that he’d already been dead. Nothing, not a damned thing, made sense to him in this context except for the hard and unrelenting truth that his life and that of those that were with him depended on his actions and what happened between now and whenever this nightmare ended.

Around him, like some grim scene from a movie, the world looked as though it was ending. A few cars still burned from accidents that had occurred in those first moments the people of his hometown turned on one another and started to tear each other apart in the street. They’d gone to ravenous monsters so quickly that what was left was some awful, gut wrenching dichotomy between the world as it was and the nightmare that had taken its place.

Bunting and streamers, hung for the Fourth, rippled in the faint evening breeze. They, plastic and sheer, made a faint sound against the invisible wind that pushed at them. A few overturned picnic tables and shattered storefronts told as grim a tale. The worst was the blood. Buckets worth. It came in great puddles or telltale drag marks. It soaked walls and great sections of the street and nearly every vehicle. The blood told a story that was not about the blood. It was about where the blood came from. It was about why there was enough blood for a man to bleed out entirely in one place upon the sidewalk and no body. No corpse. Nothing, mind you, save awful bootprints leading from the mess into the darkness.

He held the Glock as it was meant to be held. The tactical grip felt natural to him. Right. The barrel was short but focused his eyes down one side of the street at the mess and then down the other. The truck was ahead of him to the right and he went toward it. Steve moved with him. Close. He had the shotgun low at his hip and was focused on moving quietly, half-crouched. They made the truck without incident and got inside. Owen was pleased he didn’t fumble with the keys.

It started and he looked up to watch Steve. The doors to the cab were locked and he saw the man relax, albeit only a little, once the engine came to life without protest or worse. He waited a moment before putting on the lights, unable to decide, before the solution came to him all at once and their beams cut the darkness and the rolling fog that’s startling to settle overhead.

He parked outside the Sherriff’s station and killed the lights. The front doors were swung open outwards and the inside, what glimpse he caught, looked a disaster. For a moment he considered. The building looming ahead of him darkened. Grim.

“Stay close. Don’t shoot if you can help it.” He said.

“What?!” Steve answered.

“The noise. I don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

Steve’s features drew with dawning comprehension and he nodded, once and then once more.

Owen had watched men move themselves to danger and the unknown throughout his entire military career. They’d taken up their rifles, gathered themselves, and moved in a motion so solitary and so absolute that most couldn’t understand it if they tried. He’d taken those same first strides down range and felt the adrenaline as it took you and the immensity of the fight necessary to push it back. It’d taken him a great deal on his first tour.






--------------------------------------------------------------



The gunshots a minute earlier had drawn the monstrosities from the periphery of town. Over a hundred, their mouths hanging open to release an unrelenting and horrific moan, filled the main street and began a disjointed assault on the Sherriff’s station. Owen had barely gotten them both out of there. The duffle bags were heavy, so heavy that when they’d made the decision to abandon the truck and moved on he’d wished they’d taken half as much as they’d taken.
Surrounded by monsters, the truck was not possible. Neither wasted rounds firing at the herd that was gathering. Instead, cutting hard to their left, they moved to put a building’s corner between them and flank round it. At first, it seemed impossible. The size of the group was too much and Owen felt they were weighted too heavily down. Not fast enough. But, they’d committed regardless and ended up where they should be.

It was Steve’s shotgun that cleared the way in the end. The alleyway that lead into the corridor behind the shops was narrow and when they’d turned it’d been full. At close range, in close confines, Steve laid them down. The shotgun belching fire and death in three distinct unloads. And then, just like that, they were at the rear door. Owen nearly felt like kicking it in. His boot drove onto it, hammering relentlessly, while the moans began to draw closer.

It didn’t look good.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Sarah was pacing.

She didn't know how long she paced, but it was all she could do. She needed some kind of physical activity to try to match the racing of her own heart. She wanted to just stare out that window and wait for Owen and Steve's return, but Mary drew away a lot of her attention. And often.

It had only started out with a bite. She tried not to think about it, but she could still see Ron Driver digging his teeth into Mary's arm, unrelenting. He didn't just want to bite, it had been as if he wanted to chew her whole fucking arm off. The bite hadn't been deep, and it didn't look too bad at first. At least, that was her professional opinion. But she could hear Mary's groans and cries all the way from the room upstairs. From the sounds, someone would think she'd been shot, not bitten.

"Mary, are you keeping pressure like I said? I know it hurts, are you sure you're not scratching it?" Sarah seemed skeptical. The wound looked bigger. More colorful. Mary wasn't bleeding anymore, but the infection was spreading faster than Sarah had ever seen before. And she didn't know how to stop it. All she could offer Mary was help in cleaning the wound with warm water and soap, and cover it with ointment and a gauze. That's all she could do, until they could take her to a hospital.

And when the fuck would that be?

