"The Castle" (An "I Am Legend" inspired RP)

[AmyRoberts]

Maggie listened to Brad's answers to her questions, surprised at them. He was such a good-looking man; how could he not have a long list of female or even male conquests to his name. It didn't surprise her that he was a computer-literate book worm. Just from their previous conversations, she'd deduced that he was an intelligent, well-read man.

His description of his MILF lover didn't surprise her either. Older women loved younger men, their energy, and their yearning for new adventures. Maggie could picture him lying on his back while his neighbor rode his cock until they exploded in ecstasy together again and again. She found herself envying a woman she'd never met.

"I've never told anyone this before," Brad confessed. "I don't know why I'm telling you." He seemed to drift off into space, finishing, "She was a passionate woman ... experienced. She..."

"I have a trusting face," she teased regarding his openness. "People just like to tell me things."

"Anyway, she was my first," he continued. "I was 22." He asked, "What about you? Same questions? Also, you didn't tell me where you came from and how you got here."

"Well, just because you unloaded to me doesn't mean I'm going to do the same," Maggie said with a serious tone. Then, as they stared at each other, her lips spread in a smile. She shrugged, playfully saying, "Oh, what the hell, why not." She sucked down some more of her drink, then started, "I grew up outside of Kansas City. That's the where I came from part. My folks and I were there when this all started. They died there."

She took a moment to drink and think both. "My sister was a junior at NYU. I, um ... I didn't really think she was still out here ... alive. But ... I'd hoped. I had no reason to stay in KC anymore ... so I came this way." She reminisced a moment more, then continued, "As far as that other stuff...? I don't really want to get into details. Compared to you, I'd sound like a slut. I wasn't. But ... I had more boyfriends ... and earlier."

Maggie could have also told Brad that her earlier romantic entanglements had included women, too, but she didn't really see the need to do that. A little mystery is good, right? She continued, "But that was then. I haven't had a need, want, or desire in that direction since all of this began."

Of course, being raped twice put a damper on her sexual desires. Or maybe not; Maggie still yearned sex, as was demonstrated when she masturbated to fantasies of being with Brad last night. But she was concerned that trying to be intimate with a man now -- Brad or anyone else -- might bring those abuses to the forefront in such a way as to ruin the act. Nothing dampens the passion like suddenly going into a panic and kicking your potential lover in the nuts, then running away.

Looking to Brad again, Maggie wondered whether he was thinking she was a dead end, romantically. With what she'd just told him, would he just assume that she wasn't a possibility at all? Oh, she wasn't looking to hook up with him ... now, anyway. But once she felt that she'd gotten past what had happened to her, Brad would be just the kind of man she'd badly want to get naked with.

"It's late," she said, sensing a good time to bring the day to an end. She popped up, telling him, "Today was a good day ... a great first step toward everything we want to do here. You should be proud of yourself, Brad."

If he had nothing more vital to speak about now, she'd thank him for dinner and head to her place.

 

[HumanBean]

Maggie teased Brad with, "Well, just because you unloaded to me doesn't mean I'm going to do the same."

She said it so seriously. But a moment later, she smiled and began answering even questions he hadn't asked. As she wondered, Brad did wonder if maybe he didn't have a chance of ever bedding her. That would be a disappointment, obviously. But it wouldn't prevent them from working together on the Castle.

"It's late," she said, standing to leave. "Today was a good day ... a great first step toward everything we want to do here."

"It was, it really was," he confirmed.

"You should be proud of yourself, Brad."

He laughed. "I couldn't have done it without you. No, no, that's wrong. I wouldn't have done it without you. Thanks."

Brad walked her to the door of his home and watched her cross to her own. When she reached her door and looked back, he waved. "Night!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
​

The next morning:

Yet again, Brad was up before sunrise. He did what he always did upon waking. This time, though, he had more to do. First, he collected both the shotgun and rifle with which he'd had so much fun the day before. He slung the latter over one shoulder. Over the other shoulder went a bag with various supplies: ammo for both firearms, a sandwich, soup in a thermos, bottles of water, his binoculars, his journal with various pens and markers, his latest novel, the maps he had of the terminal, the neighborhood, and the city at large, and even more still.

He ascended to the top of the wall. He'd decided to begin doing this daily again now that Maggie had changed his life. He went to a spot where he'd stacked a dozen rainwater barrels and created a catcher over them. It provided him both shade from the sun and cover from anyone watching the wall.

Brad dropped into one of those short-legged beach chairs. From within the anonymity of the barrels, he began studying the city below him. He and Maggie had talked about how they might create a Bartertown-like community. And she'd suggested that they block the terminal's entrances with container walls featuring gates.

Using the maps and markers, he planned out how they would build those walls. In addition, he created avenues through which people could travel between the city and Castle. He envisioned stands and booths lining the avenues where people could sell their products or offer their services.

Of course, this was all very far down the road. It took people to do these things. So far, there was only Brad and Maggie.

And it didn't just take people. It took good people. Brad himself hadn't had any dealings with people post-apocalypse, good or bad, except for Maggie. And those who Maggie had dealt with didn't seem to include good people. It was going to be a long road creating their community.

 

[AmyRoberts]

Maggie was awake and exiting her home in time to see Brad just reaching the top of the wall, the light of the nearly full moon silhouetting his form. She'd gone to bed much earlier last night than she had the night before, but that was only part of the reason she was up before the sun. Maggie was as eager as her host was to begin transforming his Castle into a city for the rebuilding of civilization.

Yeah, yeah, that was sort of a lofty goal that was years or, at the very least, many months ahead. But Maggie honestly thought that if they could provide a safe place for people to live and conduct trade, Brad's Castle would be a great success ... during the daylight hours, at least.

As she gathered her own pack of gear -- not nearly as extensive as Brad's -- and started the four-section, 40-foot ladder climb to the top, Maggie considered everything they'd discussed thus far about their plans. She had another idea about how to create a safe zone that she wanted to present to Brad for his consideration. He'd given her a lot of decision-making opportunities thus far, but she always kept in mind that this was his Castle, and she was only a guest.

"Good morning, King Bradley," she said with humor when he looked back at the sound of her reaching the top of the final ladder. "How does your Kingdom fair this morning?"

She joined him on the second small chair that he'd brought up for her convenience and comfort, then joined him in a cup of hot coffee as well. Looking out upon the yard -- officially known as the Port Newark Container Terminal -- Maggie began, "Okay, so, I've been thinking more on what we talked about ... regarding securing this place. I don't think that blocking the two entrances at the west and northwest are going to be enough. I think we need another wall ... another curtain, as the castle makers would call it."

She pointing in various directions as she went on, "PNCT is essentially a big rectangle ... or a pentagon if you want to consider the little crook in the north side. I think we should put up another wall all along the seawall. We build it out of empty containers ... or containers filled with shit that we can't even imagine ever using. Maybe those containers filled with recycling -- computers and other electronics -- that were destined for China."

For years, Maggie had been hearing stories of how discarded electronic devices from all over the world made their way to places like China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc., where small children disassembled the devices to salvage all the rare earth elements that computers, cell phones, etc., were made of. It didn't sound like a profitable venture but it actually was; when you took into account that a single intermodal cargo container might contain thousands or tens of thousands of electronic devices, and that each one of them might contain anywhere between $5 and $250 of valuable metals in them, plus the children and/or political prisoners doing the work made little or no money for their effort, then it became a profitable venture.

"We could build it four or five high and two deep, and right up to the edge of the dock so that no one could access it from the water," she continued. "Then, we do as you suggested up near the gates with the wall and gates and use turns and additional gates to make unauthorized access difficult. Maybe we put in those murder holes you were talking about, and the top layer can have those cut outs like the stone wall castles have ... what're they called ... arrow slips...? No, arrow slits. They won't be for bow and arrows, of course, but for rifles.

"We need to try to find a welder and a metal cutting torch ... and a way to power it," she reminded him; this was something they'd talked about several times. "They use 440-volt power, most of them. We could find a working diesel generator ... something on a trailer that we could move with the container mover."

The two of them discussed her suggestions as well as other options. Then, concerned that maybe she might be rushing him, Maggie asked, "Brad, are you okay with all of this? I mean, you've been here for a year and you've done just fine without a bunch of other people being around. Maybe you're just fine being alone...?"

