History's End (Closed for GirlWatch)

Riley Reneau thought she heard a sound. She pulled her pistol before edging around the corner. It was silent. There had been nothing. For years now, she could never be too sure. When she was ten, the lights went out in the city one night and never came back on. In the following weeks, she had watched as raiders abducted men, women, and boys in the streets, from her perch on the 11th floor condo where she had been raised by her single mom and her older brother.

"Stay here," her mother said one dark, silent night, after the raiding parties had seemed to have left. Water and food had been scarce, lasting only a couple of weeks, and her mother had decided something had to be found. It was the last time the children saw her. Days passed and then weeks, and her brother, four years older, determined to raise her as best he could, until he could get her out of the building, then out of the city to a safe place near the shore. Before they could leave the city, he joined the two of them with a group from the neighborhood, all people they knew, with children her age. One night, three of the men and her brother went into the old entertainment district, now a husk of darkness that nobody traveled, hoping to find supplies they might use long enough to bug out of the city and into the wilderness, where they would camp before pulling up stakes and heading West. Only the three men returned, having known the value of a teen girl and wanting to eliminate the obstacle between she and them. Since that day, Riley was in danger, and she fled the larger group, taking up residence in the abandoned building in which she now observed the fires in the trash cans on the streets below.

"Who's there?" She called, to nothing in particular, hoping nobody would respond. She thought she heard the steps of someone's feet in the stairwell, and she crept toward the doorway to the stairs, kicking it open to find nobody. She holstered her weapon before backing into the hallway, telling herself it was all in her mind. She gasped as a cat dropped from the railing of the overhanging balcony on the floor above, and hustled down the hallway into the nigh. Riley caught her breath and waited for the adrenaline to go away. It was now, when it was dark and she was alone, that she missed her brother. That she missed everyone. When she was eighteen, her brother had whisked her out, in the dark of night, along the alleys and corridors of the city, leading to the darkest edge of the burned out metropolis, to hide until they could find safety. It was there that she found herself once again, wondering where she could go before the old tribe from which she ran found her. She feared what they might do. She wasn't stupid. She knew what they could use her for. She knew her value to them as well. And despite that, her survival, at least as she knew it, was not ever certain.

Now, Riley walked quietly down the corridor, the burned out building crumbling as she cleared every floor, as she did every night, making sure it was empty and safe, before she could go to bed. Her current plan was to do this again, only for a few more nights, until the storms came, and the clouds darkened the city even more. She would leave then...seeking a different life, a free life, near the coastal towns in California. But her plan exploded in an eruption of rifle fire and a single explosion that silenced everything and shook the ground beneath her feet. She braced against the wall as she soon heard footsteps clapping through the hallway. She pointed her gun a second before her eyes grew wide at the man who had just exploded into her world. Her eyes caught his and she broke into a grin, recognizing him immediately.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, still training her weapon on him, hoping she wouldn't need to use it. "And how did you find me?"


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Michael burst around the corner, his eyes scanning left and right, both hands on the pistol that was pointed down and to the side. His legs already ached, but he knew he had to keep moving, he had to find out if what he’d overheard was true. What he wasn’t expecting was that as he came around the corner the proof would be pointing a gun at him.

He wasn’t sure if she recognized him at first. He was probably 30 pounds lighter and a lot more scruffy looking than years ago when she would run up to him and call him “Unkie Mike.” She’d stuck with the childish pronunciation even as she had gotten older and knew that they weren’t blood relations, but the families were close, even after Michael had moved off following a job. Before the world went to hell.

"What are you doing here? And how did you find me?"

He sighed with relief as he saw the grin. It was the same grin, even if the girl was now a young woman. He certainly couldn’t easily lift her up on his shoulders now, even though he was stronger now than he’d been in those happier days.

“Riley, it is you, isn’t it. Thank God it really is you.” He took a few steps towards her, then flattened himself to the wall as gunshots rang out in the night.

“Look, we don’t have any time. I heard about you at the same time I heard that the New Lord’s Army is moving in. They’ve sworn to kill all the gangers and the thieves, but honestly from what I’ve seen they aren’t really picky. So unless you like the idea of serving the Pastor’s idea of the Lord, we need to get out of here.”

He glanced back out of the empty frame of a window as a flare of flame appeared through a building in the distance.

“The seventh street gang - they’re the ones I’d heard were looking for you. They and all of the other small gangs sound like they’re going to try to band together, but they don’t have a chance against the NLA. I’ve barely been ahead of them myself since Richardsville.”

He stepped forward again, the light showing his frame now, more trim and hard than Riley had seen him last. Denim and leather wasn’t a fashion choice he would have made in the good old days, but it seemed to suit him now. He wore a light pack and what looked to be a machete swung by his side.

“I figure if we can get across the river before sunrise, we’ll be well clear of the fighting. If you want to get out… now’s the time.”

Riley had not expected to see her uncle. She hadn't been looking for him and she had assumed he had long ago been killed, conscripted into service, or forced to flee like so many others. He had not seen the last few years of her childhood, and she did not think he would see any of her as an adult, but here he was. She had as much reason to trust him, or not, as any other stranger in what was left of the city.

“Riley, it is you, isn’t it?" He asked. She cocked her head a bit, to allow him to finish speaking, but without moving her weapon, pointed at his head. "Thank God it really is you.” He took a few steps towards her, but before she could tell him to stay back, the noise from outside rang out, shots in the night, as her uncle pressed himself to the wall nearby. To her, the city sounded as it always did - dangerous. It was now a way of life. She was a bit surprised by his reaction. It made her drop her weapon, but not her guard. “Look, we don’t have any time," the man she now barely knew said. "I heard about you at the same time I heard that the New Lord’s Army is moving in. They’ve sworn to kill all the gangers and the thieves, but honestly from what I’ve seen they aren’t really picky. So unless you like the idea of serving the Pastor’s idea of the Lord, we need to get out of here.” She listened as the words raced over her. She wondered if he knew what he was talking about.

"The NLA isn't anywhere near here," she said, cautiously stepping into a nearby abandoned office to glimpse down into the street where she saw a scattered few mercenaries combing the streets looking for the night's capture. She stepped back into the hallway where Mike remained. "And the Pastor doesn't have any friends in this city." She holstered her gun and crossed her arms, one hip jutted out as she rocked back on one heel more than the other, a picture of solitude in the terrible surrounding hell. "And what, exactly did you hear about me?" No sooner had she done so, a flare lit up the windows of the building not four blocks away, bright enough to be seen where they stood, a sign that someone was being tortured, killed, or destroyed with the flame.

“The seventh street gang - they’re the ones I’d heard were looking for you," Mike responded. She wondered why 7G would want her. A shiver went along her spine at the thought of what the answer might be. Mike continued. "They and all of the other small gangs sound like they’re going to try to band together, but they don’t have a chance against the NLA. I’ve barely been ahead of them myself since Richardsville.”

"I'm confused," she said. "I don't think 7G is any safer for me than the NLA. Why would I join with them?" Without responding, he stepped forward, the distant, generator driven KC spotlight kept by the security forces casting enough light off the nearby facades to bring him into better focus. She noticed he looked lean, rugged, handsome in the portrait of a man who had seen tough fights and won at least his share. But for his voice, she would not have thought it was actually him. And while she fought to be brave, she felt the tiniest sense of home, wanting to cry, wanting to collapse into his arms as the little girl she had been the last time he had been near her.

“I figure if we can get across the river before sunrise, we’ll be well clear of the fighting," he said. "If you want to get out… now’s the time.” She did want to get out. And she would have before, except there was no place to go. If the NLA was nearby, there was no way a girl on her own would avoid them. If she had joined the Sevens, or any gang, her life would not be pleasant. She shuddered inside at the thought. And she didn't know if she could fully trust Mike. Unkie Mike. She felt stupid saying it to herself even now. She had only used it as a tease back to him the way she felt he always teased her. They had been buddies so long ago. While she did have choices other than to trust him, those choices all involved her staying here in the city, bouncing from abandoned place to abandoned place, hoping to stay one step ahead of the martial enforcement security forces who tried to encamp anyone they caught for "reassignment" to labor camps or repopulation zones, or to avoid capture by one of the gangs who never had good intentions. There was nobody left to trust but Mike. She simply nodded in response.

"I have weapons in an apartment upstairs," she finally replied after a moment of consideration. "A pack with some food and things too, in case I have to bug out. Give me thirty minutes to be ready, and I'll go." She looked him in the eyes, gauging his response, wondering if she would be safe with him, as she turned and moved cautiously to avoid windows as she headed to the staircase. As she stepped into the stairwell, she looked back at him, over her shoulder. "Well? Are you coming?" She took the stairs two at a time, moving quickly up three flights of stairs, before moving quickly down the hallway to a corner apartment overlooking the intersections of two major thoroughfares of the city. It was from here that she could monitor activity in the streets and be on guard if trouble came. Candles burned low inside as she pushed inside, finding a few bottles of water and stuffing them deep in the bottom of a single, black backpack.

"I never thought I'd see you again," she said, only vaguely aware of Mike's presence in the room. She took the pack into a small bedroom where a mattress sat on the floor, tossed in two changes of clothes and some spare, travel toiletries she had raided from a nearby pharmacy after the looting had passed. Nearby sat two holsters bearing .45 caliber desert eagle long barrel handguns, which she strapped first upon one muscular thigh and then another. She tucked the gun she had been holding in the back of her pants, over her favorite panties, before taking a single barrel shotgun off its lean near the doorway and sliding it across her back beneath the backpack, now slung over both shoulders. She looked around the apartment for anything else she might need, finding a few gold medallions her brother usually carried with him for good luck, and a short, almost choker style silver chain, bearing the face of St. Christopher, a lucky charm of her own, which she wore as if she still believed in a god. Stepping from the room, she moved to the kitchen, pulling two long blade hunting knives from a drawer and sliding one over to her "uncle." "Take this if you need it," she said before putting the other one in the side of her pack where it could easily be pulled by her reach. She took one last look around as she reached high with both hands, tugging the hair tie from her ponytail, pulling her hair tight again, and returning the tie to its original place, leaving only a couple of wisps to fall along her temples, framing her face for no other reason that it was comfortable. She sighed, knowing this place that had been her home would be seen by her for the final time. "Okay," she said. "Lead the way."

“I wouldn’t say the Seventh’s street guys were trying to recruit you.” Michael called as he tried to keep up with her on the stairs. Damn those legs of hers were long now, and she had the energy he should have expected of a teenager. “Something about ‘the bitch in the tower’? Did you have a confrontation with one of them? It’s only because one of them knew your name that I even knew you were alive.” He didn’t want to even say out loud what they had said they wanted to do to her. It was something he hoped she hadn’t had to face. It was best not to think about it.

He couldn’t keep up with her without being completely winded at the top, not at the rate she was able to move. By the time he caught up with her again she was packing. By the look of the place she’d been here for at least a little while laying low. While he had been running ragged from town to town, she’d learned how to dig into the half-ruined remnants of civilization. He really couldn’t say who might have had it worse, but she clearly had been better at getting gear together than he had.

"I never thought I'd see you again," She didn’t even look at him as she said it, just kept packing away weapons. It was hard to imagine she was the young woman who once had been the little Riley he’d played hide and seek with in the yard. From the tone in her voice he wasn’t sure what would happen if he even tried to give her a hug now. She might stab him out of sheer reflex, and given what she may have gone through it might be completely understandable. He tried to give her space, even as he followed her into the kitchen. He stared at the hunting knife she offered for a long moment before strapping it on the other side of his belt. He looked away as he replied.

“We … I … I lost it Riley, I lost everyone, everything. I just kept thinking of your Dad, that maybe things hadn’t gone quite so bad out here. Maybe it was better in the smaller cities and towns than it was in Minneapolis. I got free and tried to get here. I found your old house… or what’s left of it. I thought you were all dead until I heard that ganger mention you by name.”