In the back of her mind, Sarah expected to hear sirens at any moment. She'd heard them before, when the madness first started happening, but nothing since. Shouldn't someone be coming to town to check on everyone? What the hell was taking so long? After what she'd seen, even if the details of what she'd seen was still a little fuzzy to her, someone had to come for them.

When Owen and Steve returned, she pictures a group of small town cops along with them, telling them that this madness was all over.

It would be over soon, right?

"Lay down, Mary. Try and get some rest, at least until the guys get back." Sarah insisted, and Mary only nodded weakly and laid back down. Resting would be easier for her. Her face was pale, almost even a bluish color. Sarah assumed it was because of what they'd been through.

When Sarah left Mary to rest, she paced the storeroom floor next, walking back and forth down the aisles. She just couldn't sit still. And her mind was all over the place.

First, she thought about Ron Driver. The strange look on the young man's face as he came sprinting down the alley, aiming for Mary and attacking her. Biting her. And that god-awful noise he made. He was a monster; there was no other word for it. But monster or not, she'd killed him. She killed a man. Sarah Whitman pulled the trigger and killed Ron Driver. She could only imagine the news story it would make, and how many people in town would hate her for it. But they hadn't been there!

She choked out a sob as the memory haunted her, and her stomach turned.

"Oh god," She groaned, and ran for the trash can to let the sickness and guilt leave her body.

When she was done, she saw the store phone on the ground. Now she thought of her family. The shrieks and sounds of panic in her mother's voice when she called to check up on her only daughter. Her mom had been so scared. And Sarah was helpless, unable to do anything about it. Would Sarah be with them now if she hadn't left to come see Owen? She felt guilt about the truth in that answer. But not regret. And that lack of regret made her think of Owen.

Owen Shepard; the one man whose walls she couldn't break. She didn't know why he had those walls, but she knew that he had put them up long before he met her. Sure, she'd made her cracks here and there, and...tonight, she really thought that she'd made some progress. Had she torn a wall down? Definitely not. But she felt as if he finally...let her in on the other side. It wasn't so bad on that other side. The other side where it was okay for them to give in to an attraction that was mutual, but often ignored. Denied.

Sarah cringed, and cursed at herself.

Outside, the town was falling to shit, and here she was, wondering about her relationship with Owen Shepard. She wanted to know if she'd get to kiss him again. And when? What did it mean? Did he really want her, or was it a sweet moment of comfort?

She hated herself at that moment when she realized she was being childish. She should be worried about her parents more. Worried about Mary's health, and the guys out there on their own! Not daydreaming about the next time she got that man alone. She decided in her head that she needed to distance herself. Just the thought of having to do that made her chest tighten, but she told herself she had to be strong. She needed to focus on what the fuck was going on around her, before she even thought about kissing Owen again. It seemed impossible, but her mind convinced her she needed to grow the fuck up.

First, she needed to deal with their current situation and their safety. Then, when they were out of this mess, she could show that man what kind of woman she really was. Her determination made her think her plan was doable; but Owen was so much better at playing hard to get, while she wasn't the type. At least, not when she wanted something bad enough.

Boom! Boom, boom!

"Shit!"

Sarah could hear the pounding at the back door, and she realized she hadn't been watching for the truck. Taking off, Sarah ran toward the door, but Mary was already there.

"Don't open it! What if it's not them?" Mary look deathly sick, especially in the dark, but Sarah was more focused on the urgent drumming of the door.

"And what if it is?" Sarah fought back with, and she forced Mary to move out of the way so she could pull open the door. By the time she had, Steve and Owen were moving inside so fast that she was knocked down onto her ass as she fell onto her back. She heard screams. Growls. Hisses. It didn't take long to see that they were being chased, and their chasers were getting inside.

"Shut the door!" She heard Steve saying, but Sarah was in no position to get up fast enough from the floor. Before she could even so much as sit up, someone was on top of her. The body was heavy. Wet. Was it raining? She couldn't even tell it was blood on the body that covered her, and then she heard the wailing in her ear. It was one of them. Whatever they were.

Sarah screamed. It was all she could do in such a vulnerable position, and she kicked and tried to shove the body off of her. The man's mouth snapped at her face as she tried to hold him up away from her, her fingers gripping at his chest. Before before his mouth could snap at her again, the man's body was being lifted off of her. She hadn't even known it was Owen's doing until she looked up to see him. His hands were at the man's shirt, gripping so tightly before he threw his first punch. And then another. Where the fuck was his gun? Next, she watched as Owen shoved the man back outside, and Steve was waiting to slam the door shut right after. If he hadn't, Owen's gun finally appeared again, ready to take his shot. But it took both of the men to get the door shut again and locked. It seemed like forever that they all stared at the door as the sound of hands and bodies against the door echoed through the store.

Sarah was trembling violently, she couldn't even get the strength in her knees back long enough to stand up. But strong hands were reaching for her arms, helping her up. She knew those hands. They'd been on her body not to long ago. Right before that kiss that still lived on her lips. Owen was close. So close. She could feel his heavy breath, and she felt his eyes on her. She always felt his eyes on her.