 

[HumanBean]

Brad was surprised to hear, then see Maggie ascending to the top of the wall so early. Then he remembered that this was only the second morning they'd been together. How did he know what her norm was? He smiled to her labeling him King Bradley. No one other than his mother had ever called him Bradley. He responded with a simple, "Good morning."

"How does your Kingdom fair this morning?" she continued. She took a seat next to him.

"The kingdom's peaceful and prosperous," he joked back. Brad chuckled. "Well, prosperous is a matter of opinion."

He looked about the terminal. The thousands of containers contained potentially millions, even billions of dollars worth of products. But what were they worth during these post-apocalypse days? Was a cargo container full of toaster ovens and washing machines worth anything anymore? Drywall and Barbie dolls?

But then there were the containers with food and drinks, both coming into and out of the US. Sure, some of the perishable food was already ruined. But there were entire containers full of canned food. Rice and other grains. Most of that came in or went out at another terminal. But the manifests Brad had printed off showed enough of it here at PNCT to feed him, Maggie, and a hundred people for months if not years.

"Okay, so, I've been thinking more on what we talked about ... regarding securing this place," Maggie began what would become an hours long conversation.

Brad knew the woman was intelligent and sharp. He loved the way she thought. And her ideas for securing the entire terminal were smart. An outer wall would greatly secure them and the community they wanted to create.

She brought up the need for a welder and a metal cutting torch. Brad responded, "I know where they are. The welder and torch cutter. There's a shop here in the yard where they used to repair containers, trucks, and whatever was metal and broken. I considered bringing it in originally but didn't need it at the time. And as the days, weeks, and months passed without the need..."

Brad now wished that he'd gotten to work on the things they were only just now discussing. But at the time, it had been unnecessary. He flipped to a clean page in his journal and started a Things To Do list. They decided that creating the two gates in the west and northwest corners was something they needed to do right away.

"We don't have to install the perpendicular containers that will be the gates yet," Brad suggested. "Until we find people to trade with, then start inviting people inside, we don't need the gate. We can rearrange later, after we have put up the outer wall."

They spend almost an hour just doing the math for building the outer wall. It wasn't simply a matter of moving hundreds of containers. There were obstructions, too. Hundreds of poles, posts, traffic barricades, fire hydrants, and more were in their way.

"We should take a walk around the perimeter to see exactly what we're dealing with," Brad suggested. They decided that right now was as good as any time. He stood, saying, "I'll put together some lunch and bottles of water. This'll be fun."

 

[AmyRoberts]

It didn't take long for Maggie to realize that a walk around the terminal hadn't been just a good idea but a mandatory one. She'd been surveilling Brad and his Castle for a month, of course, but she'd never really paid much attention to those things that were outside it. Now, as they strolled along the meeting of the water and PNCT, she understood why Brad thought they should take a look. The idea of simply moving containers and setting them in place had been naive of Maggie; they were going to have to do a lot more than that to make it all work.

There were a few places where, with a cutting torch, they could simply cut holes in the bottom of containers to make room for small obstructions. These included but were not limited to the bollards, to which the boats, ships, and barges tied up. There were far more fire hydrants than Maggie had expected to see. She would later realize that the hydrants were mostly up by the terminal's buildings, and that fires on boats were tended to by actual fire boats, which sucked their discharged water from the water below them, duh.

There were a few places where it was going to be more logical to move the wall back four or five feet from the water's edge and simply go around a high number of obstructions. Maggie didn't like giving potential Raiders a place where they could come up out of the water to access the wall. But talking to Brad, she realized that any seriously dedicated Raider was going to find a way in if they wanted it.

"It's like locks ... all sorts of locks," she told Brad. "My father taught me that locks were meant to keep honest people honest. They did very little to stop a determined thief.

"That brings up another related topic, even if it doesn't sound that related," Maggie said. She emphasized, "The carrot or the stick. If and when we start inviting people to trade with us ... or even live on the terminal grounds ... there are always going to be people who just don't want to get along peacefully. But if we make it clear to them that they have more to gain by cooperating rather than not, then I think we can win most of them over. That might mean making sweetheart deals with some of them. It might even mean paying armed thugs off to leave us alone. Whaddaya think?"

 

[HumanBean]

Brad chuckled at Maggie's reflection on locks and their purposes. He recalled his first bicycle and how it had been stolen. He'd bought one of those U-locks that, theoretically, couldn't be picked or cut. The thieves had instead stolen the bike and the rack to which it had been locked as a single piece. Brad hadn't understood the reasoning. His father who'd been a welder, though, knew exactly how they were going to get the lock off: blow torch.

That brought him back to their current situation. "Where we can simply cut holes in container bottoms, we will. But like you said, I don't think we have to worry about someone climbing up on the edge of the pier. They're gonna get in if they want to. Like you said, carrot or stick, and maybe we have better carrots than sticks."

With their new understanding of the perimeter of the PNCT, Brad did some more math. The perimeter was about 25,000 feet in length. The largest and most numerous intermodal cargo containers were 53 feet in length. That meant one end-to-end ring would require 470 or more containers. Sometimes, they'd have to use shorter ones to fill in gaps or reach corners precisely.

Depending upon where they got the containers from, how far they had to move them, and how good either Brad or Maggie had gotten at moving them by that point, it could take anywhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes to move just one container. Brad told Maggie as he tapped into the solar powered calculator he'd brought in his pack, "Let's say we got very good at this in short order and were moving one container every 2 minutes..."

He did the calculating. "One layer of maybe 500 containers. Let's say just 2 levels for the wall along the water. I think that's enough. 1000 units, 2 minute each, 60 minutes to the hour is ... 33 hours. If we were able to move containers 6 hours a day, allowing for sleep, meals, refueling, maintenance, etcetera ... that's 5 days plus. I think we have to be realistic about this ... and double that estimate, at least!"

Brad looked to Maggie for her response. He added, "And I think we need to collect several of the container movers, just to be sure that we not only have backups but that no one else has them. I mean, what keeps some determined Raider with a container mover from simply taking down our wall?"

They came up with a plan to gather the other movers and/or disable them. Currently, every mover that Brad had been able to find in those first days was disabled. Brad had pulled a key electronic unit from each and brought them back to the Castle.

That didn't mean that Raiders couldn't simply knock the wall over. He knew that a big, heavy, well-built truck could do some serious damage to the wall. A fully loaded dump truck at high speed. Even a slow-moving bulldozer. They would have to set up containers that would make a serpentine route in front of the gates. The US and other nations had been doing such things to protect their overseas embassies and other important buildings since the first days of terrorism car ramming attacks.

"That brings us to the ... carrot or the stick," Maggie said.

They talked about that as they resumed their walk after Brad's math session. He told her, "I think we have to consider both. The carrot, obviously, because that's easy and we do have a lot to offer without hurting ourselves."

Brad understood what the combination of the apocalypse and his assuming possession of the terminal's containers had done. They'd instantly made him a potentially powerful billionaire. Of course, like any form of wealth, it could always be taken away from him.

And it wasn't all actually his to begin with. So, someone taking it from him was no different than him taking it in the beginning. Extending that thought, it was only logical that Brad share it with others. Thus, the carrot.

But the stick was going to be necessary, too. Even if the terminal's treasures didn't legally belong to Brad (or Brad and Maggie together), they didn't belong to anyone else out there either. Brad felt that he and Maggie were better suited for distributing what they had than some of the other people who'd survived the Dark Seekers. He knew that they could be benevolent. It was only right that they be in charge of this.

"What do you think of The Terminal?" Brad asked as they were walking along. He looked to Maggie. "As a name. Or maybe Bartertown ... like in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"?

 

[AmyRoberts]

Maggie listened to Brad's math regarding surrounding the entire PNCT yard, and while she trusted his numbers, she felt she needed to remind him, "Before we can even begin moving containers for the outer wall, though, we have to figure out which ones to move. That's going to take us days! Maybe weeks!"

The value of the terminal's containers was, obviously, the contents of those containers. They had two inches-thick three-ring binders with thousands of pages listing the contents of tens of thousands of containers. Not everything in them was of value now, of course, but determining what was of value -- now or in a distant future -- was key to figuring out how to go about building the wall in the least time-consuming and least energy-zapping way.

