Apocalypse - Redemption

[Light Ice]

The guard had said his name was Hank and Calvin believed him. There was no reason not to. Hank had come back from his home to let Calvin out. To give him a chance. But mostly, Calvin knew, to clear his conscience for the long and mysterious ride off the mortal coil. Hank certainly looked sick. His face was swollen and his eyes were clouded, snot ran in a steady stream from his wide nostrils and provoked his arm to lift and swipe it away on a dark sleeve. If Hank had been a picture of health he would have been a large and very fit black man. But he wasn't. He looked like a man on death's door and worse, Calvin saw, was the lack of fight left in his muddy eyes.

"I'm hungry." He said.

The guard nodded slowly, painfully. The Super Flu was not in its final stages. He had time. A couple days, maybe, before things turned ugly and his time ran out. Hank still carried his service pistol on his hip. Even now. But Calvin could imagine it was for a far different reason. The Beretta would eventually serve a purpose for Hank when things got so far along he could no longer deny the inevitable. The pain would make it a handsome option. A pull of the trigger and it was lights out. Bon Voyage. Goodnight and Good Luck.

It wouldn't be glamorous but it would be quick. And quick was a mercy that the Super Flu did not provide. Infact, when it came to life's habit of dishing out the minute mercies that make tragedy survivable, the Super Flu carried with it only one. You would not be the only one. That was your solace. Already, less than a month after the first outbreak on the West Coast, the United States was virtually dead.

News of the rest of the world had stopped coming in after outbreaks had cropped up in Europe and Asia. Journalism quickly became an expendable focus when the Super Flu rolled into town. Panic generally came after. Men and women flooding churches and hospitals, boarding themselves up at home or getting in the car and running. Not that any of it mattered. The flu killed anyone and everyone without discrimination. At first it gave them headaches and colds. Then there were aches, fever, and nausea. For a couple days it almost seemed like a regular flu. A bad case, sure, but nothing fatal.

It was only when it hit the third stage that the real horror show began. Calvin knew. He'd seen it.

The cell across from him had two inmates in it. The one was named Teddy Alters. Teddy was a short, scruffy-faced white man from the South Side. His accent was movie-thick and he was waiting for trial in several robberies up in Cambridge. It was ironic, really, because Calvin's family lived in Cambridge. There was a chance that Teddy had robbed his parents house.

Teddy died first. And Calvin knew that so long as he was alive he would suffer nightmares of Teddy Alters.

Stage Three hit like a ton of bricks. You had maybe two hours before it really got rolling. The first inclination that things were taking a quick tailspin were the tremors. They came on fast and furious. In Teddy they'd started in his hands and spread quickly throughout his entire body. The Central Nervous System, Calvin knew, was like an interstate highway. Everything important ran up and down it and nobody lived on it. The traffic came from the smaller nerves tracking through the body and jumped on the highway, up to the brain.

He imagined the virus was working much the same. Once it hit the nervous system it was bouncing through the entire body, attacking cells, killing things and multiplying at a freakish rate.

Teddy's shakes eventually subsided. Forty minutes later. Teddy had made a joke about never going through that again. Calvin hadn't smiled. Calvin knew that Teddy was more right than he knew. He would never go through that again. But it wasn't because it was something that had passed. It was because the damage was done. The nerves were dead. They couldn't fire off crazily like they had when they were under attack because that battle was over.

And so was the war. Really.

Inside Teddy Alters was a bomb.

The virus planted a bunch of bombs, really. It congregated heavily in a couple organs. The Liver. The lining of the stomach and intestines. The eyes, brain, and lungs. It collected there. Balls of viral cells. Attacking antibodies and multiplying. Breaking down red blood cells and multiplying. Over and over. It grew huge colonies of itself before finally the body was done, used and abused. Consumed.

And then you crashed out.

Teddy crashed out two hours after he had stopped shaking. He got nauseous and laid down, only to double up. He wrapped himself in his arms and started moaning, tossing and turning side to side. The pain was new. Extreme. Everywhere. Cal hadn't wished to watch but Teddy wasn't dying quietly. He was moaning. Groaning. Tossing and turning, whimpering. So he watched. He looked through the bars and across to Teddy's cell and watched.

Ten minutes after he started, Teddy began to retch. On his third attempt he vomited what easily could have been a gallon of blood onto the floor. It'd scared Calvin so badly he'd fallen off his cot and back-peddled to the wall of his cell. The cold brick had been a small comfort, something solid, some reminder that this was not a dream and he was actually watching a man puke geysers of blood onto the floor.

The blood upset him, too. Cal had never been one to get nauseous around body fluids or functions but this blood didn't look right. It had black clots in it, thick clots that looked like curds of sour milk only charcoal-black. Ink black. And it smelled like sulfur and death.

Teddy shared his cell with another white man from Southy named Sean McCreary. Sean was a very large man in his forties who had gotten drunk and beaten on his girlfriend. When Teddy started emptying his stomach and sloshing blood all over their cell Sean had panicked. He had started shrieking.

Normally, crying like that was a good way to get a prison hysterical. Not with fear, mind you, but with madness. Calvin had only been to jail twice. And both times it had been the county lock up here, not a real pen, but the same rules still applied. Cells and bars did things to men. It changed them. And most the time not for the better.

But Calvin knew that one of the things he would remember most about Teddy Alter's last few hours on Earth would be the silence. The entire prison was mostly silent.

He had heard a few men sobbing openly as things progressed. But that was all.

At first he hadn't really noticed. Teddy's purging had stolen his attention. It'd made the little details otherwise impossible to pay attention to. But as things went on he'd wondered why things were so quiet.

Teddy's pain got so bad that he stopped moaning and started sobbing. Deep. Hitching sobs that provoked him to puke more black-clotted blood onto the floor. It went on for an hour like that. It seemed impossible that Teddy could have that much blood inside him. Calvin had wondered if a man could bleed to death like that. It certainly seemed possible watching Teddy.

But then Teddy had gone ram-rod straight in his bunk and began going through more convulsions. This time, though, they were powerful shakes that reminded Calvin of a Grand Mal seizure. The main and terrible difference was that in a Grand Mal seizure the sufferer generally blacked out. Teddy did not blacked out.

Teddy screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

In the very end, nearly six hours after it started, Sean McCreary was sobbing like a broken child in the corner of the cell. He had sat on the toilet and drawn his legs up indian style and sobbed, and talked to himself, and wept.

Teddy had a few more big shakes but mostly he just laid there and suffered, suffered horribly.

In the very last stage the body gives way. Tissues break down and the virus basically melts anything and everything it touches. Teddy bled out his nose, ears, eyes, mouth, and the pores on his face. He bled from his fingernails and his crotch and ass soaked through with blood, hinting horrible things that Cal was glad he had never seen. But finally, when he gave the last ragged gasp of his life, Teddy's body had shrunken up almost entirely around his skeleton.

It as though, after the bombs had went off, they had released something to consume all the mess they had created.

Sean McCreary was dead two days later. Except after he'd started slipping into Stage Three he hung himself from the bars of his cell.

Hank had the look of a man who had seen what Cal had seen. And he didn't want to go out that way. Calvin didn't blame him. Not at all. Nobody who had seen what the Super Flu could do to a man would have thought less of someone for taking things into their own hands.

"I'm Cal. Cal Winters." He said. "I'm from Cambridge."

Hank turned and thrust a hand out for Cal to take. The shake was brief but enough to provoke a weary smile from the guard that had saved Cal's life.

"I'm Hank. I'm from Jamaica Plains."

"You saved my life." Cal said.

"Probably not." Hank was looking through the garage.

