The Desolate

The hangover was brutal the next morning, it probably had as much to do with our water conservation efforts, just as much as the bottle of whiskey I’d emptied through the night. My lips were very dry and probably slightly burnt from the road as well, and now that I had a moment to stop and rest, every little niggle or problem that I’d suppressed on the road now came rushing back in force. Ashe wasn’t in much better shape either, but she had at least managed to get up at a reasonable hour unlike me, she checked out our surroundings to make sure everything was still clear of zombies and other potential threats and had already checked the condensation traps. She had really earned my trust by that stage, which put me at ease around her and it meant I felt comfortable enough to allow myself this small luxury: rest! But that thought alone made me slightly anxious and stopped me from getting back to sleep, it was a risk to rely on others. But it felt different with her, Ashe had done a great deal over the last couple of weeks to earn that, and she seemed to value my company and friendship as much as I did hers. It was comforting, but it also meant guarding against complacency.

She was awake somewhere around dawn, searching the house with purpose, while I searched for the strength to get up and help her. But she insisted I rest and get some more sleep. “You have hardly slept in a week, Jack! It can’t be good for you. Please just rest, we are good here for the moment,” she insisted, her hand touching my head in a way that felt all too familiar. I just groaned something unintelligible before resting my eyes once again.

When my eyes opened again, the sun was blaring through the living room window, flooding the house with sunlight. My anxiety leaped into overdrive when I couldn’t see or hear Ashe. Panic began to flood my mind with dark questions and possibilities; Did something happen? Did she run away? You’re an idiot for trusting, Jack! Something in the back of my mind I was convinced that she’d probably stolen the backpack and left without a word. I sat up, rubbing my forehead, pushing down the dark thoughts as reason and sanity returned to my mind slowly. And as reason returned to my thoughts, I realized that it wasn’t likely; where would she go?

I slowly got up off the lounge and gathered my rifle, stretching for a moment before I heard quiet footsteps on the front porch. And internally, relief spread through my chest unexpectedly; grateful that she had not abandoned me. Then I heard her whispered voice as she cursed to herself from just outside, “You are a fucking idiot, Ashe!”

Making my way outside, I found her scrubbing the thick pants I’d acquired for her several weeks earlier, her lower half wrapped in another towel, she was clutching her stomach which appeared slightly bloated as she worked vigorously to clean a small bloodstain from her pants. “Is everything okay?” I asked as I stepped out onto the porch.

“I’m fine!” she snapped. But then she stopped herself a moment later and looked up at me apologetically. She then stood and hung the pants on the guard rail of the porch, before letting out a deep sigh, and speaking in a low voice, “I’m sorry, Jack! You didn’t deserve that! This whole thing is just frustrating,” she explained, trying to calm herself, before sitting down on the step sobbing into her palms.

“I get it!” I said, before heading inside and fetching our last bottle of distilled water. She looked up when I returned a moment later, sitting down beside her. It was quiet between us for a long moment as tears continued to fall from her eyes silently. “It’s okay,” I said, waiting patiently for her to speak. Taking in a sip of water in hopes of helping my hangover.

She said nothing as she looked up at me, offering only an apologetic look.

We just sat for a long moment in silence as I took in another mouthful of water, before handing it to her. Speaking calmly, “I know what Rick is like with his slaves, and if he can earn something by ‘renting’ someone out, he will. So, I understand the relief you must feel knowing there is no lasting physical damage. But the internal wounds I imagine will take much longer to heal.” I took in a deep empathetic breath, feeling a sense of rage at the thought of someone hurting this sweet girl, my mind moving through a dark path of memories and burning rage that had once filled me, “Anger and frustration and whatever else you feel is perfectly okay and perfectly understandable. And none of it will change how I feel about you.”

“How can you possibly understand, Jack?” she cried.