He looked back at her as she was reaching up to tie her hair back. For the first time in that broken light he saw the unmistakable evidence that she wasn’t the girl he’d last seen, her body shaped by those shadows with curves that were a woman’s curves. He had to curse himself for even thinking of it, noticing it, when surely those curves were part of what was bringing her trouble even now. She deserved better.

"Okay, lead the way." Her face was matter of fact, determined. Any last memories of childhood must have been driven away. It made him want to wrap her up in his arms. It made him want to cry for what she’d lost. But surely that wasn’t what she needed now. Instead he nodded and turned away.

He took the stairs down slower than she’d taken them up, but at least that left him with plenty of breath to explain. “The bridges at Westford Road and Sainsville are both guarded, but if we edge up through McCarthy Park we can get to the old university campus. That’s the way I came in the first time. There’s a boathouse. Between the clouds and the sliver moon I think we can get across without being seen. Then it’s just a matter of getting clear of town.”

Riley was amused at the idea of 'the bitch in the tower.' She explained that from her perch she was often able to pick off the occasional raiding party before they could enter the building and once inside they would not make it more than a few floors up because only she knew the paths through the building that were not blocked with rubble or impassable. The Sevens wanted the building for some time for the strategic advantage it could give them over the western side of the city, but she held it down herself for some time and always escaped their efforts to take her out, seeming to be a ghost who was always one step ahead of them. Her survival depended upon that, and it was really nothing more or less than that. She was no superhero, just a girl trying to make it in the new world. And she could not, did not want to, imagine what it would be like had they captured her. For that reason, she was glad to now have a companion, little help though a single other person might be. She thought she had noticed him looking at her as she put her hair up, and made a note to be cautious, wondering if she could even trust him now. She wasn't stupid. The female population was now around 10% of what it had been before the scourge. She was not just a person, but a commodity, at least here in the unsafe zones.

Despite all this, she followed him down the stairs. It made sense to leave the city now because, though she had held the gangs back from her position, they were increasingly becoming bolder, more forceful, and more intelligent about her surroundings, which meant her advantage was soon gone.

“The bridges at Westford Road and Sainsville are both guarded," her uncle explained. "But if we edge up through McCarthy Park we can get to the old university campus." That raised her suspicions.

"You came through McCarthy and the enforcement units didn't stop you? They control that entire area all the way back east toward the old Carradine Way." She said.

"That’s the way I came in the first time," Mike explained. "There’s a boathouse. Between the clouds and the sliver moon I think we can get across without being seen. Then it’s just a matter of getting clear of town.” He wasn't wrong. There was a boathouse. But the enforcement units had secured McCarthy Park five months ago. If he had passed through there, he was lucky he wasn't on his way to being relocated by force or disappeared.

"I have a better idea." She raced past him on the inner stairwell, down past the ground floor, past a lower lobby, and into an open elevator shaft. She leapt down a single floor, landing with a small crashing noise on top of the elevator from which she stepped out of the landing above into an old parking garage. She waited for him to follow.

"This place is blocked on all sides by gang checkpoints on the roads, so nobody ever makes it in here," she said. "On the far side there are stairs that lead up the ground level across from an alley that leads to the dead end at Hafer way. The natural area west of McCarthy? It connects to the field the other side of Hafer. We can avoid McCarthy by going around it and get to the boathouse that way. It's maybe an hour out of the way, but once we are past Hafer, it's probably safer." As she spoke, she heard the sounds of footsteps running along the side of the building, outside the parking garage itself. Riley suddenly pressed Mike back against the opposite wall of the elevator shaft, her body fully flush against his, placing her hand on his mouth to ensure he said nothing. She remained pressed against him, thinking nothing of it, as she craned her neck around the wall to see if the footsteps drew closer. When they appeared to fade into the distance, unsuspicious of their presence, she pulled away from him and brushed a wisp of hair behind her ear. "We're going the other direction," she said. "Let's go." With that she took off in a silent run, a skill she had been forced to develop, her form leading him toward the stairs that would take them to Hafer Way and the field beyond, trusting he would follow.

"I have a better idea." And with that she raced off, all the boldness of youth in her step. Mike had learned the hard way that the cost of boldness could be back breaking. He'd been bold too, in his youth. He'd even tried to be bold when the world started to crumble and his family was threatened. That had failed tremendously and he'd had to learn the clever and subtle way all over again. He was hesitant in taking the leap behind her. A weakness in the metal on the top of that elevator and one of them would have had a gashed-up or broken leg, either of which would have put an immediate stop to their escape plan.

"On the far side there are stairs that lead up the ground level across from an alley that leads to the dead end at Hafer way. The natural area west of McCarthy? It connects to the field the other side of Hafer. We can avoid McCarthy by going around it and get to the boathouse that way. It's maybe an hour out of the way, but once we are past Hafer, it's probably safer."

Well, at least she was thinking cautiously on the wider scale, and she did know the city infinitely better than he did as a newcomer. He had liked McCarthy Park because it was so overgrown it was practically a forest again, and he knew how to move silently and unseen through a forest. There was a reason the first weapon to hand for him was a machete while she seemed to favor the impressive looking high-caliber pistol. He wondered where she'd managed to score those, and if she had much in the way of ammunition. He'd prefer to think of those as good for bringing down the wild game they'd need to survive in the places where there were now a lot fewer people and absolutely no grocery stores.

As he was musing about her guns, suddenly she was pressed against him, her hand coming up to his mouth. His right hand was immediately on her, thumb pressed against the center of her back of her hand. Whether she recognized it or not, he had stopped just before a small joint ju-jitsu move to peel of her hand, instinctively ready to twist her wrist around into a submission hold. His left hand was at her hip, perhaps easily mistaken for a surprised clutch rather than the prelude to a control move. Instead he stopped, hearing the footsteps go by, trying not to think about have it felt to have a woman pressed against him for the first time in years. Then she was gone again.

"Let's go." He really had no choice but to follow. He quickly rose to running on the balls of his feet, much like he would on lightly covered ground in the woods. Her instincts, her knowledge were certainly better than his right now. He only could hope that she had some wisdom in there as well.

Riley bounded up the stairs, one flight, then a second, before emerging at a door with a single panel window looking into the dark street beyond. She attempted to look left, then right, as far as she could, then looked back to find Michael approaching in tow. She turned to speak to him over her shoulder and past the shotgun sticking out from beneath her pack.

"We have to cross the street, slide along the buildings on the other side, and jump the barrier that leads down an embankment into the field," she said. "Think someone your age can handle it?" She teased, a harken back to their earlier days when he was part of the family. She turned and gave another long glance out the window before lifting her pistol to shoulder height and inching the door open. A grinding creak crackled through the night and she stopped immediately, waiting cautiously to see if she had gained any unwanted attention. The street remained quiet. She tried again and the creak repeated itself. Another pause, before she looked once more at Michael. "Come on," she whispered. She stepped one leg through the small space and squeezed her body slowly through the opening before finding herself on street level awaiting her companion.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The reverberation slammed along the corner of the building nearly thirty feet away from where they stood, the guns lobbed from who knew where. Riley didn't know if they had been detected or if the shelling was part of some larger, more generic target of the district itself.

"Come on!" She shouted, taking Michael's arm and pulling him through the door. She sprinted across the street and down the edge of the buildings there, no more than fifty yards, before flinging herself over the five foot barrier, landing on her feet for a moment before tumbling over, rolling down the hill and coming to rest at the edge of a barbed wire fence that stood between them and the field around McCarthy Park. She stood and brushed herself off, gathered her backpack once more and waited for her uncle to gather himself as well. In the darkness, the generator lights showed only a faint silhouette of the remaining skyline, which provided an additional shade of darkness in which they could maintain cover.

"The boathouse is 6 miles north of here, give or take," she said. "Are you okay to get there?" She asked, noticing how hard her own fall to their current location had been. She then pressed the top level of the barbed wire fence upward, while leaning one hip between the barbs on the second level, opening a space for Michael to climb through. Moments later they were chest high in grass furrows that had been planted as a bullwark against flooding and invasion by mechanized units from the West. "The enforcement teams patrol McCarthy, but not here. But they can see us from there and they'll fire on us if they do." Her warning was not likely lost on Michael. "But once we get around the park, we should have no trouble." No sooner had she spoken, the alarms sounded from the west edge of the city and the rat-a-tat of gunfire sounded. For the second time she pressed herself against her uncle, keeping him from the danger at hand.

"We have to move!" She said. "Run!" She scrambled up only enough to run beneath the hedgerows. "Stay close!" The gunfire continued, randomly spraying through the field with no sense that they were clearly targeted and every indication they had been at least spotted once. As they ran through the darkness and away from their original position, the gunfire seemed farther away and eventually wound down, she slowed, then stopped altogether. Riley holstered her weapon and put her hands on her hips while her chest heaved up, then down, over and over, as she caught her breath.

"Okay," she said between breaths. "We should be okay now." She shook her head in disbelief at how difficult this venture had been, less than five hundred yards from where it began. At least in the building she had a place to stay for a while longer in some semblance of comfort. But she knew that was no longer the case. She looked at the city for what could be the last time up close. The occasional explosion from its depths signaled combat between the government and the gangs. She wondered how in hell life had become like this and what it would be like next. She felt tiny tears well in her eyes. She felt fear. She wiped the tears away first from one eye, then from the other. They weren't safe. Not yet, at least. She turned to her uncle. "We have to move. We can't stay here."

Michael just grinned at her jokes at his age, but kept quiet while he squeezed his wider frame through the opening. The little girl Riley had been wouldn’t have even had to squeeze, but any joke about their past was erased from his mind by the sound of artillery landing. Riley burst into motion, rightly guessing that with the shelling going on the chances were that anyone out there was more worried about keeping their head down than looking for someone to shoot.

She cleared the five-foot fence with a grace that told him that somehow her childhood gymnastics weren’t forgotten. She has always been full of confidence. He remembered how proud Connor and Marie had been at how hard she practiced and competed. He took two steps to climb the fence before leaping over. Where it looked like she had tried to land on her feet, Michael immediately went into a roll as soon as he hit the ground, though the impact made him grunt. If the worst he got out of this run was a bruise on his hip then he’d gratefully take it. He came back up on his feet, though nowhere near as quickly as Riley.

"The boathouse is 6 miles north of here, give or take. Are you okay to get there?"

If she was bothered by the landing, she sure didn’t show it. “Yeah, lead on.” He was about to comment about the trios of enforcement patrols he’d seen when gunshots rang out and suddenly Riley’s body was pressed against his again. A growl of frustration stopped short in his throat as he wrapped one arm around her, feeling the shape of her trim waist, the swell of her hip. Was she treating him like a child that needed protection - or a rickety elder? Or was there something else. Before he could process that she was shrugging through his arms and off again.

”"We have to move! Run! Stay close!" He followed her, staying right behind her, determined that he’d give her no reason to think he wasn’t perfectly capable of handling himself. All the while he wondered about the effort he was seeing. The shelling - was that NLA ranging shots or intimidation? He had heard they had ransacked a military depot after an officer had sworn himself to The Pastor, but perhaps they didn’t have much in the way of trained personnel any more. And the enforcement guards firing blindly after them into the park - as short as ammo was becoming that only made sense if they were panicked - or thought there was a larger group moving through the park.

Riley stopped, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. Michael turned away from her, his breath coming more easily. Out of necessity he had gotten used to running for long stretches to keep ahead of danger. He wasn’t surprised that here in the city she had gotten used to short bursts of exertion instead.

"Okay. We should be okay now." Something in her voice told him she was trying to reassure herself. He turned back at her just as she turned to him and said ”"We have to move. We can't stay here.". Something wasn’t right. That gunfire, sprayed into the park.

“Riley, I don’t think that was for us…” His voice was quiet and low. He scanned over the overgrown park, seeing small distant movements - maybe dozens of people moving through the trees and brush. Michael’s head turned quickly as he heard a distant “Thoop, Thoop” - like twin hollow pops - coming from the government positions.