Cal hadn't even noticed they had walked into a garage. He was hungry. He'd never been so hungry. It'd been almost a week since he'd had something to eat. He'd been smart. After the first day had gone by without seeing any guards he'd cleaned his toilet like a mad man, drawing some laughs from Teddy and Sean before their time had run out. He'd cleaned with his toothbrush and toothpaste until the stainless steal bowl was absolutely pristine. And then he'd taken to pissing out into the aisle.

He'd crapped in a coffee can with a plastic lid and kept it near his window until things had gotten real quiet. Then he'd tossed it down the aisle.

But the point was to keep his source of water clean. And he'd probably kept himself alive by doing that.

"But you aren't sick. Are you?" Hank asked him suddenly, turning on him with the beam of a very large MagLight.

Where the hell had he gotten that MagLight from?

"No." Cal answered.

"Not yet." Hank corrected him, suddenly scrutinizing him.

"Not yet." Cal echoed. It seemed the safest thing. He felt light-headed. Things didn't look right. And if Hank felt threatened or taken by the urge to beat his frustrations and fears away, Cal was the only living target. A living target that -wasn't- sick and couldn't reasonably defend himself.

And Cal did not want to die just yet.

Hank shook his head suddenly, and sighed. "Man, I hope you don't get sick. I hope there are at least a few people in this world who aren't going to get sick."

The guard's words provoked Cal to relax and he put on a weak smile. It was the only smile he could manage right now.

"Hank. I haven't eaten in a week. I'm not feeling so hot."

Hank nodded and began to walk more briskly through the garage. The beam of his flashlight chased off the dark and cut over the sleeping shapes of a few cruisers.

"I have a car." He said as he selected a four-door SUV. "But this one is for you. Cambridge isn't too fucked up. Everyone's dead but they died in their houses mostly. It's not like downtown. There's a shotgun on the dash and some shells in there if you g-" He paused.

Cal could swore he saw Hank's eyes drift to the Beretta on his hip.

"Well," The guard said finally. "Just in-case."

Cal didn't know if he could drive. But Hank dropped a keyring into his hand and offered him a weary smile after he'd wiped his nose on his sleeve again.

"What were you in for?" He asked.

"I stole a car."

Hank nodded, seemingly relieved. "Why?"

Why. Why, indeed? The truth was that Cal had given up. He had been unable to maintain his grades in school and forced his family to suffer the shame of their youngest flunking out of Harvard University. The parents were working class. Proud. Educated. But working class. And they had never really had time to develop a personal relationship with the son they had otherwise raised. So, instead of coming home, he'd moved out. He'd gotten credit cards and a job. The debt had made itself a permanent part of his situation. The employment had not.

In the end, he'd simply given up. Anything to stop the phone calls. Anything to feel like he had some kind of control on where his life was going.

But he hadn't stolen a car. It seemed lying was still a part of the new world.

"I needed the money." He shrugged. "Made some bad choices."

"Well, Cal," Hank smiled. "You can drive whatever you want now. Good luck."

"Thank you."

But Hank was walking away. The light of his Mag Light was bobbing in the dark, further and further away, until it hit the lit hallway they'd come from. There was a click and suddenly one of the doors began to open and light poured in from outside. It was beautiful out.

And Cal actually found the silence reassuring.

( This thread is closed. )

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina used to love waking up in the morning. Every time the pale, early sun slanted through her window, it felt like a promise, a blank and beautiful slate upon which anything she wanted could be written. She had always delighted in her early workouts, her ritual of breakfast and shower and arrival at the Company's practice space. Since the flu swept through her city, though, the number of people at the practice space, and eventually on the streets, dwindled into insignificance.

The fact that she hadn't gotten sick pleased Gina even as it frightened her immensely. Her body had always obeyed her, even as the demands she pressed upon it had become more and more exacting. Every supple, lithe inch of Gina's five-foot-ten frame was conditioned, sleekly toned, carefully conditioned into a breathing work of art. Natural looks had gone a distance toward having her noticed by the Company at the age of ten... but discipline, skill, inborn talent, and a fierce drive had carried her from "noticed" to "courted". Gina had been compared to Audrey Hepburn more than once, and while she understood it to be a compliment, she was pleased that most of the audience was too far away to see her face while she danced.

Not that she had danced in weeks, not once the range and effects of the flu became more clear. Gina had watched people she cared about drop like flies, and though she had only seen the end stages once, it had been enough to terrify her. It had been her landlord, a sweet old man whom Gina had relied upon heavily when she first struck out on her own. His name had been Nicholas, and he was one of the first to become ill in Gina's life- not that the flu struck any more quickly, or lethally, at the old or the infirm than it did the young and healthy. When it seemed like no more than a particularly rough flu, Gina had brought chicken soup and tea and sat by his bedside, the dutiful nurse. When the tremors had begun, Gina had reached for Nicholas' hand, gripping it gently to reassure him as he rambled in fever-dream.

When he began to vomit the great gouts of blood, Gina had tried to call 911. It was the first time she'd ever tried it, but she was relatively certain that a busy signal shouldn't happen. Unwilling to stay away from Nicholas, even in the face of the disease's ravages, Gina rubbed his back as the vomiting subsided and the sobbing began. When the last horrifying moments came, Nicholas rested his head in Gina's lap, and she promised, promised not to go, not to leave him alone. For all her ministrations, the end was far from peaceful, and it took Gina a while to leave his cooling body. She'd tried to give him dignity, wrapping his stiff, so very -small- corpse in a clean set of sheets. She had considered cleaning up the blood, but now that she no longer had to put up a sane and brave front for Nicholas, Gina fled.

She had gone to the only place she believed to be safe, the place she'd spent at least 80% of her waking hours since the age of twelve. The practice hall had been empty, of course, silent as a tomb, but here in the cocoon of warm golden wood and pristine glass, Gina wept. She curled into a very, very small ball, discarding her sweater as she discovered drops of blood spattering the shoulder. After what felt like hours of trembling, wracking sobs, Gina fell into a fitful sleep, a tight curl of legs and arms and fear-sweat.

By the time she woke, a quarter of the city was infected. Before she once again surrendered to nightmare-laced sleep, it was half. Gina spent three days in the practice hall until hunger forced her out onto the streets. It was a ghosttown, so many scenes of life abandoned mid-moment... bicycles lay on the sidewalk, wheels spinning idly in the wind. The scent of a thousand dinners left to burn mingled headily with a rank, oversweet smell that Gina understood only instinctively to be decomposition. Aimless, startling at every sound, Gina wandered into a deli and helped herself to half a dozen soft garlic rolls. The calorie-counting voice in Gina's head was silenced, ruthlessly and effectively, by a new understanding that everything was going to be very, very different from here forward.

It took Gina three days to gather supplies, make a plan. She couldn't stay here forever- the city had been full of creeps and monsters before the event, and the same people became much less pleasant as desperation, fear, and lawlessness came to stay. She had a hiker's backpack, packed sensibly but lightly with clothing, dry food, and a sleeping bag. She had a good pair of boots, and another tied to the frame of the pack. She had thick leather belt slung with a knife, a canteen, and a gun- while she'd been on the ball enough to take ammunition as well, and to get off a few practice shots, Gina knew that she was no killer. She simply hoped that the massive, sickly gleaming grey barrell would frighten others as it frightened her.

Setting her back to the sun, Gina began to walk. The highways were congested, but she had decided she had a better chance of meeting other survivors if she stayed on main city roads- and as soon as possible, she wanted to find others. The last week had caused Gina to question her sanity more often than she would have liked, and the presence of another beating heart would go a long way toward calming her.

