KingOfNowhere

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank's eye widened at the sight of Priscilla dropping her towel and exposing her naked form. He'd always suspected she had a fantastic body; she'd been an athlete and wanna-be Navy SEAL, and even today, years later, she still exercised every day. As she slipped into a long tee shirt, Frank realized that Pris and Allison had very similar forms, both created through a life of hard work, even if those forms of work -- ranching and athletics -- were very much different from one another.

If he thought he'd been surprised by Pris exposing herself, Frank was even more so shocked when she first headed out of the room packing a big knife, then returned less than a minute later with it and herself covered in blood. Frank had never considered whether or not Pris had the ability to kill a man, let alone stabbing him in cold blood. Why the fuck would he every have contemplated that? Now, though, he knew.

She ordered him into her bedroom before once again gettin' neked to clean herself up. Frank explained more of the details, including how he'd used the storm drain and how he had 5 more people on his list of rescuees.

Pris accepted the offer of rescue but only before adding, "I have someone who has to go with us or I'm not going."

Frank was about to argue that they needed to keep this operation small, but then he remembered what Allison had said about bringing more people who he thought were appropriately suitable. Before he could argue one way or the other, though, they were heading out of the house and down the alley.

They ended up at and then inside a house on the corner, where Pris introduced Beverly and Connor. Frank knew they both by sight and Connor by name, though he wouldn't say he was very familiar with either of them. After some conversation and more orders from the woman currently calling the shots, the pair were packing backpacks as Pris had.

"Explain precisely how to get to that storm drain cover you were telling me about," she ordered Frank, telling Beverly and Connor to pay attention. She explained what happened if she and Frank didn't reach them before sunlight, explaining, "I don't want the two of you being punished for something that wasn't your idea in the first place ... got it?"

Frank saw that it was his turn and described the route back to and around Pris's house, then down the block to the open storm drain. (He didn't want the pair going through Pris's house because of the guy's whose blood was now staining everything near him corpse.) Frank handed them one of his flashlights, only to learn that Connor had scrounged up two of their own while packing.

"Like Pris said," he warned, "stay hid, stay quiet ... and if we don't reach you, I've failed and you need to get back here."

Frank intentionally put the potential for failure on him, not him and Pris. This was his plan, and if it crapped out on them and got them caught or killed, only he was to blame. He moved to the kitchen's backdoor and told them, "Get going, and stay quiet. Check for patrols before you move out into the open."

The pair headed out, and Frank looked to Pris. "I'd planned on going to Candy King's place next, but our little detour puts us closer to Doc Cooper's place, so..."

They headed out the back but in the opposite direction that Bev and Cooper had taken. As Frank had suspected, there were virtually no patrols out tonight; they traveled three blocks and only saw one pair of men strolling down the middle of one street, laughing and joking while sucking on a bottle of moonshine made right here in Greenburg.

They arrived at the back of Howard Cooper's place. Pre-pandemic it had been one of the town's two clinics. Today it was the only remaining one and was Doc Cooper's residence as well. Frank tested the door know and found it unlocked. Looking to Pris, he said, "He never locked it. Who's going to hurt the town's only doctor, right? No one's going to steal his drugs either. The Militia makes its own crack and sugar-heroine."

He was pretty sure Pris knew all about the locally produced, poppy-free version of heroine that had hit the streets about a year before the pandemic. It had become the rage amongst heroine addicts because of it cheaper cost and led to a new drug war between the local producers/distributors and the traditional distributors of heroine imported from overseas.

Quietly, Frank entered the back hallway of the clinic, creeping along slowly and listening for movement and voices. It was almost midnight by now and there shouldn't have been any patients in the clinic, but emergencies did happen, and when they did, those who'd suffered in them ended up here, sometimes overnight.

Frank had just reached the end of the hallway when a woman suddenly appeared from around the corner. She stopped short, eyes and mouth open wide, and was just in the process of screaming when Frank surged forward to grasp her body with one hand and cover her mouth with the other.

