"The Container Castle" (An Adventure from "The Walking Dead")

Harold with Tamara in the fishing dock's convenience store:

Harold wrapped his arms around Tamara's waist, and just held her. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest. He could feel her warm breath against his neck. He could feel the continuing tremble of her entire body against his. It was an incredible feeling, a woman in post-ecstasy. Afterglow? He'd read that word once. Perhaps in a romance novel. Maybe a men's magazine. Internet porn?

The feel of a woman's naked body against him was magical. It had been so long. Even if it hadn't been, even if he'd had a woman yesterday, this still would have been magical. And it wasn't just about the sex. About the satisfaction. He'd cum a second time as Tamara rocked upon his groin. But she hadn't orgasmed yet. So he rode through the ecstasy. Continued pulling and pushing her, entering and exiting her.

Sweat covered Harold, from forehead to ankles. He hadn't worked this intensely in a while. There had been a lot of heavy lifting of steel during the Castle's construction. But most of it had been performed with a manlift, forklift, or container mover. Harold had forgotten how much effort could go into sex. What a work out. What a wonderful workout.



Pete with Hannah in the coffee shop:

"Whoa whoa, whoa..." Pete called to Hannah as she passed by. "We have business to finish."

She came to a stop to stare at him. Pete thought he saw regret in her eyes. Maybe she'd hopped not to have to have sex with him here. Or maybe she'd hoped not to have to have sex with him at all.

"You said you'd have sex with me if I brought you out here," Pete reminded Hannah. He set the bags atop a small round table. Moving closer to her, he told her, "I did my part. Time for you to do yours."

Tamara

Harold felt as good against Tamara and she did against him, and she didn’t want to leave her position, pressed against him flesh to flesh as he held her tightly. But two issues were rising that made her do so. First, she was about to develop a cramp in her left thigh. And second, their embrace was beginning to make her feel that this was becoming more intimate and less sexual. And the last thing Tamara wanted right now was an intimate relationship.

“Cramp,” she whispered, deciding to take a way out of this that had no chance of offending Harold.

They worked together to get her up and away without collapsing the chair that they’d already tested in ways the manufacturer likely hadn’t. She looked about herself, found a box of tissues, and ripped it open. Without a great deal of delicacy, she parted her knees and wiped at the fluids that had already begun leaking down her thighs, then found her clothes and quickly redressed.

“We’re not talking about this,” she finally said, turning to give Harold a hard look. “Not now. Not back there. I’m not--”

She hesitated, picking her words. “I’m not saying I’m sorry it happened. I’m just saying, we’re not gonna talk about it.”



Hannah

Stepping closer to Pete, Hannah laughed, short but loud. With the high that she was already beginning to feel, she asked with astonishment about his suggestion that they fuck, “Here? Now? Are you fucking crazy?

Harold with Tamara:

“Cramp.”

Harold donned a confused expression at Tamara's whispered word. He thought she'd said crap. And he was sure that that probably wasn't a good thing when it came to what had just happened between them.

But then he realized what she'd actually said. He helped her carefully off him and the chair. He'd almost laughed at the suction sound of his still softening cock slipping free of her wetness. But he'd held it in, thinking it juvenile.

He rose after Tamara did, turning his back to her. He quickly pulled his jockeys and jeans back up from around his ankles. Harold had never felt comfortable flashing his junk at women. Before sex, after, during. Didn't matter. He typically liked a dark room for sex. That would have made doing it here in the light of early morning uncomfortable for Harold if he hadn't been so fucking horny for Tamara.

He didn't know why he was this way about his own nudity. God knows he loved the sight of a naked woman. He'd loved seeing Tamara naked. She was so perfectly sculpted. But concerning his own body and nudity? Probably some Freudian thing about his mother or father. Who knew? Who cared? Not Harold, not now anyway.

“We’re not talking about this,” Tamara told him

Harold listened to all she had to say, responding, "Of course."

He was immediately sorry he'd used those two words. If you wish or Whatever you want or something to that effect would have been better. Of course made it sound as if he didn't want anyone to know either. It hadn't occurred to Harold that he would speak of it. Return to the Castle and brag about having fucked Tamara? But then, it also hadn't occurred to him that it should be a secret either.

The walker against the window again. Harold located his pistol with its sound suppressor. He moved to the door, saying, "I only see one. We should kill it and be going."

They checked the ropes securing the loads in the bicycle pickups and got out of there. Tamara opened the door and Harold put a round through the walker's forehead. Easy peasy. And they were off. The loot jiggled and shook a bit more than Harold would have preferred. But their speed and maneuverability made the trip easy.

Within a few minutes they were within sight of the Castle's gate. Harold didn't see the North Watch immediately. He pulled out the pellet gun he'd found weeks earlier in a pickup truck. Still peddling forward, Harold fired once, twice, three times. The pellets dinged off the Castle's metal. It would attract attention from within the castle but not from without. And it wouldn't waste another round from the Glock.

Craig's head popped up. Seeing the approaching bikes, he waved acknowledgement before disappearing again. Harold and Tamara reached the outer gate before it opened. Walkers were approaching, but Harold wasn't concerned. Too far off.

"I know you said we weren't going to talk about this," Harold said quietly as he unlocked the gate with one of its sets of keys. He didn't look to Tamara. He didn't want to see her expression. The sound of footsteps echoed inside the gate house. He finished, "I just wanted to say I enjoyed that very much."

He was going to add and hope we do it again really soon. But Craig was at the inside of the door. The younger man removed the beam and through the doors open. Harold and Tamara pushed the bikes in, and Craig exclaimed with delight at the haul.

"Toilet paper?" was the one item Craig spoke of immediately. He snatched a four pack and held it as if it were the last package on Earth. With a smile, he told the pair, "You guys can have all the rest of it, if I can just have this."

Harold laughed as he secured the doors. Turning, he asked formally, "Anything to report?"

Even in the low battery operated lights, Craig's face went noticeably serious. Harold asked with concern, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Um ... Pete and Hannah," Craig said with reluctance. "We, um ... we can't find them."

Harold's immediate thought was that the couple were coupling someplace within the castle's 100+ containers. But he didn't want to say such too bluntly. "It's a big place. Maybe they're--"

"They went outside," Craig interrupted. He glanced toward the other end of the gate house, then the one they were standing near. "The inside gates were closed but unlocked, and the cross bar on outside gate was down."

"Fuck..." was all Harold murmured.



Pete with Hannah

“Here? Now? Are you fucking crazy?

"Yeah," Pete responded without hesitation. "I got you here. You found your dope. I wanna fuck."

He waited for a reply, but she was just staring at him. He looked about the coffee shop. Smiling, he gestured to a booth.

"There's a nice, padded seat right there," Pete told her, adding, "Leather, or at least fake leather. Didn't you ever want to have sex on the leather seats of some fancy car. Just think of this as a luxury sedan or limousine, rather than a fucking Starbucks."



