A Warm Place 3 - A Post-Apocalyptic Men's Adventure Page 3

  Back out into the cold.

  THREE

  Now I was alone again.

  As I set out away from the remains of Pine Lake and made my way yet again into the hungering cold, I realized that I had kind of missed it. For a few seconds I felt guilty for enjoying my own isolation, but I soon told myself it was normal. Natural even. I had never really understood, or trusted, those couples who had to do everything together, go everywhere together, like they didn’t trust each other enough to let either out of their sight for too long, or they were so desperate to ensure that everyone believed they were truly, deeply in love that they did every single activity together. I didn’t buy into that at all.

  You could love someone with all your heart, but eventually you were going to want to be away from them, or even just by yourself, and it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with you. Sometimes you just wanted to be fucking alone. And some of us wanted to be alone more than others. And I think that was me, at least some of the time.

  Either way, despite the fact that I’d just walked away from a burned-down town where probably over a hundred people had died, and the fact that the monsters who’d done it were still probably around, and I was by myself in the freezing cold…

  I felt good.

  I felt bad about that, too, but I knew it was for a good reason: I had purpose. Like, immediate and obvious purpose. And it was going to help people in a very direct way. I wonder if this is how cops or firefighters or doctors felt when they were saving someone’s life. I’d been really hung up on purpose recently and the conclusion I’d come to was feeling more right than ever. I wanted to do this. In a way, I felt compelled to do this.

  It felt right to be here, doing this.

  Of course, I also had to contend with the next big problem. Perhaps my last one? God, wouldn’t that be nice. Although, some problems followed you for decades, even to your grave. And this problem was: my wanderlust. I was happy to be here now, but how long before it settled in again? Weeks? Months? How long before my desire to roam overcame my desire to stay here with these fine women? I very seriously doubted that Elizabeth was going to want to move once she had gotten settled and felt that she was secure, which I intended to make happen. Especially with a baby on the way. She wouldn’t want to go anywhere for years.

  And I didn’t blame her one bit.

  I wouldn’t want to either.

  Even now, I could already see it in Delilah’s eyes: she loved Lindsay. As a lover, as a friend, as a soulmate? Did it matter? I could tell that if I managed to find Lindsay, which I intended to also do, and Lindsay reciprocated that love, then she was going to want to go with Lindsay and not me. And I could live with that. I liked Delilah, a hell of a lot, and I would probably like Lindsay too. I doubted they’d want to pick up and go, most people didn’t, so that left Delilah out of this theoretical picture. Or maybe I should say eventual picture.

  Once I had started walking last year, I hadn’t stopped. Not really.

  So that left Megan.

  I thought she would come with me, and I thought she was really starting to like, respect, and trust me. I felt the same way about her. I still felt about fifty-fifty on whether or not we would drive each other away with our personalities. She was brash and aggressive, which I liked a lot in a woman, but she was also bitter and angry and cynical, which I liked less, but could understand. I had some of those anger issues myself, and therein lay the problem.

  Putting us together long-term might be like storing gasoline next to a fire.

  But now wasn’t really the time to worry about all of that. It was in the future, and it was a ‘cross that bridge when I come to it’ kind of problem. And it might not even be a problem at all. No sense worrying about it in that case.

  Not that that always worked.

  Instead, I focused on my surroundings. The occasional hill, big rock, and lonely tree, or small collection of trees and low bushes, lay scattered across the area. All of it snowbound and locked in ice. The skies were clear and blue overhead, and it was probably in the low twenties right now, with the winds that were blowing occasionally making it ten degrees colder. But that was fine. It wasn’t bothering me. Mostly. I was enjoying the walk, the atmosphere, the fresh air. Everything was beautiful and still and almost silent, save for the occasional gust of wind and the far off sounds of the people in Pine Lake, which was already mostly faded by distance.

  Although I was worn out from the long trip along the highway, by now I was used to a lot of activity, though I’d sleep like the dead tonight.