Sarah brought her hands up to his chest and pushed back a little, refusing to look up. She knew that once her blues looked up into his intense eyes, she'd crack.

"W-What's going on out there? Where are the cops?" She stammered, realizing she was short on breath herself. She wanted to blame the trauma, not the man next to her. "Did you find help?" She asked, and her eyes searched for Steve, hoping at least one of them had good news.

 

[Light Ice]

They threw themselves against the door. Stainless steel. It did not bow. It would not break. He had seen that they could, for all intents and purposes, overwhelm most anything. The trip to the station had been a near disaster. A ruinous outing, truly, had it not been for what he’d managed to learn. It had shaken him. There was nearly nothing that he could ascertain as sure. But, for all of that, Owen recognized one absolute certainty. As much as the monsters could not get in… the men and women within the shop could not get out.

And then there were her small fingers against his chest, pressing him away. She was pushing, creating distance, in a way that he recognized and knew. The reality of a person was often more than their intentions let on. Experience, reality, had a tendency of creeping in and ruining what would otherwise be ideal. The moment for them had come and gone, slipped away. And he mourned it now, looking down as she avoided his eyes, and once more reminded himself that she was a younger and far more attractive spirit than he. His half step back brought him back to the moment at hand. The faint ache that lingered was buried, smothered away, with all the intensity he’d learned years ago.

“You’re alright.” He assured her. And then, looking back, found Steve moving to his wife. “How many left?

They were all shaken but none, he could see, worse than Steve. The Deputy had held his own at the Sheriff’s Station but the wear of it was coming sharply now. It was one thing to use a shotgun to defend yourself. The monsters, in many ways, could be easier than people to put down. Their empty stares and awful snarls, inhuman movements and haunting countenance, allowed a man to feel indifference as he pulled the trigger to save himself. That’d worked until they’d gotten into the station and Steve had to turn his shotgun on the men and women he used to call friends. Neighbors. Coworkers.

“Three.” Steve said at length.

Three shells. That gave them fifteen total with the shells he had left upstairs. It would have to be enough. There were few choices otherwise. For a long moment Owen looked out across them, this small group, and considered. The truck was a loss at the Station’s front and beyond their reach. He knew where Steve would stand. Hole up. Lock it down. Owen shook his head at the thoughts and considered Sarah at length. Beautiful. Shaken. Soft. His responsibility now, really, regardless of what she felt about him.

“There’s no help coming.” He said at length. Looking to Steve now. “Tell them.”

“It’s in every city. Detroit is still under control but it’s starting to go bad. It was all over the radio. Every town from here to the city limits has been hit by these things. There’s not going to be anyone coming here. They’re recalling everyone to the city.”

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

There's no help coming.

They were alone.

Well, she didn't feel completely alone. She had three other people with her, all who wanted to make it out of here alive. And one of them in particular, had her back more than the rest.

As if Owen and Sarah's relationship hadn't already been fucked up enough, they now had this thrown at them. They were never very good at being friends, anyway, but they tried. He'd always kept her at arm's length; far enough to give himself space, but close enough so that he didn't lose her. And she'd been the friend that tried too hard to win his attention, even if she already had it. She always had it. She just didn't know it.

Right now, neither of them really knew how to be that friend anymore. What kind of friend was she supposed to be to him now with all of the madness going on around them? She certainly wasn't the type of girl to discuss her feelings or want to sit down and talk to him, analyzing what that kiss may have meant to either of them. No.

There was no help coming. If they wanted to be saved, they'd have to do it themselves. Her brain told her that was more important. Her heart and other parts of her body...would just have get over it for a while.

By now, Sarah was beginning to panic. The walls felt as if they were inching closer. She felt trapped. Trapped in this fucking store. The same fucking store that she only liked going into when a certain tall, guarded, sexy man was standing behind the counter. He'd been so easy to tease then. So easy to get him to smile, or stare a second longer when she wore jean shorts on a summer day like this. She didn't know if Owen Shepard would be that same man anymore after tonight, and that might've scared her more than the pounding at their door.

"Why is this happening to them? Those things you are talking about are our friends, our family!" She knew that wasn't true, at least not anymore, but she refused to believe they were completely gone. All except Ron Driver. Beautiful Ron Driver. She still remembered Mary's screams of pain as his teeth had sunk into her arm, trying to tear her flesh. Right before his brains splattered against the alleyway.

Sarah thought she was going to retch all over again.

"I may not know shit about guns, but whatever the hell 'three' is, I know it's not good! And how are we supposed to get to the city? You guys left the fucking truck back there, and those things are at our back door! We'll never get out of here. Oh god, I'm not going to fucking die. Not in here." She felt as if she couldn't breathe, like her chest was caving in on her. But Sarah thought she deserved at least one panic attack. She hadn't really had one yet.

