Up From Ashes (Closed)

[LeChatNoir]

Eddie Pearson awoke, as he had every day for the past five years, to the silent vibration of the wristwatch on his left wrist. The faintly luminous dial read 0530 – still dark at this time of mid-autumn, but it was time to be up and working. With an audible groan, Eddie swung his legs over the edge of the camp cot and stamped his feet into the black leather combat boots that awaited on the concrete floor. He was still sore from the work of the day before – being forty years old just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. At his age, a man should be comfortably ensconced in a career, hitting the peak of his earning, and living pretty. Maybe a house in the suburbs with a well-stocked liquor cabinet and a man cave in the basement, a couple of kids, a pretty wife (preferably one who liked to give head, if you’d asked him), and maybe even a cabin on a lake somewhere with lots of fish and only a dirt road leading to it. That was, by this point, the most absurd of fantasies.

Shaking his head at himself, he pushed himself to his feet with work-muscled arms. He slept fully clothed, as most people did these days, ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice. It was one thing to sleep in the buff when you were snoring away on Maple Lane next to your lovely wife (who liked to give head). It was another thing entirely to sleep in the nude when you might have to wake up suddenly and kill whatever was coming over your perimeter, or leap over it yourself and run for your life. If the last few years had taught Eddie anything, it was that Thomas Hobbes had been right, life was nasty, brutish, and short; and sleeping in your clothes might make the difference between waking up in time to grab your gun and waking up as the machete came crashing through your skull. For some reason, not having your junk out there flapping in the breeze made the thought of fight or flight somewhat more conceivable.

It had been five years, more or less, since the Dying Time. People tried not to talk about it, almost like talking about it might make it come again. The truth of the matter was probably not so superstitious – talking about it made the pain of living through it come again. Not for the first time, Eddie mused that the dead might have been the lucky ones. They hadn’t had to deal with the chaos of the first and second years, when no one knew what to do or how to do it. They hadn’t had to deal with the desperation of the third and fourth years, when people finally started to realize that no, the world wasn’t going to go back to being the way it was. The electricity wasn’t going to come on again. The municipal water plants weren’t going to start up. The police weren’t going to return to their jobs, and the farmers weren’t suddenly going to start producing little shrink-wrapped portions of meat that miraculously showed up in the grocery stores as if by magic. The fifth year might have been the worst. That was when the marauders started to really get organized. Whole sections of cities became no-go zones, where marauder gangs imposed their will on anyone and anything unlucky enough to be found there.

It had been year three when Evangeline died. The worst part of her death was how eminently preventable it really would have been, given even basic social order. She hadn’t been captured by marauders, or done in by roving bandits, or even fallen from a horse and broken her neck. She’d stepped on a piece of rusty re-bar and cut her leg. It wasn’t even all that bad a cut, but it was bad enough. It’s funny how, when something like that happens, you suddenly wonder how long it’s been since you’ve had a tetanus booster. In Evangeline’s case, it had been too long. Eddie and Evangeline had been together for almost four years by that point, a pre-Time girlfriend who had shown remarkable resilience and grit in the face of the apocalypse. Eddie had taken a huge risk and buried her out on the hill, facing east to watch the sunrise. The hill was in marauder country, but Eddie was pretty strong and had worked quickly. Maybe her grave hadn’t been the regulation six feet deep, but it was plenty deep enough to hold her slender body. He had lived alone ever since.

“Pearson, you stupid fool. Quit mooning and get with it,” he muttered to himself. “Ain’t no one going to cry when you’re gone, so maybe you ought to keep yourself alive another few days, huh?”

Washing his hands in the pan of water in the small kitchen area of his shelter and then running wet hands through his shoulder-length dark hair to push it into some semblance of order, Eddie contemplated what all needed to be done that day. The catchbasin on the roof was nearly full, so the water needed to be drained into the holding tank. The perimeter wire needed to be inspected to make sure that nothing had stumbled into it in the night, and a check needed to be made for any signs of marauders. And, of course, he had to look for food. Looking for food was an almost constant activity. Even when he got lucky and was able to take a deer or other protein source, man didn’t live on meat alone, or at least not very well. He had managed to rig up a rooftop garden on one of the adjacent buildings, but it required a lot of tending, and he wasn’t really all that good at agriculture. Fifteen years spent in the Army had taught him a lot about survival, but for some reason, it had all focused on hunting, gathering, orienteering, and escape and evasion. All useful skills, but for some reason, post-apocalyptic agriculture had been left off the course schedule.

Time to assemble the going-out kit. Eddie wrapped the web belt around his trim waist and clipped the buckle shut. That was one good thing about the apocalypse, he ruefully thought, you do lose those stubborn extra pounds. Hanging from the belt were the essentials for going Outside, which was how he thought of everything beyond his own little fortress inside the rotting apartment building that he called home. A Glock 9mm pistol hung by his right hip in a tactical plastic holster, a couple of spare magazines riding securely alongside it. He had several other weapons in the shelter, but their weight just wasn’t worth lugging around on a daily basis. A pouch on the front of his belt held extra water purification tablets, looted at great risk from a Wal-Mart in the early days of the crisis, should the Camelbak water bladder he slung on his back with a practiced motion not provide adequate hydration. It was always smart to be prepared to stay out a little longer than you expected. In that same vein, the pouch also held some emergency rations, a pemmican-like mixture of his own creation wrapped in leaves to preserve it. At his left side hung a K-Bar knife in a leather sheath, blackened metal ground down to a cruelly sharp edge and incredibly useful for a wide variety of survival-related tasks. The back of the belt was reserved for a small but adequate first-aid kit, one that he wished that he’d had back when Evangeline stepped on that re-bar. He had since acquired it, and it never left arm’s reach. Properly equipped, he paused for a moment.

Something just didn’t feel quite right about today. Maybe it was all of his reminiscing earlier, but there was something that just felt wrong, and his time in the Army and the five years since had taught him to trust that intuition. Reaching over alongside the bed, he picked up the semi-automatic Ruger .223 rifle with the 10x sight and slung it over his shoulder, tucking a couple of extra magazines into the cargo pockets of his pants. It was heavy gear to carry around all day, but if he really ran into trouble, he’d be damned glad that he had it. With that, he slid aside the heavy iron bar that braced his reinforced door, and ventured out in the pre-dawn darkness.