I just shook my head, a tear falling from my own eye as the image of my mother’s raped and beaten body flashed through my head repeatedly, and then with memories of my own experiences at the hands of those animals. “I suppose I can’t, not really. I’m not even good at empathy or emotions to begin with honestly. People are difficult for me. But I’m trying to understand, and I’m trying to just be here for you. All I know for sure is that the very thought of someone hurting you in the way that I am sure they did…” I hesitated, trying to describe the feeling of rage and murderous intent, but words seemed to fall short. “It’s not something I can accept. If I can do anything to help, all you need to do is ask. I’m not going anywhere without you, that’s a promise. But if you ever want to leave, I will never stop you.”

She stared for a long moment before I reached over to put my hand on hers, and her crying seemed to ease off as she looked down at my hand. She took in a deep breath to calm herself, closing her eyes as her hand squeezed mine. “Thank you!” She said, her eyes opening and meeting mine. Then she spoke as if confessing some horrible sin, “Honestly, I was one of the very lucky ones. I was ‘rented’ a few times, which was horrible, but I was never bought outright. Most of those girls rarely lasted more than a few months before they were killed or discarded. And it was even shorter for the men.”

I put an arm around her, pulling her a little closer, trying to reassure her that none of what happened then had to affect us now. I kissed her head instinctively like had several days ago on the shores of Lake Eyre. “You can’t compare yourself to others, you can only react to the cards you have been dealt in your own life and no one else’s. Trying to imagine how you might have reacted to someone else’s plight and comparing their lot to your own is a fool’s errand. There will always be someone worse off than you, just as there will always be someone better off. Your life is yours alone, even as a slave, you always have that power. We all walk our own path in this world, and we all die just the same in the end, one way or another.”

She seemed lost in thought for a long moment, and soon after a small smile touched the edge of her lips before crawling up into my lap and gently wrapping her arms around me, sobbing quietly into my chest as I held her. Letting her internal storm of emotions flood out of her mind for as long as it took. All I could do was sit and listen and let her ride it out until her breathing finally came under control once more after several minutes. Her rational mind soon returned as she stared out into the surrounding green fields, still holding me tightly. “This really is a really beautiful place,” she whispered.

“It really is!” I whispered, gently squeezing her. Thankfully she seemed to regaining control of her emotions which was a relief. I needed her functional, and while I would help her as best I could to deal with her internal demons, she would need to push through it herself one way or another. “We really could get comfortable here, at least for now. But it’s on the plains so it’s hard to know what the zombie situation will look like over time. Herd migration is a thing unfortunately and we could easily find this place inundated in a few days or a week. And who knows for how long, especially if we were spotted. In my experience, if an area is mostly clear of zombies on the plains, then it’s on a regular migration path.” I explained, kissing her on the head once more to comfort and reassure her troubled mind, adding in a whisper to reassure her, “I will never ask anything you really don’t want to do again, certainly not like that. For as long as we are together, that is a promise.”

She just nodded slightly and smiled, “I know you wouldn’t, Jack. That’s why I’m very lucky. Most of those other girls that didn’t get picked are probably busy servicing the northern tribes as we speak trying to save themselves from an even more horrific fate. I can never repay you for that, not with all the sex or anything I can think of in the world.” She hesitated as if lost in her own thoughts for a moment before a devilish grin formed and she whispered, “Well, maybe…”

“You don’t owe me anything, Ashe! Not a goddamn thing!”

Ashe just shook her head, taking a drink from the bottle of water, before replying, “That doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could!” She said, as her eyes cast down, “You’re lonely, that much I can see, Jack. I can tell that you have probably never been touched or kept warm by the way you react to it.” She smiled sadly as her beautiful green eyes met mine, “And of all the men in this world who simply take what they want, you are so different. And that makes you special, certainly to me.” She just held me tightly, her face nuzzling into my neck.

I did not know how to respond to her kind words. There was something fearful and anxious rearing up in the back of my mind once again as if begging me to run from this. But the beast was calmed when Ashe leaned up and kissed me on the lips. And in that moment, it was as though all walls had shattered in my mind for this girl, instinctively I returned the kiss, holding her tightly in my arms. And it suddenly became clear that we were in this together, come what may. And that thought was both terrifying and invigorating as if there was a sudden drive spurring me to do more and be more for her.