"The simplest thing to do, of course," she continued as they walked along the water, "would be to move just empty containers. We could leave deciding on what to do with the filled containers 'til after we're done with the wall. The only problem with that, of course, is that the primary storage area for empty 53s is in the west corner. That's a long way to transfer a container to build the north and eastern portions of the wall."

They discussed it some more, realizing that both options -- just getting it down versus getting it down with deep planning -- had their pros and cons. Maggie felt that Brad knew the terminal far better than she did; he'd worked here for years and then lived here over the year since the rise of the Dark Seekers. She told him, "I think you should make the decision ... and do not try to put this decision on me because I simply can't decide which is the best way to go."

Whether Brad made his decision now as they walked or later today, tomorrow, or whenever wasn't important. What was important that they were moving ahead at a pace that worked for them both.

"What do you think of The Terminal?" Brad asked.

"Whadda mean?" Maggie asked, unsure of just what he was talking about. Ironically, despite having used the word terminal to describe this place seemingly a hundred times in the past two day, the first thing she thought of when Brad said terminal was the Tom Hanks motion picture by the same name.

"As a name," he continued. "Or maybe Bartertown ... like in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?"

Maggie laughed, explaining the source of her confusion and subsequent confusion. She thought about it a moment, then answered, "I dunno. Terminal seems to explain the location better. But Bartertown really depicts the meaning behind what we are trying to create." She thought another moment, saying, "No, I'd have to say Bartertown. Yeah."

She laughed again. "We could even one of those signs like what was over the entrance to the movie's Bartertown. I bet we could find an image of it somewhere. You know, with a power generator, DVD player, and television, we could watch the movie ... and others, too.

"I miss television," she mused as she looked off into space. "I didn't have much time to watch it growing up 'cause of all the work on the farm ... but when I got some time ... when my folks and I had time, we used to have family movie night." She looked to Brad with excitement. "You know, we could have a theater night--"

She stopped suddenly, realizing that she'd been envisioning using a projector to fill a big drive-in like screen with a motion picture ... in the dark at night! She growled, "Fuck! I miss doing things at night. Fucking Dark Seekers have to go and ruin everything."

She had often had fantasies of setting traps for the creatures and wiping them out until she'd personally rid the entire whole world of Dark Seekers. That was, obviously, unrealistic. No one knew exactly or even roughly how many of the crazed cannibals were out there in the world. It had been shown beyond a doubt that the Krippin Vaccine was what had caused the pandemic and creation of the Dark Seekers. But the mayhem that had risen so quickly and so thoroughly had prevented anyone from developing numbers regarding either how many Dark Seekers there were or how many Human Beings had been killed by them and/or had survived them.

What Maggie knew what that that last number -- Human survivors -- was extremely low. The first Dark Seekers had been identified in New York City on April 12, 2026, not a surprise as the Krippin Vaccine had first been administered in the Big Apple in March of that year. The Dark Seekers spread like the virus that had created them, reaching Maggie's home near Kansas City just 6 days later. By the end of April, it was reported that the whole of North America was affected; the last numbers Maggie heard before news ceased being broadcasted was that 90% of the US's population had been killed, and similar numbers were being reported for almost the entirety of the world.

But how many Dark Seekers were actually out there then and now? No one knew! Did they constitute 1% of previous Human population? 5%? 10%? More? And did they create new Dark Seekers by biting but not killing Human Beings? There were stories of uninfected people getting bit and turned into Dark Seekers, like the zombie-creatures of that movie World War Z. Maggie didn't believe that as she'd never seen any sign of it.

And while she couldn't prove it one way or the other, she was in fact correct: the vaccine made Dark Seekers, not other Dark Seekers. Which meant that while it might take years, decades, or centuries to rid the world of the cannibals, it was theoretically possible to do so. All you had to do was kill, kill, kill!

Returning to her thought about movies, she said, "Maybe one day we'll be able to totally secure a movie theater or a dance club or one of those conference rooms at a big hotel ... and we'll show movies and hold dances and just ... have fun!"

It was still just late afternoon, with a couple of more hours of bright sun before they had to worry about getting back inside the Castle. Maggie pointed to a group of crates sitting along the water and suggested they sit there to eat. They broke out their packed lunches and water, leading Maggie to say, "And I miss beer. I know there's still a lot of it out there someplace ... bars or stores or distribution centers that haven't been pillaged ... and there's probably people brewing it in basements or isolated farms or woods ... but I haven't had one for almost half a year, and I miss it." She looked to Brad, asking, "Do you think we could brew some from the grains we have? I know nothing about brewing beer. Or sake. We have all that bagged rice."

They would finish their lunches and their tour of the perimeter before heading back to the safety of the Castle.

 

[HumanBean]

"Before we can even begin moving containers for the outer wall, though," Maggie reminded Brad, "we have to figure out which ones to move. That's going to take us days! Maybe weeks!"

She was right, and Brad knew that. She pointed out their two choices for the future of PNCT: the fast way and the efficient way. Then she said, "I think you should make the decision..."

Maggie refused to be part of the decision. She was going to leave it to Brad. He told her, "We don't have to decide today. Let me sleep on it."

When he asked about a name for their community, she decided that she liked Bartertown. Brad smiled wide, saying, "Me, too. I was hoping you'd like it. I love the movie. And yes, absolutely, we have to have one of those signs over the entrance."

They talked about the entertainment possibilities once there were enough residents and/or visitors to partake of such things. With the exception of two or three movies a year and the occasional beloved television series, Brad didn't partake of either much. He reminded her that he was and always had been a bookworm.

"But I think we can set something up," he said. "It'd be fun. And yes, I miss beer, too. I think we could figure out how to brew it ourselves. Or maybe we'll find someone who knows how. The rice for sake, though? I don't think it's made with just ordinary rice, is it? I dunno."

They finished up, returned, had dinner, and sat outside to watch the sun fall beyond the castle wall. Brad didn't normally stay outside after dark. It wasn't that he was afraid of the Dark Seekers getting him. He was safe here behind the Castle's walls.

No, it was that he hated the sounds that the wind sometimes carried over the walls. The Dark Seeker attacks had seriously dropped off over the last several months. He figured it was because there were no more Human Beings out there for the cannibals to locate, track down, kill, and eat.

Or maybe the survivors had just learned to hide well enough to be missed. The irony was that the best places to hide from the Dark Seekers during the nighttime hours were also the Dark Seekers favored places to hide out during the daylight hours.

Brad worried that there wouldn't be anyone left to join their community. All of their work would be for nothing. Well, not entirely nothing. It would be better for Brad and Maggie at least.

Tonight, they did hear the monsters out in the city, along with the dreadful cries of agony of their human victim. Brad was so tempted to go up on the wall to see what was happening. But one of the reasons the Dark Seekers didn't test his wall was that they didn't think he was behind it.

Brad and Maggie said their goodnights and headed for their own beds.

 

[AmyRoberts]

Maggie was tickled to hear Brad say that brewing some beer, sake, or some form of alcoholic beverage might be doable. She wasn't an alcoholic or lush or binge drinking or anything like that, but she certainly loved a good microbrew or shot of something stronger once in a while.

As they sat talking, they heard the sounds of cries from Humans being chased and likely captured and killed by Dark Seekers. It was too much for Maggie, and she said they should probably call it an evening. They shared their farewells and went to their individual homes. Maggie heated some water over a propane canister heater Brad had provided her, stripped to her birthday suit, and gave herself a sponge bath.

Her mind was spinning with thoughts, about the Castle's future, about the Dark Seekers killing yet another Human within ear shot ... about Brad. Her soapy hands running over her body -- and thoughts of her host -- began stimulating her, and before she knew it, she was fingering herself to a badly needed orgasm, still standing in the big tub of warm water with one hand supporting her weight on the little table she kept some of her things on.

Maggie was tempted to dry, dress, and cross to Brad's home to continue her sexual pleasure. But it wasn't time yet. She needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that her recently experiences with violent men wouldn't cause her to suddenly get frightened and back out. She didn't want to do that to Brad ... or to herself.

She dried, slipped into a nightgown they'd fished from a container of imported clothing from Vietnam, and curled up in bed, falling quickly to sleep.

....................................
​

The next morning:

Brad beat Maggie up again, as he had each of the previous mornings. She met him outside, filled her mug with the coffee that he dutifully and gentlemanly made each morning, and offered to cook breakfast. "So, what're we doing today, boss?"

