Survival (closed for the_bean and I)

[Wolk]

It was a period of many firsts in Steve's life: first job, first paycheque, first home of his own, first vacation. The young man thought those all were big changes and getting used to them was as tough sometimes as it was pleasant at others. Little did he know how easy it would all seem compared to the changes that were about to come. Deep under the Antarctic ice a pocket of primitive life was already cracked open after hundreds of millions of years. It was now only a matter of time before the cell-destroying bacteria spreads and hits the world worse than any manmade biological weapon can.

That was in the future, however, and for the time being Steve and his friend were enjoying the sunny beaches in Mexico. The soft rustling of palm trees and latin music filled their ears, the sun danced on their bronze skin, warming it and putting relaxed smiles on their faces. It was the last day of their vacation and they were lazily enjoying it.

Another friendly game of cards has been played, Jessy beating Steve yet again. He just chuckled and shook his head as his friend teased him about it. She was a funloving girl, so cheerful and charismatic that nobody could stay mad at her for long.

"Oh, I hope they don't mess up our bags on the connecting flight." She said. Jessy had reluctantly agreed to stay two extra days until the end of their hotel rental and enjoy the beaches even if it ment missing their originally scheduled direct flight and taking a connecting one.

"Nah, don't worry about it." Steve reassured her. "It's in the States, right? They're supposed to be good about this kind of thing."

Jessy just scoffed and shook her head, sending pretty black hair flying beautifully. She was more than skeptical about the quality of service in American airports. Not that she trusted baggage handlers back home in Canada any better.

"Let's go for a swim." Steve changed the subject and the two grinning young tourists ran towards the beautifully rolling ocean.

***

Later that day they boarded a plane, somewhat saddened to leave paradise and return to the cool, gray True North with all the worries of daily life they had left behind. The flight was uneventful except troubling news reports of epidemics of new and unknown disease in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Usually Steve would pay attention to things like this, being a somewhat serious guy for his years, something his friend Jessy kept nagging him about. That day, however, he was in no mood to return to the BS of everyday life, prefering to still stay in Mexican paradise with his mind at least, if not his body.

Thus they checked into a hotel by the airport in one of the American air travel hubs to await their connecting flight next day.

 

[the_bean]

Oli Bensen had lived in St. Louis her entire life, except for half a year when she was sixteen. Her parents seemed to think she was going to get herself into some serious trouble and shipped her off to a town in southern Missouri to live with her aunt and uncle. She ended up getting in more trouble in the small town school than she ever did in the city and so she was shipped right back to her parents to settle back into life. She was a fairly good student, though she was too preoccupied getting high with her friends during her senior year to make much out of it which disappointed her dad, who'd had high hopes for her going to college and becoming a doctor like him. Nobody ever asked Oli what she wanted. They didn't really care and after awhile, she didn't really either. That's probably why she ended up staying in St. Louis after graduation, even when all of her friends went away to universities; most of them on the east coast.

She shacked up with a guy that was bad for her just after she turned eighteen and lived a life of bad relationships throughout her early twenties. Now, just three weeks past her twenty-fourth birthday and two months after her last break up, Oli was feeling more jaded than ever. She didn't need someone -- she could take care of herself -- but when the only companionship you had on a day-to-day basis were the cranky travellers that stayed in the airport Mariott she worked in, you start to realize that things are looking kind of bleak. She was always daydreaming that some photographer would come in and see her and want to take her picture, or a casting director would want her in the next big film. It never happened, though. There was one gentleman that came through town once a month on business and stayed at that particular hotel. He was always propositioning her and while it was somewhat flattering, it just wasn't what she'd been hoping for. She'd decline him politely and he'd laugh and mutter the same phrase about how he had to ask, you know, just in case.

She was standing in the kitchen-slash-living room of her small apartment chewing on half of a leftover tuna salad sandwich. The news was running some special report on an outbreak of something or other that had originally started in South America, Africa and Asia, but had begun popping up in the more civilized parts of Europe. Two cases had been reported in Paris and three in Copenhagen in the last twenty-four hours. Oli wasn't really pay attention though. She was thinking about how all she could taste in that tuna salad were the eggs; and they tasted bad.

The sound of a horn blaring outside brought her out of her reveries. She peeked out the door and cast a wave at her carpool to signify that she'd be out in just a second. She tossed what was left of the sandwich in the trash and then spit out what was in her mouth. She paused to give herself a once over in the full-length mirror attached to her bedroom door. Her bartending uniform was pretty nonexistant - a white button down shirt, black slacks and heels. Her hair was pulled back into a shapeless ponytail. She gave a small sigh and pulled her coat on, followed by her scarf and gloves. She hated Missouri in the winter. Even though it hadn't snowed yet that year, it was still cold. Grabbing her purse, she flipped off the television and headed out to the car.

It was just before eleven o'clock when she got to work and the lounge remained devoid of customers until just after one-thirty. A couple of the waitresses from the adjoined dining area were utilizing the empty space at one end of the bar to fold and wrap silverware. Oli didn't mind. It gave her someone to talk to other than the t.v. She'd been casually glancing to the news reports that continued that day, though she tried not to take anything too seriously. People were always jumping to the worst conclusions about things and the news never gave all the facts anyway.

At a quarter until two that afternoon a couple of gentlemen in nice business suits came in and seated themselves, both ordering a beer. She shooed the girls rolling up the silverware back off to the restaurant and prepared herself for another boring night of listening about bad business meetings and worse family lives. Sometimes she hated being a bartender, but she could have been doing a lot worse.

 

[Wolk]

It didn't take long for the two tourists to settle in their hotel room. They weren't going to unpack seriously, considering that their flight would be next morning. Soon, Jessy had changed into one of her sexy outfits that always made Steve curse getting close enough to her to be a good friend. Had they just barely known each other, he thought, he would definitely be hitting on the pretty brunette.

"Come on, Steve. Let's go have a few drinks!" Jessy tugged at his sleeve playfully. Steve shook his head, smiling.

"You know I don't drink, Jess. Go on, I'll wait here."

But his friend wasn't nearly that easy to shrug off. She bugged and poked the guy, insisting he needed to get out as well, until rolling and chuckling Steve finally surrendered.

"OK, let's go down, but I'm not drinking." He said. Jessy grinned.

"Yeah, you can sit there scoping out gurrls." She teased and thus earned a playful shove.

"Aw, shut up."

Soon they were down by the bar, which was by that time crawling with all kinds of guests. Mostly older folks. Steve shrugged and teased his friend.

"Well, Jess, where are the hot gurrls you made me come here for?"

The girl grinned back at him and scanned the room, finally having to admit he's right, but not willing to do so. Eventually she found a little loophole and pointed at the barmaid.

"She's hot." Jessy squinted at Steve with a smirk.

"Yeah, but she's a barmaid. Come on!"