Once it was over, my mind was starting to turn to more practical considerations at that point though. The sun was about a quarter of the way into the sky, indicating it was mid-morning and time to get on with the day. We had a lot to do, and while it was important to ensure she was okay, we also needed to get things done.

“I assume zombies are still an issue around here then?” she asked, changing the subject back to our more immediate concerns. Pointed to the bones of cattle and other life stock littering the surrounding fields. With specs of white sitting just above the grass that had long overgrown the surrounding pastures. But none of them seemed recent, with the flesh having long since been eaten or rotted away, and thankfully there was no sign of recent zombie activity.

“It’s hard to say for sure. They have been here at some point, but the grass is standing tall, not crushed as it would be if a herd of zombies had passed through recently. Zombies tend to move on if there is no food around, and they tend to follow relatively predictable migration patterns. They herd and move together often following old roadways and routes until the road becomes harder to traverse, then they change direction. It’s unlikely we would find many stragglers this far from the major cities and towns, especially with the land this flat. But a herd could stumble on us, especially with the regular flooding on the coast from the storms. We should always be on alert here. As I said, all it would take is another storm or flood to cause them to move in our direction. The slow ones sometimes get abandoned by the herds if they can’t keep up, so we will need to be careful. And be careful of large storms like the one we passed through yesterday.”

“Sounds like we definitely hit the jackpot here, or at least I did.” She winked, “It’s a good chance to rest up a bit before we head out again, but I don’t know about getting shit-faced drunk every night while we are here!” she teased, patting my arm playfully.

My head felt like it was being hit repeatedly with a hammer, so it was hard to disagree with her sentiment. “Yeah, fuck that, once was enough for me. I love whisky, but this headache is just brutal.”

Ashe was kind enough to leave me on watch while she got up and got some things done. She insisted I rest while she filtered and bottled more water, keeping herself busy so her mind didn’t dwell on her earlier thoughts. The hangover eventually began to subside in the early afternoon after another bottle of water and something to eat. And I finally worked up a little energy to get around to doing something other than lounge on the front porch watching out for zombies.

Ashe returned to the front porch and spoke in a tone that indicated she was as proud of her accomplishment as she should have been. “The bottles are almost all full and ready to go, there is a dam about fifty meters behind the house, so I filtered enough to stock us up completely and brought enough water up to the house for us to wash up a bit and to use while we are here, so we don’t burn through our supplies for the road. I don’t know about you, but I need to get washed up properly, I feel so gross right now.”

I nodded and smiled, “Sure, great work. We should be good here for a few days at least. Thank you.”

She blushed a little and moved closer, and I took it as a sign of her need for affection as I pulled her into my arms once more.

While she had done all of that, I’d worked through each of our guns and knives, cleaning each of them thoroughly. After our moment of affection, I picked up my rifle and walked out into the front yard of the farmhouse. I thought I had seen movement in the distance and moved to get a bit of a closer look. The yard itself was little more than a small area long overgrown with weeds that had once been a beautifully manicured garden area. But it was secure enough, and it was still surrounded by a rusty wire fence, offering a little extra security from stray zombies.

When I got to the road, and my eyes adjusted, I could make out what I thought I’d seen just moments earlier. I turned to Ashe who was still working on a few things and asked, “Do you think you can get a fire going before dark?”

Ashe shrugged. “I can get a fire pit ready for sure if you can find some flint to start one, there doesn’t seem to be much here.”

I smiled, noting the lack of gravel in the immediate area around the house. “I’ll have a look while I’m out,” I replied.

“Where are you going?” She asked curiously.