 

[HumanBean]

OOC: We don't know if anyone is reading along, but if anyone is, here are some additions we are making to the story:

• To make understanding the locale of the Castle easier:
  • We are going to say that it is located where the beige-colored pavement is in this Google Maps image.
  • Ignore all of the bollards and equipment there. (I'm assuming that the "equipment" is some sort of ticket/swipe machine for tracking vehicles.)
  • We're going to pretend that the area was just a painted section of pavement that Brad used to easily arrange the walls of the Castle.
  • The entire painted section is within the walls. We're going to call is 400 x 150 feet on the inside.
  • I posted that Brad used "stepped" containers with 10-foot ladders to create accesses from the ground to the top of the wall on the north and south sides of the Castle. We're now going to say:
    • They are on the northwest and southeast sides.
    • The northwest one is closer to the southwest corner, while the southeast one is closer to the northeast corner. What this does for us is put them fairly close to one another without causing a pinch point in the middle of the Castle's "bailey" (interior).
• Since Brad has been here 13 months already:
  • He would have had a porta-potty, duh. (They are all around the terminal, so moving one would have been a duh.
  • He put it inside a 20-foot container near his 53-foot container home.
  • He also provided Maggie with one.
  • He also would have moved a portable shower stall to his 20-foot container. They look like a larger porta-potty (about the size of one of the wheelchair-capable porta-potties).
  • He put rainwater barrels with catchers atop the 20-foot container.
  • Maggie will have one someday if she wants one, but for now Brad said she can use his.
• If you use the Google Map link above and zoom out:
  • You will see two parallel rows of white refrigerated containers to the west.
  • Brad knew of these (as part of his job as a security officer) and kept the system operating.
  • He has been eating from these since the beginning.
  • Not everything remained fresh, obviously, but there was a lot that did.
  • As contents went bad, Brad turned the units off.
  • As contents were reduced, Brad sometimes moved what remained to other operating units so that he could reduce fuel usage.
  • Today, there are still six containers running, each filled to a different degree with various food items.
  • The system is powered by a diesel generator. Brad gets the fuel from the tanks located under the blue roofed structure to the west of the Castle.
• Occasionally, we will add more of the things that I didn't really think of in the beginning. Roll with it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx​

"So, what're we doing today, boss?" Maggie asked when she reached the top of the wall.

Brad poured her some coffee from his thermos. "Remember what we heard last night?"

He was speaking about the Human who they believed was being chased by Dark Seekers after dusk last night. He handed Maggie the binoculars and pointed toward a structure to the west. It was a covered area where Inspectors checked the paperwork of trucks about to leave the terminal. Currently, there were four trucks under the cover.

There were also six corpses within view of the Castle. Each had been devoured by Dark Seekers to a differing degree. Then, they'd been fed upon by feral dogs, vultures, rats, and bugs. And finally, Mother Nature had continued the decomposing process.

"I've been here over a year," he reminded Maggie. "I've had time to memorize every little detail of this place. See the red cabover with the green container at the east end? The passenger side door ... it's closed."

He looked to Maggie, waiting for her to find what he was speaking of. Then he informed her, "It wasn't closed yesterday."

Again, Brad paused for Maggie's reaction. "If that woman we heard yesterday made it inside there, there's a possibility that she's still in there. I mean, we can't see the driver's side door, and we can't see the front windshield either. The Dark Seekers might have gotten in and..."

He didn't need to explain what the monsters would have done. Maggie understood. He continued, "But if she got inside there without them understanding where she'd gone or without them being able to get inside to get her, she could still be alive."

Brad stood from his chair, saying, "I think we should go check it out as soon as the sun's fully up."

He looked behind him to the east. The sun was still hidden behind the horizon but would be up very shortly.

 

[AmyRoberts]

OOC: I love everything you wrote up there. Nice.

Maggie lifted the binoculars to her eyes and followed Brad's directions. She would never have noticed the difference in the truck's situation, but she'd hadn't lived here for more than a year either. He spoke of the possibility that the woman might have made it to safety, something that she silently told herself was so very unlikely. The Dark Seekers didn't know how to operate such things as vehicle door handles, let alone ones in locked doors, which the woman surely would have ensured she'd done. But they got past that lack of ability by simply being brutes, smashing through windows and such when they really wanted to get somewhere.

"I think we should go check it out as soon as the sun's fully up," Brad suggested.

"I agree," Maggie said without hesitation. She handed the binoculars back to Brad, then told him with a serious tone, "But I want you to understand something. The chances that she survived such an attack ... that she outran even one Dark Seeker as opposed to the dozen or more that I'm sure I heard raging last night ... the chances are ... incredible."

Even though she wouldn't say it out loud, Maggie knew that she'd dealt with the Dark Seekers far more than Brad had over the past 13 months. She'd been out there in the world, desperately looking for safe shelter each and every night, while he'd been here behind his 40-foot walls and his securable container home. She'd seen the horror nearly every day in the beginning, and even though the threat had slowly lessened over the days, weeks, and months to come, she'd still heard and seen what the Dark Seekers did to other survivors of the apocalypse, sometimes up close and personal.

They headed down off the wall after the sun was up, knowing that it was safer to limit their movements until after the bright light of day had returned. One of the things that was still unknown about the Dark Seekers was how good their memory was. If one of them saw Maggie and Brad atop the wall now at dawn, before the direct sunlight sent them scrambling for dark shelter, would that Dark Seeker remember where it had seen the pair when dusk came and it was again safe to come out? Maybe someone out there in the world knew, but Maggie didn't, so she found it safer to simply limit the possibility that she got spotted and remembered.

After breakfast, they retrieved their go bags and weapons, watched the area for half an hour for any signs of potential Human dangers, then finally headed outside the Castle using the elevator. Once on the ground, they again hid the remote-control box before hurrying west toward the truck and the woman's likely last location. Arriving at the Inspection Station, Maggie saw the corpses and felt her stomach roll over anxiously. She'd seen far more than her share of the dead, but the sight of them still bothered her even to this day; she could picture in her mind's eye the horror that they'd been going through as the Dark Seekers bit and tore at them, beginning to eat them alive in most cases.

She slung the scoped .30-06 over her shoulder and armed herself with the 12-gauge shotgun as she approached the 18-wheeler. The passenger's side door was closed as they'd already seen, and backing up to circle around the backend of the trailer and passing up the driver's side, Maggie saw that the operator's door was closed as well. But when she got around to the front of the Peterbilt, she her stomach rolled over at the sight of the woman's badly mutilated body lying on the pavement. She was covered in blood from head to foot, her face ripped to shreds and her guts pulled out in all directions from where the Dark Seekers had dined on her soft insides.

Maggie had to turn away, fighting off her body's desire to purge itself of her recently consumed breakfast. After she'd regained her composure, she turned to find Brad, saying softly, "I kinda figured this. Sorry."

Then a sound -- a voice -- caused her to tense up and level the shotgun toward the corpse. For a moment, Maggie thought that maybe the woman was somehow incredibly still alive. But when the voice returned again, she realized very quickly that it was coming from a radio inside the woman's pack. She hurried to it, pulling it out as she called, "Brad! C'm'ere!"

She looked to the radio, waited for more, then heard a female voice ask, "Belinda, are you hearing me...? Belinda! Answer me if you can hear me."

Maggie should have asked Brad for direction, but before she'd even realized what she was doing, she activated the radio's mike and said, "Hello. Who is this? Who am I talking to, and where are you?"

There was a moment of silence, then the woman asked, "Who the fuck are you, and why do you have Belinda's radio?"

This time, Maggie looked to Brad for instructions, offering the radio out before her in case he wanted to take over the conversation ... or end it before it went any farther. Then, before either of them could say or do anything, the woman on the radio asked, "Where are Belinda and Rex? What have you done with them?"

It took Maggie a moment to realize what the woman's question meant, and when she did, she set the radio down on the ground, leveled her shotgun before her, and swung it in a circle as she scanned for this Rex person.

 

[HumanBean]

Brad was conflicted about letting Maggie lead the way to the Inspection Station. Should he feel less than a man for letting a woman take point? He wasn't a chauvinist or anything like that. But the fact of the matter was that Maggie knew this post-apocalyptic world better than he did. And she was both better with and more confident with their guns. Brad felt safer with her out front, to be honest.

"I kinda figured this," Maggie said when they reached the truck and found the woman dead and partially devoured. "Sorry."