He thought he had things under control until she kneed him solidly in the crotch. Emitting an oof of pain but still maintaining control of the woman, he let his greater weight and position take them both down to the floor, where he groaned for a long moment before another male voice asked harshly, "Frank King, what the fuck are you doing to my wife?"

Unable to form words, Frank removed his hand from around the woman's body and gestured wait with a raised finger. By the time he was able to speak, the situation had already been explained to the Doc. Frank released his hold on the woman and rolled to his side in a semi-fetal position. He moaned, "Sorry ... didn't mean to scare anyone."

It didn't take anything at all to get Howard to agree to leave Greensburg. He had been very vocal about the Militia being selective about who got medical care, even finding himself needing stitches over his left eye after an altercation with a Militiaman who'd hit him with the butt of his gun.

He was reluctant to leave all of these people without a doctor, but he knew they'd find another one; he'd heard rumors about a pending trade of National Guard gear to the Denver Militia in exchange for this, that, and the other thing, and knowing that Denver -- now with a population of over 6,000 -- had at least a half dozen doctors, he knew that his flight from Greenburg would force the Militia to trade for a new doctor as well or instead.

Howard's wife -- who apparently had also been subject of a recent Militia trade -- was more than happy to throw together a bag. The Doc put the other pair to work filling bags with antibiotics, pain killers, flu medicines, anti-virals, and more, while he did the same with medical equipment. Frank warned that they couldn't carry the entire clinic away, but Howard was insistent that they take the items he'd picked out.

When they were ready to leave, all four of them had their hands full. They backtracked, first to Bev's house, then to Pris's. Sneaking through the dark to the storm drain, Frank called down and got a response from Cooper. He told the younger man, "We're sending someone down and lowering bags to you. Do you best not to drop them."

Doc's wife descended the later, followed by Doc who stopped in the middle to act as middle man for the passing of the bags to the bottom of the pipe. When they were done, Frank told Pris, "You don't have to go with me. You can stay here. I'll be back with the others."

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank used the motorcycle's headlight for most of the trek toward Greenburg. He didn't expect any patrols farther out from the town than maybe a couple of miles, and on a Saturday night there might not be any at all.

Having been part of the Militia's perimeter patrol and scavenging teams, he was familiar with what would be ahead of him, regardless of the day of the week. When he was just two miles from Greenburg's outskirts, he turned off the headlight and slowed his speed to match the danger of running into or over something. He began idling the bike's motor to quiet the noise, then wrenching back on the accelerator when the storm's rumbling exploded across the landscape, increasing his speed to propel him further. Then, it was only a matter of repeating the procedure with the next roll of thunder.

When he was just under half a mile from the town's westside highway blockade, Frank pulled off the road and hid the bike behind an abandoned car. From there, he'd approach on foot along the shoulder. His path moved deeper into the cover of the scattered shrubbery the closer he got to the blockade.

Frank paused once he sighted the guard post. Once upon a time, it had been the security shack for the distribution center, but after the Militia took over the town and set up check points around Greenburg, they'd moved it here. He looked for evidence of an active watch, and neither seeing nor hearing anything, not even a lantern or candle, he approached slowly until he was close enough to see inside the window.

He nearly cracked up laughing at what he saw, one of the guards on his knees sucking the cock of the other. Frank would have expected the pair to have one of the town's reluctant whores out here servicing them, but then most people knew what they liked and who was he to say what that was.

Frank crept around the little shack toward the door. He scanned the area between the post and the town as he listened to the man in the chair moaning in pleasure. He could have left the two to their fun and headed townward, but Frank knew that if he succeeded in his mission, he and the others would be coming back this way again.

He didn't want complications if the alarm had been raised in Greenburg. So as he listened to the man being serviced grunt out in ecstasy, Frank threw the door open, grabbed the kneeling man hair, pulled his head back, and slit his throat with a butcher knife he'd secreted away from Allison's kitchen. Flipping the blade in his hand as the orgasming man's eyes opened in horror, he stabbed the second guard in the chest. The blade slipped between ribs and cut into the man's heart. He was dead almost immediately.