(OOC: I'm thinking that time wise, Pete and Hannah are a bit behind the time line. Should be concentrate on them until they catch up a bit?)

In the castle:

Tamara and her traveling companions looked between one another for a moment, but ultimately the others were all staring at her. She shrugged her shoulders. "You know the rules."

She barked out some orders to Craig and Polly concerning some of the items in the bicycle carts, then told them to get together with Harold concerning the rest of the haul. Once they'd hopped into action, Tamara caught Harold looking at her with an expression that seemed to beg the question What rules?

"If you do something stupid that could cost you your life, you pay the cost with your life alone," she told him in a matter of fact tone. "Rule #1. Those of us here today have followed that rule from the beginning, and we are all still alive because of it."

She snatched her coat from one cart before Polly could ride it away. As she watched her sister and the eldest of her companions head off toward the living portion of the castle, she reached into the coats pocket and withdrew a prescription bottle, shaking it to show that it was mostly empty but not entirely so.

"Hannah's an addict," she explained. "Oxy. She needed a fix, and I told her I would hook her up. I was going to help her get clean over the weeks to come."

She stuffed the bottle away and stomped off as she finished, "Won't be necessary now."

Her parting comment was a reflection of what she and Harold had seen returning through the gate: there had been at least a dozen Walkers closing on the castle, drawn by the movement and sound of their pillaging trip. And there would be more. Pete and Hannah were dead.



In the Starbucks:

Hannah was doing her best to appear shocked at Pete's suggestion, but to be honest she'd expected it and it wasn't actually that outrageous a request from him either. Hell, if Pete had known what Tamara and Harold had just done, he would have expected Hannah to already be out of her clothes and bent over a serving counter.

"Not here," she said firmly. "Not like this."

Pete continued his valid argument, but Hannah silenced him with a hand raised in a stop gesture. She drew a deep breath and held it a moment of disbelief that she was offering this. "But ... I'll blow you."

When he just stared at her a moment, she clarified, "I'll suck your cock. Here and now. I'll suck your cock here and now, if you'll forget about fucking me. I just--"

Movement caught Hannah's attention, and she looked out to see a trio of Walkers walking down the middle of the street in the direction of the Castle. She looked back to Pete, finishing, "I just can't do that out here. Fucking. Good enough?"

Harold:

He studied Tamara as she stomped away. He was sure this was bothering her. Not the pair's disappearance: the rule. Harold was certain she would have preferred to go out and find the pair. Or, at least, he believed so.

He had lived with Tamara for the past few days. He had interacted with her more than the others. And he'd just fucked her. And yet, Harold still didn't feel like he knew Tamara.

He wanted to, though. He called to Craig and Polly, "Hold up. I'll show you where some of that goes."



Craig (with more thoughts from Harold):

She fucked him.

Craig repeated the silent thought again. He studied Tamara as she contemplated Pete and Hannah's fate. And he told himself yet again, She fucked him.

"You know the rules," Tamara said before sending him and Polly off to deal with the loot from the store.

Over his shoulder, Craig heard Tamara explain the rule to Harold. He was kind of surprised the man hadn't heard it already. Tamara was big on the rules. Probably why she was still alive when so many others were dead. Or undead.

Would you have wanted us to come find you? he wondered as he pushed the bike. Find you naked and slamming your cunt against him?

Craig knew Tamara a great deal better than Harold did. And he knew intimately how she carried herself after fulfilling her occasion need. She should have known he'd see it in her walk, in her talk. It was so obvious. But then, he'd always been good at reading people.

Harold called from behind him, "Hold up. I'll show you where some of that goes."

Craig didn't look back. He only ceased filling his arms and waited. Harold caught up to them. They began separating items that went to specific places. Polly and Tamara both headed away, arms filled.

"So, what happened out there," Craig asked. His tone was pointed as he met Harold's eyes. His expression was hard as he continued, "Anything the rest of us should know?"

Harold had had a suspicion that Craig and Tamara were lovers. And something in the other man's tone and question told Harold he'd been right. If he were Craig, Harold would have wanted to be fucking Tamara. Hell, whether Craig, Pete, or just himself, Harold would have wanted to be fucking all three of the women currently living in his Castle. He was a man, of course. And he'd been a horn dog all his life. And he hadn't seen a woman in months!

But Harold was no idiot. So, it wasn't like he was going to come back here and brag about the encounter. Whether Craig was bumping uglies with Tamara or not!

"Nothing much," he said. He turned his attention back to the cart. As he filled his hands, he took a sharp fork in the conversation's road, "My boats still there, though."

Harold had been The Marylou from the store's window, still bobbing at the end of Dock C. The craft had been 200 yards away. And yet he'd been able to see the build up of algae and trash around her waterline. It made him sick to think of it. He'd almost been ready to suggest he and Tamara go out to her. But she'd taken off her top and that had been the end of that thought.

"I think we could get to her," Harold continued. "Take her out. Do some fishing. We could use some fresh fish."

"Nothing else happened that you want to tell me?" Craig pushed. He realized his mistake and corrected, "Tell us?"

Craig realized that he was beginning to sound like a jealous lover. He quickly attempted to clarify, "About what's out there, I mean. Walkers? Other people? What's it like? Has it changed since we came inside?"

"Not really," Harold told him. The fisher stood, his arms filled. "I want to get these put away. Can we talk about this later?"

Harold suspected that the other man had no interest in the most recently mentioned things. He was, without a doubt, inquiring about Harold and Tamara and what happened between them. Or, it might have been guilt. Harold didn't think he had a reason to feel guilt. After all, Tamara had seduced him, not the other way around.

Craig answered with a low, "Sure. Later."

Harold turned and headed away. Only then did he realized that he was hard as a rock below his belt line. This is gonna be a problem, he thought, if every time you think of Tamara you get a hard-on.



Pete with Hannah:

A blow job? Fuck yeah!

Pete turned for the booth he'd indicated earlier. His weapons belt was unbuckled before he reached it. His machete and big knife clattered to the floor. He began working on the belt holding his jeans up. He looked to Hannah expectantly. He asked, "Are you going to undress?"

He knew she didn't need to strip to suck his cock. But, he was still hopeful. Either way, he pulled the front of his jeans open. His erection had already escaped through the fly of his boxers. Laughing as he pushed his jeans down to his ankles, he said, "Some one's eager."

Pete worked his boxers out over the end of his average sized cock. He shoved them down, too. Then dropping onto the bench seat, he waved his hands one after another over his groin. Mimicking Hannah's own presentation from The Price Is Right, he said with a smirk, "All this can be yours ... because the price has been paid."

He let his knees fall open and waited.

Tamara

She took just one load of goods into the castle before slipping away to Harold'd bedroom, which the three females were still living in. She found some hand washed underwear and a relatively clean bra and headed for the shower container. She checked to ensure that she wasn't going to be interrupted, stripped, and took a very quick shower to get the smell of sex off her.