This was the first time in half a year that Brad had been this close to a Dark Seeker's leftovers. He'd been so sheltered for so long.

Then a voice came over a radio. Brad knew what it was immediately. The woman called for someone named Belinda.

Before Brad could react, Maggie was saying into the radio, "Hello. Who is this? Who am I talking to, and where are you?"

The response came back, "Who the fuck are you, and why do you have Belinda's radio?"

This time, Maggie looked to Brad. He shook his head, then reached out a hand for the radio. The woman on the radio asked, "Where are Belinda and Rex? What have you done with them?"

Brad watched Maggie quickly go on guard. He didn't immediately realize that this Rex could be a threat. Instead, he said into the radio, "My name is Brad. I'm very sorry to tell you this, but we found this radio with a dead woman. I'm assuming this is your Belinda."

There was silence before the woman gave a physical description of Belinda. It matched the corpse. Brad said, "Sorry. Yes. Your friend is dead."

"Dark Seekers?" the woman asked. Brad explained what he and Maggie had heard last night. The woman asked, "What about Rex?"

"We haven't seen anyone else yet," Brad said. He asked, "Would he have returned to wherever it is that you are after Belinda..."

Brad didn't finish. The woman would understand his hesitation. She answered back, "I doubt it. He's 9 years old."

Looking to Maggie with sudden concern, he asked into the radio, "Nine?" There was silence. Brad said, "I told you my name. "What's yours?"

There was another pause, then, "Carol."

"Nice to meet you, Carol," Brad said, clarifying, "In a way, at least."

Brad spun suddenly when he heard movement behind him. He did his best to hold the shotgun and radio both but dropped the latter. He scrambled in panic to catch it before it hit the pavement but failed. The case broke off and the battery popped out. He picked it up, put it back together best he could, then asked, "Carol? Can you hear me? Carol? I dropped the radio. Can you hear me still?"

There was nothing. He looked for the source of the unexpected sound but saw nothing. Looking back to Maggie, Brad shrugged, unsure of what to do next.

Then, the sound repeated. Brad immediately realized that the source was inside the cabover truck. Again, he turned his attention to the shotgun, pointing it at the truck's door. He realized that his heart was pounding like a jack hammer.

As he looked back and forth between the truck and Maggie, Brad finally saw movement. A moment later, he realized it was a person inside the truck. A male. A boy. Obviously, Rex. Again, Brad looked to Maggie for direction.

 

[AmyRoberts]

As she surveyed their surroundings for this Rex guy, who might very well have been about to shoot the both of them down, Maggie heard her partner say into the radio, "My name is Brad."

She turned and looked at him with a surprised expression on her face. She wasn't entirely certain that they should be giving out personal information to someone at the other end of a radio signal. But Brad continued, tell the woman that her friend was dead. The woman asked, "Dark Seekers?" Brad described the previous night's excitement, to which the woman asked, "What about Rex?"

They talked back and forth, discovering that they were looking for a 9-year-old boy and that the woman on the other end of the conversation was named Carol. Maggie was about to tell Brad to ask if Carol was alone or part of a community, when suddenly both she and Brad heard noise. Maggie not only identified the sound as coming from the truck's cab but saw the boy moving about, too. She instinctively pointed her weapon at the window behind which the boy was rising farther into view.

Maggie found Brad looking to her for direction and ordered, "Watch the door ... and don't shoot me!"

She hurried to the passenger door, jerking at the handle, hoping it would be unlocked. It wasn't, which made her grumble random profanities as she hurried around to the driver's side. That door was actually unlocked. Maggie through the door open, pointing her own shotgun upwards and hollering out, "Don't move! Show me your hands!"

The boy, sitting in the driver's seat, did as Maggie said, crying out, "Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!"

"Get down here!" Maggie ordered. The boy didn't hesitate, sliding out of the seat to the step, then to the ground. Maggie slung the weapon over her shoulder, next to the rifle she was also carrying, and grabbed the boy. As she roughly checked him for weapons under his coat and in his waist band, she asked, "What happened...? How did you end up in there and she ended up out here?"

He jumped into a frightened, stumbling explanation that boiled down simply to the two of them -- Rex and Belinda -- getting caught outside at dusk last night, fleeing in an unfamiliar direction, and ending up in the terminal as Dark Seekers caught up to them. "I got inside the truck, but Bel' didn't. She told me to stay down and stay quiet." He was already teared up, but now he began sobbing. "They killed her."

Rex peeked over at his traveling partner but then looked away quickly; he didn't want to see Belinda like that. He begged, "I want to go home, please! Can I go home?"

"Do you know where you live?" Maggie asked. She clarified her question, "Can you get us there from here?"

Rex shook his head. "No. I know where I live, but ... I don't know how to get there from here."

Maggie looked to Brad with a smirk, then back to Rex. "Tell us where you live, and we'll get you home. I promise."

The boy looked between the two adults, his expression, body language, and hesitance revealing to Maggie that he'd been trained not to reveal his peoples' location. Maggie knelt before the boy and with a soft tone told him, "Rex ... it's Rex, right...? I promise you, we won't hurt you or any of your friends or family. We want to get you back to your people ... back to Carol. Who is she to you: friend, family...?"

"Aunt," he said. "Aunt Carol. My mom's sister." He looked to Brad and back to Maggie again, then quietly asked, "Promise?"

"Promise," Maggie said, crossing a fingertip over her chest. "Listen, we should get out of here." She stood and offered a hand to Rex. "Come with us to our house. It's very safe. No one will hurt you there. I promise."

Rex hesitantly took Maggie's hand, after which she looked to Brad and said, "We should go home now."

 

[HumanBean]

"Watch the door," Maggie ordered, adding, "...and don't shoot me!"

Brad lifted his gun's barrel toward the door. Maggie moved to do whatever it was she was going to do. Only then did it occur to him that maybe he should be offended by her warning. Maybe not, though. When they'd been target practicing, he'd accidentally discharged a round into the air. Better there than into Maggie or me, Brad thought now.

He watched as she dealt with the boy. She seemed to be just the right balance of scary cop and sensitive social worker.
She told Rex, "Tell us where you live, and we'll get you home. I promise."

They talked about Carol again, and Rex looked to the radio. He might be able to fix it later. Right now, though, Maggie was telling him, "We should go home now."

"What about her?" he asked, pointing at the corpse. Before Maggie could answer, Brad was running off toward another truck. It wasn't a container hauler. It was a flat bed. He'd seen lots of them come here for reasons that had had nothing to do with containers. "Give me a minute."

Brad began opening the cubby holes on the cab's side until he found what he needed: a tarp. He pulled it out and unfolded it. Taking his knife to it, he cut out a big chunk. Returning, he laid it out beside Belinda. Grimacing at the mess she was now, he carefully rolled her onto the tarp, then rolled her up in it.

Thankfully, she wasn't 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. He picked up the closer-to-petite woman and threw her over his shoulder. Heading east, he said, "Okay, let's go."

Brad was sweating by the time they reached the Castle. He was in good shape, but Belinda was 130 pounds of dead weight, it was hot, and they'd practically ran. He wasn't sure why they were hurrying. Actually, Brad was hurrying because he didn't like it out here. And for all they knew, Aunt Carol was supporting a sniper's rifle against a truck chassis, preparing to put a bullet through his back.

They used the elevator to get back inside the Castle. Rex found the contraption intriguing, even asking, "Can we do it again? Go down and up?"

"Later," Brad said, "when we take you home to your Aunt."

They got to his place for some water and food. Brad made some lemonade for the boy and offered him anything he wanted to eat that he could find in the kitchen. Brad was allergic to peanuts, so he had a case of Snickers bars just sitting there unopened.

Surprisingly, or maybe not so, when they gave Rex a place to sit comfortably, he fell asleep in less than a minute. Brad gestured Maggie outside, asking, "Now what? Without the radio..."

He recalled what the boy had said. "Rex says he knows his address. Can we get him there safely? Do we try?"

 

[AmyRoberts]

"Can we do it again?" Rex asked about the pallet platform elevator after he'd ridden up with Brad. He clarified, "Go down and up?"

"Later," Brad said, "when we take you home to your aunt."