"But you agree that she's hot."

"Well, yeah, she's pretty and all, but..."

Jessy didn't let him finish, dragging him by the hand to the bar, where they sat.

"I'll have a beer." Jessy said, catching the barmaid's eyes. "Make that a Corona beer." She smiled, then whispered to Steve. "You wouldn't believe what kind of junk the local beer is." Steve just shrugged. To him any kind of beer was just an undrinkable piss and reasoning which kind of piss was better struck him as rather pointless. "A soda for me, please." He added.

"She likes you." Jessy whispered to him while the barmaid was away. Steve's eyebrows lifted.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I can tell." Jessy smirked.

Steve just shrugged it off, but when the barmaid returned with their drinks Jessy leaned over the bar slightly and started a conversation.

"My friend here really likes you," she said gesturing at Steve, "but he is too shy to admit it."

The guy's jaw nearly dropped. He couldn't believe his friend just did that. What made it even more embarassing was that he sat right next to her when she said it. He shook his head slightly in disbelief, laughing lightly, but then realized he didn't really have a way out of this except to admit it. It wasn't like he could tell the pretty barmaid he thought she wasn't good looking.

"I'm Steve." He finally managed with something that looked like a friendly smile.

 

[the_bean]

As the afternoon wore on, more people showed up, and as usual it was the same old crowd of people in town for conventions, stuffy men in business suits, families that couldn't afford to stay closer to downtown and cranky travellers who were being delayed; the same crowd, but with different faces. Their stories were all the same. Oli had heard them all before. Many times before.

She hadn't even noticed the young couple that had entered until they were sitting themselves down at the bar and pretty brunette was ordering a Corona and the guy a soda.

Oli nodded to both of them to acknowledge their orders and turned away get a Corona bottle out of the cooler and to pour a glass of coke. She placed both of the items on the bar in front of their respectful owners and lifted a brow when the young woman leaned across the bar and told her that her friend liked her. Suprisingly enough, Oli hadn't really given Steve more than just a miniscule glance. Clearly she'd heard that more than once. She did smile, however small it was, and slightly distant. She had a beautiful smile. It lit up her green eyes and wrinkled them around the corners, which lent her a slightly travelled, wiser look that didn't seem to match how young she appeared.

"A lot of people really like me," she said without missing a beat. "I'm the one that controls the flow of alcohol." She laid a napkin beside the Corona and upon it a lime wedge should Jessy want it. "That'll be five bucks."

Her eyes did turn to Steve when he introduced himself. Her smile brightened a little, but it was more out of manners than anything else. She took hold of the edge of her name tag which read in plain block script "Olivia". "I'm Ol--"

"Hey, Oli, are you ready for these kegs yet?"

Oli's smile fell a little as her eyes turned toward the voice that called out to her. She glanced back at Steve. "Oli. Excuse me for a minute."

Offering an apologetic smile to Steve and his female counterpart, she moved down to the end of the bar where a man was standing in the doorway to the stock room. He had a keg on a dollie and was looking at Oli for direction.

"No, Jim. Not quite yet. But I do need --" Her voice was cut off as she followed the man into the storeroom, only holding the door open enough for her to stick the upper half of her body in. She told the man what she was going to be needing and when before she got back to what she was doing.

As she made her way past Jessy and Steve, she picked up the ten dollar bill that was laying there and turned to the cash register. She got their change and laid it back on the bar between them since she didn't know who had put it there to begin with. Her eyes passed between them. "Can I get you guys anything else?"

 

[Wolk]

"Why would you do that?!" Steve nudged his sassy friend once Olivia excused herself and went out of earshot.

"Well, she was nice to you, eh?" Jessy grinned.

"Yeah, of course she was nice to me. She's a barmaid, we are her customers. Come on, Jess. Stop trying to hook me up everywhere. It's not like I'm desperately looking for a girl. I like being single."

"Uh-huh." Jessy's eyes sparked at him sarcastically.

"Come on. It's no longer Mexico. We're in an airport hotel in the middle of the US. Let's just go get some sleep and catch our flight in the morning. I solemnly swear to go clubbing with you back home this weekend. Deal?" Steve grinned at the end.

"All right. Get out of here, Mr. Serious." She ruffled his brown hair, making his green eyes laugh.

Steve tried to get his friend to come along, but she insisted on staying.

"No, nothing more for me. Thank you, Olivia." He smiled nicely at the barmaid as she came back, then returned to his hotel room.

Steve fell asleep almost immediately and woke up because the sun's rays were teasing his eyes. He jumped up like he was burnt. Their flight was at nine in the morning and it was at least eleven, judging by the sun!

"Jess, wake up!" He said loudly, but, of course, that wasn't enough to wake his slumbering friend, who probably had a few too many last night. "Jess, come on. We're late!" He shook her firmly by the shoulder, but still got no reaction.

Figuring he would probably have better luck looking for an employee of some kind himself and trying to arrange other flights, Steve left her alone. Then he noticed that something was wrong. It was an eery feeling and for a while he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was due to. Something was just different and not right.

In a moment he realized; he heard no planes buzzing overhead, landing and taking off since he woke up. That was weird in a major airport like St. Louis was. He dismissed it. At the moment he had a pile of trouble on his plate. The luggage, after all, went away already, and they haven't! Steve picked up the telephone to dial the service desk, but no matter how long he waited and hit the phone got no signal. Power was out, phones were out. Hell, he thought, what does work?!

 

[the_bean]

When Olivia woke up the next morning, she felt better than she had in a long time. While her sleep was generally minimal, and she almost always woke up feeling more tired than she had when she'd gone to bed, that day she felt refreshed, renewed, like she'd actually slept a full eight hours. She yawned, stretched and stared up at the ceiling.

I've woken up before the alarm, too, she thought to herself and rolled over to see what time it was. The alarm clock next to her bed was blank. She knew almost immediately why she felt so refreshed - she'd overslept.

"Great . . just great." With a sigh, she pushed herself out of the bed and fetched her watch from on top of her dresser. It read one-thirty p.m. Oli let out a frustrated sigh and moved into the living room to find the fun. She was supposed to be at work two hours before. Her boss was not going to be happy. As she took the cordless from its charger she wondered why nobody had tried calling her. Mike, her carpool driver, usually came to the door to check on her if she didn't come out when he showed up. He would have banged on her door to find out what the problem was; that'd happened before. She was also surprised that no one from work had tried to call her.

Pressing the talk button to turn the phone on, she dialed the number and then put the receiver to her ear. She waited almost a full minute for the rings to start. With a frustrated grunt, she hit "end" and then turned the phone back on and put it to her ear to listen for the dialtone that never came.