"We're not going to die in here." Steve insisted, when Owen didn't reply fast enough. "I know we all want to get out of here, but I think it was a good idea to stay here for a bit. Let Mary's arm heal, and let things quiet down out there. It will, I'm sure of it."

Sarah didn't want to hear the promises that the older man couldn't keep, but she appreciated his positive attitude. She'd take any hope at this point, even if it were false. But she still couldn't say that she liked staying here any longer than they needed to be. The longer they stayed in here, the less they knew about what was going on outside.

"Let's talk about it more in the morning. We'll see where things stand when we get up, and come up with a plan then." Sarah settled on and she took a deep breath. Turning, she walked away from the group. She'd already tended to Mary's wound before the guys returned, and she had nothing else to say. She needed to lay down and rest, before her mind started spinning with questions again.

The cot just upstairs called to her as she laid down. She smelled Owen around her. His masculine scent was everywhere; in the pillows, blanket...and even as she looked up, she could see the ghosts of where they once stood in that same room, touching lips for the first time.

Groaning in annoyance, Sarah rolled onto her side in the opposite direction. It was as if thinking about his mouth on hers was more upsetting than the people just outside, who wanted to kill her.

 

[Light Ice]

They were alive and that was something. Something, but not everything, and in the absence of Sarah and the sudden calm that had fallen he was left with only questions and the bleak loneliness of the instant. It was not entirely unfamiliar to him. He knew it. Hadn't wanted to find it again. Men were bound to finding reasons and solutions, solving problems, lending aide. It was in this pursuit that they chased all things in their life, one to another, in the most futile and absurd of ways. Still, life and death were so easily and so often beyond a man's control. They lived of their own accord, followed their own rules, and the mortal coil was but one of the many planes upon which they dwelled.

The struggle lived within the uncertainty. It was born of unfamiliarity. In war, ever and always, there was some degree of understanding he'd maintained. Acts of violence, random and savage or calculated and human, all had their place within the confines of conflict and the hearts of the men that waged them. This was a warrior's reality and something he'd come to understand and understand well.

Still, there was no reality to this that he could entirely understand and that made him gravely afraid. There were human questions that came to him even now, as he stood with his back to the stair leading up from the store to the loft that had become his default home. Were the things, because they did not move or act like people, curable? Did he have it? Did any of them?

Doug Elsman, a PFC from Dayton, had taught him in the most real and visceral way possible that within everyone a monster lived. Doug had never been a cheerful type. Down range? He'd turned into something else. It'd stewed in him and the war had nursed it. But through it all, even when he'd let the hand grenade clear a children's bedroom that had already been swept, Owen had found some ability to understand the young man's actions. He'd lost his mind because he'd had too much of the darkness to begin with. It'd won, strengthened by that place, and in the end it'd demanded he wrap up the horrors of it all by placing his sidearm underneath his chin and turn his face into a smoking crater.

They'd all woken in the night to find him there, beside them in his cot, and while the nightmare of it had clung to them like a stain, it'd been faded with the acute strength of understanding. It, all of it, was something he could intellectually understand. It made sense. Sad, dark young man goes to war and finds a more substantial sadness and darkness. Young man gets lost. You knew how the story should have ended and did not feel deceived.

But here, home, nothing made sense.

One day his grief and struggle had been forged from the shadow of his father's passing and the wayward anxieties of finding his way. The next, in an instant, had been transformed into a nightmare beyond all measures of belief. He was not a religious man, and counted himself lucky for it, because amidst the madness of it all there was only room for doubt. Room for a man to lose his faith.

Around him, shadowed through closed blinds and in the near-dark with the lights off, everything felt distinctly foreign. The store has always had a homey, familiarity to it. It smelled like his father upstairs. His cologne. It was all the same goods and wares he'd grown with. Camping equipment. A little bit of hardware. He knew the racks and locations by heart. Knew every scuff on the tiled floor. In the light it was as much a home as home had been.

But in the dark it felt something else entirely and he was robbed of all those things to which he had once relied. They were surrounded by bleak goods on bleak racks devoid of color and life and warmth when the lights were out. He should have felt, or so it seemed, fortunate to be here amidst his own things while the world outside turned over into something awful.

Instead, he only felt the urge to run.

Like rats on a sinking ship…

In the dark he climbed the stairs, unaware of how many minutes had passed on between his ascent and Sarah's. She, a delicate thing, all full of fire and ferocity in the instant when fear had taken her most soundly. He went to her and found her there, lying down where he'd slept the better part of nights and he'd never imagined to have found her. A tuft of blonde hair and delicate limbs all wrapped up around her - it was surreal. Just a day ago the thought of a girl, any girl, let alone her - had never crossed his mind.

He remembered the last time he had laid with a woman but not exactly when it had happened. Still, settling in behind her, Owen felt nothing of the hesitation he anticipated. His strong arm slid beneath her neck, wrapping around her. The other splayed large fingers across her smooth belly, gliding across silken skin beneath the hem of her shirt, pressing gently until her back stretched along the rugged breadth of his front and her rounded backside was firmly pressed into the warmth of him.