“Fuck” He dove towards Riley with a low, urgent “Get down!” He wrapped his arms around her, one hand pulling her head toward his chest, the other at the small of her back. The air was driven out of his lungs as he hit, and the sky exploded with light. A series of three explosions rang through the park as a grenade launcher was brought to bear. As the afterimages of the grenades faded they were replaced by two brilliant flares that hung in the sky over the middle of the park, exposing the infiltrating troops to the gunfire that was more than redoubled compared to the scattered fire they had heard before. Fortunately, Riley’s path had kept them out of the park proper and thus out of the middle of the fight. A screams of pain howled from where they might well have been, cut short by the bark of a gun. The invading band was pinned down by machine gun fire, but soon tracer rounds were finding the established gun positions as well.

“We have to keep low, even if that means slow.” He rolled away, unwrapping himself from her. “If either side sees us, they’re going to assume we’re enemies.” His eyes scanned over the opposing forces, not nearly as distant as he would like. He looked back at her, his eyes drawn to the big pistol on her thigh. “As long as we aren’t seen … and we don’t have to fire a shot that they hear.” He looked in her eyes. “You had a good plan. We need to get away from this. Ready to lead on?”

“Riley, I don’t think that was for us,” Michael's voice trailed off as the distant pop from service weapons were followed by more heavy streaming automatic fire into the darkness. She watched her uncle in the faint glow from the distant skyline as he paused and looked across McCarthy Park's dark cover. A moment passed before the relay of hot tubes firing something sounded in the night, and Michael tackled her like a linebacker stopping the run. She felt him squeeze against her with his arms as he rolled over her just as the eruption from nearby lit up the sky.

Boom!!!! Boom!!!! Boom!!!! The eruptions shook the ground and could be felt in her teeth as she lay there beneath Michael who had known well enough what was coming before it had. From beneath his arm, she was able to see two flaming plumes, allowing the field where they lay to be seen from above and nearby. She could see images of soldiers, from which group unknown, far closer than she felt to be comfortable or that she had imagined. She shivered at the idea that they could have run directly into them, being captured or killed, their last recent moments together their last on earth alone. She was grateful they had chosen the path that they had, close to the combat though it was. She blinked back another round of silent tears as she considered the horror of the planet today, as told by the wails and screams that soon followed the flares.

“We have to keep low," Michael said. "Even if that means slow.” She simply nodded a shocked agreement. He then rolled off her, leaving her on her back, looking toward the skirmish, before she could rise to a kneel and gather her directions. “If either side sees us," the man continued, "they’re going to assume we’re enemies.”

"Yeah," she said, giving a half sigh as she brushed herself off long enough only to think. She looked up at Michael, now risen only enough to observe the battleground.

“As long as we aren’t seen," he continued, "and we don’t have to fire a shot that they hear.” She nodded again, setting her mind on the determination it would take to make it quietly to the boathouse. As if to reassure her, he spoke once more. “You had a good plan."

I know I did, she thought, refusing to allow him to treat her like the little girl she once was the last time he was around. I've survived out here for years without you. She didn't mean to be bitter, but she hadn't often felt this scared this close to the fight. She had survived as she had laying low, living in the shadows, foraging and hunting at night, living off her ability to evade others. Now, she wasn't in her insulated world, though she could still see it nearby.

"We need to get away from this," Michael's voice broke her private discussion. "Ready to lead on?” She nodded once more. In a crouch, she took off moving slowly, searching for higher foliage while moving farther from the city and closer toward the riverbank. Occasionally she would stop, kneeling on both knees, her feet tucked under her bottom, only to peer up above the tall grass and reeds to see if danger was near or get directions. Movement was slow, but no other encounters with any potential enemies were had. Nearly two and a half hours later, they rounded a bend alongside a muddy dune that had been carved by a small tributary during the last rainy spell. Pressing close to it, she could see the boathouse, not more than 150 yards away. She had no way of knowing the last time it was used by anyone, whether it stored a large enough vessel for each of them, or whether it was occupied by someone they did not want to meet. She looked at Michael before moving closer to him so that she could whisper and not draw any attention, if anyone was around.

"Okay, I got us here," she glanced around the corner at the boathouse once more. "What's the plan?"

Michael nodded. “The plan is that I’ll check it out. If you hear gunfire, it means that you need to find a place to hide.” He liked the lack of moonlight, but it meant he couldn’t see much of what was ahead of him either. “Follow something like 20-30 yards behind me and stay low.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Despite his warning against gunfire, he patted his jacket to assure him that the small Glock 9mm was still secure in its interior pocket. If he had to draw it, things were probably going to go very bad, but at least he’d have it.

Michael moved at a crouch through the tall grass, using each slight change in the growth and the slope of the ground to keep concealed. Now that they were away from concrete buildings and rusted dumpsters he was much more in his element. He edged towards the landward side of the building and was reassured as he could see that the broad doors still were closed, chained, and padlocked. The old access road was just as overgrown as before, the grass still standing high.

There was just the matter now of edging along the building to find the canoe he’d used to get across before. His confidence was higher with each step, though he kept scanning the river and its opposite bank. It was so dark that he could barely see the other side, but if saw anything that looked like a cigarette or a small light then it’d be time for a new plan. The last thing he needed was for them to paddle themselves straight into another group of militants making camp.

Beside the building was the beautifully slender forms of the racing shells, smashed by some long departed vandal until vines grew through the holes in their hulls. He’d hoped that they were good cover. If a new group came along, surely they’d see that the building had already been looted. The twin docks into the river now had more boards missing than intact, the leftmost one sagging deep into the water. All was quiet. His heart lifted and he backtracked to the corner of the building, and gave a small wave for Riley to join him.

“Here, we just need to get it out and get across the river, quietly and quickly.” He slowly crossed the landing to open the river-side door of the boathouse. After his footfalls had been so silent on the dirt and grass, the creak of wood as he crossed the landing set his nerves on edge. “Have you ever paddled a canoe before?”

He peered deep into the boathouse and immediately let out a low “Fuck.” The slender red canoe that should have been awaiting him was gone. “Fuck, not even 48 hours and someone’s stolen it.” He gave a sniff of a laugh, that he was angry about someone having stolen what he’d stolen only another day before that.

He pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket, covered the lens with his fingers, and quickly scanned around the boathouse with the red-dimmed light. There had to be something. Riley was counting on him.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” He grabbed up two wetbags from a dusty shelf and brushed the cobwebs off of them. “Everything that can’t get wet goes into these.” He handed one to Riley. “Make sure you have something dry you can put on when we come out the other side. We haven’t had enough hot days yet, so the water is going to still be cold.” He shrugged out of his pack, shortly followed by his leather jacket. “I seem to remember you were a pretty good swimmer.” He glanced at the shotgun tucked in her pack. He’d let her figure out if she could make it with its bulk.

He bent over to start unlacing his boots.

Riley followed Michael, careful to stay low, as he approached the boathouse. She noticed it looked pretty dilapidated, and unused, making her worry that their venture here might be fruitless. She stayed back as Michael crept close to the building, leaving her alone a moment later as he disappeared around the corner. Another moment, and he was waving her near, and she quickly raced across the open ground to meet by his side.

“Here," he whispered. "We just need to get it out and get across the river, quietly and quickly.” She nodded just before he ran across the landing and pulled open the door. “Have you ever paddled a canoe before?”

"A canoe?" She asked, wondering how such a vessel would hold both of them, her pack and get them across the river fast enough to not get shot, dead in the water. "No." No sooner had the words come out, than her uncle spoke again, clearly upset.

"Fuck," he exclaimed. “Fuck, not even 48 hours and someone’s stolen it.” Riley looked around the corners of the empty boathouse for anything they could use, thinking on her feet, finding no time to feel sorry for herself. Michael laughed, a nervous laugh, one of concern and exasperation. He then lit a flashlight, blocking it enough to scan the room himself. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, grabbing something from a nearby shelf and walking back in her direction. “Everything that can’t get wet goes into these,” he said, handing a wetbag to Riley. “Make sure you have something dry you can put on when we come out the other side. We haven’t had enough hot days yet, so the water is going to still be cold.” Rather than take his lead, the girl placed her hands on her hips and watched Michael in the long shadows, his silhouette displaying the nervous energy that seemed to fill him. She watched him lug down his pack, then remove his jacket before suggesting they swim. He could not see the smirk on her face that revealed her amusement in his efforts, as he bent over to start unlacing his boots.

"I am a good swimmer," she said. "But we're not swimming," she continued patting him firmly on the shoulder as she rushed past him and toward the front of the boathouse. She wasn't being stubborn, she just knew that one of them would likely drown in the fast moving water, and she already thought of an alternate route. She leaned out the door on the land side of the building and nodded north. "Denham bridge is still there." She thought for a moment. "It's about a sixty yard sprint if there's nobody there. There's a walkover alongside it that we could crawl and not be seen. It wouldn't be as fast, but we could get over pretty easily. I've never seen more than four guards at Denham. At night, we could get to the walkover and...."

Rat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat!!!!

Small arms fire rang out very nearby. Riley ducked inside and when she did, the heavy door fell hard against the frame of the building. Her eyes grew wide as the echo died off. She refused to say anything and made it clear that neither should Michael. In moments, Riley heard footfalls close by and in seconds after that, a man appeared in the open area where she and Michael had also entered. She raised her pistol in the interloper's direction.

"Don't move," she said, her voice hiding the nervous tremor of her arm pointing the weapon. The stranger pointed what appeared to be an automatic rifle away from she and Michael and toward the ground.

"We have to leave," the stranger said. His voice was young and from the frame of him that she could see, he looked strong. Not removing her pistol from his chest, she took two steps toward Michael and took the flashlight from him, directing it long enough only to flash the man now standing before them. She could tell he was not wearing any sort of army uniform, and she could see nothing representative of any gang. "I'm a civilian," the man said.

"How do we know that?" Riley asked, looking anxiously at Michael.

"Do you think I'm either a deserter or a lone wolf, out here on my own?" The man replied. He made a good point. The most safety in the world was with the enforcement units, except when they fought, and they often took the spoils of war, possessions, food.....women, because nobody said they couldn't. A gang could not patrol in small numbers, it was too dangerous. They would be in the same situation that Riley and Michael now were.

"Why are you out here?" She asked.

"Why are you?" He asked in return. She smirked. She liked his attitude. He was cute too.

"We aren't trying to be," she said. "We're leaving the city."

"Let me join you?" the man said. Riley looked at her uncle, wondering if they could trust this guy. Hoping they could.

"You didn't tell me why you're here," she replied. The man moved slowly to sit on a bench that used to hold boat supplies and rowers waiting to climb into kayaks and canoes.

"I'm leaving too. My father used to be the mayor." Riley only now recognized him.

"You're Tate Dean?" She lowered her weapon and then holstered it. "Who was shooting at you?"

"Nobody," the man said. "I was shooting back at the units in McCarthy. I hate those fuckers." Riley's eyes grew wide, knowing that if he was firing, then the units could have made his location and could be on the way to where he was.

"We have to go," she said. She shouldered her pack and tossed the flashlight back to her uncle. "Do you know about Denham Bridge?" She asked Tate Dean, the handsome, now-deceased-Mayor's son. He nodded.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/12/a3/5e/12a35e88baeccbf9b836cd03c9df75f7.jpg

"I saw it from Miller Tower two days ago," he said. "They keep two guards there and it's the safest way out of the city," the new member of their tribe said. Riley nodded at Michael, before stepping toward the water-side bay door of the boathouse.

"Let's go." She stepped momentarily into the moonlight and then silently into the darkness, trusting the two men would follow. She didn't mind the idea of Tate traveling with their party, and he certainly didn't mind checking out her ass as she led the way, making no real effort to hide where his eyes went.

"Damn," Tate said, quietly, almost to himself but neglectfully where Riley's 'uncle' could hear it. His mind didn't hesitate to think of being in a repopulation camp with her, as they stepped onto the path to cross the river.