Okay . . so her phone wasn't working. That would explain the lack of phone calls from work. It was then that she remembered her clock wasn't flashing like the power had gone out and come back on in the middle of the night, but it wasn't on at all. She moved across the room to flip on light switch. The light didn't come on. She flipped a couple more times. Still nothing.

Surely I didn't forget to pay the bills this month. Again. She really could kick herself and her scatterbrain sometimes. With a huff, she moved into her room to throw on some clothes. She threw on her work uniform and a pair of boots, opting to carry her heels since she'd be walking until she found a cab or got tot he hotel. It was a few miles away, anyhow. Despite it being cold out, at least it wasn't snowing.

It was on her way to the hotel, as she walked out of her apartment complex, off of the side streets and onto the main road that ran toward the Interstate that she realized something was wrong. There were no cars on the road and at this time of day, the streets would have been packed with people going to and from their daily lunch breaks. What unsettled her more, however, was the lack of sounds coming from the sky. If there was one thing that you thought you'd never really get used to living in that area, it was the airplanes constantly coming and going. With the silence that hung heavy in the air, Olivia grew uneasy. She started forward again at a pace quicker than normal and she noticed a line of cars sitting at the stoplight not far ahead of her.

She felt a wave of relief and could have laughed at herself. Any moment now another group of cars would appear and then more and more. A plane would lift into the sky, followed by another and another. Perhaps she'd just walked out on the world during a strange lull in life. She smiled at her dumbluck, though it didn't last long when she realized the stoplight those cars were waiting at wasn't even working. She looked down the way at the long row of stoplights and she saw no blazing color; no red, no yellow, no green. Her smile quickly turned into a frown and she hurried to the car nearest to her and approached.

The man that was sitting inside of the car wasn't moving. She knocked on the window, but he didn't respond, so she knocked again and peered in at him. He still didn't move. He didn't blink an eye, his chest didn't rise and fall and his hands were laying lax in his lap. He didn't even look alive.

Olivia moved on to the other cars and peeked in them, only to find everyone the same way. She swallowed heavily and darted away from the group of lifeless people who waited in their cars at a light that was never going to go green. What a way to die.

She was running without even realizing she was running. Tears were stinging in her eyes as she ran down the road. What was going on out here? As she neared the overpass she realized that another sound that she'd grown accustomed to was no longer there. She couldn't hear the traffic on the highway. Interstate 70 was one very vital route in the mid-west. It ran through Missouri right across the middle, connecting the two most important cities in the state - St. Louis and Kansas City. On any normal day, she wouldn't have stepped onto an on ramp, but now she was running up one and onto a lifeless highway. There were cars strung along it at random. None of them were moving and neither were their passengers.

"Oh, my God . . . " Olivia felt the tears that had been building in her eyes slowly slipping down her face as she looked down the highway. She turned in a circle and shouted 'hello'. Somewhere off in the distance she heard a dog barking. Then she was running again - toward the airport, toward the hotel.

 

[Wolk]

Steve cursed and tossed the reciever back onto the phone. Running his eyes around the room, his eyes stopped at his friend, who was still sleeping with her back to him. For some reason it pissed him off a little. There he was trying to clear out a pile of trouble and she was snoozing, probably with a hangover from yesterday.

He came over and turned her over, shaking firmly as he did it.

"Jessica Louisa Par..." He started loudly and sternly, but suddenly swallowed the last part of his friend's surname.

She didn't look right. Didn't feel right. She was a lot less responsive than even a deeply sleeping human should be. She was stiffer. She was also cooler.

"Oh shit!" Steve whispered, his eyes widening.

He shook her again with renewed vigor, then again, violently, desperately.

"Jessy! Wake up! Get your ass out of bed! NOW! JESSY!" He yelled at her, did everything he could, but it was no use. She wasn't just sleeping a drunken slumber.

Steve put her down, then leaned over and listened for breath, felt her neck for a pulse, finding neither. As the realization dawned, he was in shock for a while. He never thought he would be affected this strongly, always considering himself a somewhat disensetized guy, but when death was finally right here several feet from him he felt helpless, lost.

Finally, he snapped out of it and ran out the door, calling for help at the top of his voice. Nobody came. The hallway was deserted and lit with faint red backup lights, probably fed from a generator. He ran to the nearest door and hammered on it for a while, but got no response. He tried the same thing with another door and another with similar results. Even in such a situation, conventions leftover fromt he civilized society stopped him from breaking down the locked doors, so he bounced from one to another until he found a door that was unlocked.

He opened it, and saw a grotesque sight. A man was laying face down right beyond the door. He must have fallen dead after closing the door, but before locking it. What made it vomit-inducing was a small pet dog, white and furry. It slowly chewed on a human ear, which, Steve had no doubt, belonged to the man on the floor. He wasn't about to check however.

"Put it down! You fucking shit!" Steve lunged out at the small dog instinctively. It backed away growling.

Again, civilized customs and laws said he couldn't do anything to a dog, but ancient instincts overpowered the restrictions. Since the begining of time, one human would harass, harm or kill wild animals that fed on another human, because if left unchecked, the animals could overpower the whole race. Steve's foot connected with the dog's ribs, lifting it off the ground and sending it flying halfway across the room, but it came back charging with unexplainable ferocity. He threw it away once again and before its next charge grabbed a heavy lamp off a nearby table. The moment the little animal's teeth tore into his jeans, Steve's improvised club knocked it motionless.

He promoply fled the room and went downstairs, but found nothing different there. Everywhere he looked there were fresh corpses, all of them looking like they died instantly and with little pain. Nothing worked. Nobody was around.

The horrifying feeling of being all alone in the entire world started slowly creeping up on him. What the hell happened? Was he the only survivor? What was he to do next?

 

[the_bean]

For the first three-quarter mile, Olivia ran at full speed. She was not an athlete and though she was in good shape, she couldn't keep up the constant pace. The cold air was stinging her lungs, which heaved for air. The pace she slowed to was a brisk stride that couldn't have been called walking, though it wasn't quite a jog either. She was in a hurry without being overeager - truly she wanted to get somewhere, she just didn't know where to go and was afraid of what she might find when she got there.

What surprised her a little as she continued down the expansive road was how few vehicles were actually on it. Even on a holiday or in the middle of the night this highway would be packed with cars. Not today. Today it was a ghost road.

Oh, that's a nice way to put it, she thought to herself, go scaring yourself with thoughts of ghosts and see how far you get.

A sound from ahead caught her attention. She slowed and then stopped, listening for it again. It lifted into the air and she drew in a breath. It was a person, she was fairly sure, but the groan reminded her of the groans of zombies in horror movies. It was gurgly, like the person's throat was full of liquid.

"Hello? Are you hurt?" Olivia remained where she was and waited. There was no immediate response. Just silence. "I know you're there . . answer me."

She was unaware that she'd been holding her breath until the silence was broken by that moaning again. The sound was unnerving, but not any more than the word that she made out within it. "Help".