 

[Light Ice]

He did not remember driving to Cambridge. He only remembered fighting to stay alert behind the wheel of the Urban Assault Vehicle that Hank had chosen for him. The massive Suburban seemed too powerful, too foreign, to appreciate. The massive V-8 rumbled with a predatory eagerness as he navigated down the Three and onto Cambridge Street, past abandoned and wrecked cars that dotted the roadside here and there. Calvin was functioning in a strange place where his instincts for survival overwhelmed his senses, pushing him to make a turn into the luxury neighborhood of Bella Castle and towards the million dollar properties up the hill from Harvard University.

The choice had been a simple one. Somewhere, even as his brain swam with thick confusion, he had equated opulence with satisfaction. If he was to find food and clothes, a shower and a means to shave, it'd be in a place where people grew up wanting for nothing.

His parents had been hard-working, blue-collared parents. Dad had worked two jobs for forty years to support the family and help put his kids through college. Cal had graduated with a degree in Environmental Science and found that he lacked the motivation necessary to secure a decent job with it. His sister, Bonnie, had graduated head of her class at Northeastern with her marks in Finance.

The long story short was that Bonnie had been on her way to a house like the one Calvin was breaking into. He was too hungry to pick up on the irony.

He parked infront of the largest house he could find. A massive, gorgeous colonial with columns framing the front porch and a long, brick driveway curling down to the street. It's door was painted a mulberry red and crested with a massive brass knocker. There were no cars in the driveway. And, like everything, it was quiet.

The shotgun was the logical choice. It took him a couple minutes of yanking on the Remington before he could force himself to slow down. Looking at the under-dashboard mount, Cal recognized two small latches trapping the shotgun in-place. The release was invisible to him. It took every ounce of patience he had left to run his fingers along the side and feel for the trigger. It was a small, rectangular depression that released the shotgun into his hand the moment he pressed it.

Firearms were not unfamiliar to him. It was a small mercy now that the shotgun wasn't as foreign as the truck or the house. Holding it gave him a very real sense of hope that things would be alright. The solution to his hunger and his garish jumpsuit were beyond the massive, oak-cut door of this home. He could not imagine how much better he would feel to be full and clean but he tried, tried to take satisfaction in the fantasy as he ascended the walkway and worked the grip of the shotgun's barrel.

It opened the weapon's breach and he looked in, saw the tinkle of a brass slug down in the magazine.

He pumped the shotgun once and heard the distinct "click clack!" of the round being chambered before tucking the neoprene stock tight to his shoulder.

He aimed for the door's handle. It was an ornate and sweeping grip detailed in bronze with a small trigger of its own. It occurred to Cal that he hadn't even tried to see if it was locked. He didn't want to. There was something exciting about blowing the lock off a door like they did in the movies. There was something terribly thrilling about taking the castle by storm, even now, when the world slept behind him and there were no police to stop him. He was excited. Nervous.

The shotgun bucked hard against his shoulder when he squeezed the trigger and the lock exploded, splintering wood everywhere. The ornate door handle was a twisted, smoking mess of itself and fell from its place inside the door to clatter loudly to the ground inside as the door swung open. For a moment, Cal held his breath, half-expecting someone to come to the top of the stairs directly infront of him with a phone in hand.

But nobody came. Nobody stirred.

The house's interior was a picture of quaint wealth. Martha Stewart run wild. Everything had been designed to go together, to create this seamlessly styled feel that gave him flashes of Martha's Vineyard and Eddie Bauer. It was a magazine home. It didn't feel real. And he went right for the kitchen.

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

Cal woke on the third day and felt mostly himself again. He'd known he was better when he sat up from the couch and his head didn't swim and his stomach didn't demand that he go to the kitchen. Instead, he'd noticed that he was still wearing the garish orange jumpsuit branded with his designated number and the ugly, block letters of "Suffolk County Prisoner" on the back and that he still had not washed himself.

He hadn't even wandered upstairs.

Three days in this home and he had still felt like an intruder. The people that had lived where he was standing were most likely dead. They certainly hadn't come back while he had been there. But regardless, everytime he passed the pictures scattered here and there, he couldn't help but feel shameful for being there. He had left the shotgun under the couch after the first day, disliking how he felt carrying it around someone else's home.

He went upstairs and showered. The towels were big and soft and he wrapped one around his waist and draped another across his shoulders. In the mirror, through the mist, he saw his unshaven face and the unkept mess of his shaggy blond hair. His body had suffered only a bit from the week without food. Less than he would have expected. His chest was still broad and his shoulders still looked strong, squared and tapering down to a waist that was a bit more trim than he was used to. The muscles there, once tight and forged into the elusive and fabled eight pack, were now only six strong and defined more predominately than before.

Cal had always kept himself fit. It wasn't cosmetic. He enjoyed rock-climbing and hiking, trail running and mountain biking. While his sister took her degree and threw herself into the professional landscape the big city provided; he had taken his and used it as an excuse to abscond from the working-class life. His job as a forest ranger had paid under thirty-thousand dollars a year but it kept him away from people who asked about that kind of thing. He cut down and hauled out trees, cleared trails, and took the occasional tour through to find certain campgrounds or spots.

And he'd enjoyed using his body more than his mind to make a living, even if it was modest. Even if he had begun to slip steadily into a serious amount of debt, and even if he had become increasingly estranged from his parents.

The end of the world had, in a way, given him the welcomed reprieve of explaining his arrest to his parents and employers. Two entities who cared -very- much about how he lived his life and the nature of his responsibilities. He was glad for it in a small way and quietly horrified at himself for feeling so.

In the bedroom he learned that the man of the house had been much too small for him to salvage any clothes from him. Cal had never been a giant, or a linebacker, but he was 6'2" tall and a healthy 190 lbs (probably 185 after the last week) or so and the man of the house had been a short, frail-looking man. He wore a size seven and that, also, was useless to Cal.

So, instead of stealing clothes, Cal laundered his own. It was an incredibly normal thing to do in otherwise abnormal circumstances. But the orange jumpsuit was a little less offensive when it was clean.

There was little question that before he head west he would make a couple supply stops. A grocery store. A Gander Mountain. A Hardware StoreHe would stop at a pharmacy. Cal made a list on a little pad of paper he found in the kitchen and pocketed it in his only pocket, on the left breast of his jumpsuit.

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

He appreciated the car more now. It was a powerful looking police vehicle, modified with all the little technical advances that government units were able to carry and civilian vehicles could not. The V8 engine was large and imposing, capable and reliable. The struts were undoubtedly better than anything the average Soccer Mom had driven. But the true worth of the vehicle was its great size, the ability to carry any number of things comfortably, and the radio and laptop inside.

Cal wasn't certain how long the GPS or Internet would be active. Without men and women left to operate them the power and connections would eventually have to fail. There was no telling when that would happen. But until it did, he'd enjoy those comforts for what he planned. The locker in the back of the Suburban revealed gear that he otherwise had no present use for. Bullet proof vests. Road Flares. A semi-automatic AR-15 that he would most likely never care to use. The riot gear was equally useless.

But the locker itself would serve well for whatever he decided to bring with him. He'd leave the rest when he had more suitable things to replace it with.

The vehicle would be comfortable and capable for whatever lay in store and Calvin found himself thanking Hank the Guard once again, wondering if the man had already found a need for his Beretta.

He wanted to cry but couldn't. Men were ill-equipped for it. He'd been taught since he was small that his outlets were work and recreation, not tears. Like most men threatened with waves of emotion he shrank inward, like a cripple, unwilling to ride out the forces running through him as he stood infront of the empty house and thought of the man who saved his life.

Instead, Cal simply felt like driving.