 

[RainingHeat]

It was not easy. In fact, it was far from easy. Disguising oneself was never an easy feat. One had to think of everything. Especially if trying to pull off the opposite sex. And no, not a man trying to be a woman. Why would they do that? They were the dominant species now. Human Males. Fuck the woman's movement. Equal this and equal that. All that was just fine and dandy... before.

There was none of that now. As much as Women had wanted to be "treated like a Man" it was just painfully obvious now. Women were not strong enough, did not have the stamina, and alot of times the stomach, to do what needed to be done to simply survive in this world, so many years after the "Dying Time". Men ruled. They were stronger, faster, more stamina, it was what they were, how they were supposed to be. The Hunters. The Providers. The Protectors. Sure, Protectors. Most, were interested in protecting, or getting, one thing. A Female to fuck.

Funny how, even now, in the hell that the world had managed to degrade into, sex, was still the top of the list for men, right up there with food and sleep. Oh and power. We can't forget power. Hell, beer had it's place too. Alot of men saw women now as things to fuck. There were men who gathered harems. Men who pimped out their women. Men who simply kept their woman or women chained up for use. Oh there were some who were "normal" about it. Love, happiness, that little house with the picket fence. OK, perhaps no picket fence. Maybe a house, maybe not. Depended, again, on just where you were in this world, and what status you held. It was a wide range of situations, all depending on where you were, who you were, who you were with....

At least that was how Charly saw it. Charly was her knickname, she was Charlene, or better to say, she had been Charlene. Charlene Elizabeth. But that name no longer mattered. She was just Charly now. And maybe she was jaded. But really, it was simply what she was exposed to is all. She had been all of 16 when the Dying Time started. No, she did not have a family that she lost. No mommy or daddy, no big or little brother or sister to mourn. Before the Dying Time, she had been in and out of foster homes, before running away from the last one. Foster daddy was a bit too huggy kissy for her liking. She was not about to stay there and watch the huggy kissy progress to touchy feely and then to fucky sucky. Nope.

She was living on the streets, in the city, when all hell broke loose. She was one of the "lucky ones" and managed to survive. And, by some stroke of perhaps divine intervention, she was still alive, some 5+ years later. She was far from that city now. It had quickly become apparent that staying in the city, alone, was tandamount to slavery, death, torture, rape, whatever hell one may want to think of.

She credited it to all those foster homes, learning how to sneak, steal, lie, cheat, that had kept her alive this long. But being a lone female was not an ideal situation to be in, not in this world, not in these times. In her eyes, she saw two viable choices. Join a band of roving bandits, steal what was needed, move from place to place, nomads, almost gypsies. The thing was, they were few and far between, and did not just take in strangers who decided they wanted to just join up. The other option was more dangerous, needless to say. The Marauders. They were large, organized, and were multiplying everywhere, like a band of rabid rabbits. Like a gang, there was an initiation. And, they were all male. Females were kept for pleasure, but were never on the front line.

Charly was not about to be "kept for pleasure". She had been fighting to not be just that for the past 5+ years, hell even longer if you count the foster daddys who thought she was only to be used for that.

So, as mentioned already, it was not an easy feat, in fact, far from easy, to disguise oneself as a male, when you are a 21 year old female. Especially if you looked as she did, with her shoulder length mane of deep auburn red hair, sparkling sea green eyes, smooth supple and surprisingly unmarred skin..
Charly, in a word, was gorgeous..

But it was amazing what one could do with surgical bandages and tape, what one could do with braiding and tying her hair up under a bandana/baseball cap. And clothing. It was all about the clothing. That and dirt. She kept her hands and face perpetually dirty, helped to hide her fairer, smoother, skin. And she could pull off the deeper voice, her voice was not girly girl anyway. She was proficient with a pistol, a Glock 9MM to be exact. She hated guns, but in this world, now, you had to do what you had to do. And the Glock was not all she carried. Tucked into her boot, was a long, slender, dagger. The other thing working in her favor was the fact that the Marauders had grown so large, so fast, that the outer bands of the Marauders were populated with, not so smart.... men.

She had passed her initiation. It had not been pretty. She had not wanted to do it. But, it was a matter of pure survival, so she had pressed the barrel of her Glock to the head of the captive, a female, nothing more than a girl her own age, who had been raped and brutalized, thank goodness they had not pressed her to "rape" the girl. Apparently they thought a dozen was enough, there had to be twice that there. She pressed the barrel of her Glock to the girl's head, and fired. Charly had learned to not react to the sound, but this was just wet, disgusting, the body slumping where it was bound. She... "He" had passed, the others laughing and clapping her on the shoulder. No, they really were not very bright.

That had been 3 months ago. She had been living this charade for 3 months. It was not easy, but she stayed to herself, did not talk much, and only participated when she had to. She was known to be a pretty good shot with the Glock, and had only just recently been doing some practicing with a small, automatic crossbow of all things.

This particular morning started out as most. She awoke, well hidden within the basement she had adopted as "home". The small house was abandoned, and a burned shell, about 5 miles from the city. But the basement had survived. It was well enough away from the Marauders that she could be herself there, as long as she was up early, and in disguise before the sun fully rose. Most of the band she was associated with were true cowards, and did not like the dark. She practically lived in it, arriving "home" after dark.. and leaving "home" before the sun really rose. No one bothered here there, because the house above was unlivable and destroyed. It really was perfect. The entrance was well hidden within the rubble.

But there was something wrong with today. Charly could not put her finger on it.

She figured it out as soon as she emerged from the basement. She was in disguise, she never left that basement unless she was dressed as she needed to be. This particular morning, she had hoped to raid the abandoned hospital for some more surgical tape, altho that was always a dicey prospect, given the hospital sometimes occupied and not so abandoned.

She heard voices outside as she made her way up the stairs. Glock in hand, she emerged into the just beginning light of day, to find her band of Marauders surrounding her humble little, burned out, abode.

Charly did not wait to find out what they wanted. She knew this scenario well. She was suspected of something, betrayal, lying, hording, stealing from them, something. It would not help her in any way, shape, manner, or form, to worry about what that something was.