  After banging the fuck out of Elizabeth.

  Fuck I wanted that pregnant vagina already and knowing that she was back there willing to give it up raw, with two other women willing to do the same, did make it difficult to focus. I had to admit, this was the luckiest I’d ever been in my life. Three women, all of them really hot, all of them wanting to fuck me bareback, all of them really into each other, too. And Delilah seemed at least somewhat confident in the idea that Lindsay would be into me, and I was already imagining how hot she would be. I’d never fucked an Italian chick before, even a half-Italian. I tried not to put much emphasis on race, but…

  To be complete honest, that did really boost a woman’s sex appeal in some cases.

  I figured it was true for most people. How many women went crazy for smooth-talking British guys, or Australian dudes? I know some people got weirded out by putting any kind of emphasis on country of origin or race or whatever, but I don’t know, if some foreign girl was into me just because I was American, I’d be down for that.

  And then there was Lisa…

  She was hot in a really rough and tumble kind of way. She kind of had the look of a tough older teacher who was a real hardcase and ruled her classroom with brutal authority. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in her late thirties or early forties, though she could be plus or minus more than that. Good genes or hard living, either could affect how old you looked. She could be a well-aging fifty something, or a burned out early-thirty-something. Either way, the crow’s feet around her eyes and the somewhat weathered look of her skin wasn’t doing anything to turn me off. And she looked like she had a great figure under her clothes. Plus, that personality. Women weren’t the only ones who got turned on by confidence and authority.

  I crested a rise in the land and finally caught sight of the hunting lodge in the distance. Perfect. And there was the river, also perfect. It looked just as frozen as before. I walked down the incline and up to the river. Finding a suitably narrow spot, I stepped through the brittle remains of some scrub bushes and crossed it without a problem. With that out of the way, I continued along, picking up the pace towards the lodge.

  It did seem like a good place to go in event of emergency. I didn’t see any activity, but I was still a good mile off at least. I kept on walking, my pace brisk, keeping an eye out for anything threatening. And then, while I was at it, I pulled out the map and studied it. Should probably get an idea of what I was working with.

  The township of Pine Lake did indeed reside roughly in the middle of the region. It seemed to be almost totally surrounded on all sides by forests, with a few gaps, especially to the north. I saw a scattering of structures around the area: a lone gas station to the south, probably closer to whatever the main road was around here, a watchtower that I’d missed back near where we’d initially come in through, probably hidden by the trees, and a lake northwest of the town that sported an observation deck and a lakehouse.

  Don’t know how I’d missed the observation deck and the lake, but I guess I wouldn’t been too focused on the burned-down town, or maybe it had been obscured by smoke. I tried looking for it now, but I was too low to see much of anything beyond snow. Well, that was probably on the list of places to check, I was sure.

  I folded the map up and put it back.

  Right now, I was intent on making myself an asset. Lisa didn’t trust me, and I wanted her to. And no, not just because I wanted to bang the absolute shit out of her and pound that sweet, older pussy all night long, but because her people needed help, and I honestly felt I was uniquely qualified to offer a lot of it. I hope I wasn’t becoming arrogant, but there was a difference between arrogance and owning it, it being whatever you were good at. And if what I was good at was helping people, then fuck, that’s what I was going to do.

  So I had to make sure this job got done right, and quickly.

  These were the thoughts that I was thinking as I came on final approach to the hunting lodge, which was a two-story structure of wood and glass, and I nearly got my head blown off for the second time that morning.

  A gunshot cracked out and hit the snow beside me, sending up a geyser of the gray-white stuff, and this time I did hit the deck.

  “Cease fire!” I bellowed, and then waited for the end.

  “That was a warning shot!” an older man’s voice called out. “Now who the fuck are you!?”

  Slowly, I got up. I saw him standing on the balcony of the lodge now, a scoped rifle in his grasp, and I couldn’t make out more than that.