When Riley had gone for her gun, Michael had slid sideways to the door of the boathouse, the slender Glock in hand and pointing low. While Riley confronted and interrogated the young man, Michael kept an eye on the way he had come from. He and Riley both knew that there was every chance someone was coming their way to follow the sound of that automatic rifle. The young man may have been the son of the mayor, but Michael guess that didn’t mean much now except that Tate had likely grown up getting his own way and not understanding the consequences.

Michael nodded as Riley set the way. If it was just them he might have argued over the relative safety of the bridge versus a quiet (if cold) crossing of the river in the darkness of the crescent moon. But after that gunfire, it was too risky that someone would come down to the boathouse and be able to make out the shape of heads in the water. On the other hand, he knew all too well that if there was gunfire on the bridge then it was very likely some if not all of them weren’t going to make it through. Tate seemed like the kind who was young and sheltered enough to still think of guns like a movie or video game, where bullets might spray everywhere but the hero could pull through with only a flesh wound. Michael had seen what happened when someone got a “flesh wound” from a high velocity round, and it wasn’t like the old movies.

He also knew the type enough that trying to shout him down or act like Tate’s father wasn’t going to be productive, so instead he fell in just behind the young man just in time to hear his admiration of Riley’s backside. It seemed as good as any way to begin building a rapport with Tate, so he gave a quiet chuckle that he figured Tate would take as agreement before quietly speaking up.

“That’s a nice gun you’ve gotten there, Tate.”

Tate turned, proudly holding it up. “Oh yeah, it’s a SA-30. It’s what they were issuing to special police forces just before everything went tits up. I’ve got a lot of practice with it on the range - I’m a pretty deadeye shot in single fire mode.”

“Nice, nice. We might well need that.” Michael kept his voice low, wishing that Tate would take the hint and keep his voice a bit quieter as well. “It’s a bit loud though, so unless we need that one shot kill we probably should keep low and quiet.” He crouched down a bit as he spoke, swiveling as if he heard something.

Tate nodded and bent his knees more. “You want loud, I’ll show you loud.” He whispered, pulling back his jacket. Two black cylinders were strapped to his belt. Michael could only guess they were grenades. He gave a quiet, appreciative whistle while praying the boy didn’t actually try to use those anywhere near him.

“So, where’d you pick up the hot chick?” Tate asked, with a nod of his head towards Riley’s form, barely visible in the dim light ahead.

“I knew her Dad, way back when.” Michael figured any lie on this would probably just catch up to him. “She’s hot, she knows her stuff, and she knows the way outta here, so I’m down with that, right?”

Tate smiled. “Right.”

Michael nodded. Just ahead it looked like Riley had paused, so he put his fingers to his lips to signal Tate, and started scanning behind them again. Either the kid was going to be very valuable, or he was going to get them killed. Michael just wished he knew which.

Riley moved close along the riverbank, just beneath the level of the rise alongside, so as not to be detected from inland. She didn't wait for her uncle or their new companion, confident they could make it to the bridge and then across. Riley saw the faint silhouette of the bridge begin to rise over the horizon and felt a swell of eagerness that it too remained dark. She could not make out any guards, but she was certain they were there. The men trailed behind, but not far, and she smirked when she overheard something about a "hot chick," and felt a shiver along her spine when Michael was not heard correcting the boy her age on the subject. She bit her lower lip, contemplating the situation, as the other two crept closer to her location. She holstered her pistol long enough to turn their direction, indicate they should go beneath the bridge toward the walkover, which sat on the other side. She took her gun out once more and approached the foot of the bridge, her plan to sneak beneath the bridge, crouch low enough on the walkover to pass, then sprint into the darkness on the opposite side before anyone detected them. Beyond that, the world would be unknown to her, and she would have to rely upon Michael and good fortune. She led the way beneath the bridge, clearing every angle with her weapon as she passed, curious that there was nobody to shoot, nobody to clear. She rose to peer over the entrance to the bridge as she stepped onto the walkover and found nobody there. She trained her eyes to the other side and saw nobody there either. Finally, she looked back to the direction heading back in to the city. There, perhaps a quarter mile away, lit only by the faint light of the moon, sat two humvees, one on each side of the road, a large gun trained on the road from which anyone might try to leave. She stepped back beneath the foot of the bridge and holstered her weapon again, a proud grin on her face.

"We came up behind the guards," she whispered. "They've cut off this road, but they're a hundred yards back toward the city."

"How many?" Tate asked, only a bit more than a whisper.

"Shhhh," Riley replied. "No more than four. Probably only two."

"We can take them," Tate said.

"No," Riley said, hand on her hips, one hip jutting out defiantly. "We can get our ass across the bridge." The girl adjusted her pack, making sure it was tight to her body for the sprint she was about to lead. She glanced at Michael, a silent query to make sure he was on board. She felt her chest tighten and she started to breathe a bit heavier. For the first time, she was anxious. Those guns could swing around and open fire in a second. They had to be quick and they had to be quiet. Before she could say another word, the sound of the guns boomed through the air several times, a gift she could not have asked for and ever thought would happen. "Go!" She said, barely able to be heard by the distraction of the guards firing down on the road into some unsuspecting caravan of NLA troops, gang members, pedestrians trying to escape, or god knew what. In the noise and commotion, she led the men, sprinting across the walkover, over the river, and into a stand of trees, perhaps fifty more yards, now officially outside the city. It was there she laid down her pack for the first time since they left, and put her hands on her knees, catching her breath. Proud of herself for taking them this far, she stood up, grinning with pride, and kissed Michael on the cheek in celebration. Nearly delirious with getting them across the river safely and without detection, she turned immediately to Tate and kissed his cheek as well. She didn't care that she knew him for a matter of perhaps an hour....the small victory warranted her mood. As Tate sat on a nearby collapsed stump, Riley walked a brief distance to where Michael now stood. She brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear, before tightening her ponytail once again, in preparation for their next leg of the trip.

"We can't stay here," she said. "And we have to find a place we can camp or find an abandoned home where we can sleep." She watched her uncle for any reaction. She then looked at their third party, realizing a bit of a dilemma. "Wherever we go," she said, "I will need to stay with you." She stepped closer to Michael, her hands sliding along his sides so she could pull him in closer to tell him one last thing. "And you'll need to make sure we can trust him." She stepped away no sooner than she had stepped close. She wasn't going to lie to Michael. "I don't like being out here in the dark alone," she said. "And I trust you more than him, right now." She gave him a hug and pressed easily into his hard body. "Lead us out of here," she said, pulling away. "We have to move."

"Go!”

Michael had kicked into a sprint right after her, leaving a distracted looking Tate for the first moments. He hoped he wouldn’t hear the sound of Tate’s automatic rifle trying to act out some hero scene, knowing that would probably end with a return fire that could cost them it all. It was only another dozen yards later that he heard Tate’s footsteps behind him, then the young man was past him. Michael was glad to catch up to the both of them in the cover of a few trees, and then surprised beyond words when the beaming Riley kissed him on the cheek. He managed to keep his eyes on hers as she straightened her ponytail this time.

"We can't stay here, And we have to find a place we can camp or find an abandoned home where we can sleep."

“I have a place.” He replied quietly, catching her eyes then flicking his own towards Tate, who was bent over catching his breath. It looked like Tate’s adrenaline fueled speed wasn’t something he could has sustained any longer. Michael had a moment of pity for the young man, probably an orphan now with nowhere to go. His thoughts were immediately interrupted by Riley touching his sides, suddenly very close to him.

"Wherever we go, I will need to stay with you. And you'll need to make sure we can trust him." Michael nodded and whispered back, “I don’t know if he can trust himself.” His face showing his concern. He had to worry about Riley first, then himself, then Tate… maybe.

"I don't like being out here in the dark alone, and I trust you more than him, right now." She was clearly leveling with him, though a part of him rebelled at the “right now” … surely she didn’t think she’d ever trust Tate more than him, did she. His confusion was suddenly distracted as she pressed against close him, her head against his shoulder. He took her in his arms reflexively, felt her youthful mix of softness and firm muscle against him. The scent of her filled his nose. Not the scent of some flowery shampoo or perfume, that was six years and a world away now. It was the scent of sweat and shared fears, but on some deep level it was also the scent of a woman. He felt his body responding before he even had a chance to think about it, just as she pulled away. Had she felt it, that betrayal of his reaction? If so, he didn’t see any look of recognition or disgust on her face.

"Lead us out of here. We have to move." she said, and he nodded.

“Let’s go. Hey Tate, you okay over there?” Michael called, his voice louder than he wanted. A new burst of distant gunfire making him jump. “We have to move.”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem man.” Tate straightened up, his face a bit flush.

“Okay, deeper in those woods and then up that rise. We’re going to be a in the open for just a moment before he hit the woodline, but I think they’re busy so don’t burn yourself out. We’ve got a ways to go. Stick together.” Michael looked over at Tate’s rifle. “You’re going to want to sling that on your back or it's going to wear you out.”

Michael led them at a jog out of the stand of trees, across a light defile, then up into the woodline. Once they were a minute’s worth into the woods he slowed to a walk as it turned uphill. Once they’d crossed a ridgeline he started talking again.

“There’s a cave not too far up I used for shelter when scouting out the edges of the city. It’s not much but it’s cover, and we should be able to make it by dawn.” He led them around a mess of brambles before continuing. “There are wild dogs around the edges of town, but now that it's getting warmer they’ve got better things to eat than us. If we see any we’re try to scare them off without the guns unless we have to, okay?”

“I’m not going to let some dog take a bite of me while I’ve got a gun.” Tate objected. “Just one shot isn’t going to make anyone want to come hunt us down.”

“That’s probably true, as long as they aren’t already near us, but some of the city groups seemed to be scouting the near areas around too. So I’d rather not give them an excuse, okay? You have a good knife?”

Tate shook his head.

Michael unstrapped the hunting knife Riley had given him. “Here, you’ll need a knife out here for lots of things.” He slapped it’s sheath into Tate’s hand. “Both of these look to have bright steel, but we can try to dull that in some ashes later.” He looked over to Riley, hoping she didn’t object.

“For now let’s go quiet, keep up a steady pace. Drink your water as you need it - there’s a stream near the cave where we can refill our water then before we boil it.”

By the time the sun was starting to brighten the horizon, they were on the final stretch, a steep incline where the brush had given way to scraggly trees trying to keep their purchase between the rocks. Michael’s legs were more used to this, but it was clear that Tate was hurting. To his credit he hadn’t complained, but his head was sagging and he was trailing far behind Riley. The young man looked beat.

Michael paused by the entrance to the cave for Riley, hoping that she wasn’t cursing her decision to leave the city with him. It looked like she had been able to scavenge well from what was left of the city. Things were rougher here, like a different world.

“Welcome to my home.” He said, his tone openly acknowledging what he feared she might see in it. The cave had been a great find, as these things went. The opening was under an overhang that kept the rain out, and wasn’t much bigger than Michael’s frame. Inside it opened up considerably, though there were some places that opened up to the sky towards the back. There were small openings there to side, but only big enough for small animals and Michael had build his fire station there to discourage that. The rough and scattered openings skyward helped disperse the smoke.

“This is the patio.” He indicated the overhang to the entrance. “We have good view of anyone who’d want to climb up this way. The far side is even steeper, but it is passable.”

“Inside I’ve got some blankets and an big old sleeping bag. Tate and I will take the blankets. The water in the jugs has been boiled, so it’s as safe as we’re going to get. Go ahead and crash. If you need to pee I recommend the far side. I’ll wait for Tate.”

Riley was impressed as her uncle took charge immediately once effectively handed the reins. She was no stranger to the countryside, but her ventures there had been limited to short jaunts into the woods and fields to hunt for rabbits or take the occasional fish from a stream before returning to the safe haven of the urban core that she had called home until now. She grinned in amusement as she and Michael watched Tate, fighting a bit to catch is breath still as they were recovered and ready to roll out. She started a bit when a burst of rounds echoed from across the bridge once more, and knew that they would never be safe again as long as they didn't make it to the civilized areas that remained along some of the coastal areas.