A shot rang out, the bullet hit who she knew to be the leader, in this throat, tearing thru and bursting out the other side as he fell. Another shot, another fell, and Charly was then running, and running fast. And if she was one thing, besides terrified at this moment, it was fast. The confusion that she had created was just enough to allow her those few precious seconds to get into the nearby woods, and it was in there, that she disappeared.

Altho not alone.

They followed, yelling, shooting....and missing, thank God...

She managed to put some distance between them, but she did not slow down in her running. Fear will do that. She was panicked, she did not want to die, or worse. If they found she was a female, that thought made her run faster. She had seen what some of the Marauders did to stray females they found. The fact that she had tricked them for the last 3 months would only piss them off even more.

Unfortunately, in her headlong charge deeper into the woods, and further away from those chasing her and her home, she was not watching, or seeing, where she was going. Not that she would have seen the trap in the first place. These bear traps, leg hold traps, were notoriously had to see or find...

yet... she manged to find one. She triggered it with her right leg, the large bear trap snapping viciously closed, the jagged teeth cutting deep into the leather of the boot she wore, thru to the skin, muscle, if she had NOT been wearing the stiffer leather cowboy boots, there was a good chance it would have gone thru to the bone and perhaps broken her leg, but it did not get that far.

Her forward motion was savagedly stopped, she crashing to the ground, the severe jolt of pain shooting up her leg, around her hip, enveloping the whole of her. Panting, she tried to sit up, but almost any movement sent another agonizing jolt racing thru her. She felt herself wanting to pass out, eyes beginning to roll back, but she fought the sensation, trying to stay coherent. If they found her............

She fell back to the ground, laying there, panting, desperately trying to fight back the intense pain that now churned inside her, radiating from her captured leg. Maybe... she could get it off, but she did not have the strength. It was hard enough to just control her screaming reflex. Back to the ground she went, trembling... looking every bit the young man she had been trying to portray... a young man... trapped.........

 

[LeChatNoir]

The first order of business had been checking the perimeter wire. Eddie had strung up very thin, very strong wire around obvious entrances to his building, each wire with a few improvised noisemakers attached. The idea was not to injure or kill, but to alert him that his defenses were in danger of being breached. That way, he could determine the nature of the threat and the best way to respond, without taking the chance of killing someone who really didn’t need killing. Despite the horrors he’d witnessed over the last five years, Eddie had fought to maintain a sense of right and wrong, and he thought that he’d done a pretty good job of it. It surely wasn’t easy, and it surely wasn’t the same sense of right and wrong that applied in the middle of a pre-Time middle-class existence, but most of the middle class had died right along with everyone else. The only real laws anymore were the whims of whoever had the biggest gang or the biggest gun. That, and the immutable laws of survival.

The wire was intact, the noisemakers all still in place. That meant that, most likely, nothing bigger than a cat or squirrel had been poking around. Even a raccoon would set off the noisemakers, as he’d discovered after being jolted out of a sound sleep several weeks ago. Nearly shit himself when the noisemakers had gone off, but luckily, it had only turned out to be a little, furry bandit, not one of the big and dangerous kinds.

Next, it was time to do some searching for food, and check for signs of marauders. Luckily, the marauders had what he professionally considered to be terrible fieldcraft. They moved in large groups, made lots of noise, and were often drunk or stoned on whatever sort of substance they could make, find, or steal. But their sheer numbers and raw viciousness made them dangerous – they pretty much had no limits on their behavior, only those imposed by their own leadership, which generally amounted to “don’t fuck with the boss, the boss’s girl, or the boss’s food.” Basic rules, but probably best to keep it simple with that crowd.

Eddie’s booted feet carried him east along what had been a minor arterial street back in the days when streets actually carried traffic to and from a city center. Now it was a collection of mostly burned-out small apartment buildings, single-family homes, and small stores. The big box places, Wal-Mart and the like, had pretty much been looted down to the steel support pillars early on in the Time. It had taken longer for people to get desperate enough to loot their local corner market, but eventually, they had. All that was left now was whatever people could make for themselves, or trade for with others. A few small-scale factories still operated, usually on wind or water power, and most of them made ammunition. Ammunition was always in demand.

After a couple of miles of walking, Eddie reached the outskirts of the suburb, where nature had already started to reclaim human construction. Houses were overgrown, windows almost all devoid of glass, and roofs falling in. Weeds poked up through, and actually covered, most of the driveways and some of the streets. Amazing what happened when Streets and Sanitation no longer patched the cracks.

Eddie turned off the road and headed into the woods, hoping that in the still early-morning hours, he’d be able to bag a deer or some other animal for the cookpot. Protein was the hardest nutrient to come by, unless you could shoot it yourself. Fortunately, Eddie was an excellent shot, but that didn’t help if there was nothing to shoot. He unslung the Ruger, chambered a round, and began stalking through the woods, using his ears almost as much as his eyes as he sought game. After about half an hour, he heard a rustling in the bushes up ahead. It didn’t sound quite like a deer, or any other animal that he recognized, but it didn’t exactly sound like a human, either, so he decided to investigate more closely. Circling carefully around the area, he eventually came to a vantage point from which he could see into the small clearing. On the ground was a man, if a rather small, slight man, with something wrong with his leg. Eddie worked his way closer, and was finally able to see that the man’s right leg was caught in a bear trap. The metal jaws had snapped shut on his boot, luckily, or they might have taken his leg off. However, they had obviously cut into his leg, and blood dripped down his boot and onto the forest floor.

Pearson paused, crouched low and out of sight, and considered what to do. Helping this man could cause all sorts of problems – someone was probably chasing him, for one thing, and his ability to move quickly was obviously going to be compromised. He was going to be another mouth to feed, because he probably wasn’t going to be able to take care of himself very well for a while, until that leg healed. And, furthermore, who knew what he’d done to get himself in this position to begin with? He was filthy, his face and hands covered in dirt, his clothing baggy and dirty, as well.