Olivia started forward again, widely circling cars as they passed to see if any of those passegers alive. She found the source of the moaning as she passed the last car. Or rather, he found her.

When she moved past the nose of that car, he reached out and gripped her ankle in his hand. She let out a startled scream and nearly tripped over herself. The force with which she jerked her leg away brought a new moan out of the man that was laying in the road. He'd been looking up at her, but he'd lowered his face back to the cold concrete.

Olivia swallowed hard and though she was concerned, she didn't get to close. Instead, she crouched there a few feet away. "Are . . . are you alright?"

Of course he's not alright, you moron! He's laying in the middle of a highway and everyone is dead!

The man groaned again, but his voice was weaker this time. She asked him once more if he was okay, but no more sound emerged from his mouth. She moved around him slowly until she was at the edge of the car and could see his face. He wasn't blinking, his body wasn't expanding with breath. There was a foamy, yellowish drool leaking from his mouth, but otherwise, he didn't look sick or injured or anything. That might have been what was scaring her more than anything - none of these people looked like they'd suffered anything more than a bad head cold.

With the sudden urge to be elsewhere, Olivia was up and darting down the highway once more.

 

[Wolk]

"Snap out of it. Snap out. Snap out." Steve repeated, enchanting himself with the words, making his mind restart after the terrible mental shock.

He was still in a hotel lobby, having just peeked outside for long enough to see that the... situation, whatever it was, spread not only beyond his room and floor, but also beyond the hotel itself. He had no way of knowing, of course, that in reality it spread through many countries by now and before too long would touch every tiny corner of the planet.

He moved into a darker corner, one that would be easy to defend and possible to retreat from. It wasn't a conscious decision, no. Some instinct from deep within him guided him there, like it guided ancient people to the right place in a dark cave. Steve started to think.

He was alone, to the best of his knowledge. Everything was disrupted. No. No, this was not the way to think. The only thing it will achieve is drive him into despair. Better, he should ask the question "what did work?" He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a cellphone. The screen lit up, but an indicator showed there was no signal at all. That, in a nutshell, summarized it: what worked were small devices with local power and functions. Flashlights, pistols, manual can openers, other crude tools like knives and hammers. Those will be the kinds of things he can rely on.

He began to ponder his priorities. The first will be water. A man can live without food for a while, but in less than a day the lack of drinking water will be felt. Second will be security. The new reality was anarchy and Steve built no illusions as to the behaviour of his fellow human beings without laws to govern them and the police to keep them in line. What happened not so far from this place after a recent hurricane testified clearly to that. He will need a weapon, Steve realized, and the more powerful the better. Finally, there will be food, a safe shelter and maybe communications. Somebody was bound to be searching for survivors, he hoped. In truth, the magnitude of the disaster made any rescue impossible, but what Steve didn't know couldn't ruin his hopes.

The water problem was decided quickly and easily. A trip down to the bar and Steve found a box of the very soda bottles the pretty barmaid served him last night. Whatever happened to her, he wondered for a moment, then clenched his teeth and stopped. She was probably dead like the rest, he thought, and thinking about it didn't help him feel any better. "Focus on the priorities," he mumbled softly to himself.

 

[the_bean]

Olivia's mind was racing, just as she was down the lifeless interstate. Her lungs ached with the force with which she was breathing. The air she expelled was hot and it billowed before her face in a thin haze. That warmth only made each inhale of the winter air feel much colder. It stung her nose and throat and once again her lungs felt pained. She couldn't keep this running up for much longer. She was no athlete, and though she was not overweight, she wasn't in the best of shape. Working the hours she did left little time for workouts and healthy eating.

Eventually she'd slowed until she was walking and then practically dragging herself down the white dots that lined the road. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She stopped and perked, like a doe in a field listening for danger, and slowly turned her head toward the direction she'd seen that movement. It was off to her right, not on the highway, but down on a sidestreet. She thought she'd seen someone walking down the sidewalk. If she had, they must have stepped between buildings because now that she was looking, there was no one.

"Hey! Is there someone there?" Olivia leaned over the railing as she shouted as if it would help to project her voice. Her call brought no response, but soon she was quickly backtracking toward the ramp she'd passed not far back.

She sidestepped, foot over foot, hand over hand on the rail. She was afraid to remove her eyes from where she'd seen movement. She was afraid that if she did there would be nothing there when she looked back. But eventually, she had to. She ran down the ramp and up the main road and then took a left onto a sidestreet. She'd seen the person on James Avenue, so when she came to it, she hung a right and moved at a pace that wasn't quite a jog, down the middle of the street.

Over and over she called out. Still no response came. There was no sound. No more movement. She suddenly felt a pang of regret that she'd come down off the highway. In the time it had taken her to get where she was, whoever she had seen would have had enough time to move far enough away that they couldn't hear her.

Defeated, Olivia slowed and turned to look behind her. As she gazed upon the emptiness of her city, of the block she walked along that should have been filled with the shouts of children playing, dogs barking, loud music thumping from too big speakers in the trunk of too old cars . . . she began to grow uncomfortable again. She was too open like this, too vulnerable. Slowly, as she pulled her coat around her a little tighter, she moved off of the road and onto the sidewalk.

Hands seized her from behind and she screamed in surprise. The man that had ahold of her spun her quickly around. He looked just as surprised as she did. He was not much taller than her nor much heavier, but despite an equality in size, men are always stronger than women.

"You're the first person I seen since last night," the man heaved. He was gripping her arms.

Olivia was heaving breath again. She could feel the adrenaline rushing through her veins. She was getting light headed.

The man removed one of his hands and for a moment, Olivia thought he might be letting her go. She heard the telltale sound of a hammer being set and then the gun was pressed against her head.

She reacted against everything she'd been taught. Common sense told you that when there was a gun to your head, you complied with the person holding it. But she didn't. She didn't even give him time to give an order. Before she knew what she was doing, her arms were swinging out of his grasp and knocking into him. He obviously hadn't expected it because he was knocked sideways and the gun spilled from his hand. It hit the ground and skidded a few feet away. She was shocked at what she had done and took a second to regain her senses before she was running. But the man had recovered from his own initial shock and was running after her. He'd left the gun, which was a bit of a relief, but it didn't matter because if he caught her again, he wouldn't need a gun to kill her.

Ahead, Olivia spied a baseball bat laying in the yard of one of the homes that lined that street. She was going for it, intent on defending herself anyway she could. She picked it up just as she felt her attacker grasping the back of her coat. She swung around again, that bat which was signed by three of the St. Louis Cardinals tight in her hand, and connected it with the man's arm. He bellowed angrily at her, but let go. She swung again and again, hitting him in the side, the shoulder, the leg. She kept trying to hit him in the head, but every time he blocked it. She felt herself growing weak quickly and on her last swing, he'd managed to grab ahold of it and yank it out of her hands. She fully expected him to hit her with it, but he'd tossed it. She sidestepped him when he came at her again and was running back toward where he'd found her. Toward the gun.