Maggie was still at the bottom of the wall with Belinda's tarp-wrapped body, but she could hear the conversation taking place 40 feet above her. She never tired of the peace and quiet of the post-apocalyptic world in which they now lived. Occasionally, someone drove a car through the neighborhood or fired up a piece of equipment; sometimes there was gunfire or the sound of a hammer or saw or ax.

But the vast, vast majority of Human-made sounds that had once filled Maggie's ears at all hours of the day, even back on the family's rural farm, no longer existed. The most common sound she heard anymore was the wind and/or things being jostled around by it.

After she and Belinda's body rode the elevator up to the top and she alone continued onward, leaving the dead woman where she was, the three of them sat down to a meal, followed by Rex quickly collapsing into a badly needed nap. Outside again, Brad asked Maggie, "Now what? Without the radio..."

"We have to get him to his aunt," Maggie said, speaking the obvious task at hand.

"Rex says he knows his address," Brad reminded her. "Can we get him there safely? Do we try?"

"Absolutely," Maggie said without hesitation. "This is a perfect opportunity to begin populating your little kingdom." She smiled and chuckled softly; Brad always looked a bit uncomfortable when she made King or Kingdom references, but she loved doing it. "If he knows the actual physical address of where he lives, I think I should go out there and look for this Aunt Carol. You keep Rex with you. Whaddaya think?"

It was still early in the day, so after Rex awoke from his nap, Maggie would get the address from him and head out. She continued, "I think we find this Carol, determine what the living situation, and figure out how to get these people -- or person, if it's only Carol now -- to come to the Castle to trade or live or ... whatever."

 

[HumanBean]

"We have to get him to his aunt," Maggie told Brad when he asked what was next.

She talked about it being the perfect opportunity to begin the task of building their envisioned community. Brad couldn't help but feel excited at Maggie's words. He would never have attempted something like this before her arrival. Now, though, he couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it on his own.

"I think I should go out there and look for this Aunt Carol," Maggie said. "You keep Rex with you. Whaddaya think?"

Brad didn't like the idea of Maggie going out there all on her own. But then, she'd been out there for more than a year. She'd done fine, most of that time on her own, she'd told him. This was something she had to do without him.

"I have something I never had a use for until now," Brad told her. He said he'd be back in a bit. When he returned, he had a box filled with walkie-talkies. "I've been on my own until now, so these were just sitting in one of the containers. I put them on the solar panel charger yesterday, just in case."

They tested to see if Carol or anyone else could hear them on the radios. The devices were exactly military grade communications tools. They were a $60 set typically bought for preteens to have fun with for a few days after Christmas. After several minutes, they'd gotten no response.

The two of them spent a few minutes discussing communications. They developed some code words for Maggie to indicate if she was under duress. Things like that. They woke Rex after a couple of hours of napping. They served him fun food and sugary drinks to make him happy and trusting of them.

They questioned him about where he lived. Brad and Maggie both were surprised to discover that Rex and his people were living in the Marriott Hotel directly opposite the Newark Liberty Airport from the container terminal. (Maps link) There was barely a mile in between the Marriott and the Castle.

They questioned Rex about how many people lived there and whether or not they had guns. Brad explained, "Maggie's going to go find your Aunt Carol and let her know that you are safe and want to come home, but if your Aunt or anyone else thinks that Maggie is a bad guy and they shoot at her..."

It took some prodding to get any answers. It was obvious that the boy had been trained not to give up information. He was only 9 years old, but he had the intelligence training of an adult spy. They altered the questions several times to look for inconsistencies in Rex's answers, until they felt confident about what Maggie was walking into.

"I want you to take something with you," Brad said. He opened a backpack and set it on the kitchen table. Then, digging around in his cupboards, he came back with some lightweight but nutritious foods. "Take these as an offering. It might help you convince them that we are someone worth being friends with."

They shared some final words. Brad demanded, "Don't get shot. Come back before dark. Come back with good news if you can but come back either way. I'll keep good care of Rex."

 

[AmyRoberts]

Maggie was tickled to see the walkie talkies that Brad dragged out of a box. They tried to raise Rex's aunt with no luck. Either the little radio's four channels weren't the same frequencies Carol used or the radios simply weren't powerful enough to reach her. They filled her backpack with good food and goodies both before they headed for the elevator.

.........................................
​

They'd used a better map to determine that it was almost exactly 10,000 feet -- 1.9 miles -- from the Castle to the Marriott. (Google Maps link) The twists and turns and zigzagging made the trek just about two miles, which was nothing when compared to the 1,200 miles Maggie had covered between KC and Newark. And yet it was still a scary two miles, because she knew that someone would be expecting her and, possibly, be watching her through a rifle scope.

Maggie worked her way across the container terminal, the access road, the freeway, and the airport to finally reach the perimeter of the Marriott property. She rushed forward to a small grouping of mostly evergreens and waited almost an hour, just watching and listening.

She eventually opened her pack and took out and unfolded a white bedding sheet that had been cut down to about 4 by 6 feet. She then put together a three-piece, 12-foot-long flagpole Brad had found God knows where. She attached the flag to the pole, hesitated, then ran about ten yards out into the open of the Marriott's grassy lawn. She rammed the pole into the soil, then turned and ran back.

Maggie turned to examine her work: the white flag fluttered in the light breeze, occasionally wafting open enough to flash the spraypainted name on it: REX. She murmured to herself, "Okay, well ... now we wait."

.........................................​

It was almost an hour later before Maggie got a response. In the shade of the hotel's arrival was movement, and soon a woman carrying her own white flag came out into the sunlight. The woman -- it would turn out to be Carol, of course -- flashed her own reflective surface, announcing her presence for certainty.

Maggie stood and walked forward to be seen. Then, almost simultaneously, they began toward each other. Maggie had her shotgun slung over her shoulder while her right hand rested on the butt of the 9mm pistol in her belt.* The woman approaching Maggie planted her own flag in the lawn at the end of the parking lot. As she moved forward, she, too, had her hand on the butt of a gun. They stopped just 20 feet apart.

They traded names, with Carol asking, "Is Rex okay?"

Maggie answered by carefully pulling a smart phone from her shirt's breast pocket and offering it out. "Tap the screen twice and scroll up."

The phone no longer worked as a phone, of course -- no more network service -- but its camera worked fine, at least when Maggie remembered to charge it off the small rollup solar panel she'd keep all these months. She already had the video clip cued up, so Carol found herself watching Maggie and Rex -- the latter smiling wide and giggling -- as he held a giant, red and yellow stuffed dragon in one hand and a fistful of Snickers bars in the other.

Carol thanked Maggie and offered the phone back. They discussed Belinda, not that there was much more to be said. Maggie said. "If you come back with me, we can arrange some sort of cart for you to use to--"

"Back where?" Carol interrupted. She had a suddenly suspicious expression on her face. "Where's Rex?"

Maggie hesitated; she and Brad had decided that it was best not to reveal the location of the Castle just yet. "If you come with me, I promise that you and Rex will be safe and will come back here just as soon as you want."

"What happened on the radio yesterday?" Carol asked. "We were talking ... then nothing."

Maggie laughed. "Yeah, about that. My clumsy partner dropped your radio and broke it."

They discussed their respective partners in general terms, leaving the other believing that said partner was looking at them through a scope. Carol pulled out her radio and said, "Sunny skies." A moment later, a male voice responded, "Copy." Carol smiled, saying, "You're safe."

Maggie spoke into her own radio, "It's warmer than normal," then repeated the guarantee to Carol, "You're safe, too." Of course, Maggie's potential sniper was back at the Castle, not that Carol needed to know that. Maggie asked Brad to give the radio to Rex, and the boy and his aunt talked about chocolate bars and, more solemnly, Rex's mother. He told his aunt, "Momma's dead. The monsters got her."

"I know, honey," Carol said. "But you're safe. I'll see you in a little while, honey. I'm on my way, okay?"

Carol studied Maggie a moment, then said into her radio, "Richard, I'm going with our new friend here to collect Rex. I'll be back shortly." She gestured a sweeping hand to Maggie, saying, "Okay. Lead the way."

"Before we go," Maggie said, gesturing that she was going to shed her pack before actually doing it. She knelt to one knee, then started pulling things out of the pack: cans of fruit and beans, big plastic bags of rice, dry beans, and barley flour, and -- of course -- some Snicker's bars. She piled them up, stood up.

"These are for your people," Maggie explained. "A little goodwill gesture." She said with a humorous tone, "Personally, I didn't want to give up the candy bars, but Rex said you'd like them as much as he did."