“Ahh, shit.” Eddie knew he was going to go help the guy, no matter how stupid an idea it was. It was part of that “right and wrong” bit. It was just wrong to leave someone stuck in a leg-hold trap in the middle of the forest, with marauders everywhere if the four-legged wild animals didn’t get to him first. Making sure that the safety was on, Eddie slung the rifle back over his shoulder and crept closer. Once he’d gotten sufficiently close, he called out to the man in a hoarse whisper. “Hey! Over here! Can you move?”

 

[RainingHeat]

How many hours had it been? How long had she been laying there? She had hoped that she would gain back enough strength to try and pry open the maw of the bear trap. She had tried, she had actually gotten it open and managed to keep from screaming in agony, but it only, and horrifyingly, snapped shut again, and for a minute, she had thought it had cleaved straight thru the bone of her lower leg. Never mind the near blinding shot of pain. Charly truely thought she was going to pass out, and had spent the better part of an hour or two, crying, sobbing, just trying to get ahold of herself.

“Hey! Over here! Can you move?”

Charly startled at the voice. Between her own thundering heart, her trying to control her breathing and deal with the pain that was only intensifying now in her leg, she had never heard anyone approach. Not that he had approached. Blinking, her eyes still red and wet from her sobbing, altho now she was quiet, she tried to focus in the direction the voice had whispered from, but she could not see anyone. But, it was a man.

Now, to compound her pain, came the cold, chilling grip of fear. After all she had been thru to try and stay safe, to try and stay alive, to try and stay whole, and more than likely whoever this man was, would rip it all away from her, and probably kill her in the process. Already, she had a vision of being raped, right here, leg still in the grip of the trap, before he just slit her throat, or shot her, or .... worse.... Even the thought of him cutting her leg clean off, she wouldn't need that for fucking, and still keeping her alive... for fucking of course.. raced thru her head.

But, it was not like Charly had any choices. In fact, she really had none. To stay where she was, well, that was plain and simple, death. Either by starvation or dehydration, animal attack, or... well... yeah.. worse...If not at the hands of this guy, certainly the hands of the next guy. The fact that he had not just charged in and, well, attacked her, was a good sign.

"alittle... " came the reply. She worked to keep her voice deep, soft. "I'm not sure how well I will be able to walk tho, once this damned trap is off my leg" She was finding it hard to even speak, breathe, stay conscious, and this talking was only making her head swim. She had tried to sit up, that only caused the entire forest to suddenly undulate around her, enough so that she fell back to the ground, groaning.

Please... she thought to herself. Please, if you are going to hurt me, just be quick and don't make me suffer, please.

The fleeting thought that she did have the Glock and the Dagger in her other boot floated thru her mind. But what good would hurting him do her? Unless he free'd her and then she could get the upper hand, like she could do that given the condition of her leg.

 

[LeChatNoir]

The guy looked frantic and near to passing out, and Eddie really couldn’t blame him. He didn’t even want to think about how much the trap must hurt, let alone how long the smaller man had been lying there, bleeding into the forest loam. Taking a last, cautious look around – this didn’t seem like an ambush, but you couldn’t be too sure – Eddie stood and walked over to where the bleeding man lay trapped. He knelt down beside him and assessed the situation, running practiced hands over the man’s lower leg, trying to feel for any obvious broken bones before removing the metal jaws from around the man’s leg. “Ok, buddy, time to get this trap off you. My name’s Eddie, Eddie Pearson. What’s yours?”

Not finding any obvious reasons not to proceed, the former sergeant jammed the synthetic buttstock of his rifle into the jaws of the trap and, with some effort, levered the hinged metal open. “Quick now, get your leg out of there. This is going to spring shut again as soon as I quit pressing on it.” Once the man’s leg was safely beyond the reach of the sharp teeth, Pearson let the trap close again and tossed it some distance away. Squatting on his haunches, he regarded the injured man, taking note of his big eyes and frightened expression. He looked young, very young, in addition to very scared. Maybe even young enough to just be a boy of sixteen or seventeen - certainly there was no hint of a beard. “Ok, now, let me see that leg. We’re going to have to get that cleaned up and see if you can walk on it at all. It’s a good few miles back to safety, and I know that I don’t really want to make a cold camp out here in the boonies when there’s a warm fire not all that far away.”

Pearson reached around behind his back and unclipped the first aid kit from his belt. He’d known that it was going to come in handy, eventually. Slipping on a pair of the latex exam gloves, he reached for the man’s leg, intending to check out the extent of the injury. He wasn't a trained paramedic, but he'd had basic lifesaving training in the Army, and it had always emphasized the critical importance of keeping a wound clean, particularly a wound from rusty metal, or metal that had been outside. Evangeline's death had reinforced that lesson, and so his medical kit was always well-stocked with antiseptic pads, isopropyl alcohol, and other cleaning supplies. Just like "Doc" Evans, his first company medic had taught him, "A clean wound is a wound that isn't going to kill you later if it doesn't kill you right away." Not exactly uplifting, but if you've already survived the initial wound, it's a nice thought that you aren't going to die of tetanus or sepsis.

 

[RainingHeat]

Charley watched as the man stood from the brush. He wasn't a Marauder, that was for sure. Sure he was a bit wild looking, with his long dark hair, but his eyes held a sparkle of intelligence and more importantly, compassion, not the death, murder, viciousness that most Marauders seem to have in their eyes, and certainly he did not look nearly as dumb. He wasn't dressed like a Marauder of Thief. That didn't mean that Charly trusted him at all, but again, he had not come at her in attack mode, or any kind of threatening manner at all.

“Ok, buddy, time to get this trap off you. My name’s Eddie, Eddie Pearson. What’s yours?”

He had approached her while her mind was preoccupied sizing him up.

Blinking for a moment before she answered, her breath hissing in with a sudden jolt of pain.

"Charley ... Charley Gold." Well, that was her name right? Charlene Elizabeth Gold. Not that she had associated with that name in a long long time. She was just Charley.

“Quick now, get your leg out of there. This is going to spring shut again as soon as I quit pressing on it."

Charley winced, then had to visibly bite her bottom lip to keep the scream of pain from getting past when he managed to pry open the trap. It shot up her leg, hot, searing, tearing, ripping, and when she actually moved her leg, she thought she would just pass out right there. The world went white for that moment, but she managed to fight back that urge. She had a strong pain tolerance, but this, this was just excruciating.