Tamara thought she'd seen something in Craig's eyes, and she suspected that he suspected she'd just fucked their host. It was none of his business, of course. They -- Tamara and Craig -- were not a couple. She'd made it clear to him that they were nothing more than fuck buddies, just as she'd made it clear to him that he was not to tell the others that they were such.

"Speak of this, and I'll cut your dick off," she'd warned while redressing after their first encounter. "I'll deny everything, cut your dick off, feed it to you, and go on without missing a beat. Find someone else to fuck without missing you for a moment."

Ironically, she had. As she dried, she thought to herself about what had just happened between her and Harold Why the fuck did you do that? It had been wonderful, and she'd needed release. But it was a complication. Tamara's mother had told her from the time she was little that she could sometimes be a very self destructive person. Was that what this was? A need to do herself harm. Hell, she'd done herself enough harm over the years, why stop now?

"Did you have sex with him?"

Tamara looked up quickly to find Polly standing in the containers doorway, holding back the heavy blanket that -- with a solar powered space heater -- kept the metal Hygiene Room a bit warmer than the containers adjacent to it. She asked with feigned confusion, "What? Who?"

"Harold," Polly said softly, stepping into the room and letting the drape fall behind her. "Did you have sex with him while you were out there?"

Tamara tried to laugh it off, adding, "No! I didn't have sex with Harold. Why would you ask that?"

Polly was nearing her sister slowly, watching her dress. She'd always thought her sister was the more beauty of the two siblings. Tamara seemed much more curvy than Polly felt she herself was. In truth, they were proportionally nearly identical, with the elder Wilson simply being 4 inches taller and almost 20 pounds heavier. And Tamara's bosom was fuller, a B cup compared to Polly's A.

"I want to have sex," Polly said suddenly. As Tamara rose tell and stared at her with wide eyes, Polly continued, "I want to lose my virginity finally."

She expected Tamara to say something, anything, but the older sibling just stared at her, unable to find a response. Then, Polly dropped the real bomb.

"I want Craig to do it. To have sex with me. I want him to be my first."

"Craig?" Tamara asked softly. The elder Wilson had so many thoughts competing for attention in her head now that she wasn't even sure why she was questioning her little sister's choice of lover. Was it jealousy over Craig? Or concern for Polly? Or just plain shock that she was even having this conversation with her sister.

"It makes sense," Polly continued, her tone frank. "I can't stand the thought of doing it with Pete ... ick! And you have Harold--"

"I don't have Harold!" Tamara cut in, returning quickly to dressing her nearly naked body as if afraid the fisherman had left hickies all over to ensure the others knew.

"You have Harold," Polly repeated, ignoring her sister's denial. "So, Craig is left. Left for me."

She watched her sister in silence for a moment, adding, "I like Craig. He's nice. And I know he was nice to you. And I know he would be a good lover--"

"How?" Tamara cut in again, standing to face her sister with a hard expression. "How the hell would you know that he would b a good lover?"

Polly hesitated before answering with a soft tone, "Because you kept going back to him. And Tam' ... you don't give a man a second go'round if he wasn't good the first time."

One of Tamara's eye brows rose questioningly. A smirk spread her lips as she asked, "And how would you know this?"

Polly giggled, diverting her eyes. Looking back up, she confessed, "I used to read your diary back home when I was little. And I used to get into your online journal after you came back from college. And..."

Tamara's face was filled with a combination of horrific shock and delighted humor both, if that was possible. She asked suspiciously, "And...?"

Polly giggled again, sounding 14 years old once again. "And ... I used to sneak into the closet that connected our rooms when you brought boys over. Men over."

"You watched us," Tamara responded, a statement not a question. When here sister nervously nodded and blushed a bright red, Tamara went on, "You used to watch me and my-- me and guys ... have sex."

Polly hesitated, then nodded again.

"Unbelievable," Tamara said, more about the fact that she'd never caught her sneak of a sister than the fact that that little sister had been curious about what was going on in the privacy of her bedroom and had been a Peeping Tami. She studied Polly for a long moment before letting the invasion of her sex life fall aside to ask, "Are you sure you want to do this now? Lose your virginity?"

Polly nodded nervously. She said in a soft voice, "Yes. It's time."

The two stared at one another a moment before Tamara moved forward to take the girl into her arms for a tight hug. After the embrace had played out, Tamara pinched the girl hard enough to cause her to scream out in pain.

"That's for spying on me, you little sneak," Tamara laughed. She curled around to the door, saying, "Let's go help the guys."


(OOC: Sorry, I ran out of time before I could write for Hannah.)

Hannah:

She knew Pete would take her up on her offer to suck his cock. And she was right. He moved quickly over to the seat and almost ripped his pants off. His cock popped out like a Jack in the Box toy, pointing right at her. He smiled and told her...

"Some one's eager."

Click to expand...

As he worked his cock free of the fly of his underwear and then sat, Hannah just stared at his erection. It wasn't the longest or the thickest she'd ever seen or played with, but she quickly came to believe that it was the most beautiful. It was perfectly symmetrical, with just enough noticeable blood vessels to remind you of how it got the way it was and a large, bulbous, purplish head that made Hannah want to spend an hour sucking and licking at it with a similar eagerness.

"All this can be yours ... because the price has been paid."

Click to expand...

Pete's knees fell open as he waited for Hannah to fulfill her obligation. Yet, she didn't move. After a moment, Pete would notice that her gaze was no longer on him but had instead risen to stare above and beyond him, with eyes widening in rising shock at the sight of dozens of Walkers passing by the coffee shop's windows.

Pete's concentration was on Hannah, of course. On Hannah and how she was now hesitating to come to him. To get on her knees. To suck his cock. To take his discharge into her mouth. To swallow. Jesus, it was hurting him to wait. Why was she waiting?

Then there was a sudden, loud, and unfortunately familiar growling sound beyond the glass behind him. The half naked Pete leaped to his feet and spun. He hollered at the sight of walkers near the glass, "Jesus!"

He tried to step away, forgetting where his pants were. He fell straight over backward. A small table and a pair of chairs scattered in all directions. He hurt himself, even cutting his back. But he barely acknowledged the pain. Instead, he hurried back to his feet and quickly redressed.

Sex was postponed, obviously. He looked to the window and realized the walkers had heard him. The nearest ones were turning to the glass. So, sex was not only postponed, it might be permanently nixed. How the hell were they to get out of this? Alone?

The walkers began pounding and clawing at the glass. They pushed at the door, which fortunately opened outward. Pete ran to it quickly, grasping it. He hollered to Hannah, "Find something to hold these together. I can't lock it. A chain. A bar. Anything."

Hannah

She was frozen in fear, unable to move. What had been one Walker soon became two, then three, then six, then a dozen, then two dozen. They were every where outside by the time Pete had dressed himself again. She watched him rush to the doors, and unbelievably her first thought was You're leaving me...!