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

The Mass Pike ran south through Boston and towards New York where it turned into I-90. He imagined once he escaped the city limits that the congestion would end, that he'd be able to flex the Suburban's muscle and make time. But for now it was tediously slow goings, less than thirty miles per hour in places as he navigated the massive truck through the maze of scattered and abandoned vehicles.

There were bodies in most. Slumped over seats and wheels. A few had managed to open their doors and die on the pike itself. All of them were bloated in the sun, ugly and festering. In college he had been taught to have an appreciation for decay. There was a science involved, a careful breaking down of tissues and materials for reuse. It'd never been pretty in his eyes. But it'd seemed practical.

This just seemed wasteful and horrific.

He hadn't gotten out of Cambridge and into Boston, yet. He hadn't stopped at any of the stores on his list and gathered supplies, yet. Instead, he'd eaten one of the Turkey Sandwiches he'd made before leaving and drank a bottle of water from the cooler on the floor of the passenger seat. The shotgun lay locked under the dash again.

When he first saw her, Cal didn't think she was real. He'd begun to think that he was the only survivor in the Boston area, spared inexplicably from the disease that killed everyone and saved by a Guard that couldn't leave him locked in a prison.

She was beautiful. He saw that right away as most men do when it comes to women. Tall, long, and strikingly beautiful.

And she was watching him drive toward her, avoiding a badly wrecked Sonata that had struck the median between outbound and inbound lanes and flipped. He could hear the glass of the shattered windows crunching beneath the Suburban's big tires and see her waving at him.

He didn't get out right away after he stopped a few feet from her. The police car would have been a big friendly surprise to the girl but once he got out, that would change. The prisoner's jumpsuit was trademark and she was armed. A girl that looked like that -should- be.

But all the same, he was cautious, even as she began to make her way towards the driver's side door.

Calvin got out to meet her, lifting a hand.

"Hi." He said. And after a moment, aware that his shaggy face would hide the hazel of his eyes and the jumpsuit would make most of his first impression a bad one. "I'm Cal."

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina had always enjoyed a good, long walk. Her legs were her livelihood. Perfectly muscled and miles long, they were sleek, but far from delicate. Her feet had brought her to the top of a world so cutthroat it made margin trading look like a tea party. She was proud of her body, proud of what it could do. But even Atlas would be tired after walking for two days.

When Cal pulled up behind her, Gina tensed. A police car would normally inspire relief, security- in happier times, she might have smiled, turned to face the car, welcomed Officer Friendly with a hug. Now, the best she could muster was an expression that stopped about two inches short of a scowl. Her hand rested on her belt, close to the holster but not yet drawing the gun.

The bright orange jumpsuit couldn't have been more disenheartening. Gina's hand moved a little closer to the weapon, though she still didn't draw. "Hello, Cal." Her voice was gentle, quiet, as if she were trying to calm a raging bear. She regarded him with a set jaw and attentive, wary eyes. As much as sense pleaded with her to run, to at least make him work for his dinner, she didn't feel at real danger. Even in the frightening new world left in the wake of the flu, Gina felt that she could trust her perceptions- and Cal didn't exactly strike her as violent. "Quite a car you have there."

Despite her faith in her abilities, walking for so long was beginning to take a toll. She could have let herself in to any one a dozen homes or hotels, spent a night in a real bed.. but it felt wrong, somehow, as tempting as it was. So instead she had made do with a sleeping bag and showering in gyms. Her long, chestnut-brown hair was swept into a thick ponytail, her bangs falling across one eye- the next department store she found was going to have its haircare department -ransacked-. She wore a pair of jeans, scuffed and a little dusty, that swept alluringly but loosely over her hips and ass, and a thin cotton plaid button-up, which would be too light for the weather inside the next two weeks. Of course, two weeks seemed indescribably far in the future, now- who knew where, or =if=, she would be in two weeks?

 

[Light Ice]

There had been flashes in college, a long time ago, when he'd proven himself adept with women. In those days, a long time ago, anyone and everyone had been adept. It just took the ability to connect, to open up, and the hormones that came with being in your early twenties only needed to be mixed with a few drinks before everyone was adept. But that had been years ago. Cal didn't know what to say.

She was beautiful. Classically beautiful. The kind of natural and easy beauty he never could have managed to entertain in college. He wasn't bad looking, but he wasn't strikingly handsome either. He wasn't successful or driven, exceptionally funny or intelligent. And, while he was certainly one of a very select few men left in the world as it existed, he understood that his attraction didn't equate one of her own. This was not a romantic tale. The world was ending.

And he needed a friend a lot more than he needed a woman.

Noble men in the old world would profess in this situation sex wouldn't play a part. Men like his father. And for them, maybe (though he doubted it), that was the case. The harder truth was that it did. That men were wired that way. That beautiful woman drew their eyes to dangerous places and broke down the personality constructs that people prided themselves on. There was always that moment when a man saw a woman as a potential mate. The wiring hadn't yet to be undone by centuries of civilization. In the end everyone had a primitive self.

But he was one of the few people that could hide that part of himself pretty adeptly. He'd never been one to say much and that worked wonders when it came to not making a fool of yourself. It was awful, however, when it came to making a friend in the middle of the end of the world.

It'd have been harder to look her in the face if her eyes hadn't claimed so much attention.

"Listen." He said but the rest didn't come right away.

Instead, he forced himself to see the situation from her perspective. The jumpsuit. The giant Suburban. The fact that she was most likely extremely aware of just how beautiful she was. You could believe the best in people, even want to believe the best in someone, but sooner or later the survival instincts had to kick in. Nature.

Cal had a feeling that "nature" would become increasingly clear as time passed.

"Listen." He said again, looking briefly down the long stretch of the Mass Pike ahead of him. "I don't know what to say to make you come with me but I could really use the company. This is..."

He ran his hand through his hair. The blond shag was soft beneath his fingers. Girl-hair, his sister had told him for as long as he could remember. The gesture calmed him as he looked back to her.

"I'm stopping in the city for some things. You should come. I'd like the company."

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina was impressed by the distinct -lack- of game. Her guard would have been raised instantly if Cal had come out with some smooth, carefully flattering story, some witticism designed to emphasize the comforts of his car. Gina would have run with every breath left in her if he had eyed her just a little more wolfishly, or even a little longer, than he did. Fortunately (and how!) for the both of them, Cal would not be writing a missive on the success of the Mystery Method anytime soon. She smiled inwardly at the lag between "Listen" and his next statement, and by the time Cal finished his offer, she was nodding.

"I will, Cal. There are things I'd like to pick up as well. But I think you'll understand why I would like to take the gun out of my holster and hold onto it while we're riding together. And if it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to you to let me take a peek in the backseat, make sure you don't already have company." It surprised Gina, the ease with which these survival instincts came to her, the sensibility of her statements, which she hadn't thought of until this moment. The level coolness of her voice added to the self-congratulation, though she kept it as quiet as possible, the transfixing grin teasing around the edges of her lips the only hint that she was pleased. Though it seemed reluctant to land, its promise was full, ripe, sweet, tempting even Gina herself.

With her wide, slightly almondine eyes watching his, Gina waited for his answer, shifting her weight onto one hip. It cocked with a fluid precision, the "snap snap stick hold two three four" ease of a professional dancer. These motions had become second nature to her, though they might still strike others as choreographed- and likely, Gina had to admit, they were remnants of some long-mastered routine, bits and pieces of a billion shows now kaliedoscoped into her day-to-day life. There was something regal in the incline of her neck as she tossed bangs off her forehead, something fluid to the slope of her arms as she put her hands on her hips. She looked like a woman who could wait all day- and whom, in happier times, could fill a recital hall with men and women eager to watch her do it.