The trap snapping shut again made her jump as well.

“Ok, now, let me see that leg. We’re going to have to get that cleaned up and see if you can walk on it at all. It’s a good few miles back to safety, and I know that I don’t really want to make a cold camp out here in the boonies when there’s a warm fire not all that far away.”

The jeans she was wearing were torn, the leather of the boot ripped thru. Thank goodness her damned dagger was in the other boot or the trap would have done god knows what to it and her leg at the same time.

When he reached around behind his back, Charley panicked, thinking he was reaching for a weapon. She managed to suddenly twist and scoot away, back pedaling along the forest floor, never mind what that movement was doing to her leg, and the pain level, which, needless to say, was intensifying exponentially. She drew her own weapon, the Glock, in hand a moment later. "No... NO" she growled, not thinking straight in the least bit, given the amount of pain that even now was again threatening to overwhelm her. He was reaching for a weapon, right?

Charley actually fired off the Glock, but what she had failed to realize was that the magazine was empty. She had not reloaded in a couple of days, a mistake that perhaps, right now, was going to cost her. It would have cost her, her life, if the damned gun had been completely empty earlier and she had not gotten the couple of shots off at the Marauders.

FUCK... But wait, he didn't have a weapon, wait, yes he did. He certainly did!! The Glock useless, her other hand grasped the dagger handle that protruded out of her left boot. She was not about to die without a fight, and not about to be raped, or whatever, without a fight!!!

 

[LeChatNoir]

Shit! The young man in front of him reached for his weapon, obviously misreading Pearson’s movements to grab his medical kit. This close, it would be almost impossible to miss, but Eddie did his best to make the shot difficult, throwing himself to the side and rolling for cover. As he hit the ground, part of his brain recognized that it had all been completely unnecessary – the Glock that the young man drew from his waistband was in slide-lock, the weapon locked open on an empty magazine.

His instinctive roll complete, Eddie came to his feet, his hands open in front of him. Charley had managed to scoot about ten feet away on the ground, which had to have hurt a whole lot more than Eddie wanted to think about. “Hey, hey, no need for that! I’m not going to pull you out of that trap just to shoot you. If I was going to shoot you, I could have done it from forty yards away and you’d never have known I was there!” His words were emphatic, but his voice was low, still concerned about whatever else might be out there in the woods. “Who are you running from, Charley? Marauders? I don’t like them, either, so just put that gun down, and take your other hand off that knife, and let’s get you up and get us both the fuck out of here before they find where you ran off to.”

Pearson bent down and collected his rifle, which had fallen off of his shoulder during his evasive maneuvers. Confidently turning his back on Charley, he raised the rifle and scanned the horizon, using first his unaugmented vision and then the scope to check for any approaching trouble. Seeing none, he turned his attention back to the young man. “Seriously. I’m not going to hurt you. If you want, I can just drop the first aid kit right there, and you can take care of yourself, but I know from experience that it’s way easier to have someone else do it – that rubbing alcohol hurts like hell on broken skin, and you have a lot of broken skin.”

Eddie squatted back down where he was, calmly watching the young man even as his mind raced. How long did he have before the Marauders came back? Or before some bear or pack of feral dogs came to investigate the scent of blood? Probably not all that long, frankly. The young man across the clearing had to make up his mind in a hurry, or Eddie could make it up for him. He was so slight that it shouldn’t be too hard to wrestle the knife away from him, though there was always some danger inherent in that – he might have another weapon that Eddie hadn’t seen, though he was pretty good at spotting such things. Or he could just shoot the guy and leave him there, but ammunition was hard to come by, and it just didn’t feel right to save a guy from a trap and then just execute him when he seemed a little suspicious. Still, one way or another, this had to come to a head, and soon.

 

[RainingHeat]

“Hey, hey, no need for that! I’m not going to pull you out of that trap just to shoot you. If I was going to shoot you, I could have done it from forty yards away and you’d never have known I was there!”

He was right. But Charley was not thinking about that, she was thinking about getting raped!! But wait, he thought he was a guy, right? She had, in her panic, forgotten all about that.

"Who are you running from, Charley? Marauders? I don’t like them, either, so just put that gun down, and take your other hand off that knife, and let’s get you up and get us both the fuck out of here before they find where you ran off to.”

She nodded to his question. Swallowing hard, Charley dropped the empty gun, and took her had from the dagger in her boot. He was right. She was in no position to even run if she did manage to hurt or kill him. And why should she? He had not hurt her. She was just... scared... is all.

She watched as he picked up his rifle, and for a moment, she went tense. But he did not point it at her, threaten her, at all. He instead, turned to scan the area before his attention focused back on her.

“Seriously. I’m not going to hurt you. If you want, I can just drop the first aid kit right there, and you can take care of yourself, but I know from experience that it’s way easier to have someone else do it – that rubbing alcohol hurts like hell on broken skin, and you have a lot of broken skin.”

"Your.... your right" Charley answered. "I'm sorry. Marauders, yes, I'm sorry... Eddie. Just a bit, scared." She grit her teeth at the pain that was shooting thru her at this particular moment. Her little panic attack and shuffling backwards had not done her leg any good. "I came from the east, so that is where they will be most likely coming from, if they are still looking for me."

He was reaching for her leg, and Charley had a sudden thought ... It is a good thing that I pay attention to detail. She had let the hair grow on her legs, not that shaving, or even showering, these days was an easy feat. But inherantly, being a girl, she wanted to be free of hair, it was just how she was wired, but her survival instinct had won out, her legs had overgrown hair, and dirt, just like the rest of her.

With a slightly trembling nod toward her bleeding leg, she settled back. "I don't think I am going to be able to pull up the pant leg, I think you are going to have to cut it off" then she paused... "the jeans, not the leg" a pained chuckle, a little attempt at humor, anything to take her mind off the fear and pain she was feeling. Please let him be a nice guy. He had shown he was a bit already, but Charley had seen the best of liars with the Marauders, he could be lying, just to get her back to where ever he called home. But again, Eddie thought she was guy, right, she kept forgetting that.

"wait... WAIT"... she looked around. "Give me a peice of wood, please. I don't want my screaming to attract those assholes if I can help it" This was going to hurt, this was going to hurt.. alot.