  “My name is Chris! Lisa sent me to find people!” I called back.

  A pause. “You don’t look familiar!”

  Well, honesty was still the best policy, I thought. “I’m not from around here! Just showed up this morning! I offered to help!”

  Another long pause. “All right, come on up here, nice and slow! No sudden moves!”

  “Understood!”

  I made my way up to the hunting lodge nice and easy. While I did, the man said something to someone hidden in the shadow of the door up there letting onto the balcony. When I got up to where a parking lot was, he spoke up again.

  “Close enough.”

  I nodded and stopped, keeping my han
ds visible. A few seconds later the front door opened and a younger man who resembled the other one appeared.

  “Just hold still,” he said.

  I nodded again and waited. The older man disappeared into the door and a moment later joined us down on the ground level. They were both men with dark beards and wild hair mostly kept hidden by hats. The older man wore a beanie, the younger man a baseball cap. I caught movement behind them, so there were more people around.

  No one was wearing leather, so that was good.

  “You from Pine Lake?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Who are you exactly?” the older man asked.

  “Chris Weston. I just walked into town this morning. Offered my services after meeting Lisa,” I replied.

  “Lisa made it?” the younger man, who was probably around my age, asked.

  “Shut up, Nate,” the older man muttered. “You’re well-armed,” he said to me.

  “You honestly expected me to walk two miles through open country without a gun?”

  He laughed a little. “Fair point, I guess.” He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “You don’t look like one of them, so I’m going to take you at your word. Why are you here, exactly?”

  “Lisa sent me up here because she said some of the people might’ve come up here during the fire. She’s trying to put things back together again and needs all the help she can get.”

  “Well that sure makes sense,” the man muttered. He seemed to consider it for a moment longer, then looked at, I assumed, his son. “Nate, stay here and watch the others. Okay?”

  “What are you doin’?” Nate replied.

  “Me and Chris here are going after Willow. Just stay here, okay?” Nate began to argue but the older man cut him off. “Now don’t argue with me, dammit!”

  “All right, dad, fine. I’ll stay here.”

  “Good.” He looked at me, then walked over to me and offered his hand. I shook it. “Markus Peterson.”

  “Chris Weston,” I replied, even though I’d already said it once. I knew some people put a lot of emphasis on what they called a ‘proper introduction’.

  “Good to meet you. If you really are here to help, then follow me.”

  And with that he turned and set off.

  I followed after him.

  “So what’s happening precisely?” I asked.

  “We came out here last night, me, my son, and three others we grabbed. We come up to the hunting lodge with other people to, well, hunt, to help provide food for the town. Sometimes I’ll just come out here and live for awhile. It’s nice and quiet. But when the attack happened and the fire got going, I figured we’d best get. So we got. I figured there’d be some people still alive down there, and that they’d need food, so me, my son, and another guy went out hunting early this morning. Some wolves found us before we found them. Got the other guy in the leg bad. We’ve been meaning to head back, but we can’t move him without a stretcher. Now, I know there’s a stretcher and some medical supplies in one of the cabins not far from here, but I was dealing with the wound, so Willow offered to go grab it. That was two hours ago.”

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Yep. So we’re gonna go find her, and the stretcher and the medical supplies that’re with it, get back to the lodge, and then go back home and start helping.” He paused. “What’s it like there?”

  “Bad,” I replied. “Lisa’s there, I don’t know who else because I don’t know anyone, but she said there were forty people around, a lot of them injured. There’s eight buildings left in good condition and that’s where everyone seems to be.”

  “Shit,” he growled.

  We walked for another few minutes into the woods not far from the hunting lodge. “You seem to trust me awfully quick,” I said after a moment.