"Find something to hold these together. I can't lock it. A chain. A bar. Anything."

Click to expand...

Hannah continued to just stand there, watching the events unfold for a long moment. Pete's continued calls for her assistance finally sunk in, though, as she began looking all about for something to help secure the doors. There was nothing. Nothing! She looked to a panicked Pete and even told him so, "There's nothing! I don't see anything!"

She ran over to the serving counter and looked behind it. Still, nothing. She ran around it, then paused to look back toward the front of the store. A mass of Walkers was beginning to block out the midday light that had been previously illuminating the business through dusty, dirty windows. We're dead, she told herself without doubt. We're gonna die. I'm gonna die. It wasn't like it was the first time she'd faced certain death. Hell, she'd almost died half a dozen times before the Walker Uprising, between the deadly car wrecks and brutal boy friends and drug overdoses. She didn't need the undead to make her dead, but they sure had tried to make it more likely over the last months.

"Wait!" she suddenly hollered Pete's way. "I know! I know what to do!"

She rushed to the back room again, searched without success, remembered the locker where she'd seen what she was looking for, and went to it, finding a bicycle KryptoLock. The key was still in the locks fitting, apparently left her by the bicycle's owner for when she had her next shift and had to secure her bike out front at the curb. Hannah ran for the front door again, turning the key to open the lock.

"Will this work?" she asked, holding the heavy duty, U-shaped lock out to Pete.

Peter looked at the handles, judging the distance between them. He looked to the lock. "It's perfect!"

He spat out directions quickly, and Hannah followed them. "Open it, the lock. Okay, slip it down here, around the handles. One of the sides on each side. Good"

He released his hold on the handles. But his hands remained close, just in case. Some of the walkers had gotten their fingers in between the two doors. But as they pulled outward, the lock held.

"We're good," he told Hannah. He backed up a bit. A slam against the glass to his left worried him. "We're good, 'til the glass breaks."

He grabbed the young woman's hand and hurried her away. They grabbed their weapons, packs, and bags of loot. They probably should have left it all. But it had become second nature not to leave good shit behind.

Pete found the store's back door, a metal barrier with no windows. He pressed his ear to it and listened. Peeking up to Hannah, he said, "Nothing. I don't think there're any out there."

He could see the panic in the young woman's face. Pete didn't know what Hannah's history was prior to meeting her less than a week ago. But he knew she hadn't killed any walkers since he'd known her. Could she do it? Or, if they ran into the dead outside, would their defense be totally up to him?

"You can do this," Pete told Hannah as he moved close to her. He took her hands into his. They were trembling. He squeezed them. "You can do this. I won't let them hurt you. I promise. I'll die before I let them get to you."

The comment was meant to make Hannah feel safe. To boost her confidence. To ensure her that she was in good hands. But it was also true. Pete would give his life to save Hannah. Just as he would do the same for the others.

"We okay?" he asked, squeezing her hands again. "Trust me?"

If she said yes, Pete would open the door slowly, quietly, and get them the hell out of there. If she didn't, well, he'd have to figure something out. They surely couldn't stay there.

Hannah listened to Pete's promises to keep her safe and alive, and while she wanted to badly to believe him, she couldn't. She'd never told him and the others how she'd come to be in their care now. She'd been abandoned once when the group she was then with was set upon by Walkers. Even worse, a guy with the next group with which she traveled -- a guy she was having sex with to better ensure his protection of her -- had actually opened the door behind which she was hiding to sacrifice her to the Walkers while he and his friends escaped in another direction. Hannah had barely escaped, swearing that if she ever saw the guy again he'd castrate his friends, let them turn to Walkers, castrate him, and then let the Walkers feed on him while he bled out.

"We okay?" he asked, squeezing her hands again. "Trust me?"

Click to expand...

She hesitated, staring into Pete's eyes, wanting so badly to say without question Yes, I trust you. But her past wouldn't let her. Instead, she only said, "I'm okay. Let's go. Let's get out of here."

Hannah watched as Pete opened the door and checked the alley beyond it. He stuck his head out, then stepped out, then waved her to follow, telling her that the alley was clear. Again, she hesitated, certain that the only thing waiting out there for her was betrayal or death, or both. But then from behind her came the sound of shattering glass. The Walkers were coming in, they were coming after her, and she could wait no longer. She had to trust!

At Pete's continued urgings and assurances, Hannah managed to get her feet to move. And move they did! Once in the alley, she fell in behind Pete as they ran away from the potential killing zone. They reached the street on the far side of the block from the Starbuck's store front, where they found a couple of dozen scattered Walkers, all heading one direction which, fortunately, was not the direction of the castle.

Then a growl sounded behind Hannah, causing her to spin fully around. A Walker was closing on her rapidly, and without thinking about how it would only draw more attention, Hannah screamed at the top of her lungs as she backed away.

Pete, in the streets with Hannah:

He was plotting a path through the walkers when he heard the blood curdling scream. Spinning, Pete found a walker he hadn't seen closing on Hannah. Without hesitation he ran at her, hollering, "Hannah, get back!"

The walker's gnarly hands were out before it, reaching for its dinner. They were almost within reach of Hannah when Pete began firing. His 9mm didn't have a silencer. So the shots were at full volume. They echoed through the alley and out into the street: one, two, three, four, five. They came in rapid succession until one finally dropped the walker to the pavement.



In the Castle:

Craig looked up from the bicycle pickup at the echoes of distant gunfire. Five shots, close together. Panic fire. Up close and personal fire. Pete. And Hannah.

"Go!" a male voice called out. Craig looked up to find Harold on the second landing of the stairs he'd built. The king of the castle held his AR-15 before him, then tossed it through the air to the man below him. He repeated, pointing to the gatehouse, "Go!"

Craig didn't hesitate. He rushed for and through the inner gate. At the outer gate, he hesitated to look through the peep holes for walkers. They were there, as he feared. He poked the barrel of the assault rifle out one hole. But before he could pull the trigger, closer gunfire sounded. A walker's head exploded before him. Then another. Then a third, and a fourth.

Craig threw open the outer gate, stepped through, and secured it behind him. He looked up to find Harold continuing to dispatch walkers with the M-4 he'd reclaimed from his friend Max. He nodded to the shooter when their gazes met. Turning, he hurried for the container yard's east entrance. If Pete and Hannah had gone out into the city, they would have gone that way.

As he rushed, he continued to hear shooting behind him. But it was walkers in front of him that were getting hit. Body shots caused them to flinch and jerk. Head shots dropped them to the concrete. Craig lifted the 9mm he'd been packing and took out some of the dead, too.

Then he heard shots in front of him. They weren't that far off. A couple of blocks maybe. Half a mile max? All he could do was run, hurry, and hope. Hope to find his friend alive. So that he could beat the hell out of him for coming out here like this.