 

[Light Ice]

He was already walking back toward the car. The requests would have been reasonable to anyone who didn't have the intent to kidnap. In his mind he could imagine her concerns, the vast variety of ways a woman could be taken advantage of if she let herself be. There was sense in everything she asked. But mostly, so far as he could tell, there was fear. He didn't count it against her. He was scared too. Anyone in their right mind would be. At any moment they could start to feel unwell or run into the wrong kind of survivor.

"Sure. But, if it's alright with you, I'd ask you put the safety on the pistol while we ride. I don't want to have a Pulp Fiction moment."

A part of him didn't want to give her his back. It invited a car jacking. There was a certain irony, he recognized, in suffering his first car jacking at the hands of a beautiful woman. Had he been elsewhere, or had more, he would have never. But the truth was that he didn't have much for her to take. Nothing he couldn't suffer without right now. If she stole from him he'd get to the city and be in no worse a place.

But she didn't jack him. She checked the back. The Suburban was jet-black with only a slash of gray across the side holding the Suffolk County Emblem. The windows were partially tinted, casting the interior a shade of gray when you looked through them from the outside. Leather seats. A wood detailed interior. In any other county the cruiser wouldn't have had that luxury but Suffolk was the home of Harvard University. Even the criminals were given the Ivy League treatment.

He got in when she reached the other side of the car, closed the door behind him. It'd been a good decision to leave the shotgun in the car, not that there had ever been much of a debate. Soon, he imagined, it'd be suicide not to. People were bound to get more jumpy, more wild, the longer they went without society herding them in. Right now they were all just lost, survivors, trying to decide the next course. But sooner or later, and he hoped much later, screws would come loose and some folks would stop being Americans and start being a bit more primitive.

"What's your name?" He asked when she opened the car door and moved to sit beside him.

 

[laceandcogs]

Satisfied that Cal was as honest as the moment afforded him to be, Gina clicked the safety on her gun and climbed in. Fastening her seatbelt, she raised those sweet, dark eyes to Cal, and offered him something like a smile. "Giovanna. Call me Gina, please..." Offering her free hand for a shake, Gina kept the gun a very respectful distance from Cal. "Would you like to tell me, maybe, how you came to have such a very nice car?"

Gina was curious, of course, but if Cal wanted to dodge the question, she wouldn't push it. Honestly, the seat felt too good against her back, her thighs, the buttery leather making her slump and stretch with a sumptuous, sinuous motion. Any answer short of "see, I raped a busload of orphan puppy nuns to death and then sold the clip reel" would probably sit just fine with her.

 

[Light Ice]

She asked the question. And he would answer it. They had a longer drive than they should have before the first stop on his list. He goaded the Suburban forward and listened to the rumble of the big block. Over four liters of American Muscle. The kind of small human triumph that was going to be lost if this virus was every bit the world killer that he assumed it was.

The natural distraction of her body stretching out beside him pulled his eyes sidelong. He couldn't help but let them take a rake along every lissome inch. People came in all shapes. All sizes. Many of them were beautiful. A few weren't. He'd learned to appreciate women in the way that all men did. Soft curves. Smooth plains. But he'd always found the athletic body, the trim and fit body, the most alluring.

But the road commanded his attention and he wasn't going to get killed staring at her. He navigated the cars with an easy certainty, weaving back and forth while she watched him with cool, almond eyes.

"They left us in the prison. One day the meals stopped and that was it." He said, looking back to her after he swerved past an abandoned Honda. "That was a week ago, give or take a few days. One day a guard came back. His name was Hank. He was..."

He paused a moment. What exactly do you say about a man with the Super Flu?

"He had it and he was dying. He came back to let anyone alive out of the cells. I was the only one. He gave me this car and wished me good luck."

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina nodded softly, watching Cal drive. He handled the car like a pro, and she wondered if that might have been the talent that earned him that nice jumpsuit. "How long ago was that? I've been... I've been walking for two days, hiding for almost a week before that." Gina flushed to admit her cowardice, but she had never been the sort to deny what she did, even when it was a less than heroic tale.

Where Cal might have been the strong, silent type, Gina was a talker. Though she had never been one to gossip, she liked to learn about others, she liked to hear stories about their days. It was one of the reasons she had been less than popular with her fellow dancers- though being better than most of them didn't help either. When the bubbly, witty girl with the heart-skewering smile bumped into you in a cafe, or as you dressed for the show, she would ask about your day, remember that it was your anniversary with your wife, ask after the grandmother you had told her was ailing. But once her satin slipper hit the wings, she was silent, stony, all business. It was a transformation that felt natural to Gina, but seemed cold to anyone else.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina nodded softly, watching Cal drive. He handled the car like a pro, and she wondered if that might have been the talent that earned him that nice jumpsuit. "How long ago was that? I've been... I've been walking for two days, hiding for almost a week before that." Gina flushed to admit her cowardice, but she had never been the sort to deny what she did, even when it was a less than heroic tale.

Where Cal might have been the strong, silent type, Gina was a talker. Though she had never been one to gossip, she liked to learn about others, she liked to hear stories about their days. It was one of the reasons she had been less than popular with her fellow dancers- though being better than most of them didn't help either. When the bubbly, witty girl with the heart-skewering smile bumped into you in a cafe, or as you dressed for the show, she would ask about your day, remember that it was your anniversary with your wife, ask after the grandmother you had told her was ailing. But once her satin slipper hit the wings, she was silent, stony, all business. It was a transformation that felt natural to Gina, but seemed cold to anyone else.

 

[Light Ice]

Had it really only been ten days? He shook his head some, looked out over the Suburban's black hood and to the madness of the road. More bodies. A Subaru Outback with four corpses belted inside, one so small that a small part of him broke inside. He was not certain what kind of man he would be when he stopped moving. The world as he had left it had not been kind to him. Often, when the trials and tribulations of life had presented themselves, he'd wondered what it would be like if they were gone.

When he had left the world it was still functioning. Barely. It had functioned enough to place him in prison and dysfunctional enough to leave him in there.

"Ten days." He said. Even though the words felt untrue.

It'd been a lifetime. A world ago. Back when these cars were full of fearful people and Gillette Stadium had been full of medical tents and promises of treatment. Fenway Park had been the only leisure left in town. By Presidential order, no less, baseball was to continue. Nevermind that most of the Major League Teams had already loss significant portions of their lineup.

He pulled off the Pike and found the exit was clear, as was most the street. The shopping district hadn't seen that much in looting. The virus worked too fast. There were garbage trucks that had been left unattended, filled with black body bags.

The Gander Mountain was first. The Glass Doors of the store were closed and behind it a rolling steel gate had kept it safe.

"Hold on." He said.

He didn't accelerate. He just steered towards the gate and let the truck's front strike the glass doors. The aluminum frame bent, and then gave entirely, ripping from the steel mounting platforms while the glass gave way and shattered. He let the truck nose forward and into the rolling gate. It didn't break. Cal knew it wouldn't. But it did buckle from its tracks and bend upward. The sound of the glass beneath the truck's tires came to a stop as he braked. He looked sidelong to catch Gina staring at him.

"You didn't enjoy that at all?" He asked.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina had enjoyed it, honestly. The thrill of Cal's quiet determination had only added to that stomach-fluttering, breaking-the-law wicked pleasure. He seemed like a man who got things done, who would comfortably bend a rule or six to get to what he wanted. In the earlier world, Gina might have regarded him with a wary concern. In this world, she wanted to stick close- with so few rules left, and those that remained unkind and mostly unforgiving, it might be smart to forge a team with someone who was able to operate outside them.