There were no words. Owen had never been much for them. They lived only in action as his fingers strummed lightly across her belly and they brought a warmth to an otherwise cold and lonely instant. It had never occurred to him, not really, in all the years that they had known one another. It occurred to him now. Here. Amongst the ghosts of his past and the tenuous safety of familiar walls; he found began to understand he might find his home in her.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Sarah's intent had been on laying down, relaxing her mind, and getting rest. It may not have exactly been late, but the events that had unfolded today had made her feel as if she'd been awake for days. Laying upstairs in a small cot, the silence surrounding her was almost deafening. It made it hard to believe, in that time alone, that everything was real. That on the very street that she spent many high school years skipping school and strolling on with her friends, had turned into a war zone. That Ron Driver, a town football legend, had attacked and bit Mary. When Sarah tried to close her eyelids, she could still see the craziness in Ron's glassy, bloodshot eyes. The way it seemed as if he had no reason, no conscious. And then....

Blood. Splattered. On the brick wall in the alley. With the gun that Sarah had used, the bullet had pierced Ron through the head. Practically splitting open his forehead.

Sarah's wet blue eyes shot open again and when they did, she was crying. She had killed a man today. Still, the memory made her sick to her stomach, even if she had nothing left in it to retch. Instead, she trembled and shook. She was shivering, even if her heart was still racing fast enough to keep her whole body warm.

The only thing that calmed and stilled her was Owen's body crawling into that cot behind her. She felt his weight shifting the cot, then his body. Sarah wondered if she should turn, or let him know that she was still awake. Instead, she remained still. She let his larger body mold against her from behind, her blonde head lifting just far enough for his arm to slide under it and his other to slide over her waist until his fingers were touching her soft, warm skin. Sarah sighed, exhaling slowly. She was no longer shaking, or shivering. But she guessed Owen knew she was crying because her warm tears fell onto his strong arm. But she didn't dare want him to move now. It was as if those strong arms around her were shielding her, protecting her from the violence outside their walls, and the violence still in her head. Together, like this, only they existed. Only those arms, so safe and strong. His breath, slightly audible, but felt like a whisper in her hair. His hands; rough from labor, but gentle when touching her. His broad chest, rising and falling against her back. His groin, pressed against her backside, denim shorts pressed against denim jeans.

God, how she wished things were different. That their circumstances were different. When she woke up this morning for the first time in her own bed since returning from college, she would have never guessed that she would have been reunited with Owen today. Been given a job. Killed a man. Seen the city she grew up in fall apart.

And yet, her selfish heart kept going back to that one moment. The moment, up here in this very room. Owen fucking Sheppard kissed her.

Years of getting this man to admit his attraction to her had been extremely frustrating and unsuccessful. Of course, there had been a time when she was too young for him. Both of them were unattainable. And while Sarah may not have always made her intentions very obvious, she definitely had gone out of her way to befriend the quiet, stubborn Owen. Keeping him close when he kept so many others at arms-length.

But had that kiss really changed anything? Maybe it opened her eyes to a few things she wanted more than she realized, but...how could she continue to be so selfish and keep wondering if he'd let her kiss him again? If she could kiss him right now. Just one turn of her head, and her lips could be pressed against his. Just a few more inches reach of his fingertips, and they could be between her legs, making her squirm against him. Just a rough push of her shorts and his zipper, and he could be inside her, buried deep.

No.

Her fantasies of Owen were selfish. Her own parents were out there, somewhere, and who knew if they were even okay? She wanted so desperately to think of someone other than herself. To be that good person, like Owen, who thought things through with a clear, level head. But nothing about her mind or body right now was clear or level.




Somehow, Sarah had managed to close her eyes again and drift into sleep without saying a word to Owen. When she awoke again in the middle of the night, she was jolted awake by a faint scream. She guessed it was from outside. As soon as the darkness had fell upon Royal Oaks, the activity outside had picked up a little more. Then died down again. But every now and again, even from where they were upstairs in the loft, they could hear a gunshot, a scream, or a car horn. The four in that small shop had nothing to do but sleep through it, or ignore it. The dangers outside their door still lingered, and they had learned their lesson.

Sleep through it. Just sleep.

But Sarah couldn't force herself to do it again. She felt fearful again. Vulnerable. Anxious. Desperate.

Owen's large hand was resting warmly on her hip bone, and once again, Sarah was very aware of every part of him that was touching her. His soft breath in her hair and against her neck was steady now, and she wondered if he was sleeping.

Please, don't be sleeping. I need you, she realized.

The guilt that she had once felt for wanting him, above all things right now, was gone. Thinking of her family or finding a way out of this, none of it would ease her mind. None of it would help her right now. But she had Owen, and he was right here.

She wasn't going to let him slip away again.