She didn't know how to use a gun. She'd only seen them used in movies and on tv, except for that one time she was in a gas station when it was getting robbed. She knew enough that the sound of the hammer being cocked meant that all she would need to do to fire it was pull the trigger.

He tackled her from behind. Her face ground into the asphalt, her shoulder and knees screamed in pain. But she'd gotten the pistol into her hand. He was flipping her over, slapping her and clawing at her, but she'd gotten the gun. She fired. The man gasped and she felt a warm rush over her hand that soaked into her clothes through her now open coat.

He stared at her incredulously and said three simple words. "You shot me." His body gave out slowly and as he died, bleeding out all over her, Olivia rolled him off of her. She pushed herself slowly to her feet, gun still in hand and stared helplessly at what she'd done. She'd just murdered someone.

Her first reaction was to take flight. She shoved the gun into her coat pocket and did just that, but it wasn't back toward the highway. She suddenly didn't want to be out in the open anymore, so it was through back alleyways, yards and parking lots that she made her way deeper into the city.

 

[Wolk]

"Yes. A weapon." Steve thought, getting himself back on the goal-oriented track of thought. He would need one if he planned to live longer than a few days in this world.

He searched the bar where he was, but found nothing that could be of serious use. With a sigh he wished this life was as easy as they made it seem in movies, where there was bound to be a shotgun or a huge, high-powered pistol hidden under the bar in order for the barman to deal with troublemakers and robbers.

Beyound the bar, however, was a kitchen, which led to the ajoining restaurant. There, less alcoholically-inclined hotel patrons used to consume food not so long ago and nice dishes were made to be brought up to the rooms for those who prefered to eat in privacy. Now the kitchen and the hall of the restaurant was nothing but a corpse of its former self. Bodies laid everywhere and Steve tried his hardest not to look at them too closely. Cold food stood here and there, arranged nicely in plates, standing in big barrel-like aluminium pans on electric heating plates that were likely never going to heat up and make it boil again.

In the dim red emergency lighting, he spent about as long as he needed there to find a large, sturdy meat knife. It was an inconvenient weapon; one without a sheath that always took up one of his hands, but it will have to do. Certainly, it was better than nothing. Here, too, he found some bags and cans with what could pass for food after a rather lengthy search. A restaurant kitchen in general, he realized, wasn't the best place to look for non-perishable food. They kept their materials fresh and used long and complicated procedure to cook it, neither of which was very appealing in the new world.

Be that as it may, Steve now had food, water and a weapon, which in itself was a success. As much supplies as he could get were stuffed into a backpack he stole from one of the bodies scattered all over. He searched hard for a flashlight, but couldn't find one anywhere. Finally, Steve settled for three lighters he scavenged from the deads' pockets and half a dozen candles that the restaurant used to create a special atmosphere for those patrons who desired it.

A pack of supplies on his back, a lighter and candle in his pocket and a big knife in his right hand, Steve glanced at himself in the mirror. He tried to give the reflection a confident smile, which came off a lot better than it would just hours ago. He was now feeling a lot better than he was before, knowing he was now a lot better prepared to survive.

 

[the_bean]

As she moved through the city, constantly in the direction of "downtown", very few thoughts went through Olivia's mind. Where did she plan on going? Were any of her friends alive? Her mom and dad?

"Mom," she said softly to herself and halted. From where she stood, her parents house was only about a fifteen minute drive east. Of course thinking in terms of driving were going to do her no good. Or would they? For the first time that day she thought to actually attempt starting a vehicle. At the end of the block there was a car at a stop sign. It was a mid-80's Crown Vic, decked out with gaudy gold rims and tinted window. Gotta love St. Louis, she thought to herself. It was either take a car after pulling a body out of it, knowing the keys would be in it still, or invade the house that inevitably held a dead family, and rifle through their things like a common thief until coming across the keys to the station wagon. Pimp car was better than the alternative.

Her approach to the car was quick, as was hauling the dead driver from it. She'd half expected to reveal the owner as a twenty-something black guy. She wasn't surprised that the man driving was white, or that three of his teeth were gold capped. She was surprised, however, to find that he was alone. Generally a car like that carries three to four people. Pimp car passengers always travel in packs. Pushing the thoughts of normalcy, which she really hadn't appreciated until just then (after all, she sort of wished she had a posse of her own right then), Olivia hopped into the driver's seat and reached for the keys that hung from the ignition.

The key was already turned to the starting position. The car was dead. She frowned and wondered just how long a car had to run for it to drain the tank of gas. She thought back to the other cars she'd seen and how few of them had been smashed into one another or into buildings. They'd all been parked and not running, almost as if everyone had been expecting something to happen. She wasn't seeing scenes of bloody carnage, but rather a death toll that had been amassed rather quietly and with little drama.

Quietly, she exited the car and looked down at the man she'd pulled into the street. "Sorry," she whispered to him and took off again. Thoughts of a car would just have to wait. She still didn't feel comfortable going through someone's house.

She took off once more, taking a sidestreet that led her to another on-ramp, which put her back on the interstate again. A couple of hours later she found herself standing at the foot of her parent's driveway. They lived in a rather fancy community. There was a gate blocking entrance to their home, and it was closed. She took a deep breath and set to climbing it. It took her some time to get over it, as she slipped a couple of times and managed to rip her coat in the process, but eventually, she did make it. The front door was locked but the back door was not. A quick sweep of the house revealed to her that no one was home, which was a relief in a way. While she doubted her parents were still alive, she didn't particularly want to see them. In the kitchen she found the keys to her mom's Suburban hanging on a keyhook. The black lump of a truck sat complacently in the garage beside the empty spot where her dad's convertible should have been. Olivia got into the vehicle and started it. The engine breathed into life. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned it back off. She didn't want to go anywhere. Not just yet. She wanted to rest somewhere familiar.

Olivia went back in and used water from the indoor hot tub to clean the blood from herself. Then she took the only clothes from her mother's closet that fit her well enough for comfort - a pair of pink velour jogging pants and a t-shirt that was one size too small. She decided to wear one of her father's sweatshirts, too. At least while she was in the house. She built a fire in the fireplace to warm the living room. It hadn't gotten cold in there yet but the temperature of the interior was slowly dropping as the day grew late. She found some potato chips, a can of tuna and a snack cake in the kitchen cabinets, and a bottle of water in the refrigerator. She took those to the living room and then went back to her parents room to gather all the blankets and pillows she could. Eventually she decided to drag the matress along as well, and made a bed of it in the living room.