Frank backed away, leaving the knife where it had sunk. He'd been splashed with blood and took a moment to clean it off his hands, arms, and chest. He took them men's guns and extra ammo and, knowing there was no time to waste, hurried down the road toward the small city.

Just a quarter mile from the first houses, Frank left the road and descended to the bank of the Muddy River. This time of the year, particularly after the region's sixth year of drought, the river was little more than a trickle, at the most three feet wide in some places. Using a flashlight Allison had provided him, Frank picked a path that eventually took him to a storm drainpipe that jutted out from a high point in the bank. It was covered with a locked grate. He knew about the grate because one of his duties as a newbie was coming down to the drain occasionally, unlock the grate, and clear away the debris -- natural and otherwise -- that accumulated there and blocked the flow.

This was where the storm came in. The rains had only just begun, so the flow wasn't at its peak quite yet. It was the thunder that had drawn Frank's interest. Taking out another tool he'd taken from the ranch, a 12-pound sledgehammer, he waited for a flash of lightning, then counted the seconds until the boom of the thunder.

Waiting a full minute for the next flash, Frank raised the hammer, counting, then brought it down just as the rumble swept over him. The strike bent the fuck out of the gate's latching mechanism but neither destroyed the weld nor broke the lock. He waited for the next flash, again counted, then brought the hammer down a second time. This time the weld gave way, and with the bent but still functioning lock in position, the gate swung open.

Frank tossed the hammer aside and retrieved the shotgun from the bank. He headed up the drainpipe, this time using both the flashlight in his left hand and the headlamp wrapped around his skull and sending a beam forward from his forehead.

He didn't actually know the path he needed to take, but he knew the general layout of the streets and homes above. After several minutes of making turns this way and that, he stopped below a storm drain grate that he hoped was near to his destination. Frank slung the shotgun and climbed the access ladder, stopping to peek out of the grate as best he could.

Seeing and hearing nothing of concern, he rose higher, pressed his back to the grate, and used all of his strength to push it up out of its frame. Once it had moved, he paused, looked and listened, then moved it some more. He was eventually able to poke his head out, and again he neither saw nor heard anything of concern.

Frank smiled when he realized that he was less than two blocks from his first destination. Rising out of the storm drain, he headed close to the nearest house, then through the lawns and hedges and occasionally over a short fence until he was squatting outside the window of his first female rescuee.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank watched Allison rise from the bed and head for the exit. She was a beautiful woman, shapely and strong, unlike the more petite Jennifer with whom he'd been gettin' nasty for the last many months. Allison's life here had given her an energy that she'd put into making love to Frank, and her isolation and loneliness had given her a drive that had led to multiple orgasms for each of them.

Simply put, they'd fucked each other's brains out for over an hour, until each of them were covered in sweat and desperately in need of the water she was currently chasing down.

When she returned to the bed and handed him a tall glass, Allison told him, "That was magnificent, Frank. Thank you."

"Thank you?" he laughed. He gulped at his water, then responded, "It's been a long time since a woman thanked me for sex. I kinda like that."

He laughed, finished the glass, set it aside, and took a moment to ogle her womanly features. He returned the compliment with, "You're an amazing woman, Allison. I'm happy I met you. Very happy."

Frank had a quick recollection of having said those same words to Jennifer not long after they'd met. It hadn't been after or about sex, though. He had had some time to discover who and what she was, a loving woman willing to take in someone else's child and raise it as her own, a woman desperate to regain a sense of the pre-pandemic life that I-55 had taken from her and from so many others.

Jennifer had been a good woman, and Frank was sorrowful that she'd passed, particularly in such a violent way and, more tragically, because she'd put her faith in him and joined his flight from Greenburg without the proper protections. Frank had gotten Jennifer killed; he accepted that. It was that that was behind him wanting to get the others away from that town and the militia that ran it.