(OOC: I was told yesterday by my co-writer that she has to quit writing for a while, real life shit and all that. It happens, Alice. No worries! Really!! If a female writer who has been following along is interested in hopping in, PM me. If not, I am going to just continue to write all of the characters myself in once or twice daily posts. I like the story's potential, and if I have to continue it on my own, I will.)

Tamara and Polly both flinched at gunfire from directly above them. There was a call from a man, perhaps Harold? Then more gunfire.

"Get up to the wall!" Tamara commanded her younger sister. She hurried to finish dressing, continuing, "Find Harold."

Polly headed out of the shower container to the stairs and ascended. She found Harold firing at targets beyond the wall. Craig was rushing off toward the east gates and the city beyond. Walkers dropped all about him.

"What can I do?" Polly asked when Harold caught sight of her.

"Ammo!" Harold answered. He glanced toward the bicycle carts below him. "Green box, says American Eagle on the side. Five-point-five-six. Not the two-two-three. Say it! Five-point-five-six!"

Polly repeated the cartridge size and hurried down the stairs. She had no idea what the difference between the two bullets were. She didn't care. She only cared that Harold got what he wanted. That he got the rounds he wanted and protected Craig.

Craig neared the edge of the container yard, still shooting walkers. Where'd they all come from so suddenly? The group had been working without stop on the Castle. Had the noise attracted them? If they were ever going to have peace around here, they needed to keep the walkers away from the castle's wall. Not just beyond it: away from it. They needed a second wall farther out.

He rushed out the container yard's gate. Movement caught his eye and he leveled the AR-15 that direction.

"No!" Pete hollered, throwing his hands up as he slid to a stop. Craig lowered the rifle, then aimed elsewhere and fired. Pete grasped Hannah's wrist again. "Let's go! Almost there!"

The three of them headed for the castle again. Despite having shot walkers heading this way, there were still more heading back. The two men dispatched them as Hannah simply avoided them. Their zigzag course got them to the gate, seemingly safe.

But a trio of walkers had been skirting the wall. Harold hadn't seen them. They stepped out around the gatehouse doors just as Pete was guiding Hannah into them. She screamed in terror as one reached for her. Then the walker's head exploded. As did the second's, and the third's.

Tamara stepped out from within the gatehouse, 9mm up before her. She swung the pistol about for more targets. There were none. She hollered at the other woman with rage, "Inside! Now!"

With the four of them inside and beyond both locked gates, the reckoning began. Hannah dropped the bags and packs of loot. She leaned over to catch her breath. A moment later, she stood tall and turned to explain herself.

But before she could get a word out, Tamara's hand came hard across her cheek. The slap was so loud it literally echoed through the inner ward. Polly, still looking for the cartridges, cried out sympathetically.

"Hey, wait!" Pete attempted to step in and defend Hannah. "It wasn't--"

But his efforts ended quickly, too. Craig's fist contacted him in the middle of his face. The punch disoriented Pete, whose knees bent forward and dropped him to the pavement. He rolled to his side, then sat up. His hands at his face were red with blood. He glared up at Craig through tear foggy eyes. Despite his anger, though, he said nothing.

Hannah was by now sobbing uncontrollably. Tamara moved forward to stand over her. She grumbled low and slow, "You selfish, stupid, bitch!"

Then ... it was over. Craig turned and headed away. So did Tamara, but in a different direction. Polly arrived at a run and took Hannah into her arms. They sat there while the slightly older woman just cried. Pete ripped his tee shirt off over his head. He held it to his face, trying to stem the bleeding.

And from above, Harold just watched. And wondered. About whether he'd fucked up taking these people into his castle.



Harold was still on the castle wall when Tamara arrived, two hours later. They stood there in silence for a long moment. They scanned the dead dead and undead dead that filled the yard below.

"I'm sorry about that," Tamara finally told him in a soft voice. "It won't happen again."

"How's Pete's nose?" he asked after another long moment of quiet.

"Broken," she answered, smirking a bit. "His face'll be swollen for a while. I'm more concerned about Craig's hand. He may have broken fingers, too."

"And the girl?"

"Hannah?" Tamara asked. She contemplated a moment. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell her host. The truth and the whole truth was necessary. She told him about Hannah's addiction. "I locked her into one of the containers. Told her she wasn't coming out 'til she was clean."

"You can do that?" Harold asked with uncertainty.

Tamara shrugged. "Hope so."

After a few minutes of silence, feet shuffled up the stairs and across the top of the wall. Polly offered out two mugs of steaming coffee. "Pete says sorry. At least, I think that's what he said. Jesus, his face. Craig really--"

"Thanks, sis," Tamara cut in. She didn't want to hear anymore about Pete. Or even about Craig. The man she had been fucking. The man her little sister now wanted to fuck. At least once, anyway. To lose her virginity. Tamara looked to Polly. She smiled, telling her softly, "I need to talk to Harold, okay?"

"Sure," Polly said. The younger Wilson turned to leave, then hesitated. She looked to Harold. As if fearful of being casted out, she told him, "Thank you for letting us stay here. You won't be sorry."

Polly waited for a response. She got only a slight smile and a nod. She looked to her sister, then left. After a bit, Tamara said, "Craig thinks we should build a second wall. Couple of containers high, to keep out the walkers and people both. Have you had any problems with people?"

"Not until you people," Harold said. He looked to Tamara and smiled broadly. He chuckled, saying, "Kidding."

They discussed the wall a bit more. It would take days, but it was a good idea. When silence returned, Tamara said more than asked, "So, you're letting us stay."

"After what happened today you mean?" Harold asked. When Tamara nodded acknowledgment, he looked out at the dead and undead. "Is this gonna happen again?"

"No," Tamara said quickly. "I promise."

Harold looked to her, then looked off in the direction of the store where they'd fucked. He asked, "Is that other thing going to gonna happen again?"

Tamara smiled, turned as if to leave, and answered, "Maybe."

Before she left, she laid a hand upon one of Harold's butt cheeks and squeezed. She clarified, "Maybe ... I promise."

He watched her depart, looking at that wonderful ass he'd recently grasped to move her about in his lap. He turned to look beyond the wall again. But as he did, he caught sight of Craig in the inner ward. The man had been watching the pair of them up above. But, for how long? And had Craig seen Tamara grasp Harold's ass? Did Harold care?

He looked out over the container yard, thinking about the work to come. And about being in Tamara once again.

The evening was filled with silent tension. Harold stayed pretty much to himself. There were a handful of brief conversations. About the day's loot. About Craig's second wall idea. About the future garden Polly was anxious to be working. About container bedrooms for each of the tenants. But not about the sex at the store. Not about the flight from Starbucks. Not about the fight out front of the gatehouse. Not about the slap or punch.

As the sun touched the horizon, Harold headed for northwest tower to stand watch. It wasn't really a tower, so much. From outside, the towers just looked like the corner container of the third, uppermost layer of wall. But inside, they were far more.