“Okay, deeper in those woods and then up that rise," Michael indicated. "We’re going to be a in the open for just a moment before he hit the woodline, but I think they’re busy so don’t burn yourself out. We’ve got a ways to go. Stick together.” Riley unholstered one of the pistols, leaving the others strapped to her body and pulled her pack on once more, ready to fall in, which she did, taking a position just off Michael's right side. She began to follow, with Tate in tow of them both, eventually putting away her weapon as the three of them made it across a ridge line well into the trees.

“There’s a cave not too far up I used for shelter when scouting out the edges of the city," Michael said. Riley simply listened and nodded as he described the area. She took concern at the idea of being eaten by wild dogs, but only long enough to realize that this was an altogether new survival challenge she would simply have to endure.
A while later she noticed the place they would call home for the next however many nights, a small opening in a rock wall, only partially visible from where they stood in the still dim morning light. She felt relieved, her thighs and back beginning to grow tired, occasionally starting to cramp from the long night of activity and work to get here. She looked at Michael as he stood by allowing her to pass toward the entrance ahead of him.

“Welcome to my home,” he said, as she stepped through the small entrance, immediately setting her pack down by the entrance inside the cave.

"This place is perfect," she said, eager to sit down for a while, take a nap, and wash up a bit before they found something they could eat. The cave was certainly hidden from plain view sufficiently that she felt safe there, and she knew Michael would do nothing to harm her. She sat in a corner in the far back of the cave, first stretching her legs and then pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and placing her head on her knees so as to rest just a moment.

"Who'd you have to fight for this real estate?" She grinned in Michael's direction a moment later, stretching her legs out before her once more, before standing to let Michael give her and Tate the short tour.

“This is the patio,” he said. She imagined a real patio, coming out of the side of a cliffside mansion where the backyard held an infinity pool and view of the pacific ocean along the California coast, where she could sit in the morning in her bikini and Michael would serve her coffee as their dog ran through the yard while the morning sun lit the horizon and set the world on its early morning path. She paused and thought to herself a moment, as if a scratched record had awakened her to something unheard of. Their dog? It had been years since she had any sort of relationship. It had been unthought of that she would ever have one again, given the insecurity of being near men in the after times. And her not-so-uncle uncle? She shook the thought from her mind, chalking it up to a clear momentary slip into the indulgence of the ideas of life being as it once might have been....nothing more than a fantasy. She returned her attention to the reality of now as Michael continued speaking.

“Inside I’ve got some blankets and an big old sleeping bag. Tate and I will take the blankets." She nodded in agreement, as he offered her a private restroom break. She looked around and down the paths beyond the cave toward a simple little creek sitting back down in the woods, perhaps 75 yards away. Her eyes grew wide and her heart thankful.

"What I need," she said, "is to clean up." She glanced back to see Tate inspecting the area of the cave. She stepped past her uncle Mike and made eye contact as she did. "Don't let him peek," she said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the boy in their caravan. She turned and began walking away from Michael, toward the stream, saying nothing of his own limits upon her trip away from camp. "I'll be back in just a bit." She continued down to the banks of the water, no doubt a tributary leading into the river they had recently crossed, where she unstrapped her guns from the holsters along each thigh, then sat them on the water's edge. She leaned over and then squatted alongside the water and cupped a handful of it, pressing it over her face, before doing this a second and third time. Paying no attention to anything behind her, she slipped out of her shirt, then removed her shorts and bra, leaving her panties on as she stepped momentarily into the stream, running water over herself until she was free of dirt and mud. She stepped back onto the bank before returning her clothes, dirty though they were. She felt better as she returned her hair as it was, reclaimed her weapons, and carried them back up the rocks into camp. Already, she felt better. When she returned, she sat on a rock outcropping near the fire pit after placing her weapons inside with her pack.

"What's our plan from here?" she asked no one in particular, as much thinking out loud to herself as genuinely inquiring. "I'm not sure we don't get found by someone we don't want to get found by the longer we stay here." She saw Tate lounging across camp and noticed his eyes look over at her with an ornery grin. She rolled her eyes and then wondered if he had watched her down at the stream.

"And NLA would like to find you," Tate said, speaking in her direction. He wasn't wrong, but she didn't like him speaking of such things. She shot him a cold look as if to tell him to cut it out. The younger man looked perplexed before looking at Michael, then back at her.

"What?" Tate said. "They would."

"Shut up," Riley said. She stood up and moved toward the face of the cave as if to go in alone. "I don't like to think about that." She stepped into the cave and found a rolled up blanket, unrolled it and lay down in a corner of the cave. After all the adrenaline from their brief jaunt from her home - the only home she had known - reality of the world beyond it was scary. The fear hit her for the first time, and she rolled over to face the cave wall as she let a silent tear trail down her cheek.

Michael was glad that Riley appeared to take her new, if temporary, home well. It had seemed great, even spacious, when it was just him ranging out to find the lay of the land. With three of them it would be a lot more cozy, not to mention the needs of hunting for three quietly enough to not be noticed. He’d have to go and check some of his snares to see if there would be rabbit for lunch. Tate looked more like he was going to pass out, but at least he’d found the water canisters and was drinking deep. Michael hadn’t realized that the young man had rushed off without a canteen or bottle - perhaps he should ask more about the situation of his departure. But then, he might have the answer for himself and Riley and that could be awkward. Perhaps best to leave these things in the past.

He looked up as Riley stepped up close to him. "What I need," she said, "is to clean up. Don't let him peek.” She headed for the stream, adding "I'll be back in just a bit." Michael let his eyes linger on her as she turned away. With the sun coming up he had better look at her than he’d had since he met her, and the view was stirring. The thought that she’d probably be washing up set his imagination running. He wondered if she’d walk as far as the pool that gathered where the water fell down from the next ridge. He’d bathed there before going into the city. Michael’s tired mind easily slipped to what it would be like to join her. He imagined her walking nude into the water, those youthful, firm curves bare to the sunlight and dappled with droplets from the little waterfall that fed the pool. They could help wash each other, splashing the chill water on their skin. What would her breasts look like, feel like…

“I don’t know if it’s worth it.” Tate’s tired voice pulled him away from his fantasy. The young man was emerging from the cave, exhaustion plain on his face, then turned to sprawl on the rock in the sunlight.

“We’re not dead, we’re not slaves, we made it here. That’s a good start.” Michael used a moment where Tate’s head was turned to adjust his pants, sitting to help conceal the bulge and trying to think it away… think those distracting urges away.

“Is she worth it, you think? You know there’s some who would pay nicely to find out about her.” Tate’s voice was so loose it was almost like he was drunk, so exhausted from the night.

“That’s why we’re going to keep things quiet, not draw any attention, right?” Michael’s gut had drawn tight, but he knew he had to play it cool. The boy was just talking, surely.

"Look, tell me, does she bleed or not?” Tate asked tiredly. “If she bleeds then there's at least a 20 percent chance that she's fertile. That’s what Dr. Corbett told my Dad, with the research he was doing. Half the women who survived the Red Veil had their cycles stopped, those who didn’t have heart attacks like the other victims - like most of the men. A big chunk of those who still had their monthlys don’t have any viable eggs, just like the men whose nuts are wrecked."

Tate made a pumping gesture with his hand. “Me, I’m all clear. Viable breeding material. Knocked up two girls for the good doctor to look after. Healthy babies, not like those twisted things, you know? If she’s fertile, she could pop out my babies no problem. So, you been around her long enough to know if she bleeds?”

“I … I don’t know.” Michael’s head was spinning. He hadn’t heard much about the virus, not since the wave rolled through the cities. Massive heart attacks, often characterized by the victim’s face turning bright red as their hearts raced until they burst. He didn’t know if he was lucky or cursed that he hadn’t been there to see it happen to his own wife. “I. I don’t” He heard a sound and looked up to see Riley as she made her way back. “Look, don’t go asking Riley that. She’s been through enough. Let her get some sleep. We all need some sleep, right?” He busied himself, not wanting to look at Riley or Tate.

"What's our plan from here?" Michael looked up at her as she spoke. She’d cleaned off her face, the dirt and much of their trek up the hills. She looked more amazing every time he looked at her. He had to keep his mouth closed, look back to his work, not wanting to give anything away. "I'm not sure we don't get found by someone we don't want to get found by the longer we stay here."

“We’ll be fine here, for a while anyway. They’re too busy fighting each other, they don’t have any need to find us.” Michael said, but his voice didn’t have the strength and conviction it did earlier.

"And NLA would like to find you," Tate said. “What?" Tate said. "They would."

"Shut up," Riley replied before she headed into the cave. "I don't like to think about that."

Tate’s eyes followed her in, admiring her legs and backside as she crouched to make her way him. Michael cursed himself silently, but he was watching too. He looked over to Tate, who sat up and moved closer to Michael half-whispered: “Look, tell me you’re not thinking about it too, honestly.” He had a grin on his face, like sharing a dirty joke with a friend.

“Shut up, Tate.” Michael’s voice had become low and dangerous, his eyes turning to stare hard into Tate’s.

“Yo, chill out man.” Tate’s hands came up, his voice rising. “I get it, you’re probably used to it, it’s been so long since you had a woman. Me, I’m young - I got needs, but I’m not going to do anything stupid, okay.” His face suggested he’d told a joke that Michael was just too old to get. “No hurry, got to get ourselves out of the warzone first, yeah, all that.”

Michael realized his right hand was balled up hard and forced himself to relax. “Look Tate. You’re tired. We’re all tired. Climb on in there, grab a blanket and try to get some sleep. I’m going to check some traps out then I’ll be right back to get some sleep too.”

Tate nodded and started to rise. Michael’s hand shot out, grabbing him by the shoulder hard. The young man had a sudden look of surprise and fear.

“And Tate, if you so much as touch her…” his voice was harder, sharper, his temper almost getting the best of him. He let go of Tate’s shoulder and stood, moving away from the young man before he said or did anything foolish.

Michael circled the camp to check his snares. A rabbit and a squirrel wasn’t much, but it was meat. He cleaned them as he thought, the blood on his hands an unpleasant reminder of the earlier conversation and the death that had come before.

Maybe Tate was right, and Riley was one of the few women who could still have kids. And what were the chances Michael could have kids again, anyway. He’d gotten a medical look-over before they threw him in the labor camp, but they sure hadn’t gotten a sperm sample. They just wanted muscles that weren’t holding guns back then. They probably didn’t even know whatever this doctor knew back then. Before the virus, it wouldn’t have even been a question - he could have fathered kids for another ten years. But that was then. Maybe now Tate, or younger men like him, they were the future. The thought should probably have made him furious, but sitting by the stream washing off the rabbit carcass it just left him cold.

He figured he couldn’t sleep, so after making sure that Tate had stayed on his own side, he started heating a big pot of water over a fire. With the rabbit and some vegetables he’d gathered, they could have a nice stew. It would take a while, but right now he was in no rush. As he watched the low flames the sound of the bubbling water washed over him. He slowly eased himself over onto his side and before long his eyes were drooping closed. As he fell asleep a smile grew on his face. He saw Riley there, grinning at him as he showed her the cave as the sun rose. She was so pretty when she smiled.

