It Shall Be Called The end Chapter 3
Dragons and knights
Chapter 3
When I wake up I quickly notice that the covers are on the floor. I mean I have heard of a cover hog but never one who simply doesn’t want anyone to have a blanket at all. Her legs are wrapped around my right leg and her arm is across my chest with her head on my shoulder. It’s a strange sight, a man in his boxers lying there with a nude woman wrapped around him. I’m sure morning wood is going to be an issue today, but for now I stay in bed enjoying the moment. This comfortable, safe moment.
Around eleven I get up, taking care not to wake her while covering her up again and go get breakfast started. After about thirty minutes I head back in and wake her up with breakfast in bed, scrambled eggs and coffee. The eggs are the fake kind, the only kind of eggs that can be found these days really, though I do keep meaning to go find some hens at some point so I can start having real ones, fake eggs get old quick. A dairy cow would be nice to because no one likes powdered milk, I don’t care who you are. I shake her a little and watch as her face goes from sluggish and sleepy to scared and confused, then to relieved.
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know who you were at first, it scared me”
“Oh I’m sorry; I should have just let you wake up on your own”
“No it’s fine”
“Well here I made you some breakfast”
She sits up when I hand her the plate and the blanket slides down revealing her breast. I find it funny yet awkward that she doesn’t seem to notice. and I still find it hard to keep myself from looking so I focus my attention somewhere else.
“Where did you get the eggs?! Is this real coffee?!”
“The eggs are fake, and yeah its real coffee, the stuff that’s vacuum sealed doesn’t go bad as easily”
“Wow…..I never thought I would taste coffee again…”
“Well enjoy it, we got plenty”
I walk up to the blackout curtains and open them letting the sun warm things up. It’s safe to do so now because we don’t need the lights during the day.
After she gets through eating she takes a shower and I get ready for our excursion. I figure she could use some more cloths and we could use some extra supplies being that there are two of us here now. I get my gear together and hang in the living room until she is done. When she comes in she is shirtless in a pair of jeans wearing the locket with her head completely shaved. The head looks nice and was unexpected but the look of the cold metal of the locket lying against her chest became strangely intoxicating and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.
“Do you like it?”
“Huh?”
“The locket”
“Oh, yeah”
“Good, what do you think about the hair?”
“Looks nice, why the drastic change?”
“I figured most of it was gone anyway so why not”
“Hmm, makes sense”
I try not to make eye contact with her, and avoid her breast at all cost. There is nothing worse than getting caught staring at a woman’s chest.
“You haven’t been near a woman in awhile have you?”
“What?” I ask in shocked surprise.
“Well you were starring at my chest and every time I’ve been naked around you, you seem to get tense”
“Not used to it I guess”
“You can touch anytime you like, I don’t mind” she says as she moves closer to me.
“It’s ok, thanks” I stammer while grabbing my gear, trying to avoid the moment
“Fine suit yourself”
She puts on her sweat shirt and we begin to leave. The afternoon air was humid, but from growing up here I already knew that and took the necessary precautions by bringing extra water. This is the reason I usually head out on my excursions in the morning. The air is cooler and the dead fucks don’t move around as much, must be too cold for them.
Being that it was afternoon we were not allowed the luxury of moving around in the street as freely as normal. We had to scout ahead and stick to the shadows, and use different obstructions as places to duck and hide.
After scavenging for awhile we make our way to a secluded safe spot I half found half erected in a big battle to stay alive a year earlier. I was surrounded by the dead fucks that patrolled this area like freaking Nazis in a concentration camp, and this little spot under the bridge next to the old casino boat proved to be the perfect location to hole up. One side was blocked by several cars that had tried boarding the ferry that was here in the evac attempt, but sadly they didn’t make it. Another side was water which was blocked with yet more cars and drift wood, the other was concrete. I stayed there for two days waiting for things to clear out, and eventually came back with rod iron fencing and installed it to block in the last vulnerable spot. Over the next year I took to reinforcing it for emergencies and used it as a middle point in my days where I was having these restless fits. It was here we had lunch and rested, thinking through our plans for the rest of the day and talking.
“You know chivalry is really pointless these days?”
“Huh?”
“Chivalry, being a gentleman, its pointless these days”
“What brings that up?”
“I was thinking how you reacted to my offer before we left; I mean what guy turns down a free and willing piece of ass? It doesn’t make sense to me. And you saved my life at the risk of yours, why did you do that when you could have died?”
There was a long silence before I found the words to say.
“I had a friend named Jessica who used to argue with me about chivalry, especially when I tried to carry something or open a door for her. She would always say that “she was well capable of carrying her own things and opening her own doors” until one day we really got into it, and we didn’t speak for a long time. It was a stupid reason to; all I did was lightly put my hand on her back and move her to the other side of me when we were walking through a bad neighborhood. You see I didn’t want anyone to have a chance to mess with her but she didn’t see it that way. She yelled at me and walked off leaving me there with a whole crowd of people laughing at what happened. I didn’t hear from her for years and when I did it was just a letter and a graded paper from a college in Oklahoma. The paper was on chivalry and it classified men in three groups, the pauper (a man who knows nothing of chivalry and exist only to get what he wants) the lord (a man who knows everything of chivalry but uses it to get what he wants) and the knight (a man who knows everything about chivalry and uses it out of respect for others with no thought of what he can get.) after I read the paper I read the letter and it said:
To my dearest knight,
I have made a serious mistake in thinking I knew what was in a man’s heart. I lost a great friend because I was to prideful to except help when offered. I’ve learned over time how much I miss having it around now that it is nonexistent. I am truly sorry for the things I said, thank you for the lesson learned.