Harold had performed a great deal of improvements using an acetylene torch and a welding machine. Dozens of arrow slit-like holes provided a view of most of the container yard. Blind spots had been dealt with. Harold had simply moved empty shipping containers there to force anyone approaching the castle into the fields of view.

He'd cut 3x10 foot rectangles out of the floors and roofs of the stacked tower containers. These steel chunks and the removed container doors were then put to use. Harold had created stair-like ramps in the castle's corners. You could now travel all the way from the ground level up to the tower roof of the tower.

Harold had only built two of these stairways before Tamara's arrival. Two more had been built since. They hoped to put one in the middle of each wall eventually. This would supplement the fire escape stairs Harold had installed prior to Tamara's arrival.

The concern wasn't the convenient travel for the castle's tenants. It was speed of movement of its defenders should the castle ever be attacked. Harold's concerns about attack didn't involve the undead, of course. They involved the living. He hadn't come up against unfriendly living people yet. In fact, Tamara's group had been the first Harold had contacted since the uprising began.

To be totally honest, Harold hadn't been concerned with the living until Tamara. He hadn't been the post-apocalypse movie or television series type in his younger years. He hadn't realized that once the canned tuna and unleaded gasoline ran out, all hell would soon break free. Oh, he wasn't an idiot, of course. He knew that the city had been pillaged and looted. The massive fires hadn't started themselves either. But he'd never expected people to come to the castle to steal his stuff and kill him.

Not until Tamara and her group told him what was really happening out there in the city.

And now Harold wanted to be ready for what might come. Cases of Molotov cocktails sat in each tower. Powerful 8x30 night vision binoculars were in the northwest and southeast towers. Harold had found them in the Coast Guard annex building. He'd also found a night vision rifle scope in the glove box of a friend's abandoned pickup truck. It wasn't mounted on a rifle. But it still served a spotting purpose in the northwest tower. The southwest tower was the only one without night vision capability. The flare gun from the The Marylou was there, as were half of the group's available flares.

Before Tamara's tales of the outside world, Harold hadn't patrolled the castle much at night. Since then, though, he'd spent many a night up here. He liked the northwest tower because it looked out on the setting sun. And his beloved ocean. He had fantasies of loading The Marylou with all the food and water and other supplies in the castle and disappearing to an island someplace.

Harold didn't think he could do it alone. Maybe Tamara would come. Maybe she would leave the others. Abandon her sister. To disappear into the sunset, literally, with a man she barely knew. Harold smiled at the ridiculous thought. Someday...



Harold jerked back to consciousness. He'd slipped off sometime after midnight. Footsteps echoed through the castle's northwest corner. Ascended the stairs. Harold had come to recognize the unique shuffling sounds of the others. When the person stopped at the bottom of the stairs a level below, Harold said quietly, "Come on up, Polly."

She did. He listened to the worn soles of her old gray cowboy boots on the metal of the stairs. The beam of a flashlight began flashing about. Her head poked up into view, and she smiled in the light of the battery operated lamp he'd just turned on.

"Can I join you, Harold?"

"Of course," he said, gesturing her up. He unfolded a second lawn chair for her. He put it near the crate he used as a table. "I have lukewarm coffee."

"No thanks," she said quietly, sitting to face him. "I actually do want to get some sleep. Just, couldn't now."

He offered her a Slim Jim. He'd located a roach coach at the east edge of the yard in those early days. It had been on its side. Harold had used a fork lift to push it clear to its top. And as he'd expected, he'd found the one side still filled with food. Some had gone bad, but the packaged foods had been mostly salvageable.

Harold studied the girl as she munch on the pepperoni stick. She glanced up at him often for only brief glances. And each time, her lips spread in a weak smile. She smiled a lot in Harold's presence. He thought it a nervous habit. She didn't know him, of course. And he was much older. And he was a man. She probably felt like a little girl around him.

They chatted almost in whisper about mostly unimportant things. She told him she was excited about having her own bedroom. And about learning to shoot the rifles. Harold had promised her lessons days earlier. Tamara hadn't been happy about it. But he though everyone should know how to use all the weapons.

She asked him more about being a fisherman. She admitted that she'd never even been out on the ocean. "I fished on a lake once. I didn't catch anything. And I fell out of the boat at the dock, trying to get out. Everyone laughed."

He told her about his own adventures falling out of a boat. Of course, he'd been in the Navy. And the boat had been torpedoed. And it had been sinking. So, it had been more about jumping out than falling out. Polly asked if it was hard talking about it. But Harold found telling the story easy because no one had died. He kept his second combat related tale to himself, though. Some of his fellow sailors hadn't been that lucky this time around.

"Are you going to continued sleeping with my sister?" Polly asked out of no where.

Harold's reaction was classic: wide eyes and opened mouth. He hemmed and hawed for a moment. Then he lied, "I'm not sleeping with your sister."

"Tamara told me all about it," Polly responded, lying as well. "She's wondering the same thing, 'bout whether it's gonna continue."

Harold laughed nervously, diverting his eyes while he poured more coffee from a thermos he'd found in a lunch room. But Polly continued to prod.

"I think ... that if Tamara was interested ... I think I would like to continue--"

"So you are sleeping with her!" Polly jumped in, laughing. She saw Harold's second expression of surprise. She confessed, "My sister didn't tell me anything. But I figured."

"You're a little sneak," Harold said softly. He'd been played. Played well. He chuckled. Then he asked, "Figured how? What would make you think Tamara and I were ... you know..."

"Having sex?" Polly said boldly. She bit off a chunk of pepperoni. She chewed for a moment, staring at Harold. She finally told him, "You're a nice man. Good looking. Friendly. I know Tamara likes you. Respects you. And she appreciates what you did for us. Why wouldn't she have sex with you?"

She stood up, looking down on him. The light of the lantern struck her in a complimentary way. Polly wasn't a very shapely woman. Petite with slight curves. But the light seemed to accentuate what curves she had. Harold was glad he was sitting. The light would have accentuated the bulge resulting from their conversation.

"I would," she told him, quickly adding, "Have sex with you, I mean."

She leaned in and kissed a surprised Harold on the cheek. She pulled back, but only enough to look him in the eyes. Harold thought she was going to kiss him on the mouth. He was both hopeful and fearful that she would. He'd had his share of fantasies involving the girl of a woman. And he was suddenly having a very interesting one that had his cock twitching with excitement.

"If you weren't old enough to be my granddaddy, I mean," she said. Her smiled widened again. She stood and looked down upon him for a moment. Then she turned for and began descending the stairs as she finished, "But you should keep doing what you're doing with my sister. It'll make her happy, I think. I want her to be happy."

Harold didn't respond to the young woman. He had no idea what to say. He sat back for a moment to contemplate what had just happened. Then, standing and finding a piece of darkness in the next container over, he pulled out his still hard cock and found some relief to the image of a naked Polly bent at the waist as he pummeled her pussy from behind.