Riley shivered a tiny bit trying to hold back a full sob as she lay silently in the cave, hoping neither of the men saw her like this. She heard some shuffling behind her and didn't know if it was her uncle or the boy they had picked up on the way. She didn't like him at the moment, the thought of being captured by the NLA being stuck in her mind after his comment. In the city, she knew that being caught was always a possibility. She had not completely understood the destruction that was the plague, or even if it was a plague, but she knew that women became scarce after society broke down and that low supply and high demand meant she was worth a lot of money in the right - or wrong - hands. If she could produce children, she risked becoming a breeding vessel in a repopulation camp, which was a more clinical term for a place she would go to live, be forced to have sex and birth children the rest of her fertile days. If she could not, she risked becoming the plaything of a man, or men, in one of the gangs. Even the security forces weren't above taking their liberties with the girls and women they encountered, if they were to their liking. But the most upsetting of the modern tribes was the NLA, which was perhaps the scariest of the possibilities. The Pastor, as he preferred to be called, had rapidly rebuilt the concept of god in the days after the scourge and his followers, predominantly men and their families, quickly gathered weapons from the towns and cities they raided, as well as captives, nearly always women. The NLA formed an army that sought to take over and control all of the areas now lost to civilization, rebuild an empire that The Pastor could use to control vast streams of land and wealth, and create what appeared to be, to those on the outside, a decadent society of debauchery, filth, and degradation in the name of a higher power. The new world was not safe for her, and the fear that accompanied her to sleep was very real.

The cave was cramped and quarters were tight. After no more than an hour, she felt a booted foot bump into her own, jolting her awake. She turned over and remained under a blanket, before seeing the form of Tate on his side, facing her. His eyes opened as he awoke too. She thought he was cute in the way a puppy waking from a nap was cute. She smiled at him as his eyes focused on her face, now free of tears.

"Hey," she said, quietly.

"Hey you," the boy said, grinning a bit himself. "Did I wake you up?"

"Yeah," she grinned again. "It's okay." She sat up and looked toward the gaping opening through which they entered and noticed it was still light outside. "How long have you been in here?" She asked.

"No idea," the boy yawned. He then rolled over to face the other wall of the cave. Riley let him go back to sleep as she rolled the cover to the side, sat up, stretched her arms the slightest bit, then stood. She looked around the small room and grabbed the small pistol, the one she carried in the back of her pants at the small of her back, and placed it there, just in case she needed it - a wise habit she had learned the hard way when she went down to the city street one day to just watch it rain, only to be chased by some lone actor back to her hideaway, where she promptly dispatched him once her gun was in reach. She stepped onto the patio and noticed a steaming pot over a red hot fire, the scent of the deep hickory filling the camp and taking her mind back to times she had been outside camping with her family years ago. She saw Michael sleeping nearby and remained quiet, stepping around the fire and sitting on the outcropping where she had been before, looking down over the valley below, finding it beautiful. The rise of the city beyond was still much closer than she felt comfortable with, and she wondered how long they would be able to stay here. A belch of smoke and fire rose at the far end of the visible parts of the city and she wondered how many people had just died, and who they were. As she watched the cloud rise into the atmosphere before flattening out at its apex, she saw motion in the bushes far below where they sat. She quickly jumped off her perch and knelt below it, only her eyes peering where she had just seen something rustle. In a clearing she noticed two black-clad figures wearing the combat gear of the NLA. Her eyes grew wide before she stepped quickly inside the cave, grabbed Tate's long rifle that sat near the entrance.

"What are you doing with that?" Tate said, sitting bolt upright.

"Shut up," she sternly whispered, before returning outside, stepping around her uncle, who seemed to remain asleep. She pressed forward to the ledge again, and noticed the two figures walked slowly through an open field, guns aloft but not alert, and looking back toward the city.

"What are they doing?" Tate asked. She felt him kneeling, nearly pressing against her from behind, looking over her shoulder.

"Scouting," she whispered. She watched, content to see if they moved toward or away from their position before firing any rounds and alerting them to their position. Shortly, the NLA scouts circled back toward the city and then south in the direction from where they came. She did not know the NLA had made it west of city limits, which meant they were likely circling around the city to enclose it in a flanking move. Nevertheless, they were closer to them than she liked them to be. She felt Tate press forward against her as he looked farther over the rock outcropping to peer at the scouts as they slowly moved out of sight. Riley clenched her jaw and turned to push Tate away from where she kneeled at the edge of camp. "Get off me!" She said, prompting the boy to fall back, making a bit of a commotion as she stood back up and looked down upon him. His move had perhaps been innocuous, but she just didn't, here in the woods and away from home during the end times, feel safe around any strange men.

"Michael," she said, toward the man still on the ground near the fire. "Uncle Mike, get up." She continued. "We may have a problem."

He heard his name, distantly called by the most pleasant voice. “Michael…” But the tone was wrong - worried. "Uncle Mike, get up." it continued. "We may have a problem." Her voice was low and quiet, but urgent.

Michael sat up, suddenly very awake. Riley was crouched near the edge of the rock face down, Tate was rising to his feet, and Riley had Tate’s automatic rifle. Michael’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, worried that they had fought, but the look on Tate’s face was more of concern and surprise than anger.

“Okay, I’m up. What’s going on?”

As Riley explained what she’d seen Michael’s face grew very serious.

“So it doesn’t sound like they saw you, or they likely would have moved quickly to cover for fear of you opening fire. They’re probably trying to secure the southern side of the city and understand what possible exit routes there were.” Michael realized he was thinking aloud, but the two young ones seemed to be reassured by that.

“The key there here is that we’re going to stay calm. Eat the rabbit soup: we aren’t going to take it with us and we’re going to be glad we had that meal. Stay low and quiet up here, and we’ll take turns with one of us keeping a peek down the escarpment here. Once we’re done eating we’re going to pack everything up. I gathered all of this over a couple of trips, so I bet we can get almost all of it between us.” He made sure to make long, calm eye contact with each one of them.

“It might be tempting to scramble out of here fast, but if we do that in mid-day we’re more likely to get spotted by some other patrol. I’ve heard the NLA even has some light aircraft, though with fuel hard to come by I don’t expect we’ll see much of that. We’ll take turns getting naps in the cave and when the sun starts to set then we’ll head down this ridge. That’ll take us south and away from the city and the conflict. In two days or so we’ll get to what used to be Voight State Park where there should be less people and better hunting.”

“If you see anyone while we’re packing,” Michael made sure he caught Tate’s eye, “then quietly get the rest of us. Nobody is to take a shot unless they shoot first or I tell you to, got it?” He looked back and forth between them. “If we fire with anyone nearby we’re likely to have a running fight, and they’ve got more people and better weapons than us.” He made sure he had their nods in agreement.

It reminded Michael both of being a parent as well as being a manager in his old job. Both seemed so far away now. Fortunately those memories were buried deep and the constant need to pay attention kept him from having time to think. He was particularly glad that Tate was relatively quiet and compliant, perhaps responding to him in some way like his father in this stressful time. He even found he wasn’t as distracted by Riley, though there were moments that he found himself looking at her a bit longer than he should.

They were all packed by mid-afternoon, and Michael found himself sitting by the now cold ashes of their fire. Tate was in the cave taking a nap. He had been dragging towards the end of packing, which Michael sympathized with. Tate wasn’t as adjusted to operating by night as he was, and perhaps as Riley was. Riley had watch duty, which made it all too easy to watch her.

“You’re doing great Riley. We’re going to do just fine. You feeling okay?” His voice was quiet and sincere.

Riley waited for her uncle to come to his alert senses and proceeded to explain the situation. "We have some NLA scouts downstairs," she said, tilting her head in the direction down the rock face where the two men had been seen in the grassy clearing.

“So it doesn’t sound like they saw you, or they likely would have moved quickly to cover for fear of you opening fire," Michael said.

"No, they didn't see us," she replied.

"They’re probably trying to secure the southern side of the city and understand what possible exit routes there were.” She had no doubt Michael was right. He continued to give reassurances, telling them to stay calm and various other assignments. Riley felt her jaw clench, and she knew why. She said nothing, and let him continue, thinking he was in charge of something. It didn't matter, and there was no need for a dispute, lest they be distracted and get themselves killed. She knew he had the best in mind for her. But in this new world, there was no good. Best was a long ago held dream for what the future might be, which now never would. Riley proceeded to begin packing the way he had described, though she felt it to be rash. She continued in her silence, thinking as she did, wondering if this was the best plan. At best, they had a two-day trek, for which they probably weren't completely prepared, to set up a less tested camp, giving up higher ground, which could be beneficial if they were detected and attacked. At worst, they'd never make it to Voight Park, they'd run into the NLA, who would quickly kill Michael and Tate, and keep her for their use or pleasure. She shuddered at the idea and the reality.

By mid-day, her pack was secure, her shotgun lying alongside it, and she remained strapped with her two firearms attached at her thighs and her Glock pistol near enough to be grabbed at any time. Despite their high alert, she saw no other signs of the NLA, which made sense. If the men she saw had been scouts, and every indication was that they were, they would have a several-day trek back to the NLA main camps, and then it would be perhaps twice that long for those forces to flood the area. A scouting company might have 15 men, however, easily enough to overcome the three of them. Better safe than sorry, though, for whatever reason, she resented the overnight race to get here, only to take off once more so quickly.

“You’re doing great Riley," Michael said as she was knelt down over her pack, rummaging for a pocketknife that she wanted to carry on the next part of their journey. Her spine stiffened as she stood up, resisting one more urge to say anything. "We’re going to do just fine," he continued. "You feeling okay?” She turned and put her hands on her hips, casual though pointed, her tone direct and not confrontational, but certainly hones.

"I'm fine, Michael," she said. "I feel fine." She paused and looked down at her pack, content to forget the pocketknife for the time being. "You realize I'm not afraid to fight these motherfuckers, right?" She asked, her voice rising an octave. "I don't see the immediate threat here, but that's just me." She paused and stepped forward from the cave, taking a seat on a stump that had been dragged into a position to sit near the dwindling fire. "Have you thought about what we do at Voight?" She stretched her legs in front of her, simply resting and taking some pressure off her hips in the process. "There's no cave there. We don't have tents. And we'll be out in the open if we have to spend any time at all there. If we can't, if someone comes upon us, we will have another two or three days to get to the hills West of the city, and then there we MIGHT find some place for shelter that isn't out in the open." She adjusted on the stump once more, growing more frustrated as she spoke. "Did you know that I have lived in that city for almost two years, alone....by myself? And in that time I managed to feed myself, shelter in one location, basically hold down my own building from gangs and soldiers trying to capture it or capture me." She stood up and moved toward the rock outcropping to look over the edge, where she saw nothing but the city beyond, which now sat quiet, a peaceful break in the war that was. She turned around to look at her uncle. "I have over ten kills," she said, pointedly, but solemnly. "If you want to stay here until we can come up with a better plan," she paused. She didn't want to humiliate or emasculate him. She appreciated his desire to protect, but also wanted to make sure they played the long game. She kicked at a spot of dirt with her foot, thinking of her words next. "I can fight," she finally said, nearly a plaintive whine, before giving a sigh. She had said it. She fought back a tear and rather than let it fall, she turned to face the city once again before wiping it away. She wasn't a weak little girl anymore. She had grown up wanting a simple life - a job, a great boyfriend. Eventually a husband, children, and a house in the suburbs where the kids could run and play with the family pet. Stress and frustration and anger, from outside and from within following the scourge, had taken over. Maybe she wasn't feeling okay after all. She wondered what Michael thought of her and hoped she had not hurt herself in his eyes. She then wondered why she was worried about how she looked to him. She was confused until she was able pull it together, one hand on her hip, which jutted out slightly as she gathered her composure. She sniffed slightly a couple times before turning around.

"I'm sorry," she said. She paused once more. "I'll be ready to pack out whenever you say the word." She nodded, an effort to convince herself as much as reassure him. She stepped forward and hugged him briefly, the only apology she would offer. She returned to the stump and sat down once more.

"Riley..." the concern was deep in his eyes. "I have no doubt you can fight. Better than Tate I'm sure, and maybe from what you've been through better than me. I'm sure you knew your part of the city down pat - where you could shoot from, where you could disappear in a hole, where you could get what you needed." He took a deep breath and moved over close to her, crouching down on some jutting stone.