With love
Your damsel in distress
“That was the last I heard from her. You see chivalry has been such a huge part of my life for so long that I can’t help but be that way.”
“Yeah but things are different now”
“The only difference is that is that back then I didn’t have a dragon to fight; now I do”
With those words I stood up and began to get my gear together, we still had one stop to make before heading back to the apartment and settling down for the night.
“You know the brotherhood will come right?”
“Let them come”
We left the safe spot and started toward the Mississippi River Bridge by way of the levee, zigzagging through debris and cars. The day wore on and the sun was unrelenting in its attack upon our backs as we climbed up to the middle of the bridge. There was a blockade set up in the center where the military tried to keep the dead from leaving the city only to find out to late that they didn’t need to breath and would eventually make it across the river.
We got to the top and crawled over to the other side of the blockade where I re spray painted a large message that read:
Still here!
“What is that for?” ginger asked with a puzzled look.
“It’s for when my friends return”
“Your friends? What friends?”
“Derrick and Jimmie, they went to find Jimmies brother Jeremy and are searching for some supplies and weapons while looking for signs of survivors.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“Eighteen months”
“And you expect them to come back? You don’t think they’ve died?”
“No”
“How optimistic”
“You don’t know them, they won’t die so easily”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m a fat guy who has managed to survive right”
“Yeah”
“Well they are tougher and are in better shape than I am. They are trained better and are heavily equipped. The only thing they don’t have more of is determination. That’s why I’ve stayed alive so long by myself, trust me they are still alive.”
“So when they get back how will they know how to find you?”
“We have a system set up, I come and make sure this message doesn’t fade and when they come back they will paint a response, in which I will paint a time and we will meet here at that time the following day.”
“Really thought this through huh?”
“Part of the survival game I guess.”
Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong
“Five o clock, we better get going. Don’t want to get stuck out here at night.”
We crawl back to the other side of the blockade and begin our slow meticulous trek back to the apartment. I always like to leave with plenty of time before nightfall, I’ve had the great pleasure of camping out here many times and I do have to say I’ve enjoyed nightmares more than that. We made it about halfway back when I head foots steps not far behind us, and not the random chaotic footsteps that come with the dead, but the kind with purpose and intent. The kind that was alive. Quickly I grabbed Ginger and ducked away in an alley behind a car, just in time to see several men go walking by. I could hear them speaking, in a gruff harsh voice.
“I saw someone come through here, I know it!”
“You better be sure, it’s getting dark out.”
“I don’t care how dark it gets, I saw someone back here and I know it’s him!”
“How do you know it was even human?”
“I know it was!”
“Alright fine! Calm down!”
“The son of a bitch shot my brother and left him to be eaten alive by those things! Ill calm down when he’s dead!”
I couldn’t help but smile at the words, yet ginger seemed to be upset by the whole situation. I looked at her and put a hand on her shoulder and nodded my apologies. We waited there for awhile, and after checking that the coast was clear we began our trek again.
*****************************************************
We made it back to the apartment just after dark, but being that there had been so many searching for us outside I opted to keep the generator off for the night, so as not to give any reason for our whereabouts to be made known. The moon was full that night so we ate dinner by moonlight, a lovely selection of MRE’s and grape Kool-Aid that I had found. After awhile of just sitting I took a shower and made my way to bed. It wasn’t long before I heard her in the shower and then making her way to my room once again getting undressed and climbing into bed. It was warm so the covers weren’t needed as we lay there together in the moonlight. It seemed like hours had passed when she started tracing the scars on my body with her finger.
“How did you get them?”
“Which ones?”
“All of them”
“Some of them were before everything died, mostly random stupid things from when I was a teenager, but some were from when I was in jail in Russia, while others were from when our house burnt down. The rest happened after, fighting off the dead, run INS with the brotherhood, you know the sort of thing.”
“Oh”
“You know, they caught me once?” I said after a long silence
I felt her body twitch at the words.
“Really?” her voice quivered as she said it.
“Yeah, I was out scavenging and got surrounded. They took me prisoner so to say and less than delicately brought me back to their compound. The old zoo I believe. It was there that I was chained up and tortured, couldn’t have been but a few days though there is no real way to tell. Some of the more hard up ones came in and enjoyed having their way with me; I guess anything is good when you haven’t seen a woman in a while.” It was difficult to get the words out, difficult to keep the anger down.
“How did you get out?”
“One day during one of the “special visits” after he pissed on me, I managed to get close enough while he was attempting to fuck me and I ripped open his throat with my teeth, and kept biting until I got his Adams apple. I got the keys and unchained myself, then took his cloths and left a message on the wall in his blood before I left. It’s disgusting to admit it but I guess there comes a point where you can’t take anymore and you just lose your mind.”
“…..what did the message say?”
“What happened to this world is nothing compared to what I will do to you….”
Her eye reflected the moonlight as she starred up at me.
“You are the only one I’ve told that too”
She nodded her understanding.
“So you’re the one?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was at the zoo, the other girls there used to talk about a man who escaped and swore revenge on the brotherhood. It was you.”
We looked at each other for awhile in silence.
“Never mind that now how is your wrist?”
“Getting better”
We had bandaged her wrist earlier that morning from where the copper wire binding cut into them. She snuggled up to me a little more and I kissed her on top of her head, I don’t know why but it just felt like the right thing to do, and after a few minutes I could feel her heavy breathing signifying that she had fallen asleep. I laid for a while watching her body move up and down with each breath, and considered what should be done next with the brotherhood roaming the streets looking for us, it wasn’t an hour before I feel asleep as well.