 

[LeChatNoir]

“Hey, I understand scared, Charley. Shit, I’m scared just waking up every day, and going to sleep every night. The things I’ve seen…well, I’m sure that they’re really no different and no worse than the things you’ve seen. If you’ve seen all that and you’re not scared, then you’re either stupid or fucked up on something.” That was about all the speech that Eddie could muster at the moment, but he felt a surge of relief as Charley dropped his pistol and moved his hand away from the hilt of his knife.

“Alright, real slow-like, I’m going to cut off that pant leg, ok?” He waited for a response before drawing his Ka-Bar and slicing easily through the tough material of the young man’s trousers. He kept that knife sharp enough to shave with, even though he didn’t often bother with shaving for a few days. “Ok, the east. Let’s get you turned around a bit, so that if I look up from your leg, I’m looking east. I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt a bit.” Before moving Charley, he looked around and found a solid stick for the young man to bite. “Here, this should do the trick. Try not to bite straight through it on the first chomp, huh?”

After handing over the stick and collecting Charley’s pistol, which he shoved into the cargo pocket of his military-style fatigue pants, he grabbed Charley by the armpits and shifted him around so that Charley was facing west, and Eddie was facing east. Luckily, that only required about a ninety-degree turn, or else he doubted that Charley would have stayed conscious throughout the maneuver. Man, that leg had to hurt.

With Charley now properly oriented, he bent to his task of examining the wound, which was pretty ugly. The teeth of the trap had bitten deeply into the leather of the redhead’s boot, driving the leather into the flesh of his leg, which was itself tattered and torn. “Well, this isn’t pretty, but I don’t think that you’re going to lose the leg if we can keep it clean. I’m going to pour some water on it first, to get the bigger pieces of leather out of the wound, and then spray it down with alcohol. I’d get a good grip on that stick, if I were you…”

Pearson gave the young man a few moments to get situated, then turned the spigot on his Camelbak and squeezed the rubber bladder, squirting water directly onto the torn flesh of Charley’s leg. He washed it thoroughly, without regard for the pain he was causing the young man – it had to hurt, in order to clean deeply enough, and even if it hurt like hell now, it might just save his leg or his life. He finished as quickly as he could, then switched to the squeeze bottle of rubbing alcohol and sprayed the wound down. He was actually quite impressed that Charley managed to remain conscious through the entire process.

 

[RainingHeat]

If there was a hell, than this was it.

The pain was agonizing, it shooting up from her leg and spreading thruout her entire form. Her skin hurt, her blood hurt, her eyes, her fingers, every surface was screaming as Eddie cleaned the wound. The stick in her mouth kept her screams from traveling to unwanted ears, but it did not silence them completely. How had she stayed conscious, even she was not sure, other than the fact that if she passed out, she was terrified that he would find out that Charley Gold was a female.

But if Charley thought the cleaning was painful, that was nothing to the torture of the alcohol hitting the wound. She thought for sure she would pass out cold then... Her head swam, her screaming so deep, so hard, that her chest and lungs hurt, and her jaw from biting down on the stick..

Then it was over, thank God. Not that the pain were gone, but the searing, tearing, jolts of agony had finally ceased.

"Thank God" she managed to utter, her voice wavering as the stick fell to the ground. Maybe she was better off dead, she certainly would be if she had to endure anything like that again. She was panting, her face white as a ghost from what she had gone thru. To be honest, she was not even sure she was going to be able to walk, in any form, to get to where ever this guy's.. Eddie.. his name was Eddie, she had to remember that, cabin or whatever, was.

But, she was pretty fucking determined. Charley made the decision that she was not going to let that band of Marauders find, rape, and kill her. She had decided that if she were going to die, it would either be on her terms, or this Eddie guy could do it. He could not be any worse than the Marauders, and she knew what they were like. If they had discovered someone like her, trapped as she was by that horrible bear trap, and by "someone like her"... meaning a "boy".. because Charley knew well enough what they did to any girls they managed to catch, they would not help as Eddie had. They would make some kind of sport out of torturing and killing the "boy" and she knew it.

She was better off with Eddie for now. If he turned out to be some sort of psychopath, or abuser, she would deal with it and that would be that. He was only one man, that would make it easier. Unless there were others back at his place. But she would have to wait and find out, and hope he would not figure out just what she was.

Taking a deep breath to try and gather her strength, she whispered thru gritted teeth... "ok, let's get the fuck out of here, before our luck runs out"

 

[LeChatNoir]

Eddie couldn’t agree more with Charley’s suggestion. They had already overstayed their welcome in the woods, and every moment was bringing the pursuit, if there was any, closer. Given that there was no way to know if the Marauders were pursuing, best to assume that they were. The ex-soldier wrapped a field dressing around the young man’s leg and taped it in place with medical tape, covering the wound to keep out dirt and grime. It would have to be cleaned again later, but the moment, this was the best he could do. Eddie stood up and extended a hand down to Charley. “Here, grab my hand, get up, and let’s see if you can put any weight on that leg.”

He positioned himself on Charley’s right side, so that he could help support his weight if necessary while keeping his right hand free to handle a weapon if need be. “If something, or someone, finds us, let go of me and go straight down. You’re not going to be much help in a fight at the moment, so just get out of the way and let me work. Got it?” His voice was authoritative, and he was obviously used to giving instructions in the field and having them obeyed. “Oh, that reminds me.” Slinging his rifle over his shoulder for the moment, he took Charley’s Glock out of the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants. Fortunately, it was, like his own, a 9mm, so his ammunition would work in it. He released the magazine catch, loaded ten rounds into the magazine from the loose ammo he carried in his other pocket, replaced the magazine, and worked the action to chamber a round before handing the gun back to the young man. “Here, you might need this. Just remember to shoot the bad guys and not me, ok?”

There was something odd about Charley that he just couldn’t quite put a finger on. He seemed older than he should be to look so young, but there was no hint of beard or moustache on him, and he didn’t seem particularly muscular – sleeker than he should be, given that he had to be around twenty or so. Oh, well, not something to worry about now. First get to safety, then start wondering about what was going on.