"That was a chaotic city. A city that at least claimed to have a mayor until recently." He nodded back towards Tate. "But a city with lots of little gangs from what I gather." He looked over the trees towards the city. "Now that city is about to be swept over by the NLA. It's not just a big gang, though not as organized as the Army was by any means. There's a reason those men you saw had uniforms, which you don't see with all those city gangs. A lot of people will end up being glad, from what I've seen in other towns, because there will be something like law and order. It's the Pastor's Law, and that includes taking what the NLA wants, and that includes young women who might be able to bear kids. Not all of them - people would riot probably - but all the ones the Pastor deems to be called to the Lord's service."

He looked back at her. "They aren't going to just stop. They have ambition to bring in more and more cities and towns. They'll consolidate control and that means more scouting."

"Two scouts, if they're not paying enough attention, yeah we could probably shoot them down between the three of us - particularly with Tate's automatic rifle." He nods. "From this vantage point, it's defensible, decent chance none of us would even get hit by return fire."

"Then what? Then they respond to the fire - particularly automatic weapons fire." He looked down at the dirt and stone. "That means more like a squad of a dozen or so who are on alert and many of whom may have body armor, most with weapons more like Tate's, maybe a full assault weapon or two." He looks up at Riley. "Did you know Tate stole two grenades on the way out, by the way? They'll have grenades, maybe even a launcher attachment on one of their rifles." He looks straight in her eyes. "Do we fight that from here, with one way up the front and a very steep way down the back that'll be harder to do with packs? Or do we wait until we have the fight with the scouts, hope we don't have injuries, and then high-tail it out and hope they aren't calling for bloody revenge for their friends enough to chase us?"

He reached out, his hand resting on her arm. "We can do fine in the woods. There's plenty of abandoned homes - some vacation cabins that probably haven't seen anyone for months. We can figure where to go from there."

Riley listened to her uncle as he calmly explained the circumstances - circumstances she had not considered. Her anxiety had really been simply a manifestation of her fear, the most she had felt in some long time. At home, on her turf, from her perch above the city, she had been able to protect herself. She was no longer on her turf and the rumors of the deeds of the NLA were frightening.

When she had turned sixteen, she began to notice older boys, even some older men, leering at her from time to time. She continued in school to run track and play basketball, and her body was lean from those activities and the somewhat regular yoga she did with her friends, Emily and Melissa. When her family had been lost, and Emily and Melissa either dead or encamped in some terrible repopulation zone, she had remained active, running daily, usually while hunting, lifting weights left over in the building's basement to keep strong and flexible. And generally making sure that she gave herself the best chance to escape or fight herself out of any untoward situation she knew would come. Her efforts allayed her fears, as she knew that proper preparation prevented poor performance. Now, standing before Michael, her brunette, slightly-more-than shoulder length hair tied back, she was 5'7" of lean woman, strong enough, with enough muscle, to serve in any army unit that would defend her way of life. At the same time, her body was soft in the right places, the kind of body she had aspired to before the scourge and never would have had but for it. Many nights she had lay alone, the stars gleaming down through a hole in the upper, exposed stairwell of her home building where the shelling had damaged it, thinking back to a better time and going through her mind the boys, the men, who would have found her appealing now, but in the last era's world, when she might have dated and looked forward to the family she would never have. She thought of Robert Swinton, the star wide receiver, two years older than her, who she crushed on sophomore year, imagining him making out with her, his hands rising over her hip and down over her firm, ample but still small ass. She wondered how she might have enjoyed going back after high school to let Coach Taylor pick her up. He had always seemed to glance at her growing chest. All the girls liked him and there was no way he didn't appreciate them. And before she had encountered him a day before, she even considered her Uncle Mike, not so much as a lover, but in those moments when her imagination ran to escape the world as it is, she wondered where in the world he was, and if he was safe.

The cool wind kicked up from above and she felt a chill, her blue-grey and red trimmed tank top unable to keep the goosebumps from her arms. Her army issue black cargo pants stood up to the weather, but she needed something more from her pack, reaching in it as she considered Michael's words, to pull out a weathered, lightweight leather jacket, tossing it back on the pack, prepared to tug it on as they moved out. The jacket would fit snug enough to not hinder her movement, while also not affecting the dynamics of her holstered weapons along her thighs or the one she would wear slung beneath the pack itself. She sighed, resigned and ready to follow Michael's lead.

"Okay," she said, before turning to look through the cave entrance where Tate remained. "Are you going to wake him up or should I?" She glanced up at the sun, now beginning to sink into the evening, the magical gloaming hours before dark now setting in. "We should probably get moving if that's what we're going to do."

He let his hand slide off her arm as she reached for her pack. He wanted to hold her, to reassure her, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore. His eyes flicked to her chest as she stretched to pull her jacket out, the clear evidence that he couldn’t ignore that she was quite the young woman. He wished they had more time here together, but those scouts forced their hand.

He looked back up to her eyes as she spoke. "Okay, are you going to wake him up or should I?"

As Michael paused and looked back at the cave, she continued, perhaps taking his pause for indecision. "We should probably get moving if that's what we're going to do."

Michael nodded and rose from his crouch, his eyes scanning out to the deepening shadows of the woodline below. “You wake him up. I’ll make a last circle around the top here, make sure everything’s in order.”

He pulled on his pack as he stood fully up. It was a lot bulkier and heavier than the one he’d worn down into city, but he’d hauled this much over longer distances before. The miles had made his body hard and lean, so different from the middle-aged spread he’d been developing before the world went to hell. Riley looked to have a strength born of necessity as well, though softened by a woman’s shape. Michael felt confident she’d be able to to keep up.

Then there was Tate. Ah Tate. The wildcard in their trio. As Riley headed for the cave, Michael’s eyes traced her figure and thought back to Tate’s comments from before. If he could barely trust his own reactions to her, how could he trust the boy after what he’d said… even if it was true.

“Riley…” he called quietly, then paused, “be careful with him. Let me know if anything about him feels wrong to you.”

"Careful?" Riley asked quietly. She fought a tiny smirk at Michael's protectiveness. She wondered if there had been a touch of jealousy in his words. "I can handle him," she said, almost cocky. "No problem." She disappeared into the cave, leaving Michael outside. Once there, she stood over the boy, sound asleep still from his nap. She kicked his foot once. "Get up," she said stern of tone. She kicked him again, harder, when he didn't move.

"What the hell?" Tate asked, rolling to his back and taking in the girl, her silhouette present in his vision, prompting a grin. "You want to lay down here?" He said, shielding his eyes from the light, so as to see her face.

"I said get up," she repeated. "We're leaving."

"The fuck we're leaving," he said, refusing to move. Riley put one hand on her hip, before glaring down upon him to see if he realized she was serious. He soon did. "WHY are we leaving?" He asked. "There's nothing wrong with this place."

"Right now there's nothing wrong with this place," she said. "But the NLA is close and getting closer. Which means that the security forces will engage or follow them here." Tate looked confused at her explanation. "I don't care to be killed or taken by either of them." She looked over her shoulder and back through the entrance of the cave. She could tell Michael was ready on notice. She looked back at Tate. "Five minutes," she said. "Let's go." Riley retreated to the front perch, sitting on her pack and watching her uncle as he prepared to lead them out.

"He doesn't want to go," she said, opening the zipper on the pack, fishing inside for something, what she did not know. She was killing time as she made sure things were packed away and compact for the hike to wherever they would go.

"I'm coming," Tate said from inside, his tone indicating he had clearly heard her.

"Doesn't mean he wants to," Riley said, addressing her uncle. "He doesn't seem to think there are any threats here," she said, pulling his chain for reasons even she did not know. Tate was cute. He had a nice smile. She didn't like the way his eyes seemed to take her body in at any chance they could, until the instant flashes that she did. What was this conflict without a conflict within, she wondered silently.

"Shut up, bitch," Tate's voice carried from the cave, forcing Riley's eyes wide as she looked at her uncle in surprise of the harsh tone. A moment later he appeared, the few items he had brought now worn around him and ready for the trek. "If we're going to go, then let's go." He looked at Michael. "I really don't understand why we have to leave in the first place."

"You're welcome to stay here by yourself," Riley finally responded. "But the camps aren't all you think they are," she said, as if she truly knew. Tate smirked at her words before speaking.

"We could make them more pleasant," he said, prompting her to roll her eyes, before turning to her uncle.

"Let's go already," she said, hearing enough from the younger man. The three quarter moon already was a ghostly white presence low on the eastern horizon as the sun held a steady, late evening orange glow as it started to close out the day. She rose quickly and slung on her pack, then replaced the shotgun in its place along her back once more, now fully ready for the trip. As Riley passed her uncle and slid over the ridge to travel down into the woods, a mile away, from a rocky ridge outcropping from a craggy hill, a hardened man turned from the binoculars he held in the direction of the three travelers' camp.

"I can't make out much," the man said to his ranking Lieutenant. "Looks like three men." He continued. "No uniform. Independent refugees, maybe." The Lieutenant huffed before speaking around a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Take Creighton," the Lieutenant said. "Convert them, or kill them." The man looked through the binoculars again, neglecting to tell his boss about the girl he could clearly identify from this distance, knowing the value that a woman - any woman, might bring in treasure or pleasure. He nodded to his commanding officer, who quickly called the second scout over. "Go with Mason," he said. "There's a refugee party coming out of the city." Creighton nodded at his command. The two men rose together from their perch, ready to wander into the valley below and find their targets as the night settled over the land, and the sound of guns in the city began to echo their nightly rounds.

Michael listened to them bicker, their words echoing from the cave. He tried to focus on the path they’d need to take, where they could stop for tomorrow night, and any issues he might have forgotten. But the sound of them kept dragging him back, followed by Riley emerging from the cave.

"He doesn't want to go," she announced, before digging into her pack.

Inwardly he kicked himself. He should have been the one to wake up Tate. His lips set tightly he turned away, not wanting to let himself be distracted again by looking at Riley.

"I'm coming," Michael ignored Tate’s voice, instead pulling out his pistol and giving it a largely pointless look over.

"Doesn't mean he wants to. He doesn't seem to think there are any threats here." Michael grunted a small laugh at Riley’s words. Not two minutes before she’d been arguing for staying here, but her tone seemed clear that she wasn’t just needling him. Michael took a deep breath. They were nervous, all three of them. He turned around putting on a patient face, trying to give Riley a reassuring smile.

"Shut up, bitch," Michael’s mouth tightened again. His immediate impulse was to shout down the boy for that, but he also knew that she’d want to take care of herself in their little squabble. Just as he was trying to formulate some words to try to make peace, Tate came out of the cave, pulling on the last of his gear.

"If we're going to go, then let's go." Tate looked at Michael. "I really don't understand why we have to leave in the first place." Michael was about to reply, but Riley was quicker tongued than his deliberate thoughts allowed.

"You're welcome to stay here by yourself, but the camps aren't all you think they are." She snapped back.

"We could make them more pleasant." Tate smirked. His eyes took in her shape as blatantly as his innuendo.

"All right all right " Michael finally snapped. “That’s enough. Tate, keep your dick in your pants. If you mouth like that to the NLA they’ll chop it off before she gets a chance to.”

Riley sounded tired. “Let’s go already.” Michael tried to catch her eye, but she pushed past him towards the trail down towards the stream. Instead he gave Tate a glare, to which the boy only raised his hands as if to say “What?”

Michael shook his head and followed Riley. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a glimmer of light in the darkening shadows in the distance. Perhaps the light of the setting sun caught something - it couldn’t be water, so perhaps metal or glass? It was gone as soon as he saw it, so he tried to push it from his mind. His nerves were fueling his imagination. He tried to recenter himself on the task at hand.

"We need to get down this path into the woods before it gets too dark to see our footing." He announced in a quiet but firm voice as they walked. “From there we’ll be in pines for the first part of the night, so it won’t be too bad for working our way through the brush, but it does make it easier for voices to carry so we need to keep quiet. We’ll be following the line of this ridge, which will be angling us away from the city. By tomorrow morning we should be well away from the fighting.” As if to punctuate his words there was the sound of large-caliber guns over the distant city. Michael’s immediate reaction was to look towards the city, but then turned back to Riley ahead of him.