She settled down to eat her dinner, and while she wasn't sure why, she'd subconciously decided to hole up there. Maybe she was secretly hoping her parents would come home. Whatever the reason, she was going to stay there that night, and as she settled in, she didn't give any thought that the smoke that would soon be rising from the chimney might draw the eyes of anyone who might be wandering around outside.

 

[Wolk]

Now that Steve had most of what he needed, he was faced with the inevitable question. Now what? In the hunt for immediate essentials it completely slipped out of his mind, now resurfacing again. He couldn't stay in the hotel forever. It wasn't exactly made for stone-age human habitation. Food, water, and shelter were only the most immediate of needs. Others, like hygene, fresh clothes, heating for the upcoming winter, and many others were going to surface soon and sitting around in a hotel filled with dead bodies, which, by the way, were all soon going to start decomposing, he realized, wasn't going to get him any closer to his goals.

He needed to move, that was clear, and Steve decided to walk, even if he didn't particularly know where yet. Daylight was burning.

He got out of the hotel and onto the eerily quiet street. It was hard on the nerves to walk, feeling as if he was in a horror movie, turning hastily to meet the source of every noise, his knife drawn. It was hard to get much thinking done in an environment like this, but Steve did realize one thing. He had no idea where he was going, nor where he wanted to go. A foreigner, he simple wandered around the city, having not the slightest idea what was behind the next turn.

He was in some sort of a residential area now, which was not at all where he wanted to be. There had to be some store he could loot, maybe even one with weapons. After all, he thought, guns are supposed to be sold on every streetcorner newspaper stall in America, right?

The sun was quickly descending, diving under the horizon and eventually he had to stop. Steve climbed over fences and tried the doors on several homes until he found an unlocked one. He barely contained his heartbeat when he suddenly saw the dark, dead figure of an old man sitting in a chair on his back patio, looking at Steve with glassy eyes. Steve sighed finally and forced himself to close the man's eyes for him. Let this man's soul bless him and guard his stay in his home.

The first thing Steve did was put a chair by the back door and pile many empty glass jars onto it. Let somebody try to open it; it's not going to go quietly!

After this Steve tried to force himself eat some of the food from the old man's kitchen, but just couldn't stomach it, knowing that the one who was supposed to have it sat out there dead and slowly rotting. Finally, he gave up and just searched the house. Apparently, the old man lived alone. He wasn't a gun nut, much to Steve's disappointment. Still, the search didn't go completely without profit. For one, he scored a rather extensive medicine cabinet, which seemed to contain half a farmacy. Most pills in it were against various old age conditions, but some could be used to treat a multitude of illnesses. Steve was too tired to discriminate and sort, so he simply dumped all the jars and boxes into his backpack in place of used up cans and water bottles.

Finally, he laid down to try for several hours of uneasy sleep on the living room couch, his hand grasping the knife firmly.

 

[the_bean]

Olivia slept for several hours. She was surprised at just how easily she'd fallen asleep. The exertions of the day had worn her out more than she'd recognized, not to mention made her body sore. Her knees and one hip was scraped and bruised from where she'd been tackled into the street. Her joints ached.

It wasn't a feeling of refreshment that woke her. Nor was it pain. She'd heard something while she was dreaming; a sound that came from outside the calm that immediately surrounded her. When she sat up on the mattress the living room was almost completely dark except for what faint light the nearly dead fire was putting off. She shivered involuntarily when she realized the flames weren't dancing in the hearth anymore, but the shuffling sound she'd heard pulled her attentions far and away from the how the temperatures from outside had crept into the house. She held her breath as she strained to listen. It might have simply been a creaking wall, something so simple as the house settling with the winter air.

The house was silent. She remained still for several minutes and had been about to lay herself back down with the thought that it had simply been the house she heard when the obvious sound of a door squeaking open met her. Someone was in the house. She gasped when she heard the shuffling of footsteps and had to clasp her hand over her mouth to keep the noise down. She was off of the mattress and retreating into the shadows of the living room in seconds. She distinctly heard voices in the kitchen. There were two people speaking. She couldn't tell if they were men or not because she'd been moving at a crouch across the room to hide behind a large potted plant, but then a third voice joined them that was distinctively male.

They knew she was in there. Of course, they didn't know it was her specifically, but they knew that someone was in there. She could see a shadow cast down the hall from the kitchen doorway, though no one seemed to be approaching the living room just yet. She didn't know what she was going to do. She didn't have any way to protect herself.

Then she remembered the gun.

It was laying on the coffee table next to where she'd made her bed. "Shit," she muttered to herself and looked back at the shadow, which hadn't moved. The voices from the other room were quiet, and without a second thought, she removed herself from her hiding place and skittered across the room for the gun. Once the cold pistol was firmly in her grip, she considered calling out to the intruders. Maybe they were nice and could help her. It would be safer to travel in a group than alone, after all.

"Freeze," came a voice from behind her. It was a man's voice, deep and rough. She remained where she was, facing the fire with her back to the hallway.

"Well, what do we have here," came a second voice, which seemed to be coming off to her side.

"Pretty little thing, there," said the third. All of the voices were male and Olivia suddenly felt as though she were in deep trouble. It wasn't so much what they said as the fact that they were talking at her instead of to her, and their tones were suggesting of thoughts she didn't quite like.

She turned around rather quickly and pulled the gun up and cocked the hammer. "Who are you?" she stammered. "What do you want? Get out of my house."

"Oh, honey," said the second man. "We just want to talk. We saw the smoke coming out of your chimney and thought you might want to share your warmth."

The other two men snickered at that comment. She knew right away that he wasn't talking about the fire. "Well, I can't and I won't, so get out," Olivia said and gripped the gun tighter in her fists.

"We're not going anywhere, sweetheart," the man, who seemed to be the spokesperson of the trio, said to her and stepped forward.

She should have pulled the trigger, but she remembered what it felt like shooting someone and didn't. She retreated, but the only place she had to go was into the fireplace. Instinct kicked in and she scrambled away. She was moving past the couch quickly, and a few steps later, was bursting through the front door and into the yard. She heard the men's voices behind her, but she didn't know what they were saying. One of them got close enough to grasp the back of the hooded sweater she'd taken out of her dad's closet, but she didn't stop. She unzipped it as she ran, causing it to simply pull off and he shouted angrily.

She turned once as she ran toward the gate and pulled off a couple of rounds. It deterred them, but only for a moment, because as she hit the gate, one of them was only a few steps behind her, with the other two trailing closely.

"Help me!" she screamed, though she didn't expect anyone to hear her, or to help. She thought wholeheartedly that this was it, that maybe she should just give up and give in. There was something inside of her that wouldn't allow that. She was surprised by how quickly she managed to take the fence, but the man that had grabbed her sweater had ahold of her foot. She kicked at him over and over again as he tried to yank her back down.