  “I don’t,” Markus replied. “But you seem on the level enough, and I’m one hell of a quick draw, and if you do anything to me, my son’ll hunt you to the ends of the motherfucking Earth. So I feel pretty decently covered. Plus, I’m fuckin’ old, man. Old and tired. Never thought I’d live to see the end of the goddamned world. I’m not ready to die, but fuck if I’m tired of living some days.”

  “Well...all right then.”

  He laughed. “I hope you aren’t fulla shit, you seem pretty okay.”

  “You’ll be happy then, because I’m not full of shit. Not that my word exactly matters right now, but I’m here to help, at least through the worst of it.”

  “Why?” he asked, after a moment.

  I considered it. “I want to.”

  “Huh. Well, a good a reason as any, I guess. Most people won’t step into a steaming pile of shit willingly.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, this sucks and a part of me would really rather be in my motel room with a meal and a woman and a fire, but this needs doing.”

  He laughed loudly. “A man after my own heart.” He broke off abruptly as we came into a clearing, and then muttered, “aw shit.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. There was a cabin there, and the front door was thrown open, and there was blood in the snow, and paw prints all around.

  “Cover me,” he said, transitioning quite smoothly from foul-mouthed old man to competent hunter pretty quickly.

  I nodded, getting my pistol out, and walked with him across the bloodied snow to the cabin. I didn’t hear or see any wolves around, but that could change fast.

  “Willow!?” he called, waited, listened.

  Nothing. Just the wind.

  “Hell,” he muttered. “I’m going inside, wait out here.”

  “Got it,” I replied.

  He walked into the cabin and I heard him muttering and rummaging around inside for a few minutes. I looked around. Just snow-capped trees and naked bushes and paw prints all around and the blood. There wasn’t a lot of it, but it looked bright as hell. I looked for evidence of a fight, like a spent shell casing, hoping the blood came from a wolf and not this Willow, but it was impossible to truly tell one way or the other.

  After a moment, Markus came back.

  “Well, she’s not in there. I think maybe she had just got done searching this cabin and was going onto the next one when some wolves jumped her and she maybe shot one and ran.”

  “Why wouldn’t she go straight to the cabin with the supplies?” I asked.

  Here, he looked embarrassed. “I, ah, forgot which one they’re in.”

  “Oh.”

  He looked at me and I think he expected me to give him shit for it but I didn’t, just waiting for him to continue.

  “Well, come on, let’s go find her. Next cabin’s not that far from here.”

  We continued on our journey.

  FOUR

  Back in danger again.

  Exactly where I was positive I was heading, knew I hated being in actual danger, and yet I’d walked right into it anyway.

  My focus was honed down and I was opening up my senses to the world around me. I became more aware of the trees, the wind, the sights and sounds of the frozen forest. We were following along a simple trail between the trees and there was evidence that probably Willow and definitely wolves had gone this way. The blood didn’t continue down the path, so I didn’t think she’d been wounded. She’d wounded a wolf and then it had taken off, then she’d run and they’d followed. I paused as I spied something on the side of the trail.

  “Wait,” I said, stepping off the trail and crouching.

  “What is it?” Markus asked impatiently.

  Something clearly manmade was sticking up out of the snow and it looked a lot like the handle of a gun. I pulled it up and sure enough out came a pistol.

  “Shit, that’s Willow’s,” Markus muttered.

  “Great,” I said, tucking it down the back of my pants.

  He looked like he might object, but then he just turned and hurried on. I followed after him. We made our next discovery not much farther. The trail turned and that was when we caught sight of a lot of disturbed snow and more blood.

  “I think they got her here,” I said.

  “Yep,” Markus said, and hurried on once more.

  A minute later, we were in another clearing. I skidded to a halt, raising my pistol as I spied a wolf pawing at the front door. It caught wind of us immediately, turned around, and issued a growl deep in its throat. The gray-furred thing was big and menacing, and it started barking viciously as it came for us. I saw another one appear from behind the cabin, and it made a beeline as well. Markus was indeed, I saw, a hell of a shot and a fast draw.