There was a crack of thunder off in the distance that caused Frank to flinch, then chuckle in embarrassment. He rose to his haunches and one outstretched hand, reached for Allison's head to pull their mouths together for a kiss, then told her, "I want to check that out."

Rising naked as his new lover also had, Frank went to the window and pulled the drapes aside. A moment later, a flash of lightning lit up the sky in the far east. It took several seconds for the soft rumble of the thunder to reach them. He mused, more to himself than to Allison, "That might help."

Frank looked back to his new housemate, again taking in her beauty. He wanted nothing more than to return to her and resume fucking her, but a thought had gotten into his brain and he couldn't get it out. Looking back out the window after catching another flash out of the corner of his eye, he counted the seconds before the thunder reached him.

He was no meteorologist, of course, but he'd learned a few things over the course of his life, and one of them had been how to calculate the distance to the heart of a storm based on the time between the flash of the lightning and the rumble of the associated thunder.

"I need to go now," he said, turning and heading around the end of the bed and then sitting on it next to Allison. He kissed her again, passionately, then explained, "There's a chance that that storm is going to be over the top of Greenburg tonight. A chance. I can't be certain. But if it is, it will help hide what I'm trying to do. I need to go. Right now."

They had already settled on a plan to get the others away from Greenburg, but they'd set a date for 11 days from now when there was a New Moon and Frank wouldn't be lit up by the moon's reflection of light down upon him. This was better, he told Allison; the storm would block out the moon and the thunder would cover the sounds of the work he had to perform.

"I have to go now," he repeated after they discussed it some more. Frank kissed Allison, pulling the bedding up to wrap it around her now-gooseflesh covered body. "I'll be back. I promise." He pulled her body to his, kissing her erotically again as his hands caressed her under the sheet. "If you think I'm going to risk never having another night like this..."

.....................

Less than an hour later, Frank was ready to leave. He'd dressed in the darkest colored clothes that Grampa had had to offer and even darkened his face and the backs of his hands using the last vestiges of shoe polish from a can that Allison told him was probably more than forty years old.

He'd come up with his plan after discovering an old 125cc dirt bike under a cover out in one of the outbuildings the day before. Allison had told him they kept it for when the younger relatives visited, taking it up and down the driveway or sometimes to a local dirt bike track. No one had used it in almost two years, and yet after Frank spent a couple of hours doing some routine maintenance on it and filling the tank, it fired up and roared after just one kick on the starter.

"It's Saturday night," he told Allison as they prepared a backpack for him in the kitchen. "Believe it or not, things haven't changed a lot in Greenburg when it comes to the days of the week. The citizenry still works harder than they should have to Monday to Saturday, Saturday nights are for partying and getting drunk, and Sunday is a day of rest.

"The Militia's patrols are at their lowest Saturday nights," Frank reassured her, "and even the one's on duty will be drinking and will have ... company if you know what I mean. This is what you and I were planning, a Saturday night mission. Only thing that's changed is I gotta go now."

The farewell wasn't easy after the night they'd just had together, but Frank knew it was the right thing to do and he hoped that Allison knew it, too. Returning to the outbuilding, he topped the tank off, donned the backpack, slipped Allison's shotgun down into a makeshift scabbard he'd mounted to the bike's frame, and pulled her close for one more long, passionate kiss.

"I gotta go," he whispered to her. One more kiss, and he kicked the bike into first. Before he shot it off into the night, he promised with the well-known and often repeated Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, "I'll be back."

And he was gone.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank spoke more about his plan, giving greater detail. In the end, Allison told him she was still unsure. As they were putting Robert down for the night, though, she told him the plan was a go. She asked more about Victor, to which Frank successfully argued his inclusion. Then, Allison stepped close to Frank, telling him, "I haven't been with a man in a long time. If you thought you'd want to be with me..."