Carol's lips had slowly spread during the time Maggie was unloading until now she was showing her teeth in a delighted smile. "Thank you, Maggie. You didn't have to do this ... but ... thank you."

She almost explained that her little community had been heavily rationing for the last three months, having already scavenged those parts of the hotel that are safe to access, as well as a couple of the buildings in the area. There were a lot of rooms and a lot of buildings that they should have been able to loot, but they had a problem: with the power grid down, most of them had rooms or entire floors that were shrouded in darkness all day long, and they knew that there were Dark Seekers in them.

"Can I...?" Carol asked, gesturing to her radio again. When Maggie nodded, the woman keyed the mike and said, "Richard, there's a pile of things down here where I am that you'll want to come and get after I've contacted you and told you you're clear." She looked to Maggie, saying, "I don't mean to sound as if I doubt you, right after you--"

"No, no," Maggie interrupted. "I'd be careful, too." She keyed her own walkie talkie, asking, "Brad, will you give the radio to Rex again?"

A moment later, the boy said, "I'm here."

"Rex, how many friends do I have back there?" Maggie asked, quickly saying, "It's alright for him to tell the truth, Brad."

"Just Brad and you, Maggie," the boy said.

"Thank you, Rex. Carol and I will see you in a few minutes." She stored the radio, explaining, "When we started heading back my direction and you don't see me meet up with a lookout or sniper, I just wanted you to know that it's because I'm all alone out here."

Carol stepped up to within arms-reach and offered her hand. She introduced herself formally, "Carol King. And no, not the singer."

The other woman chuckled, taking the offered hand and saying, "Maggie Johnson."

.........................................​

They chatted softly on the way back to the Castle but spent most of the time checking the area around them. Maggie didn't expect any surprised at midday, but then she hadn't expected Belinda last night, Rex this morning, and Carol now, had she?

Maggie confirmed that she was one of just two occupants of where they were heading, explaining that she'd started her post-apocalyptic life in Kansas City. Carol told Maggie that she was one of 7 people after Belinda's death: Vivian and Richard, who were siblings who were from the Bronx and had been in Newark awaiting family who were flying in from California but whose plane had unexplainably crashed before landing; Victor and Tatiana, the latter of who had worked at the Russian Consulate and the former of whom had been her Russian-American lover from Brooklyn; Gwendolyn, who had been a member of the Marriott's housekeeping staff on that day; and, of course, Rex, whose mother had brought him to the airport that day from Philadelphia to put him on a plane to his father's home in Florida.

As they began moving deeper into the PNCT, Carol began to realize the potential of this place, and when she saw the actual Castle, she was very impressed with Brad's forethought.


* OOC: We meant to post that they'd made another trip to the gun store to salvage some of the damaged but potentially workable weapons and forgot to do so. I don't know how many weapons HumanBean wants us to have, but there will be at least the 9mm pistol Maggie is carrying.

 

[HumanBean]

Brad and Rex were playing Crazy 8's when Maggie's voice came over the radio: "We're back"

He snatched up the walkie talkie, responding, "Be at the elevator in two minutes."

He and Rex gathered up some bottled water. Brad thought the women might need refreshment and rehydration.

The two males climbed the 4 extension ladders to the top of the wall. Brad thought that Rex liked the ladders as much as the pallet elevator.

They reached the top and found the two women walking side by side toward the Castle. As they covered the last bit of the walk, Brad couldn't help but notice that Carol was, like Maggie, a beautiful woman. That pleased Brad, obviously.

"Coming down!" he announced as he remotely operated the container carrier forward toward the wall. The elevator moved into place, dangling beyond the wall.

"Can I ride it down?" Rex asked excitedly.

"Why not?" Brad answered.

He carefully helped the boy onto the pallet. He activated the control, and Rex started downward. The boy was simultaneously laughing in joy and hanging onto the ropes for dear life.

Rex carefully rose to his feet as he neared the bottom. Then, leaning forward, he fell into his aunt's arms, again laughing.

Brad looked to Maggie, smiling. He had great hopes that this was the start of a good friendship.

 

[AmyRoberts]

Carol smiled wide at the sight of her nephew atop the Castle wall. They waved to each other as if they hadn't seen each other in months, not hours. She couldn't help but call up to him as he mounted the elevator, "Be careful, Rex!"

"I'm being careful!" he called back, countering her motherly concern. He was actually feigning more confidence in his abilities than the trust he had in the elevator, which while fun to ride was also a bit scary.

Maggie looked to Brad, smiling just as the other woman had. She'd caught his set gaze on Carol and knew what was going through his mind. She didn't blame him for being attracted to the woman as she herself had found the woman beautiful, too. Even though most of her romantic entanglements had been with males, Maggie had been known to spend some time naked with other women, too.

Rex leapt into his aunt's when the elevator was near to the ground, showing the agility and courage of a child who'd likely never been seriously hurt before. He'd become more careful once he'd broken an arm or cut deep into his flesh during some reckless play.

"Okay, back on, you little terror," Carol told her nephew.

The two of them boarded the pallet together to ride back up to the wall's top. They stepped off at the top with a hand from Brad, who lowered the elevator for Maggie's return. As she ascended, she listened to the introductions between the two adults, as well as the excited explanations from Rex of what he'd seen inside the Castle. Once Maggie was at the top again, the four of them made their ways down the ladders to the bailey.

"Why don't I make us some lunch," Maggie suggested, telling Brad, "You should show our newest guest around." They wanted Carol to see what the Castle could offer her, Rex, and the others currently living in the Marriot's basement levels.

 

[HumanBean]

"Why don't I make us some lunch," Maggie told the trio. To Brad she said, "You should show our newest guest around."

"Sounds like a plan," Brad answered. Looking to Carol he asked, "Wanna take a walk and see the place?"

"Absolutely," Carol said. To Rex, she said, "Go help Maggie ... and no more candy bars."

The boy grimaced but nodded acknowledgement. He headed off toward Brad's home. They were still making all the meals there. That might change at some point. But for now, it worked.

​

"Shall we?" Brad asked Carol.

He gave her an inviting gesture. He led her toward the cargo containers in the south of the bailey's yard. He talked about how he (and more recently he and Maggie) had used a list of container contents to find things of value. He listed some of the foods he had: canned tomatoes from Mexico, canned juices from Costa Rica, Spam-like meats from Vietnam, cooking oils from Indonesia, and more.

"There's some refrigerated and frozen foods, too," Brad said. He pointed west, not that they could see that part of the yard, obviously. "You might have heard a generator running when you passed by it. Most of the fresh foods are gone by now. I ate what I could and piled up what was left. I, um..."

He blushed at what he was about to say next. "After the last of the meat was gone, I created some snares for catching the legs of seagulls when they flew in to eat the spoiled stuff. I know it might sound cruel, but I wasn't put on this planet to be a vegetarian."

Brad pointed them north again. As they continued, he told her about some of the things he'd salvaged for purposes other than nutrition: propane and natural gas burners, such as heaters, stoves, and lanterns; exercise machines and free weights; various tools; the mattresses that he and Maggie used.

"We don't sleep together," he said quickly, feeling as though he needed to clarify that. "We're not ... you know, together." He pointed to his home, then Maggie's. "She's still making her home comfortable."

They continued onward as he began speaking about creating the Castle. "It's a pretty safe place. There's no gate to the outside, yet, but we're going to put one in. Or not! I've been thinking about that more. Maggie has some great ideas on how we can better secure the Terminal."

Brad freely told Carol all about the ideas for an outer wall, gates, and narrow lanes for controlling the flow of people. He didn't see any reason not to tell her. After all, he and Maggie wanted to build a community. Getting more residents meant making people feel comfortable and safe.

 

[AmyRoberts]

Brad asked Carol, "Wanna take a walk and see the place?"

"Absolutely," she responded.

She watched Maggie head off with her nephew and followed the man away. She peeked back over her shoulder at Maggie and found herself happy for the woman's departure. Just as Brad had thought of her when he first saw her up close, Carol thought Brad was very attractive. After the man had shown her the containers to the south and spoke of the refrigeration units outside the Castle's wall, he had what he thought was reason to explain his relationship -- or lack thereof -- with Maggie.