Harold had been sleeping in the northwest tower since giving up his room to the three females. And he had done so last night as well. After fucking Polly, he'd laid down on the twin bed mattress there and slept like a baby until well after dawn. He only awoke when he heard the sound of the Bobcat down in the center of the inner ward.

Harold hopped up and moved to the tower's inside wall to peek down through an arrow slit. Craig was in the equipment's seat, learning its controls. Tamara and Polly stood near. Too near, it would turn out, as the Bobcat leaped forward. Startled, they backed away quickly, then laughed at their own reactions.

Harold made his way to the garderobe to take care of his regular morning business. Then after washing his face and changing his shirt, he made his way down to the trio of wanna-be-farmers. As he approached, he recalled that Tamara and Polly had in fact grown up on a farm. Craig? Not so much, it seemed. At least, he'd never used farm equipment, which operated much like the Bobcat with which he has having problems.

They caught sight of their host as he appeared in the inner ward. They probably expected him to join them or even replace Craig. Harold didn't. He instead jumped into the seat of the forklift. With great skill, he lifted and moved some of the remaining removed container doors. In less than two minutes, he'd created a ramp from the higher concrete ledge to the lower dirt pit's floor.

Only then did Harold take charge of the Bobcat. He indicated for Craig to remain next to him, though, saying, "You need to learn this."

It was cramped and awkward, side by side in the machine's small seat. But it worked. Harold zipped the Bobcat around the inner ward. He scooped and dumped dirt into the pit. He shot the vehicle up and down the ramp as if in an off road race. And he showed the younger man everything he needed to know about the controls.

"Get'r'done," Harold told Craig when he finally stepped out onto the concrete. He stepped back to stand near the two women as Craig took over. He wasn't nearly as fast or fluid. But within a couple of minutes, he began to appear comfortable in the Bobcat. Harold looked between the sisters and laughed. As he turned to leave, he said, "Still ... I wouldn't stand too close."

It would take all day to spread the dirt piles throughout the pit. The City hadn't brought in enough dirt to get the job done. It had been a work in progress when the uprising began. So, there had been more loads of dirt planned. However, there was plenty of good topsoil to begin a farm.

Now, they just needed crops.



"Are the others joining us?"

Tamara had come inside to help Harold put together a lunch for all. But only Craig and Polly had come in to sit in the kitchen. Harold looked to the elder Wilson for an answer to his question.

"Pete asked to stand wall watch, if that's okay with you, Harold," she told him. "And Hannah isn't feeling well."

It was going to take a while for them to get past the slap and punch, as well as the incident that led up to both. Although he hadn't specifically asked, Harold had overheard the Wilson sisters discussing the third female. Hannah had been restricted to Harold's bedroom, where Tamara and Polly were supervising her detox.

Harold had decided to leave that to the women. Still, at one point, he couldn't help but hear the young woman crying. And on another, he'd heard her yelling at one or the other of the sisters about something or the other. Harold had had drunkard friends during various periods of his life. Some had tried to get clean. Some had succeeded. Most hadn't.

He didn't envy what the three girls were going through.

"We need to start on the second wall," Craig said after they'd sat down to eat. "If we can push the walkers out farther, they won't hear us working. And we won't have to listen to them at night."

Polly visibly trembled. "I can't stand the sound of them. All day, all night."

The four of them discussed the wall for an hour or so. Then, quite unexpectedly, Pete appeared. It was the first time Harold was seeing him since the punch. He was a mess! His face was swollen and black and blue. He wore a large bandage over his nose. Tamara had quietly informed Harold that it had been broken and that she'd had to set it. She'd said to Harold with a devilish smirk, "He cried like a baby through it."

"I'd like to learn to fish," Pete told Harold. The oldest male looked shocked. The youngest went on, we're gonna need fresh food, right? And you've been doing it a while."

"All my life," Harold confirmed. "You ever been out on the ocean?"

"Sure," Pete answered. He told him about going out on charter boats as a kid and teen. He talked about fishing with his grampa in the mountains. "I can do this. I need to contribute."

Harold could just imagine what was going through the young man's mind. He was fueled with guilt over almost having gotten himself killed. About almost having gotten Hannah killed. And for what? Coffee and chocolate and old dried scones?

"Once we get the second wall up," Harold said, to Pete and to the others also, "maybe we can create a sort of corridor ... between here and the fishing docks. Or, we can move my boat, The Marylou, closer. Tie it up here in the container yard."

He looked to Pete, who despite his face appeared to be wearing a bit of delight on it. "It'll be nice to be back out there again."

Pete filled a paper plate, then departed. He wasn't ready to hang out yet. Harold looked about the others. He smiled, showing his own happiness. "Well ... let's get back to work.



The next six days were very productive...

The second wall had been their priority. Fortunately, there had already been stacks of containers surrounding the castle. All Harold and the others had had to do was fill in the gaps.

Harold taught the others to use the torch and welder. Where needed, they removed doors, cut arrow slits, and more. It had taken Harold forever to build the castle on his own. Yet the second wall was in place in a single day. And the additional cutting and welding was done in two more.

The farm came next. Harold had been surprised to find the top soil work completed by none other than Polly. Craig had given her lessons on the Bobcat. And every chance she had, Polly was out in the pit. She moved dirt, compacted it, packed the ramps, and more.

They'd found a canvas bag of whole potatoes in a back room of a mom'n'pop café a couple of blocks away. Nice thing about potatoes is what happens to them if you don't cook them. They grow. By the time they'd been located, they already had roots growing out of all of the eyes. Polly had taken lead on the farm. She did most of the planting.

"Chickens and rabbits," she said one day. The others were standing on the concrete ledge admiring the progress. She said with the excitement of a child, "Chickens and rabbit. We need'em. And we can probably find them in the city. Lots of urban farmers."

"I miss fried eggs," Pete murmured dreamily. "Crisp edges ... buttery taste."

So, they went looking for chickens and rabbits. And they found them. And guinea pigs, too. Polly threw a fit when Harold spoke of roasting them over an open fire. "They're pets! Aren't they?"

The response to her question has been silent stares. She'd stuck out her bottom lip and feigned pouting. But, she knew the score on the little fur balls.

Harold's more personal interaction with Tamara had once again repeated itself. It was the fourth night after having made love to her the first time. Tamara came to Harold in the northwest tower, stripped, and laid back on his bedroll. She'd waggled her fingers silently at him in invitation. They'd made love, each of them finding ecstasy once again. They'd fallen asleep.

In the early morning, Harold awoke to the cold. He was alone. He rose, dressed, reheated some coffee over a propane bottle cooker, and watched the world awake. He descended to the kitchen, finding Tamara. She greeted him but said nothing more. She'd gotten what she wanted from him. She had no need to talk about it with him.

Tamara had talked to Polly about the younger woman's desire to lose her virginity. She had begun by trying to talk her out of it, for now. Then she'd simply turned to delaying the act for as long as possible. That seemed to be working for now. Almost a week had passed since the topic was first broached. And Polly's purity still stood.