Reaching for him, Sarah's fingers found his hand on her hip, and she pushed it down over the curve of her side again, toward her stomach. But she didn't stop there. God, just the warmth of his hand pressed flat against her tight stomach, made her belly quiver. Arousal. She knew that feeling well. She couldn't stop. Slowly, she guided his fingers, whether he was awake or not, down. Stretching her shorts, uncaring, she introduced his thick, masculine fingers to her smooth, bare warmth. Instantly, Sarah's back arched, and her round rear-end pressed firmly back against him.

More.

Blue eyes fluttered closed, pink lips parting to let a sigh escape, Sarah push his hand deeper, and her outside leg opened to welcome his touch.

 

[Light Ice]

She was, if anything, persistent.

In the beginning she'd been a pretty face. Everyone knew that much. Royal Oaks had a small town feel and a small town's definition of pretty. She'd always been beyond that. The kind of girl that tugged on a pair of jean shorts and had half her high school class in love before she'd walked from the door to her seat. But he'd never been in a class with her and by the time he'd come back home there'd been a world of space between them and what'd always felt like an entirely different lifetime.

She'd started hanging around the shops and chatting with him. At him, really, though you'd never know it if his silence gave her a hard time. He made the joke once that it was too early for her smile, all ten-thousand megawatts of it, when he'd come in after a night of drinking and she'd been there to greet him at the shop's door before he'd opened. He'd told her he'd slept wrong. It felt wrong to lie to her but she'd bought it, flashing that smile, and after that it was like she'd attached herself to the store and become a part of it.

The truth of it, though, was that she'd never felt too young to him. He'd watched her work at the store where he definitely did not employ her. The ethic. The way the amicable smile fell away and focus set in. It'd been that, more than anything, that had started to help him see her. Really see her. And after that, when the scissor-like strides of her legs through the aisles were suddenly enough to make his jeans tighten and his breath catch, he'd worked on avoiding her. Entirely. It'd been a futile affair but it'd, more or less, kept her from catching the way his eyes lingered on her.

More or less.

He'd never thought he'd end up with her against him and the reality of it was that she was, in the end, special. Too special. She felt like the kind of girl that belonged in a country song about summertime and love and a happiness he'd never really known. His life was a dark mess of tangled lives and memories and losses. For now, until this moment, he'd preferred to keep it all stowed away. Buried. Hidden.

When her hand found his, their fingers entwined. Brief. His doing. The room was heavy with darkness and she was a shadowy slip of a shape in his arms. He stirred as her fingers brushed the back of his hand, took hold, and guided his caress down the delicate arch of her hip and the smooth stretch of her belly. There was no desire, no intent, to veil from her the effect. These were deep waters. Overwhelming waters. They poured across him as sensations ripped their way through his body and pulled roughly through him.

The dim and dark couldn't hide her. Not now. Not ever. And she'd never let him hide from her. Now, as his fingers brushed skin he'd only let himself imagine until now, she'd feel the tension arch through him with absolute and potent ferocity. Muscles bristling, his body was a slab of warmth and strength for her to arch against. His cock, ferociously hard now, strained against the crotch of his jeans and throbbed hotly through the fabric into the round cheeks of her short-clad backside.

"Sarah?" Words. Never his strength. Still, the question came with her name, an inflection that was husky with want as it brushed the shell of her ear with the warmth of his breath.

Her fingers guided his own further.

The strength of his control did not yield itself entirely. He was not lost. But he invested himself now in the weighted anticipation of the moment. The girlish softness of her against him. His fingers glided down across silken skin, tracing the shape of her mound as his cock flexed hard against her backside. The coltish stretch of her top leg opening for him as his fingers slipped wetly along the slick petals of her pussy.

He ached. She wanted. Badly. His fingers slipped and slid across her, parting petals that dripped with her want and need and the intensity of this desperate stolen moment. Owen's touch remembered. Learned. It explored her with tenderness, dancing across her as he fought the desires surging through him and focused on listening to her body. To the way she breathed. To how she pushed back against him. To the way her slick, pouted petals gushed honeyed wetness when his fingers brushed a circle around the tight bud of her clit.


And, as his mouth found the back of her gracefully curved neck, Owen parted her folds with a strong, solitary finger. The rippling warmth of her surrounding it as it sunk deep, deeper, and curled to stroke against her walls while the heel of his hand ground gently against her clit.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Her name.

Sarah had heard Owen say her name at least a hundred times before. Sometimes in annoyance, sometimes frustration. Sometimes to get her attention. But never, never in this context. The way he spoke her name so quietly, his breath whispering against her ear, it sent chills along the side of her neck and down her arms. If he could arouse her with just a whisper, she could only imagine what his hands were capable of.

For years, she had imagined what those strong, wonderful hands could do.

And now he was about to show her.