So when Cal looked to find her staring, it was with a little grin, a wild, wide-eyed surprise that was not exclusive of excitement. "That was amazing..." She unfastened her seatbelt, clicking the safety back off the gun before reholstering it. Waiting for him to move first, of course, was still the wisest idea, so Gina sat tight until Cal climbed out of the car.

 

[Light Ice]

"Not a bad idea." He nodded to her pistol.

It wasn't. Locked, or not, breaking into any place was a definitively poor way to make an impression. Gina had her head on straight. Cautious without being paranoid or cracked. But that didn't mean the next person they came across would be the same. The pessimist in him found it almost entirely unlikely that all the crazies or malicious sorts in the world had been killed.

So he took the shotgun from its mount beside her, his arm nearly brushing along her lean leg. Sculpted, on for miles, legs. The man in him reared up again and made itself counted, reminded him that despite the functional concerns of survival the most base and potent of instincts could not be ignored. She was beautiful, even with the pistol in her lap, and it demanded attention. He found himself wondering if there was a man that she'd left, dead or alive, who'd had a chance to take for himself what any other man would have desired. Cal found himself wondering what she looked like bent beneath strong hands, lean hips braced for the hard cadence of a proper fucking. It was a lewd avenue of thought. But it was real.

He was glad that he didn't let it get the best of him.

Instead, he kept his eyes on the task at hand. His memory of her shape when she'd stretched against the leather was potent enough. There was no need to gawk. And the latch on the shotgun's mounting rack was still a bit foreign and gave him trouble, legitimate trouble, so that while his thoughts drifted to all things primitive his hands were free to paw for the release button. When he pushed it the Remington once again fell into his hands, and he straightened away from her.

"Alright," he said.

But he was never big on speeches. Never much on talking at all, really. Instead, he said only what needed saying. His strong hands working the barrel grip on the police shotgun and chambering a big twelve gauge slug into place.

"I think it's a good idea if we stay close when we first get in there. Just in case."

She didn't argue. He stepped out of the car first, boots crunching on shattered glass and broken aluminum bars. The Suburban hadn't even scratched. That was a small miracle. The big black front-end of the truck was pushed into the store, onto the big, short-pile mats used to collect the majority of the dirt from outside. One of the security detectors, gray plastic meant to set off the alarm if someone tried to leave the store with tagged merchandise, had fallen over amidst the broken safety glass that had blown inward.

The gate itself wasn't open, really, but bowed into the store. Cal had to crouch to get under it, scrunching himself up until he was inside the store's interior. It was dark, but not black. Sun was still creeping in through the windows, casting the racks up in front in a hazy gray light and leaving the far back of the store in shadow. It was huge. Deceptively so. Every inch as large as one of the bigger department stores. He didn't bother to retrieve his list just yet, but instead glanced to the lean-bodied woman who appeared at his side.

He hadn't even looked back to watch her graceful body bend beneath the bent security cage.

"I think we should go towards the camping department and grab some flashlights first. Sound good?" And this time he made a point not to look at her. Her eyes were gorgeous in the sun, soft and clear. But here, in the dark? They'd drive him to distraction. He didn't need that now. Wouldn't let it be. Maybe later, when the errands were done and they'd found a place to bed down, he'd look deep into her stare and let his mind twist up fantasies for him to go to bed with.

It'd be a welcomed end to a very long day.

 

[laceandcogs]

It was truly a shame that Cal had missed the way Gina slid under the bowed gate- an achingly beautiful, steady and deep backwards arch and sinuous roll of her hips had her under and upright again in half a heartbeat. Now that she was at his side again, Gina felt better- he handled that shotgun like a man that knew how to use it, and as long as she stayed firmly on the right side of him and that sight, she'd be safe as houses. "Flashlights sound like a great idea, Cal."

Flashlights, and then maybe some food that wasn't in a can. Things had begun to go stale so quickly, and a lack of power meant a dearth of refrigeration. Gina would sell her own mother -twice- for an ice-cold glass of milk right now. The thought made her stomach twinge. Her mother and she had never been close, as Gina chose to interpret her mother's protective concerns over her weight, her schedule, and her dedication to dance as the manipulative slights of a woman trying to hold her driven daughter back. Though she'd never necessarily believed that it was ill-intentioned, Gina had grown tired of explaining and defending her work, her passion, her love, her -need- to push herself and her body past any normal breaking point. Their conversation had long dwindled to birthday phone calls and stilted Christmas dinners, but now... now, it would likely never improve. It wasn't a cheerful notion.

Quiet, and sticking close, Gina moved with Cal toward the outdoor life section. Barely breathing, hearing on high alert, she was ready to whirl at the slightest sound- and it took every remaining ounce of dignity and restraint she possessed not to hook her fingers into the material at the back of his jumpsuit like a slasher-flick girlfriend.

 

[Light Ice]

The store stretched out beyond them, veiled in darkness and unnaturally still. A thousand memories of the outlet hovered just out of reach, beyond the place where they could summon feelings of familiarity and comfort and settled where they only added to the foreign feel of the darkened store. He had spent many afternoons gearing up here, both for himself and others. Had the lights been on he'd have traveled with the easy confidence of muscle memory. But they were not. And she was with him.

They'd not touched. He had no sense of what her skin felt like beneath his fingers. She was still a stranger in all the ways that people had at one time come to know people. The infection, however, had changed the rules. They were less complex. Less challenging. The intricacies of a relationship had become a luxury neither could afford. He perceived her anxiety and her willingness to be lead; to be protected. And he felt the masculine rumblings of his nature take hold inside him, emboldening him to find the courage to not let her down.

They didn't speak. Cal didn't feel the need. The darkness enveloped them as they pushed further into the store and amidst the racks and shelves, shrouding her in that shadowy ebon that he imagined only precious few men had seen. Her eyes shined beneath dark lashes. The shape of her lean body suddenly free from the distraction of color and emphasized. A part of him stirred, admired, and took notice. He wondered if she could feel the growing friction between them. A sultry, primal interest forged amidst the strain of the world's current shambles and the lack of contact.

They shared the bond of survival. It was that much that kept this partnership blossoming. For all Cal knew his attraction was moot, foolish, unwarranted. It wasn't the base of why they would continue on together. It was an extension. It was an accessory to the truth.

The truth was they were going to have to survive with one another.

He took a heavy mag-light and gave it to her before selecting his own. They were durable and bright, capable of surviving mistakes and human clumsiness. His eyes shrunk as the beam from her own struck him in the face, throwing the shadow of his head up on the rack behind him.

"Sorry." She said. He managed a smile as he she turned the light elsewhere.

"Alright, I'm going to go get a kit together. Do you think you could go find the key to the security gate and get it up?" He asked her, aware now that his light was on her lean mid-section. A smooth valley of skin leading to the narrow round of her hips.

"Here's the key to the truck. Pull it right in. We can get our gear sorted later when we're out of Boston."

He wasn't emboldened by haste just yet. Instead, he lingered, watching her as he made his intentions known. They needed to take what they could. Be thorough. The store was a virtual riches of valuable equipment and gear. He spoke even as he began to back his way down the aisle, managing a faint smile. "I'll be in the men's section. I want to get something a little less pumpkin on."

The rare joke offered as he reached the end of the aisle and imagined what he looked like in the dark. A dusky-eyed convict. The fair-skinned princess. The irony of the world wasn't lost on Cal.

 

[laceandcogs]

See? These were exactly the kind of well-ordered, sensibly directed plans that meant a man like Cal was a perfect travelling partner. One part of Gina was deeply pleased that he came up with it, while the other part nagged to point out a very glaring flaw. Fortunately for her state of dress and her continued chastity, the naysayer possessed her lips before the recently-minted Cal groupie.