"You don't have to explain to me, Brad," she said with a polite smile and tone. Again, she looked in the direction Maggie and Rex had gone, then looked to her male host and said, "I am surprised, though. Not because I would have expected you to have a relationship with Maggie ... but because I would have expected her to want one with you." She hesitated a moment to see if Brad understood where she was going with this, and when he said nothing, she smiled again and told him, "You're a very handsome man, Brad."

Before the conversation went any farther or, instead, became awkward, Rex hollered to them, "Lunch! Come'n get it!"

"Will you show me the rest after we eat, Brad?" Carol asked, gesturing casually to the north end of what he sometimes called the bailey.

They joined the other two, sitting down to the closest thing to a full meal that Carol had seen in more than half a year. Looking at fresh bread, meat and vegetables, reconstituted powder milk, and more, she said with amazement, "This is incredible!"

They began eating, and part way through the meal, Maggie whispered to Brad, "Did you ask her?" She meant, of course, did he ask Carol if she and her people would be interested in becoming part Bartertown or, at the least, begin trading with them.

 

[HumanBean]

Brad smiled at Carol's compliment, "You're a very handsome man, Brad."

"Thank you," he said, feeling the heat of a blush fill his face. He didn't understand why, at his age, such comments still embarrassed him. His only thought was to return the compliment. "So are you. Attractive, I mean. Not handsome--"

His awkwardness was thankfully interrupted by Rex hollering, "Lunch! Come'n get it!"

"Will you show me the rest after we eat, Brad?" Carol asked regarding the Castle.

"Of course," he responded. "I'd be happy to."

Maggie and the boy had quite a layout for them all. Carol reacted, "This is incredible!"

"I never ate this well before Maggie's arrival," Brad confessed. "I usually ate a can of this or a can of that. Maggie has really made herself at home in my kitchen."

He looked to the first woman to join his community. "I've been thinking that we need to setup a kitchen in another container, centrally located for all, rather than the one in my home."

They talked about the idea for a while. Then Maggie leaned into Brad and whispered, "Did you ask her?"

"No, not yet," Brad answered. He looked to Carol and found her looking at him. She'd heard Maggie's question, obviously. He finished his mouthful, then began: "I know that there are more people out there still alive. Survivors of the pandemic and the Dark Seekers. I know that some of them are living hard, unsecured, frightened lives. I'd like--"

Brad stopped. He looked to Maggie, then continued, with acknowledgment of her. "Maggie and I would like to extend an invitation to you and your people to live here in the Castle with us."

"Yes!" Rex called out, a piece of food firing forward from his mouth, making him laugh.

"Maggie and I have been working on some ideas for securing the entire Port Newark Container Terminal. From the access road to the water, tall container walls like those that keep the Castle safe. If you wanted, you could live here. You, Rex, and your other people."

 

[AmyRoberts]

Brad told Carol. "Maggie and I would like to extend an invitation to you and your people to live here in the Castle with us."

"Yes!" Rex called out without hesitation.

Carol laughed at the boy's enthusiasm. She knew that living as they had since the rise of the Dark Seekers had been hard on the boy. Having his mother with him had helped, of course; every boy needs his mother, no matter how old, mature, and independent he believes himself to be. Belinda was gone now, less than half a day ago. The only reason he wasn't falling apart now was that he could see a better future ahead of him now, one that his mother had been trying to find for him.

Brad told Carol about the ideas he and Maggie had for the terminal. "If you wanted, you could live here. You, Rex, and your other people."

Carol looked to Maggie, the latter nodding her head and saying, "There's plenty of room, obviously. More than that ... it's safe here ... and there are so many opportunities. There's only one thing missing: people. To do the things Brad and I are contemplating requires people. You and your people ... how many did you say...?"

"Seven," Carol said. She looked to the boy, saying, "Rex and I, obviously--"

"Viv, Rick, Vic, Tat, and Gwen," Rex cut in quickly, a proud expression on his face for having named the others so quickly and efficiently by their nicknames. He didn't realize that Carol had only planned on giving the number of others without specifics.

With Rex having already giving that much, Carol clarified, "Vivian, Richard, Victor, Tatiana, and Gwendolyn."

"Well, they're all welcome," Maggie said with a bit of lilt in her tone as she looked to the boy. "You're all welcome." She looked again to Carol. "We think this could be a safe, prosperous home for you all ... and more, if we get the word out."

The two women eyed each other a moment before Carol smiled wider. "I'll talk to my people. But ... I have questions."

"I'm not surprised," Maggie responded. "Do you want to ask them now?"

"What do you expect from us first," Carol asked. "I mean, if you're looking for slave labor..."

Maggie laughed. "No, not slave labor. There is work to be done, obviously. But no one would be expected to work like a slave. And..." She looked to Brad as she spoke, looking for confirmation of what she was saying, "...we'll be working side by side with you. I mean ... this is Brad's place ... his Castle. He's in charge. But he's no dictator either."

She paused to see if Brad had something to add, clarify, or contradict.

 

[HumanBean]

Brad listened to Maggie explain what the two of them wanted from Carol and her friends. She looked to him for his input. He shrugged.

"That's pretty much it," he said simply. "We have a lot to offer. All we ask is..."

He paused, uncertain of what to say. He hadn't really thought about it in great detail. He was sure he was supposed to ask for an appropriate level of effort. Labor. That was a gimme. He confirmed, "Maggie's right. We're not looking for slaves. We want people to want to work. To work to make this place better, for everyone."

What about a command structure? he asked himself. Yeah, the Castle was his. He'd built it. He'd lived here more than a year. It was his home. But it was Maggie's now, too. And it could be Carol's, Rex's, and the others' home, too.

Brad had always thought himself a very fair man. As a child he'd been taught to share. But back to a command structure, was he fully in charge? Was he, in fact, to be a dictator? No. No, I'm not. But...

"I don't think it would be inappropriate or unfair for me to be in charge," Brad said tentatively. "But no, I wouldn't be an autocrat. A dictator. If ... if people didn't like what was happening..."

He wanted to reassure Carol that he wasn't going to be dictator, as Maggie had already said. But he also didn't want to give up control of the Castle by declaring the community a democracy. Democracy and voting rights meant the possibility of being dethroned.

 

[AmyRoberts]

Brad seemed hesitant in speaking about the form of government that would be found in the Castle. It was a strange thing to be talking about, Carol admitted; there had been Brad, there now was Brad and Maggie, and now there was going to be the two of them and seven more. Did that constitute a community that required a government?

He was explaining, "If ... if people didn't like what was happening--"

"Then we'll sit down and talk about it then," Carol said, eliminating the need for him to continue by finishing, "I don't think there's a need to explain it in detail right now. I trust you." She looked between the two of them, adding, "Both of you."

She looked at her watch and stood, telling them, "There's just enough time for me to get safely back before sunset." Looking to Rex, she smiled wide and said, "I know you'd like to stay here overnight--"

"Can I?" he asked excitedly.

"I think you should come with me," Carol said with a firm tone. "We need to talk to the others--"

"But what if they don't want to come here?" Rex asked with great concern. "I wanna live here--"

Carol waved the boy silent, saying, "Settle down." She looked to Brad and Maggie, the back to Rex. "We're going to live here."

The kid jumped up and down, then surged forward into his aunt's body, wrapping his arms around her. She laughed at his enthusiasm, and when he finally pulled away, she explained, "But if we're going to live here, we need to collect our things, right? Clothes, toys ... that kind of stuff."

"Okay!" he said, turning and bouncing over to hug Maggie, then Brad before turning back to take Carol's hand and begin pulling her toward the container home's exit, urging, "Let's go, let's get our stuff and come back!"

Carol looked back to the other adults again, asking, "This is okay, yes?"

Maggie was okay with it, and she was sure Brad would be, too. She asked, "Do you want an escort?" What she meant was Do you need an ARMED escort? What Maggie was thinking was If your friends don't want to come back and try to stop you, will you need someone with a gun to help convince them?

"No, no," Carol said, still being tugged by the boy. "I'll be fine ... and I know the way. You know, we always knew that the container terminal was here, but it never occurred to us to come here ... to build what you've built. I'm very impressed that you not only thought of it but did it ... accomplished it. Congratulations."

If Brad had nothing more to say, the two women were done. Maggie knew that Brad was more suited for operating the elevator, so she would leave that to him. She'd stay behind to clean up after dinner, then wait for him to return.