Her shoe came off, which he threw at her, and just as as grabbed hold of her pants, she lost her balance and teetered over the top, falling into a heap at the end of the driveway. It hurt, her pants were halfway pulled off and all three men were climbing the fence, but at least she had gotten out. The gun, however, had fallen out of her hands when she fell and skidded out into the street. She scrambled up to go after it, but she wasn't fast enough. One of the men tackled her back into the ground.

She screamed for help, for him to stop, but then the other two had ahold of her, as well. They flipped her onto her back, yanking her pants back down. One of them ripped her underwear, and it was strange that she would be more concerned about how affected her skin would be by being placed directly against the cold surface of the road. She pushed herself into a different place; well, she tried to, anyway. A series of slaps delivered to her face kept her very aware of what was happening as her shirt was being cut open and one of the men was pushing himself between her legs.

She was completely exposed, completely helpless and freezing. They laughed, speaking so meanly and crudely to her as she screamed for help and tried to make it as difficult as possible for that man to fuck her. She writhed and bucked, but the other two held her still and waited impatiently for their turn. Not once did they cover her mouth, however.

"Oh, yeah, baby," the man on top of her had grunted. "Tell me how much you hate it. Scream at me, baby. Nobody can hear you and no one is going to help you."

 

[Wolk]

The men who caught Oli were complete and utter scum. They have known each other since before the disaster and now were all that remained of a gang of hoods. Their particular gang was fairly lucky, since three out of thirty-some people survived, a rate far above the average, if anybody was around to calculate it. Be that as it may, breaking into houses, beating people up, raping, and murdering weren't new things for them. Now they were each going to take their turn with the pretty thing before raiding the house for anything valuable.

Two held her arms firmly and shamelessly groped her exposed tits, while the third raped her pussy after finally managing to push his cock in. He groaned and tossed obscenities into her face, telling her what a good, tight fuck she was and how they were all going to enjoy her. His breath smelled of alcohol heavily and his moves had little pattern to them. He just jerked his body about as if he was being electrocuted.

"Yeah, scream, bitch, scream! I like it when they scream." He groaned pig-like and his two buddies laughed like horses.

He finished, coming up and jerking himself onto her face for some unknown reason, covering Olivia's face with thick, gooey cum. Then it was the next guy's turn. He turned out to be even more trouble than the first, taking her legs and putting them onto his shoulders, where he held them tightly, as his big cock probed her between the buttocks.

"Hey, DB, help me put it in her ass." He said, but his buddy just scoffed.

"I ain't touching your cock, mothafucka!" He shot back.

"Well, then hold her legs! Fucking busta..."

The man did just that and soon, the first one forced his cock into Olivia's tiny little anal passage, ripping through ruthlessly and grunting like an animal. He started fucking her, making her cry in pain with his every move.

"Yeah." The rapist grinned. "This bitch is tight!"

There was one thing they weren't right about. Somebody did hear her cries.

Steve had a very uneasy sleep that night, his eyes opening at every creeking sound. By sheer luck, he was awake on one such false alarm when a cry, so faint that he would've slept through it, reached his ears. He sat up on the bed and listened to it for a little while. What was the best thing to do, he wondered. For one, it could simply be a trap. Even if it wasn't, the cry probably ment at least one, probably more, cruel people. Did he really want to get involved? Maybe it was better to ignore it and keep up his guard?

The screams didn't stop however and the curiosity got the better of him. Steve got out of the house, his knife at ready. He moved slowly, very slowly, examining every niche, paying attention to every hiding place, so he wouldn't fall into an ambush of some sort.

The night was dark and without electricity you could hardly reliably see more than a dozen feet ahead of you. This let him creep up quite close to where the rape was taking place. He hid in the shadows, crouching, and studied the scene. It was obvious what was going on, as was obvious that he had no hope of winning, even if he did try to jump in and save the girl. Three against one, or two if she still has the mental and bodily energy to fight. It's hopeless either way, even if they didn't have guns.

Steve sighed inwardly and decided to move on, slowly creeping along the edge of the road. That's when a dark lump caught his attention on the pavement. He examined it closer and found the gun that earlier fell out of Olivia's hands. He quickly deduced that was probably how it ended up there. It stood to reason that the hoods wouldn't have tossed their gun out, and if they did, they would've picked it up by now. Nor was the gun just rolling around the street before, that would've been too much of a coincidence. It also must be the gun that he heard fired not long ago. Again, if the hoods were firing to kill, they would've shot her once they caught her. So, she must have fired and then lost it. It was good. It ment the safety and whatever else was off and now if he pulled the trigger he could expect the thing to shoot.

Still, Steve decided not to try and learn how to shoot by going up against three guys at once. He picked the gun up and put it into his pocket. He had no use for it now, but the find made him pause and consider the situation for a bit longer. He wanted to help the poor girl somehow. But how?

Lurking in the shadows, he finally noted his moment. One guy was holding the girl's hands over her head. Another held her legs up against her chest, putting all his weight into it. And the third fucked her, his pants around his ankles, a look on his face like he was almost coming. Steve readied his knife and waited until the guy cried out in orgasmic bliss as he began pumping his hot sperm into Olivia's abused ass. Steve pounced.

He charged out of his hiding place, hitting the man who held her hands like a tackling football player, except for the large blade of his butcher's knife, which was stuck before him and entered the man's abdomen with a disgusting and disturbing wet noise. As he tackled him down, Steve pulled the knife out and stabbed it back in again and again. Then, quickly, he pulled it out and jumped up to his feet. That was it. He turned back around and ran like a bat out of hell. That was the plan. He couldn't win against them all fairly, but he could hit them and draw their attention away. Now he hoped and prayed for two things: that the girl breaks free and helps him fight, and that the coming fellow with his pants down is too deep in his orgasm that he hangs behind for a bit, so that Steve only has to face one man in pursuit.

 

[the_bean]

To what might have surprised Steve, when he'd leapt upon the one man and stabbed him to death, the one that was holding Oli down had nearly shit his pants in surprise. The sound he made was a strangled, fearful cry; certainly not at all like the man who'd been cat-calling and intimidating the girl he'd been holding down, waiting for his turn to rape her. He released Oli and fled out of instinct. He wasn't going to stick around and get his ass killed, too.

The other man, so lost in his own pleasure, only barely registered what was happening. He was quickly realizing as he finished emptying his load into his victim that one of his companions was laying dead in the street just a few feet away while the other was running in the opposite direction down the street. Then another realization hit him - the girl he was on top of was no longer incapacitated. He looked to her and was met with a punch to the face. Granted she couldn't get much force behind it because she was laid down with her legs pushed against her and his weight making breathing difficult, but it was enough to stun him. In his daze, Oli shifted her body in a way that made him lose his balance. She swung her legs, jerked her body and pounded flailing fists against the man until he was off of her completely and struggling to his feet.