Frank didn't have to think about whether he'd want to be with Allison; he'd decided the answer to that question was a most definite yes clear back when she'd first asked if he wanted to stay on. He'd chastised himself for thinking about fucking Allison barely 24 hours after his partner of several months had been shot to death. But Frank had saw no reason why he couldn't continue to mourn for Jennifer after he'd fucked Allison. It wasn't as if he was cheating on her.

"I want to be with you, Allison," he whispered in response, moving closer to press his lips to hers while his hands found her hips. The kiss was soft but erotic, the tips of their tongues dancing with one another. When they disengaged, Frank whispered, "I need to shower. Care to join me?"

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Allison surprised Frank when, out of the blue, she said, "Tell me more about these good people of whom you speak."

He was certain that his hostess had dismissed the idea of bringing on more people outright or at least for the indefinite future.

"I'm not saying I'm ready for something like this," she told him. "I'm just saying ... I'll listen."

The delight in Frank's face was obvious. He'd always been happier living in a group. He'd had a large family with many siblings and cousins. He'd joined the Army and been part of an assault team and, later, a search and rescue team, both of which had required working close together. After his discharge, he'd almost always chosen jobs where he was working closely with others. (Unfortunately, he'd never been able to keep any of those jobs long, for one reason or another which were sometimes his fault but most often not.)

He'd been holding Robert in his arms but now put him in a second smaller playpen he'd fashioned just for the porch. Going inside to fetch two more McGee ales, Frank returned to say, "Okay, first, let me tell you about Greenburg, where Jennifer and I were for the last couple of months."

Allison had heard of Greenburg, which shouldn't have surprised Frank as it was only 50 miles away. She was also aware of the distribution center that served McConnely's, a chain of grocery stores spread across Southern Montana and Northern Wyoming.

"When the pandemic struck and people started going nuts," Frank went on, "the Governor sent a Company from the National Guard to secure the distribution center. Unfortunately, most of them were already infected. Everything went to shit, and after a while a civilian militia came in and took control of the center. They killed all of the soldiers who hadn't already died of I-55 and took control of the town.

"There were maybe 200 people left alive," Frank told her, sipping at his beer. "They weren't all locals, from Greenburg. Some had heard there was food there. Some were passing through and the militia just didn't let them leave. That's what happened to Jennifer and I. I was ... what's that word ... Shanghaied into their military after they learned my history."

He unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled the lapel aside to reveal the Army unit tattoo that he doubted Allison had yet noticed. He explained its significance, then continued, "They put me on unarmed perimeter watches, then scavenging runs, then armed security. I was helping keep the community safe ... helping keep law and order."

He went silent a moment, looking down at his bottle of beer as he recalled some of the things he'd been ordered to do. "It didn't take a genius to see that the militia was not good for the community. People sometimes disappeared. Women were raped, more often than not against Uniforms without anything being done about it.

"When it was suggested that Jennifer could help the community by popping out more children ... presumably Immune children," Frank went on, his tone becoming angrier, "I knew it was time to hit the road. It took a few days to gather what we needed and get hold of a car. I thought I got us out of there without being seen, but ... well, you were there, so you saw how that ended."

He drained the last of his beer, continuing, "Anyway, people. I can name six off the top of my head."

Frank told Allison about three men and three women, though, he said there were others who he thought would benefit the estate. "Howard Cooper's a doctor, a surgeon, if I recall. More than that, he knows more about nutrition than anyone I've ever known. He told me once that he wanted to be a Naturopath, but he doubted that it would pay off his college loans or get him an ocean-going sailboat.

"Paul Williams -- not the singer, by the way -- is kind of like me, an all-around handy man with experience that simply abounds," Frank went on. "More than that, he's just a good guy who you can always depend on. He's the one who got Jennifer and I the car and cleared the way for us to get out of Greenburg. He's a hard worker.