"Wait! Cal, I can't drive." It wasn't as if there hadn't been cars to take- dozens of them, some even without bodies inside. It was just that she'd never learned, never needed to learn... hungry to explain, Gina took a deep breath and tried to rationalize her deeply challenged usefulness to Cal. "I was born in Miami, where no one drives, really, and then I moved up here when I was fourteen to start at the Academy, and no one bothered to teach me, not that I really would have had -time- to learn, and the subway always got me anywhere I needed to go that was too far for my feet, and I really feel as though surviving the Apocalypse just to die in an attempt to park an SUV in a department store would be an irony I am too damned tired to appreciate right now."

This was too much talking, and Gina recognized that. Shutting her mouth, she tilted her chin in an aggressively defensive way, looking up at Cal and challenging him with her posture, with the set of her jaw, to question why the heck he should keep a girl who couldn't even spell him behind the wheel around. Even as her body language offered the argument, her eyes pleaded that he not force her to make it, that instead he take the keys she had so dumbly accepted back and move the car, hopefully without moving it out onto the road and quickly away from her.

 

[Light Ice]

The thought of losing her at all was a difficult one. Cal considered her, halted in his tracks by the urgency of her tone. Under any other circumstance he'd had laughed at her. Not maliciously, mind you, but with the almost boyish playfulness that most men possessed in their heart. The quiet sorrow in her eyes softened the refined elegance of her features until her shattering beauty had melted into something "adorable". Laughing would have usually been the natural counterpart.

But there was a potent vulnerability in her manner and shining in her eyes. Cal had never been a particularly perceptive man but found that now, with the world so quiet, parts of him were waking up and being counted. To see her hurt stirred him until the boy inside was pushed away, smothered under the stronger inclinations of nature.

It'd become trendy in the world for men to become sensitive. Cal hadn't seen the kind of sensitivity that he'd called an asset in people. He'd only seen the kind of sickly-sweet sensitivity that made him nauseous. They'd turned feminine in a way. Expressive. Emotive. Their moods and thoughts vomited onto the world with a lazy, mindless self-importance.

Gina inspired him to be aware of her. Concerned. All at once his nature demanded that he protect her, keep her safe. The magnetic quality of her beauty was for the moment spurned for a more primitive attraction. She was his ward. A girl, at-heart, who for all her capabilities and intuitiveness had undoubtedly lost people in the horrors of this week who had meant something to her. Pieces of her life lay everywhere and there were no answers.

The uncertainty lingered around them like the darkness of the store.

He'd not leave her and he'd certainly not antagonize that vulnerability she had chosen to show him.

"Come on." He said, surprised by the soft strength in his voice. "I'll teach you to drive sometime. But for now, let's get the car backed in and go over what we need from here. I want to get everything we'll need for the road before we get dinner."

He was hungry. Three days of food hadn't taken the edge off from a week of starvation. Cal wondered how long she'd stay with him. In his mind he could see the inevitable image of her walking away. The sweet little sway of her hips and those lean, athletic legs scissoring to sweep her away from him.

"And I have to get out of this jumpsuit." He added. Because suddenly he felt self-conscious.

 

[laceandcogs]

The quiet, steady way Cal regarded her made her nervous. She knew that it would be easy to walk away, that there was very little left in terms of external structures to bind the two of them together. No one could blame Cal if he chose to throw his hands up and walk away...even if this was only due to the fact that there were precious few left to do the blaming. A three-count of heartbeats passed before she saw the softening around his eyes, the little tremor in the muscles surrounding his mouth that signaled his temptation to laugh- a temptation he mastered with admirable composure.

A gentle smile curved Gina's lips as he offered lessons later. Falling happily into step beside him, they headed back toward the car. "You know, Cal, the jumpsuit isn't -so- bad. Orange suits you." Her wink was dramatic, deliberately overplayed. "Makes me think about pumpkin pie. Oh, and creamsicles... Nothing like the end of the world to make a diet seem stupid."

Perhaps her sense of humor was a little morbid, but Gina wanted to put a smile on Cal's face. Even if it would have made her face burn to hear him laugh at her complete lack of driving skill, she wanted to hear that laugh.

Her skin, always a delicate porcelain shade, nearly glowed in the contrast of maglite and shadow. Those mile long legs moved so smoothly, so neatly, the cadence of her step so steady- more like a glide- that the beam of her light remained perfectly even. It was an eerie effect, one that was only enhanced by the ramrod straightness of the spine, the perfection of her posture. Of course, if ever there was a time to forgive mild idiosyncracies, it was now...

 

[Light Ice]

Her lips were a soft, blossomed curve when she smiled and Calvin noticed right away that she was one of those girls, the kind that's entire face seemed to brighten when they managed even the barest of grins. It was a contagious thing, provoking his own, even as he shook his head at her and denied her the laugh that he kept so neatly bridled by his restraint. It didn't take long for them to cross the store. Her athletic grace and seamless stride kept up with him easily and soon they were at the gate.

"Don't talk about food." He replied. The words were a clear jest as his hazel stare cut sidelong onto her. "Not yet."

He was hungry. A knot had formed in his stomach and expanded. By now, Calvin was familiar with the pains of hunger. They'd become an intimate friend in prison and they provoked in him a palpable feeling of dread. They reminded him of the cell and the screams, moans, and whimpers of the men dying around him. It'd have served to shatter his otherwise optimistic mood if she wasn't there, gently goading him toward levity and inspiring him with the sensuous grace of her movements.

Even the work at hand didn't take his attention entirely from her. He unlocked the gate and they lifted it together, bodies rippling with effort as the mangled steel fought against them before finally yielding and rolling upward. Cal had taken a long look at the firm swell of her breasts as she reached overhead, appreciated the fluid line of her body in that rumbling masculine way. A new hunger presented itself and he mastered it as well, stowing it away as they stepped amongst the shattered safety glass and towards the ominous black form of the Suburban.

"I'll back it in. Here's a list. Start in camping, Gina, while I change. We'll get as much as we need and then get gone." His fingers produced the notepad from his front pocket and tore a sheet free, passing the small, lined paper to her.

Their fingers touched. Bolts of sensation arced through him. His eyes found her own before skirting elsewhere. Cal was afraid she'd see the want in his own, the dusky quality that she'd inspired. They hadn't spoke of his crime. A million things might enter her mind and most, he imagined, would frighten her. And in the end, more terrifying then all of that, was the vulnerability that he felt in their situation. If she trusted him and relied on him it would be easier to look after her.

The moment that evaporated, as fragile as it was, things would become a more difficult shade. So he left her there, suddenly feeling a sense of urgency, and stalked into the darkness of store with the beam of his flashlight bobbing out infront of him.

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

It'd taken nearly an hour. It was a huge store and their needs were substantial. The SUV's back door was lifted and open, revealing the lockers inside and the compartments now loaded neatly with camping equipment and gear. He'd been thorough. He'd had days to think of it. Cooking stoves that operated on butane, propane, -and- sterno were expensive. They took two. A pair of tents and a pair of proper backpacks, four sleeping bags (summer and winter for each of them), along with crash pads and other odds and ends. The cardboard and wrappers were in a pile beside the SUV, abandoned. It had reminded Cal of Christmas Morning after he and his sister had gotten through and forced their parents to open every toy, every gift, so that they could find use of it.

Fishing poles. She'd found clothes and boots. Jackets for all weather. He couldn't imagine what the cost would have been. In a way, pilfering it all, gave him a small thrill.

Cal had also gotten a large roof-storage unit and fastened it to the Suburban's roof rails. It was a black and gray Rubbermaid that would house some of their less-frequently sought after equipment.