 

[RainingHeat]

“Here, grab my hand, get up, and let’s see if you can put any weight on that leg.”

Oh this was going to be fun. Charley had to bite her lower lip, HARD, to not scream out when she tried to stand. The pain shot up thru her leg, into her hip and knotted tightly in her belly.

“If something, or someone, finds us, let go of me and go straight down. You’re not going to be much help in a fight at the moment, so just get out of the way and let me work. Got it?”

She nodded. "got it" the words uttered thru gritted teeth.

“Oh, that reminds me. Here, you might need this. Just remember to shoot the bad guys and not me, ok?”

Well, she had not expected that. But Charley gratefully accepted the gun back. Eddie did not show any signs of being any kind of nut case, at least not yet. She could only hope there were not others at where ever he lived. She really did not want to be the "entertainment" for a band of guys who just happened to be "mostly" normal. But Eddie had not mentioned any others. She would just have to wait and find out is all.

"I will do my best" she managed to joke to his words.

It was slow going. Every step only sent another shock of pain thru her body. But she was kinda getting used to it. Or at least accepting of it. Eddie could have easily just left her for dead.. well, left "him" for dead. But he never complained, not once. Only pausing to ask how she was doing, how was the pain, and if she could go alittle further.

It was perhaps just under an hour that they had been moving when Eddie and Charley both heard it. The sounds of feet, marching, trampling thru the woods.

It was Charley that saw the best place to hide, tugging on Eddie's arm and pointing, the brush thick in front of the outcropping of rocks. It allowed them to put the rocks at their backs, a strategic safety position, and they were practically invisible in the thick brush in front. They stayed silent, guns in hand, as a couple of Marauders approached. They were anything but quiet.

"Jonesy, do you really think she got this far? Come on, let's go back..before we get anymore lost"

"Fuck you Sid, I do think she could have gotten this far. She was pretty wirey, and hell, smart. We have to find her. You know that Bud's gonna be pissed if he finds out she got away, and killed Jack and Decker in the process. Never mind the fact she made fucking fools out of us this whole time. Bud's gonna want her head on a stick"

"Well, what about that guy that Juan said he saw??? Do you think he found her???"

"Naw... if so, we would have stumbled on him and her fucking. What guy in their right mind would not take advantage of free pussy.. Come on, let's search over by the river. If it were me, that's where I would head to, the river"

Another voice called out.."Hey guys, over here"

"Find something Carl?"

And they were gone.

Charley had held her breath the entire time. How had they figured out she was female? And FUCK, thank goodness they had NOT gotten a hold of her and taken her to Bud. That, would not have been pretty. Bud, was an evil, sadistic fuck.

Before Eddie could say anything, Charley spit out "I didn't see any girl, I have no clue who they are looking for"

Please believe me... please believe me... please believe me... she prayed deep in her mind.

 

[LeChatNoir]

The kid was tough. Eddie had to give him that. That leg must have hurt like stepping into the trap all over again with every step, but Charley rarely faltered. Of course, adrenaline will do that for you, and the terror of being caught by Marauders was lending them both wings. The stories of what Marauders did to people circulated around every campfire and every communal well for a thousand miles – stories of people flayed alive, eaten, raped, and horribly maimed. The Marauders, Eddie suspected, encouraged the stories, as much as an anarchic group like the Marauders could be said to “encourage” anything. Scared people made easy pickings, because scared people made dumb mistakes.

Eddie Pearson didn’t make dumb mistakes. Eddie was a planner, though never a particularly deep thinker. He’d taken some courses at a community college because the Army told him that they’d help with getting promotions, but he was never a particularly dedicated student. He preferred being out in the woods with his platoon, or just with a shotgun and a forest full of deer.

He didn’t miss the surprised look on Charley’s face when he handed the youth back his gun, now loaded. Clearly, Charley wasn’t entirely sure what to make of his new benefactor, and even if he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, he still wasn’t going to throw caution completely to the wind. Eddie couldn’t blame him. In Charley’s current state, he’d make much better time if he left the young man behind, as he told himself a thousand times as they hobbled along, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The Time had brought a total breakdown in social order, but that was no reason that people had to be outright evil and self-interested. Besides, he’d actually been missing someone to talk to, and this gave him a chance for at least a little bit of conversation.

It all seemed to be going so well – Charley could manage a fairly slow stagger, but at least he was walking. No pursuit, weather was holding…and then they heard the voices, and the sound of feet tramping through the woods. It was immediately clear to Eddie that these must be the Marauders – no one else made that much noise. Fortunately, Charley spied out a rockfall with a big clump of covering brush, enough for them to take cover in and ensure that no one could sneak up behind them or flank them. Pearson slid into the bush, leaving the rifle slung and drawing his pistol. For work up this close, the rifle would be too slow to bring to bear. The pistol, while less accurate, was much faster for acquiring targets and getting shots off, and that would be the key with the enemy up this close.

They lay, silently, on their bellies under the bush and listened. The Marauders were talking about searching for a girl, apparently one who had escaped their clutches. Good for her, but she was certainly in for a world of pain if they caught her. He wondered who she was, then shook his head and re-focused on the immediate problem. Fortunately, the men didn’t seem too interested in actually searching for them, and shortly moved off. He could only hope that this “Carl” was as ignorant as the rest of them, because Pearson knew that they’d been leaving a trail a mile wide.

Glancing over at Charley with a relieved expression, Eddie started to push himself to his feet when the young man exclaimed, “I didn’t see any girl, I have no idea who they are looking for!”

Click.

Fleeing the Marauders.

Click.

Young-looking.

Click.

No hint of beard.

Click.

Slender, wiry frame.

Click.

Charley…was a girl.

Charley was, just as clearly, a girl who didn’t want it to be known that she was a girl, and Eddie couldn’t blame her in the slightest. This was not a friendly world for a young woman running around on her own, and he couldn’t imagine that the Marauders would give her a pleasant welcome if they ever found her. He tried not to let his new discovery show on his face, and instead shoved himself to his feet and again offered Charley his hand to help “him” up. “Here, let’s get going. The sooner we make ourselves scarce, the sooner we don’t have to worry about Marauders for a while.”