“Riley, head down the stream same side as …” he hesitated, not wanting to mention anything about her bathing in front of Tate. “... Man, I lose track of the days when I sleep through them.” He tried to make it into a joke. “Same side as you went this morning I guess it was.”

His desire to safely lead them made him want to get in front of her, rather than give her direction, but then Riley and Tate would be next to each other and that thought made him tighten his mouth again. He watched her as she navigated down the last few rocky steps before the stream, admitting to himself that he liked walking along behind her anyway. His mind wandered briefly, wondering what those legs and firm ass looked like when she was bathing. His cock grew hard in his pants, so fast at the brief fantasy that he was surprised. God, he had to control himself.

As they were on the flatter ground by the stream he resumed talking in low tones. “As we walk, look over your gear and make sure you don’t have any bright steel showing that could catch the moonlight.” His eye roamed to the guns on her thighs and the shotgun on her back, trying not to think about the woman beneath. He already knew all of his weapons and gear were subdued, a lesson he’d learned early on.

“If there is anything, try getting it under some cloth. We can rub metal down with ash later.” He let himself drift back alongside Tate, catching the young man’s eye and giving him a nod. The automatic rifle he’d absconded with was already a field-ready combination of browns and blacks.

“I think I’m good.” Tate said quietly, his eyes shifting to Riley ahead of them. “Think she’s good?”

“I’m sure she’ll be just fine Tate.” Michael tried to ignore the innuendo. “We have a long night ahead of us, okay?” Tate sniffed a short laugh, but nodded. At least he seemed to be taking things seriously.

“Riley, cross the stream up where those rocks are and we’ll head up there where the ridge line resumes, okay?” Michael looked down at the pool on the other side of the rocks. That was the place he’d bathed before when he was setting up here. If Tate wasn’t here it would have been tempting to have encouraged her to come her to bathe before… he shook his head. He’d felt like a teenager again half the time since he’d found Riley, and he didn’t have time for that.

Michael led from the middle of the trio as they hiked through the early evening, watching the moon trace its course in the sky. The constant attention he had to looking back or through the trees began to fade as they all began to tire. The dark and the distant guns subdued everyone’s mood as well. He tried to judge how the younger two were doing, and Tate seemed to be having a harder time of it, but he guessed that neither would want to show weakness in front of the other. While that was good for making sure they covered ground, he didn’t want either of them to get so tired that they’d be unable to repeat the same the next night. Clouds began to move in, obscuring more and more of the moon, and when the wind picked up Michael could smell the coming rain.

“Okay, if I remember correct when we get over this next rise there’s going to be a small lake over on the left. There are some houses, but they’re on the far side because that’s where Rt. 327 passes a couple miles out.” Michael wanted to sound confident, but he was sure they’d take the hint. It would be anyone’s guess if they were lived in, abandoned, or even burned to the ground.

“There’s a hiking trail around the lake though, and a little picnic shelter. We’ll take a break there. It feels like rain coming and maybe if we’re lucky it will sweep through fast.” The rain would be great for not running into anyone else, but it would be miserable for them hiking and increase the chance of someone sliding and hurting themselves. Michael pointed down the slope, glad the see the little roof of the shelter as they crossed the rise.

* * *

Mason sniffed at the air as they stalked through the pines. The path of the refugees from their cave-camp across the woods was clear to see to him, even in the sparse moonlight. Unlike Creighton and himself, these people clearly had no experience in traveling to avoid leaving a trace. The rain that was coming would leave them sliding and scuffing their way down slopes, making it even easier to track them.

He looked over at Creighton and they shared a wicked smile. The bigger man had balked at first as they set out, until Mason had told him of the girl he’d seen. Now they shared a plan.

“Big tits?” Creighton asked, his words lightly hissing from the gap left by a tooth knocked free in a brawl three cities ago.

“Naw. Skinny girl. Long legs.” Mason’s eyes tracked the twisted branch of a sapling and corrected their direction.

“Fuckin works for me. Big tits would just remind me of Martinsville.” He grinned over at Mason.

“Nobody needs to know, so no stripes for either of us.” Mason had always been more careful than his friend, and when Creighton had been caught raping a woman in Martinsville he’d gone without punishment even though he’d already had his turn with the woman. Creighton had been stood for a flogging by the Pastor’s justice, but never sold Mason out. The crime for his punishment wasn’t so much that he raped the woman, but that he hadn’t let the commanding officer have a turn first before they turned her over to the camps.

“Tell you what” Mason continued. “I think it’s only fair you get her first this time.”

Creighton laughed. “Damn right. She’s going to be ruined for you after she takes my cock. You owe me.”

Mason just nodded in agreement. There really wasn’t any argument that Creighton was hung to match his massive frame, and Mason had watched that woman in Martinsville scream as he took her. “How ‘bout you take her pussy, then if she’s too busted up I’ll take her ass.”

Creighton grinned. “Skinny huh. Young probably. Think she’s a virgin?”

Mason shrugged. “Well, at least she won’t die a virgin.”

“You said she had a gun, so we have to make sure we don’t have to kill her if we want to have any real fun. Fucking one of the guys in the ass just wouldn’t be the same.”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” Mason pointed at a scuff mark through the pine needles. “Looks like they’re heading for Lake Henry. After we kill the three of them, we can make the LT happy by telling him how things look out this way.”

My legs are killing me, Riley thought to herself after a healthy hour or so, taking them a distance of winding travel that had felt like miles but probably only saw them a few hundred yards from the campsite. The terrain was uneven and several times she wobbled, rolling her ankles, only to recover, thankful nothing had been hurt. It was beginning to rain, only spitting a bit more than a sprinkle, but threatening to begin in earnest. The bottom of her feet were aching and her thighs burned. She wished they had gotten to stay a few days at camp, having only left the city the previous night. And here they were, again on the move. She hoped the next stop would let them remain a while. Behind her, she could hear Tate warbling about something, and it seemed whatever it was brought no interest to Michael, though she also knew he simply didn't entertain easily. Shut the fuck up, Tate, she thought. You're going to alert someone to our position and get us killed. His chatter didn't stop. She slowed her pace for the first time, lagging a bit while the boys caught up to where she was. As they did, she turned to her left and made eye contact with her uncle before wheeling to her right as Tate approached.

"Will you stop talking?" She asked, a stern hiss between clenched teeth. "Before I murder you." She stepped quickly away, not waiting to get any response. But receive one she did, just before a crack of lightning overhead sent thunder throughout the trees.

"You're not murdering anyone," he said, sharply, his voice full throated. Riley turned on her heel and marched back to the boy, her finger now pointed up and away from her body at a 45 degree angle as if pointing up the ridge to the sky beyond.

"This......place.....may be full of someone that neither you, nor I want coming down here," she said, her voice low once again. "And if you get us killed, then I'm going to ask them for the pleasure of the first shot, and I'm going to aim it at your face." She looked at Michael, apologetically, before continuing. "Do you understand me?" Tate lowered his rifle, which he had carried on alert the entire hike, dropped his shoulders, and nodded, realizing now the danger he was putting the group in. "Good," Riley said, turning once more and heading out from the two men, a few steps ahead, once again. She felt amused at his backing down, and also felt something else.

Jesus, she thought. He might be cute if he wasn't such a pain in my ass. She looked back once more to see if the men were coming, before slowing down to look down a path that lead to two small cabins in a clearing alongside the far end of the lake. The rain was increasing and becoming more steady. The cabins sat a few hundred yards from where the group stood, and Riley knew they had a choice to make - take shelter now, or risk bogging down in hopes they would soon find something farther away. She knelt down behind a tree to scout the scene as the men approached again.

"No lights," she said. "No fire." She paused, as she sat her pack down beside her, reaching in and pulling a sleek metal tube from within. She quickly attached it to one of her .45 pistols and leveled it at the house.

"What are you..." Tate's words were cut off. Ffwwt! Ffwwt! Riley had fired two shots toward the cabins. The first struck the door frame of one cabin, while the second destroyed the glass of the bulb alongside the door, the noise clear enough, but certainly much louder where the cabins stood. After a few moments, Riley stood and tugged her pack on once more, comfortable the cabins were empty. She turned to Michael.

"Looks empty," she said. "We can stay dry, sleep here tonight, and move again in the morning. Maybe stay a day or two. We can build a fire in the back or between the cabins overnight," she looked at the sky. "Or maybe there's a chimney." She was thinking out loud, tired, ready to get somewhere and sit down. "What do you think?" Moments later, the group was headed to the cabins, double-timing their steps through the steady rain, Riley feeling her wet hair pressed against her temples, as the water matched their footsteps as it pounded into the ground below. Approaching the cabin, she signaled Tate and Michael to go left, and proceeded to clear the cabin on the right. She threw open the door and quickly pointed her gun throughout the room, before checking all of the rooms attached, then looking out back. Comfortable it was clear, she stepped out front once more, about the time that Tate poked his head out from the other cabin.

"All clear," he said.

"Yeah," she said. "This one too." She looked to Michael and made a decision. "I'm wiped out," she said. "I say we stay here. At least tonight. I can't go any more today." She heard Tate chuckle. "What the fuck is your problem?" She asked.

"Nothing," Tate said. "I didn't think little warrior girl ever stopped playing soldier."

"I'm staying over here," she said to Michael, not addressing Tate. "You're welcome over here," she continued. "You're family and you're not an idiot." She turned to face Tate. "You're on your own." She retreated into the cabin, tossing her pack onto an unmade bed in one of the bedrooms. An hour later, she had changed clothes, using a small canteen and baby wipes from her pack to rinse off, and stepped barefoot into the living room, wearing some short black fitted shorts and a fitted white tank top, her ever present handgun in her fist. She saw Tate and Michael in the room and looked at her uncle. "What is he doing here?" She asked, sitting her weapon on an old, abandoned end table.

"Roof is out in one room and there's a pack of raccoons in the other one over there," Tate said. Riley raised one eyebrow.

"You should fit right in," she snarked, taking a seat on the old, but still nice couch, pulling her knees in to her chest, the pose she had long taken in times of high anxiety during her childhood. She let Tate off the hook for a moment, before doing some math. "There's only two bedrooms here," she said, looking at Mike.

"I can be the big spoon," Tate interjected before her uncle could answer. Riley's lips pressed together in a tight smile signaling she was ignoring their companion's noise, before looking to Michael once more for a solution. As she mulled over his response, she noticed sound through the light patter of the rain on the roof.

Click, clack, clack!

"What was that?" She asked, jumping up from her seat and pausing to listen again.

Click, clack, clack!!

"Do you hear that?" She said, reaching for her gun. Tate stood up and peered through the wooden blinds on the front window. He saw nothing. Riley listened for the sound again, but didn't hear it. She looked at her uncle, then to the door. She didn't like being inside and the whole world, evils and all, being outside. She had a bad feeling.

"I don't hear anything," said Tate. He looked outside again, then opened the front door.

"Tate, no!" Riley shouted, her voice rising to that of a little girl, afraid of what she did not know. Tate peered outside, took a step onto the porch, and looked both left and right, before peering down the clearing path from where they had come. The night was silent, except for the rain, which was starting to get much lighter, promising soon to stop altogether. He came inside and shut the door.

"It's fine, princess," he said, causing Riley to cross her arms and give a look of disbelief to her uncle. "Nothing's going to get you. But I'm happy to sleep with you and make sure," Tate broke into a grin, only until he looked at Michael, before quickly wiping it from his face. "I think we're fine here for the night," he continued. "That's all I mean."

"I'm not sure we're safe here," Riley said, putting her pistol at the back of her pants once more, ready to pull it if necessary. "We need to move out tomorrow," she said. "I'm going to bed."

Click, clack, clack!!! She heard the sound again. She wondered what it was as she turned to look at Michael once more. Surely the two men had heard it this time.

"Something isn't right," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.