"I'm ready to help."

They all looked up with surprise at the sound of Hannah's voice. Harold and Pete were preparing fishing equipment they'd salvaged from The Marylou and other nearby boats. Craig was laying out drip line in the garden in which Polly had continued to work from sunrise to sunset. And the two Wilson sisters were planning out where to plant the packets of seeds they'd found in a hardware store's garden section.

"I'm ready to get back to work," Hannah said tentatively. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes on the others. She'd wrong them all. She'd nearly gotten Pete killed. She looked to him. The swelling was gone, but he was still black and blue in places. She added hesitantly, "If you'll have me again."

It was Tamara's job to accept the girl back. And she did. She crossed to Hannah and took her into her arms. They hugged tightly, and even from forty feet away, Harold could see the tears slipping down both women's cheeks. Tamara turned Hannah toward Polly and told her, "Help us. We're gonna start planting today. There's nothing like getting dirt under your fingernails."

"Don't we have gloves?" Hannah asked hopefully.

Tamara laughed. "Sure we do. But it's not gardening if you don't get dirty."

Hannah grimaced as she dug under her nails with the end of a metal nail file. She'd spent three hours in the garden without gloves. And it felt as though she'd spent the last three hours getting the dirt out of her nails and off her skin. She turned her hands over, then back, looking at them closely. They were a mess. She shook her head and chuckled.

She'd always taken such good care of her hands. Hands, face, hair. Her skin. She glanced down to her naked body, thinking about her pubic area, And that, too.

She hadn't shaved down there since before the walker uprising. She really hadn't had a reason to do so, of course. It wasn't like she was wearing skimpy bikinis pool side at the country club anymore. Actually, when had she. And the men she'd fucked since the apocalypse certainly hadn't cared much. The one woman with whom she'd traded tongue time -- not Hannah's choice of phrasing -- had been a little put off by the return of the patch. (She herself had found a razor and taken the time to deal with her own muff, and she'd been a little critical of Hannah for not dealing with her own furry forest, undead threat or not.) But it hadn't stopped the woman from showing Hannah what she liked done down there, before Hannah returned the favor.

She turned and looked into the full length mirror that leaned against the container's metal wall. Over the past few days, Harold had assisted the girls in creating their own bathroom. It was nice no longer fearing that one of the guys might accidentally appear, thinking the unisex bathroom -- now male facility -- was devoid of female occupation. She turned a bit left, then right. Then she turned her as far as she could while still looking at herself.

Hannah hated what the walker uprising had done to her body. She'd always been so ... perfect. She'd lost half a dozen pounds since the end of the world had begun. Most women would have jumped for joy as such a thing. But Hannah had always felt that her shape was already perfect as it had been: 5'6" tall, with a shape measuring 34B-24-36 at 120 pounds.

120 pounds, she mused. Losing those six pounds in her ass might have been nice. She'd always thought she'd look better with a little less back yonder. But it wasn't as if it had been fat. It was all smooth and muscular. And it had looked gooood in a bikini or pair of thong panties. Hannah had always thought it would have just looked better if there had been a little less back there to begin with.

Pete won't mind, she thought to herself. That was why she was here in the ladies' bathroom now: to prepare herself for Pete. She still owed him. Owed him a blow job at the least. A fuck at the most. It had been almost two weeks since the incident in the Starbucks. (Actually, it had been 7 days, but Hannah's detox period had seemed like a month to her.) And she still hadn't given him his The Price Is Right prize for his efforts.

And for saving her, too. He hadn't had to do that. Hannah's previous traveling mates hadn't, of course. They'd abandoned her. Hell, they'd even sacrificed her to the walkers to enable themselves to get away. Pete could have done that, too. He could have said the undead had gotten her. That he hadn't been able to help her. Hell, as far as that went, he could have said that he hadn't gone out with her. He could have said he found the gate open and went out to bring her back.

But, he hadn't. He'd risked his life to save Hannah. Okay, okay ... he'd done it to get laid or, at the least, get his cock sucked. But still, after...

"Hey..."

Hannah flinched at the word. She turned to find Tamara at the door of the bathroom. She exploded in a blush that affected far more than just her face. Turning to find a robe someone had scrounged from some place, Hannah said softly, "Hey."

"You okay?" Tamara asked with her now familiar motherly tone.

"Sure, I'm fine," Hannah lied. She'd gotten past her body's need for Oxy, but she hadn't yet gotten past the knowledge of what that need had almost cost her. It was going to be a while before Hannah was okay again. She turned to Tamara and asked, "Do you have a fresh razor?"

"Maybe," the older girl said. She studied Hannah as she moved to and pillaged through a card board box of recently scavenged items. She handed the faux blonde a disposable razor, apologizing, "Single blade."

Hannah snatched it, then turned away. She milled about for a moment, ultimately making her way to the sink Harold and Craig had installed in a simple metal frame. It wasn't the ladies room from the Ritz-Carlton. But it wasn't a mud puddle or a plastic wash tub either.

"Don't do it, Hannah," Tamara said in that tone. When the younger woman looked to her, the oldest of the three clarified, "Pete can wait. You need more time."

Tamara saw the surprised expression in Hannah's face. She smiled. "We all know all about it. About why Pete went out with you. About how you were going to ... thank him."

The fair skin of Hannah's face exploded in red again. She turned away. Tamara moved closer as she continued, "It's okay. You have no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed--"

"I'm a whore," Hannah cut in.

"What?" Tamara moved to the other female and turned her, taking her into her arms. "You're not a--"

"I was gonna fuck Pete for drugs," Hannah said into the taller woman's shoulder as she felt her eyes filling with tears. "What else would you call me?"

The two of them stood there in the embrace for a long, long moment. When Tamara separated them and managed to get Hannah to look up into her eyes, she smiled and said with a devilish tone, "Pete's hot, and you should fuck him."

A loud laugh escaped the surprised Hannah's mouth. "I should, huh?"

"Yes, you should," Tamara confirmed. "But ... not yet."

"Why not?" Hannah asked, surprised that Tamara hadn't said not at all instead.

"Because if you fuck him now," Tamara explained, "it's to thank him for helping you get drugs. Or for saving your life. If you wait..."

Hannah looked into the older woman's eyes again. "If I wait what?"

"If you wait," Tamara finished, pulling Hannah in for another needed hug. She was contemplating why she'd gone to Harold the second time. Why she'd waited a few days, rather than return to him that very first night when she'd wanted to so badly. "If you wait, it's because you've decided that you like him enough to want him for reasons other than just a quick fuck."

They held each other a bit longer. Then Hannah pulled away. She nodded. "I'll wait. But..."

"But...?"

"What if Pete wants to, you know, before I'm ready?"

Hannah laughed loud, the sound echoing through the container. "Trust me. After that beat down from Craig, Pete ain't doing nothing until its the right and proper time ever again. C'mon, get showered and get dressed. Harold and Polly are making us dinner."