 

[RainingHeat]

“Here, let’s get going. The sooner we make ourselves scarce, the sooner we don’t have to worry about Marauders for a while.”

Well, at least he was confident. Charley, not so much so. She had been privy to several Marauders meetings. They wanted to rule everything. Of course. Greedy fucks that they were. But that was not of issue right now. Right now, getting the hell out of there was the issue.

She reached for Eddie and let him pull her up. Of course she grunted in pain, again. God Damned bear trap, she cursed to herself. She was going to be stuck depending on this guy for a while, she knew that. This was not something that was going to just heal up and leave her as good as new. She knew that leg was going to be a weak point for her from now on. NOT a good thing at all. What the hell was she going to do??

Well, for the moment, she was going to just go along with Eddie until they reached his place. She would simply have to take this one day at a time. Charley had no clue what options she would have. She did not entertain the thought of "staying" with Eddie. Not right now at least. She had no idea what he had going on at home. And, that option would mean telling him she were a girl, and, if he had no "woman" at home already, or maybe even if he did, more than likely he would want to fuck her, and that just was not an option Charley wanted to entertain. Just the thought scared her to death. It meant, in this world, in this day and age, that she was his. And that, just was NOT going to happen, if she could help it. That was why she had gone to such lengths to disguise herself, she was no one's "property"...

But for now, she needed to really deal with her leg, and the intense pain that shot thru her. That had to be her first priority. Each step she took with Eddie, and she had to admire that he was not leaving her behind, as he so easily could have, made her grit her teeth. She would get thru this. She would....

She had to....

 

[LeChatNoir]

The sun was sliding below the horizon by the time that Eddie and Charley finally made it back to the apartment block where Eddie had set up camp. They only made it that far at all because Eddie had finally thought to fashion Charley a crutch out of some wood – it can’t have been fun to use, but it was a lot better for her to control her own movements rather than depending on him to adapt his movements to hers. Eddie still wasn’t exactly sure how to refer to her, whether as a her or a him, but he was saved from that particular problem by all of the other, more pressing, problems – like how to get Charley from deep in the woods back to the apartment building on just one wheel.

By the time they got back, her leg was swollen badly and had begun to bleed through the crude field dressing that he had applied out in the woods. “Hey, Charley, we’re almost there. We go through the door in that next building, then up the stairs to the second floor. I’m going to go first and disable my alarms and such, so I’m going to just lean you up against the side of the building here, ok? Don’t go doing anything crazy, it should only take me a couple of minutes to get everything disarmed, and then I’ll be back for you. Managing the stairs won’t be much fun, but none of this can have been very much fun for you, and you’ve made it this far, so I assume you aren’t going to crap out on me at this stage.”

He paused, then added, “And don’t worry that you’ve gotten out of the frying pan only to land in the fire, ok? I didn’t half-drag you all this way just to kill you and throw you in my soup. This ain’t Hansel and Gretel…Shit, it ain’t any kind of fairy tale, but at least it’s not that one.”

With that, he helped her get settled against the wall and then vanished into the dark maw of the apartment building’s doorway, where shortly thereafter faint clanking sounds could be heard as he began to remove the wire from the areas they would need to pass through. True to his word, he reappeared in the doorway about five minutes later, his tasks complete. He’d left the rifle inside, but still wore the Glock and the K-Bar on his belt as he strode over to Charley. “OK, you ready for the last push?”

 

[Nyte_mare]

“Hey, Charley, we’re almost there. We go through the door in that next building, then up the stairs to the second floor. I’m going to go first and disable my alarms and such, so I’m going to just lean you up against the side of the building here, ok? Don’t go doing anything crazy, it should only take me a couple of minutes to get everything disarmed, and then I’ll be back for you. Managing the stairs won’t be much fun, but none of this can have been very much fun for you, and you’ve made it this far, so I assume you aren’t going to crap out on me at this stage.”

To say she was in pain, again, was an understatement. It was not lost on her that her leg had swollen, badly and was bleeding. This was not good, this was not good at all. With a weak nod, she managed to acknowledge his words. She was not going to crap out. She hoped. Charley had a strong will to survive, it had gotten her this far, thru foster homes and the dying time and masquerading as a man, all to survive. She was not going to give up now.

“And don’t worry that you’ve gotten out of the frying pan only to land in the fire, ok? I didn’t half-drag you all this way just to kill you and throw you in my soup. This ain’t Hansel and Gretel…Shit, it ain’t any kind of fairy tale, but at least it’s not that one.”

She had to blink at that. That had not been what she was thinking. Even tho she knew that actually happened now, in this new world. No, she was still more worried about being raped, being a sex slave, being bought and sold and used. She was female after all, that was the worry, in this new reality, of all females. Sad to say. Especially in this particular part of the country. She had to wonder, for a moment, as she leaned against the wall, watching Eddie disappear, was it like this everywhere? Or was there someplace, anyplace, that was more like "normal" used to be?

It was quiet here. Charley concentrated on that. A slight tilt to her head, but all she heard was the gentle shuffling of the breeze that cooled her skin. Hot, she felt very hot, all of a sudden. Reaching up, she wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. She was damp, never mind damp, she was downright wet. Hot, sweating. Why was she suddenly so hot? Charley glanced down at her leg. That was why. Was there an infection? That thought was sobering to say the least. If it was, it would kill her, that simple.

Eddie's return.. How long had he been gone? ... interrupted her thoughts.

“OK, you ready for the last push?”

With a weak nod, she answered. "yep, let's get this over with."

With an arm draped around Eddie's shoulder once more, Charley let herself be led inside. She knew this was the most dangerous. Once in his ... domain... his home, she would have no one to help her, not that she would now. But even any screams for help would go unanswered. In this new world, not many would dare to ever intervene with anything that was happening in the "privacy" of one's own domain. She could be getting gang raped, and begging for help, and none would come.

"please let him be as decent behind closed doors as he is now" she said to herself, it was all she could do... pray....

The stairs were agonizing, to say the least. By the time they reached the top, Charley thought she would rather just curl up and die. Her body was finally protesting, stating loudly that it had had enough and was not about to go another step further...

"oh god... I think I am going to pass out" the words barely made it past her trembling lips when Charley felt her eyes roll back and blackness suddenly take hold.....