She was on hers in a moment, blood and cum smeared across her face. She could feel the warmth of more seeping out of her raw backside as she stood. It all served to fuel her anger and though she was still blinded by tears and hurting, she had enough energy to go after the only man that was left. He was bent, peddling forward and trying to stand at the same time. She rammed her foot between his legs, bringing forth a howl of pain as he grasped at his genitals, but then she pushed her foot against his ass, which shoved him face first into the ground. He kicked back at her as he fell, twisting his leg between hers and knocking her back down on the cold, rough pavement. Despite the pain he was in, he managed to scramble to his feet as well, and while he had no idea where the person who'd killed their little trio's ring-leader was, he hauled ass in the same direction the other man had gone, leaving the dead body and the girl they'd just raped, unattended in the street.

Oli herself had not seen the man who'd caused the death of the one laying in the street not far from her. She looked around fearfully, fully expecting the person to appear from the shadows so he could claim her for himself. She propelled herself backward, scraping her already frozen ass further as she scooted along the pavement. It was her pants she was reaching for and pulled them on as she looked around for her gun.

It was gone. Panic rose in her again. She saw movement somwhere in the darkness and froze. "Please," she cried fearfully, desperately. "Please, don't hurt me any more. Please! Please, just leave me alone!" She clutched at her cut t-shirt in an effort to keep her breasts covered. She wasn't sure she had the energy now to get back over the gate, but she backed up until she was pressed against it. Perhaps, if she needed to, she could muster one more burst of energy to get over it and into the house, though at this point, she was already so broken and scared that she didn't see much of a point. So she slid down the fence and waited for the murderer to reveal himself

 

[Wolk]

Steve did not realize right away that there was no chase. By the time he did and stopped, he was a good two hundred meters away from the scene. He breathed heavily, standing there, blood rushing through his veins.

His hands shook and his mind clouded at what had just happened. He killed a man. Even if he wasn't yet dead, in a world like this even a relatively minor wound would be fatal. And what he caused looked like no minor wound. He didn't see much in the dark night, but the once shiny blade of his knife was now dark and something disgustingly warm and sticky was on his hands, his clothes. Blood, he thought. It was everywhere.

The shock went on for quite some time. He thought it would be simple, as if nothing was more natural. People fought all the time, did they not? That's what history classes told him all the time. There was war upon a war and in each one tens of thousands, if not more, sunk cold, sharp metal into each other's bodies. Then why did it feel so horrible? In the corner of his mind, Steve knew he'd never be the same now. This was his loss of innocense, his initiation into the new cruel world.

Eventually, he recovered himself enough to walk back to the scene. He did so silently, prefering to tread along grass rather then hard pavement. The two surviving thugs disappeared and the third was certainly dead. Steve was sure of that now, judging by the amount of blood on the pavement. Nobody survived that. Not in this new world. The girl was still there, however. He came to her.

"Get back inside. They might be back." He said in a commanding voice without spending time and words on greetings.

Steve was surprised at himself. Usually mild-mannered and nice, he was acting now like he never would in his previous life. He caught himself wondering if this change was due to what had just happened and concluded that it probably was. Be that as it may, he lifted the girl and gave her a shove up until she caught the top of the gate and climbed over to the other side. He followed, after passing her the bloodied knife through the bars.

"Let's go. We can't stay out here all night." He said and walked towards the house, not even bothering to take the weapon back from her.

When they were back at the house he lit one of his candles in the living room, the two of them finally able to see each other. He recognized her instantly and laughed softly at the coincidence.

"Olivia, eh?" He grinned. "The barmaid my friend embarassed me before." His lips suddenly dropped as he thought of his dead friend. Steve swallowed a sigh. "It's good to see you've made it. I'm Steve." And he extended her his bloodied hand, then caught himself and wiped it off on his pants before extending it again.

 

[the_bean]

Olivia was surprised at herself. The man hadn't answered her cries to stay away, but even as he'd approached her out of the darkness all she'd been able to do was cower there against the closed gate to her parents million dollar home and hope that he wasn't going to use that blood-slicked knife on her, too.

The man commanded her back into the house. He hefted her over the gate. She made it into the 'safety' of her parents' yard, though she knew nowhere was safe anymore, and took the knife from the man when he passed it through the fence and then came over herself.

Was she really going to let this guy come in with her? Then again, did she really have much of a choice?

They were back in the house before she knew it; her sitting curled up on the floor near her matress as he moved about the room lighting candles. She was sore, her face bloodied from having been slapped. Her suddenly no-longer virgin ass was screaming its discomfort at her, as well, though the initial shock of what had just happened was finally wearing away with all the pain. But still, physical pain or no, she felt very violated and dirty, and wondered what she had ever done to deserve that. She could feel the wet of bodily fluids still sticking to her private areas and her thighs.

But then the man was in front of her and talking. She lifted her eyes to his face questioningly when he said her name because she didn't know who he was. She recalled for a brief moment the short introduction they'd had the day before. She reeled at the coincidence, but then her eyes were on his bloodied hand, which he quickly pulled away to clean off and then offer once more.

She didn't take his hand. She just sort of looked at it in shock and disbelief before her eyes lifted to his face. They were filling with tears. Good to see I've made it?, she thought. Had he not just seen what happened to her? She was embarassed and ashamed, her skin was cold and abrased from being roughed up on the road. A gasp caught in her throat as she kept herself from sobbing and then she finally took his hand.

"Your friend is dead, too?" she asked, knowing it was an inappropriate question, but she couldn't think of anything else to say and she was on the verge of breaking into sobs.

 

[Wolk]

Sadness returned to Steve's face as she mentioned Jess. Was she dead? He didn't know for certain, or at least he made himself think so because dealing with the certainty of it would be harder. He left her because he was sure she was in a state where he could do nothing for her. Yet, it wasn't as if her head was missing, so a tiny part of him hoped that after he left she suddenly got better and walked away. He knew it was next to impossible, but hope died last.

"I don't know what happened to her." He finally said. "I haven't seen her since all this started. What about you? This thing left you alone as well?"

There was a pause after they established they were all alone in this new strange world. Everything changed, but it didn't change to the same degree for everyone. Steve was now a murderer and Olivia could still claim old world-style humanity. He felt awkward about it, and looked at the floor for a few moments.

"I feel like I should be sorry for what I did," he pointed in the general direction of the door, "but I'm not. Those guys would've killed you once they were done, or you might take revenge on them. In my book it's fine to kill a criminal to save an innocent."

He paused and looked at her, wondering why he felt the need to explain himself. Surely, she wouldn't hold him saving her against him in any case whatsoever. It's not like anybody enjoyed being raped and murdered!

"I guess I just want you to know that I'm not some deranged killer who stabs anything that walks for any reason." He half-smiled, sadly. "It's just a messed up world that makes normal people do messed up things."