If Sarah had any worry of rejection, it was long gone now. His long, big fingers sunk beneath her shorts, then her panties, and explored. God, did they explore. Lips parting, Sarah exhaled slowly at his touch. Flesh on flesh. She was more aroused, more sensitive than she expected to be when his fingerprints rubbed their claim on her pussy. Each brush of his fingers against her smooth sex had her arching, her hips rolling back against him on that small cot. She could feel him behind her, strong, hard, and equally aroused.

Hadn't it just been hours ago that she had made a silent promise to herself not to even kiss him again? And now she was letting this happen. Willing it to.

Well, while Sarah wore her heart on her sleeve, she never claimed to not be a complicated woman.

For too long, she'd wanted this. She could have always sworn that he did too, and she'd never been able to figure out why exactly he resisted her. Maybe she'd never know. Maybe she'd never care, since she had him now. But this wasn't just about setting free her sexual desire for Owen Sheppard. With the madness all around them, the death, and the darkness, she just wanted to feel alive. Feel something. No one made her feel everything all at once like Owen did. No one but Owen could take her away from the madness and carry her to the state she was in now.

"Mm, yes." A whisper escaped of her own, though it wasn't an answer to a question. It was an approval. She appreciated that those wonderful fingers of his didn't seek permission. He didn't hesitate. She'd given him the invitation, and that had been all he'd needed before a single finger pushed through her folds and sunk inside her.

"Oh," She exhaled a gaspy breath. She arched again, her ass pressing more firmly against him. The way his finger penetrated her, his rough palm pressed against her at just the right pressure, so expertly, made her wonder if this was for her pleasure or his own. She needed this. Needed him. For too long, she'd fooled around with boys in school who didn't know what to do with a girl like Sarah. But Owen...he didn't touch her aimlessly or carelessly. His touch had purpose. It was the first time the two had ever been intimate, and yet, he seemed to know exactly what her body needed. It was as if they were one; her brain and body was telling his hand just what she needed. And yet, the way his hand moved in a slow circle, the way his finger curled inside her slick, wet depth, her whole body shuddered her approval. Arousal. His gentle touch made her heart race, her skin flush, and her knees tremble. Sarah's moans were a soft, quiet whimper in the dark, and her blonde head rolled heavier to the side. Another invitation.

His lips were warm and smooth against the soft flesh of her neck. His touch there was just as gentle as his hand. He was dragging his lips along the back of her neck as he kissed her there again and again, as if pulling back just wasn't an option. Sarah's hips rolled, grinding against him and grinding against that hand between her legs. They both didn't say another word. The only sound in that dark room was his heavy breath in her beautiful golden hair, her girlish sighs and soft moans, and the slightest sound of two of his fingers now penetrating her.

Sarah cried out another whimper, this time with desperation. That build up was supposed to be slow and endless, and here she was, unraveling in his arms. Her clit ached and tingled from the attention, and she could feel how soaked his fingers were and how smoothly they pushed inside her now. That whimpered moan wasn't his only sign that she was reaching her climax much faster than she expected. Against his fingers, her pussy contracted and flexed, squeezing him as her hips bucked against his lap. She came, her arousal dripping down his slick fingers as her whole body shuddered and trembled in his strong arms.

Catching her breath, Sarah still had no words. She didn't thank him in a way she knew she shouldn't have. She wanted to, but instead she turned her head and her mouth found his lips in the darkness. Slow, but deep, Sarah kissed Owen in a way that felt so unfamiliar. Unlike anyone else. Somehow, kissing him made her feel like it was her first time kissing ever. She had wanted to feel something, and sure enough, with his lips on hers, that pounding in her chest didn't slow. If she felt something for Owen, she didn't just feel it between her legs, but in her chest, too.

Facing him on the cot, Sarah silently cried herself to sleep to the slow, gentle caress of Owen's fingers in her hair and her face in his chest. She cried for her parents, for Ron Driver, and the others who had quite possibly lost their lives today.

Maybe once the sun came up, and her eyes opened again, everything but her time with Owen would have just been a dream.

Maybe.

 

[Light Ice]

Somehow, before they’d even began, he knew how this would end and it wasn’t because he saw her as a girl. The world that they’d known seemed so far away, so terribly far away, that all that was were the sounds of it ending outside and the memories of the moments in which it’d stopped being for them. In that world, the one that had been but wasn’t, he’d have taken her here in the dark with softer kisses and the slow, powerful roll of their bodies between the sheets. He’d have taken her and she’d have laughed with him in the dark, blinked at him through girlish lashes, and taken him to some happiness that he couldn’t remember knowing.

But as it was they grasped at straws together. Grasped at memories. Mourned. She came, slick wet across his fingers and the soft, whimpering little sounds of pleasure as it poured from her and he knew that they had found the chord they’d needed. She broke after that. He didn’t fault her for it. Didn’t faun over her. He simply held her, silently, after her lips stole the breath from his own and the brief navigation of their want abandoned them to the certainty of their loss.