“Dinner.” I winked, “I won’t be long,” I then turned and walked across the old overgrown dirt road and into the pasture filled with the bones of long-dead cattle and horses, making my way into the plains for several kilometers. The land surrounding the farmhouse was quite green, indicating irrigation had been built at some point, and that most of it still worked. However, the surrounding area beyond that was arid, and still quite barren for sustaining life in the long term, at least without a sizeable group to complete all the necessary daily tasks efficiently. One short drought and we would be dead in a season if we stayed local. That fact alone ruled the house out as a viable option to stay in over the long term, certainly not without more people around, or at least not without a settlement nearby to trade with. But a few days to rest and recover, and to take in some protein was a more than welcome change from the constant travelling.

As I moved through the field, closing in on where I’d last caught sight of them, I once again spotted them taking shelter by a small creek bed. Putting a kangaroo down and butchering it seemed like a great idea and drying some of the meat for the road meant we could last a lot longer if we needed should we run out of other food sources. And I also didn’t like how thin slave life had made Ashe, so I vowed to make sure she got plenty of food while she was with me—and if she was going to stay, I wanted her to feel a sense of security as well, she deserved that much.

Once I was nearly two kilometers from the house, the terrain had begun to turn from farmland to arid plains stretching out all the way to the foot of the low-lying mountain range to the east. The exposed dark reddish-brown soil and a few acacia trees and tufts of grass and shrubs covered the land with only very sporadic vegetation hinting at the kind of land this really was.

The landscape provided very limited shade to the local wildlife, so the one tree seemed to be a gathering spot for a small group of kangaroos. I knelt by a fallen log not far from the creek bed, watching them for a long moment as they lounged on a distant pile of rocks, taking shelter in a small section of shade. I almost felt pity for them, they had probably never seen a living human, and as a result, they no longer feared us as they once might have. I was less than fifty meters from them when I fired a single shot, killing a large male instantly when the bullet passed right through his skull. I listened for the sound of an echo from the gunshot and grew concerned when there was none except the dull thud bouncing off the mountains in the distance. Echoes meant the sound would be difficult to pinpoint, without which, zombies and potentially other humans would hear it from a very long distance. Thankfully the temperature was still quite hot, which limited the reach of the sound somewhat, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out if anyone heard it.

I rushed to the small creek bed where he had fallen, watching as the kangaroos scattered in all directions, spooked by the shot as I ran toward them. My kill was a good one, heavy and far too big to carry the now two kilometers back to the house, so I unsheathed the knife, removing its hide and taking one of his legs, heart, tongue, liver, and kidneys. All of which would provide us with some much-needed protein and nutrition. While the rest of the carcass was unfortunately left to rot. I returned to the house just before dusk finding Ashe kneeling by a well-built firepit in the front yard. The hole she dug in the ground would do the job and the surrounded with rocks would conceal the flames from a distance. She was striking a pair of stones over some dry grass trying desperately to get it going, looking up with a slightly disappointed smile as she realized that I had arrived and there was no fire yet. “No luck with the flint?” she asked, eying off the fresh meat.

“Sadly not. It’s pretty barren out there and no flint around that I could see.”

“Damn,” she said under her breath before tossing the useless rocks into the pit. Holding up a tiny piece of flint, “I found this one in one of the garden beds, but it’s too small, and the other rocks are too soft, they mostly just crumble.”

“It’s okay, give me a minute, and I’ll see if I can help, the knife blade might work just as well,” I explained, as I hung the carcass and organs from the roof of the porch using some wire from the fence. The meat hung over the grass to let the blood drain in preparation for our feast. And once finished, I washed it off in one of the condensation traps and handed my knife to Ashe. She struck the side of the blade with the tiny piece of flint, trying to get it to spark, but she was right. The only piece she found was so small it was difficult to get enough energy into the strike. While she continued with that, I worked on preparing the meat while also keeping watch on our surroundings. My eyes constantly wandered to Ashe and her red ponytail and to the kiss that now preoccupied my mind from earlier in the day. But with hanging meat, we would need to be careful. Wind moving in the wrong direction might easily bring a nearby herd our way.