They'd both worked hard. He saw the fatigue in her movements. She stretched out on the tail-gate of the truck beside him and offered him another smile. He nodded to her, wiping his brow with the back of an orange-clad hand, and gestured to the back of the store.

"Put your clothes in the backseat, would you? I'm going to go get civilian so we aren't so much the odd couple. After that, meet me in hunting?"

He left her there again, more comfortable to do so now. It hadn't crossed his mind that they were still strangers. The decision had seemed to have been made without ever being spoken. They were traveling together. This stop was only one in what promised to be many.

In Men's he stripped, eagerly abandoning the suit. It lay a crumpled, neon mess on the floor. He used the flashlight to look at his body. The rugged cut of his hips had turned a bit rangy, thinner than it had been. His chest was not as broad. The definition in his stomach, lean muscles that had always been there, more extreme now that the healthy excess had been trimmed away entirely. Calvin had never been a meaty man. His broad shoulders had always tapered to a trim waist. But he'd kept fit. Compact and strong. It was strange to feel thin and to see his body a shade on the light side.

He began to search out clothes. A few pairs of shorts, shirts, and jackets, pants and socks. A small part of him found it funny he'd look like a model from "Field and Stream" but mostly he was glad to be human again. Feel human again.

Cal didn't bolt when the beam of her flashlight struck him, even as he just finished pulling boxer shorts on. A small voice inside reminded him of just how much weight he'd lost. Maybe ten pounds in all. Mostly, though, he was glad she'd been quick. And as he pulled on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a plain, olive-green T-shirt , he watched her approach.

"How do I look?" He asked, straightening. For once, however, his restraint failed him and he could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina had been careful to find other places to look while Cal finished dressing. She didn't need to be completely aware of the fine, strong lines of his body, the defined stomach, the cut notch of his waist. She had inklings, and inklings were trouble enough as it was. Of course, she had other errands to run herself, and when she finally appraised Cal with a quick glance, she did so with a bag stuffed with three shoeboxes in one hand.

"Nice, Cal, very nice. You look like an extra in a Bock's Amber commercial." Her smile proved that this was a joke, and that even if it wasn't, that was a fine sort of thing to look like. She tried to keep the bag half tucked behind her, hoping he wouldn't ask what she had picked up. The four pairs of soft, elasticized ballet flats had tucked neatly into one shoebox, the four pairs of hardbox pointe shoes occupying the other two. She was proud to have condensed the packaging as much as possible, but if Cal had asked, she would have been quite unable to explain why she needed these objects, where exactly she thought she was going to be using them. All she knew is that she felt dangerously unmoored without the hope that she would, once again, be able to do the only thing she was good at.

 

[Light Ice]

"It'll keep me from getting shot." He managed.

And laughed. It took him a moment to realize it was the first time in nearly two weeks that he'd found one. The sound, too short, hung in the darkness that surrounded them before fading. In the wake of it his smile remained, softening the otherwise wolfish lines of his face and leaving Cal to feel suddenly, potently thankful to the lean-bodied young woman with him.

A part of him fought but not for long, Cal let himself look at her while she looked at him. It didn't matter then that the nature of their looks were differing. Not to Cal. Instead, in that moment, he let himself soak up with bold appreciation the starkness of her beauty. The striking, elegant lines of her face followed by the cut of his sharp eyes before they fell to the full, soft line of her mouth. She smiled so easily. He envied her that. Counted it one more thing that had broken close to him, tight to his core, and finally allowed some humor to seep through.

And then he turned away, gathering up the duffle bag and shouldering it as he lead her one last time into the darkness. The hunting section was a series of locked racks and glass cases, firearms and bows lined up according to manufacturer and intended use.

He was slower now. Looking at her had done that. For a moment his focus had grown hazy and betrayed him, slipping away until at last he'd walked behind the counter and scrummaged up the key. One by one the racks were opened, giving way to firearm after firearm. A small cornucopia.

"I think we should give you the biggest gun they have." He quipped. Aware that for the first time, here in the dark, he felt optimistic about their chances together.

 

[laceandcogs]

"I'm really rather comfortable with the amount of gun I have, Cal," Gina said wryly, leaning her forearms on the counter as she stared down into the glass. It had a different look in the scattered, weak light of their upturned flashlights, a dull, flat glimmer not unlike the gunmetal itself. It made something flip in Gina's stomach, a creepy little shiver of dread caressing her spine. As much as Cal enjoyed being close to Gina's easy smile and pretty eyes, as much comfort as he took in her tight, well-muscled curves and the uptilt of that adorably aggressive chin, she appreciated the confidence with which he handled their world, and the fact that he made suggestions like "let's get the biggest gun".

"Honestly, it's my plan to stock up on ammunition and avoid the kind of situations that make me wish I had a bigger gun." Gina couldn't shake the cold feeling that surrounded her right now, and she moved behind the counter, just to be closer to Cal. She wondered if he'd felt the same creepy-crawlies, if he'd had the strange, jostled dreams.

 

[Light Ice]

In the dark things traveled. Voices. Light. And strangely, feelings. As her confidence slowly sapped from her, slipped away as they stood beside the rows of rifles and shotguns, Calvin felt his curiosity peak. A part of him desired to prod her, ask her, reach in and try and claim a hint of the thoughts that traveled through her mind. Instead, he surprised himself when he reached to meet her approach. The big stretch of his fingers attempting to splay passively along the small of her back and brace her lean spine. A sudden, masculine comfort. A human bridge that was meant to forge the distance between them and offer her that support.

And then, immediately after, Calvin surprised himself again.

"You alright, Gina?" He asked. The concern partially muted in his words and communicated mostly through that touch, a bold and suddenly warm expression of what they shared.

It'd all come so natural to him so far. It was hard to imagine that just two weeks ago he had been in Fenway Park and that a week before that the Super Flu was more rumor then reality. Now, surrounded by the dark racks and looming firearms, Calvin considered just what cost survivors would pay. His entire family was gone. His friends. Gone. It was like that for Gina. Maybe worse. He'd never been successful in any substantial way. He hadn't had a girlfriend or wife, or children.

He knew nothing about her except she'd tried, from the start, to maintain positivity. She'd tried from the start to provoke smiles from him even as he sat beside her clothed in the angry orange of his jumpsuit. In the end it was enough to care, enough to inspire his desire to protect and soothe. Calvin didn't want to go on alone, not that he'd had her company. It hadn't taken long to find her influence a positive one. It hadn't taken long to realize that in the two hours they'd known one another he hadn't thought about all that was gone from his life.

So his hand spread its warm touch along the small of her back and he gave himself to the role of partner and friend while the dark of the store waited, kept at bay by the glow of their flashlights.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina felt too good about Cal's hand on her back to consider it deeply. It was an affectionate gesture, perhaps even lustful, but not lascivious. If he wanted lascivious, he could have crushed her to his chest, bent her backwards over the counter, even just let that hand rest four inches lower... no, he was aiming for comfort, and comfort was exactly what Gina took in it.

"Just felt strange for a moment...Don't worry, not -sick- strange. Just creepy-crawly. It's probably just the dark." Gina looked up at Cal, letting those wide, slightly tilted eyes observe his with grave seriousness from beneath the veil of her lashes. "I've never been very good with the dark, you know. Never been very good with most of life." Here, she laughed, a gentle sound that somehow managed to hold both self-effacing humor and painful truth. "I lived a delicate and rarified existence, before, Cal."

Subconsciously, Gina drew the bag containing her shoeboxes a little closer with a slide of her feet, wanting to hold onto the evidence of that rarified former life. "Do you think the worst is over? I do, but I always err on the side of hope."