Owen felt inspired to fix things. To make them right for her. With every heave of her against him, every wet sob amidst the dark, he sought to reach out into the night and pull from it some broken fragment of what she’d known and put it in place again. The impossibility of it did not cross his mind. There was no defeat there. It was only a blind desire that twisted up in his heart and broke it over and over until she finally went still, and quiet. Until she finally slept.

In a way, he realized, he hadn’t really decided they’d live until just now. He’d fought to survive, certainly, but he’d never really and distinctly decided for himself that he would. She gave him reason. A measure of the means to which he found the entirety of his purpose coalesce into a sharp and potent motivation. If he were to make all of the nightmare fade – he’d need to survive. She’d need to survive. The thought drifted through him and coaxed him to sleep. It invaded his dreams. And it woke him, with her still curled into the strength of his rugged form, early the next morning.

Downstairs, he heard movement. Outside, he heard shuffling death. It was easy to pay either little mind. Veiled by blonde, her face was obscured to him. Still, he kissed at her brow through the loose strands of her mane, and was content to keep her close. Content to feel her.

The soft line of her was long, lean, and precious. Every curve that’d made him want played a sudden second, in that instant, to the parts of her that reminded him most of the girl who’d hung about his shop. Forgotten, in this moment, was the rolling hips and long legs that had brought him to such ferocious hardness the night before. She’d always been beautiful. She never could be anything but. But now, in this moment, she was also something powerful within him. A waking, of sorts, that had him struck by the realness of her country kindness and the muted grace with which she held herself. She was the kind of girl that every man wanted to love.

The kind of girl that he loved.

The girl that he loved.

Frightening, the admission. Frightening because he hadn’t felt that way always and it’d come on sudden, and sharp, and he was not a child who believed in the potency of first sight. Still, it was true, and he knew it like he knew they’d have to abandon the shop and get out of town. It was true and he knew it like he knew that she’d seen in him things he hadn’t seen in himself. It was true like and he knew it like he knew she’d want to wake in his arms and not with him downstairs.

So he kissed her. While she slept. And kissed her again until she woke.

They’d go downstairs together.

 

[SortOfBeautiful]

Warm hands and warm lips woke her on that small cot, and Sarah's long lashes fluttered open. Blurred vision in those pretty blue eyes adjusted and focused as she tilted her head back, finding herself still leaning back against Owen's weight. He was awake, she could feel it. Sense the rhythm of his breath. Slowly, carefully, she turned to face him.

She remembered last night. Waking up. Inviting his hand. His lips at her ear and face in her hair as she came to his touch. Her thighs warmed at the memory, her belly quivered and she swallowed hard as she tilted her head back and looked back at him. So close. She thought it would be awkward, but she found herself smiling.

"Last night was real." She whispered, sighing softly. Her hand came up to his chest, as if to confirm it. She was completely aware that the intimacy between them was more than just feeling something. Feeling good and forgetting about the madness. It was unfortunate that this was all happening now, but Sarah had no will to stop it.

"But....that means that everything else was too." She found herself frowning again, and she tried not to cry. The tears welled up in her pretty eyes, but they didn't fall. Last night she'd relieved her grief, or at least most of it, and today was another day. Today she needed to get out of that small store and make sure the town went back to normal.

"I want to go home, Owen." Sarah confessed, whispering to him again. He nodded to her, leaning in to kiss her again, this time on her forehead.

"I know," He whispered back, and reached down to take her hand. Together, they stood up and made their way downstairs. Sarah's messy golden hair was pulled back into a long ponytail again, and it bounced behind her shoulders with each step she made as they walked through the cold store to find Steve and Mary. They were awake, or at least Steve was. He was sitting up, stroking Mary's sweaty hair as she was laying on her side.

"Hey, everything okay?" Sarah called out as she approached first, letting Owen decide if he wanted to join or check something else out from the window. She could already tell his mind was no longer with her, not like before, and she admired that about him. She wanted to be strong, like him.

Kneeling Sarah joined Steve on the floor and peeled the blanket off of Mary. She didn't gasp, but she cupped her hand over her mouth.

Mary's wound was red. Deep, dark, red. Her skin was pale and moist, and one didn't have to have a medical degree like her to see that Mary's arm was infected, and it was getting worse. It was spreading.

"She's been groaning and talking in her sleep all night. I just don't get it, Sarah. I watched you clean the wound. I even checked the bandage in the middle of the night and changed it. She's not getting better." Steve wasn't telling Sarah anything she didn't already know. She pressed her fingers to Mary's pulse on her neck, and Sarah found that not only was the older woman running a fever, but her heart was racing.

"She'll be okay, Steve. She just needs the right antibiotics, maybe an anti-inflammatory. I'm so sorry, I think we slowed the infection, but right now it's spreading and all we can do is just make her uncomfortable until it's safe to leave. There's a fridge back there, go get her a water." Sarah instructed the older man, trying to keep him busy and help him feel like he was contributing since she could sense the helplessness he felt in his wife's condition. It broke her heart, but she couldn't panic. She had to prove she was ready to get out of here.