"And Victor Sokolov would be worth having, too," Frank said, naming his third male choice. "He was a Ukrainian Army officer, here training with our Army on some surface-to-air launcher that was too new for me to have known anything about it. The pandemic stranded him here. He was in the militia with me, but -- just like me -- he knew it was an illegitimate organization and needed to be disbanded. That wasn't going to happen, though ... so ... he'd doing what he's told until he can get away, like Jen and I did."

Frank told Allison about his female choices, too, then finished, "I know how to get us back into Greenburg. I'll go in alone, but once I'm inside, I can make contact with those people you like. I can get in and get out in just a few hours, maybe less."

He looked toward the playpen, then to Allison. With a sincere tone, Frank asked, "If something were to go wrong ... if I wasn't able to get out again ... you'd take care of Little Bit ... right?"

"The Last Plague" (closed)

When Allison came down the stairs the next morning, she was greeted by the smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs. Having gone to sleep so early the night before, Frank had awoken well before dawn; having recalled that she said she performed a pre-dawn perimeter patrol, he thought he would treat her to a hot breakfast that she didn't have to make herself.

"Good morning, sleepy head," Frank teased as his hostess entered the kitchen. He gestured toward the fridge, informing her, "Milk and juice are still in the fridge. Butter, too. I noticed the container was almost empty yesterday. I assume you make it yourself. Is that something you can teach me?"

They chatted as Frank filled two plates with food and two mugs with steaming coffee. Robert was sitting up in the nearby playpen, babbling again and -- when trying to look up to the newly arrived Allison -- spilling back onto his back before giggling and flailing his little arms and legs.

"I have my list of chores," Frank said, pulling a scrap paper out of the chest pocket of yet another of Allison's grandfather's plaid shirts. "Anything I need to add to it that I didn't do yesterday?"

A casual observer would have thought the two of them had been friends -- or even partners -- for years by the way they so comfortably interacted. Frank asked if he needed to pack her anything to snack on while she did her patrol. He finally sat and dug into his own serving, once again marveling at the joy of a full, hot breakfast.

"I was thinking," he began when they were finishing eating and -- demanding that she stay seated -- Frank began gathering the dirty dishes while Allison partook of a second mug of coffee. He leaned back against the counter as he continued, "There is a lot of work around her, as you told me and as I learned yesterday. You could use more help than just me."

Frank hesitated, wondering if Allison knew where he was going with this. He went on, "The community where Jennifer and I came from ... there are a lot of good people there that we made friends with. Not like the ones who chased us down, obviously. Good people looking for a better life. They're all Immunes, obviously. I doubt very much that there's anyone left alive at this point who isn't immune, unless they're isolated away on some remote island or down in Antarctica."

He sipped at his own coffee as he studied Allison, then added, "Just something to think about."

"The Last Plague" (closed)

"Yes, Frank, there is definitely something more you need to learn," Allison said before standing and disappearing back into the house. When she returned, she was packin' heat, as she had been when first they'd met during the previous night's shootout. "Every night, I walk the perimeter of the property..."

She explained about her patrol and intruders and keeping the property secure. Frank had already wondered about this aspect of the ranch, knowing what he knew about the world beyond the estate. It was a violent and scary world out there, far worse than Allison was probably aware.

She spoke about never having shot anyone until she'd done so saving his and Robert's life. "It's not an easy thing to do."

"No, it isn't," Frank agreed. "I, um ... I've taken lives myself, to be honest. I mean, in the military, when I was overseas."

He could have told her more about his service but decided to save that for another day. He could have also told her about a short, monthlong stint with a Southern Montana militia, but he hoped never to tell her that.

"I collected all of the weapons when I went back last night," she told before offering out Frank's own pistol, a Glock 9mm semiautomatic, saying, "I think this belongs to you."

He hesitated before reaching out to take it, not wanting to appear too eager to once again be armed. Allison told him, "It's loaded."

She explained about the additional clips inside, then talked about trusting her home and life to him. "You could shoot me in the back as I leave the porch ... and all of this would be yours. I don't believe you'll do that. So..."

She smiled to him, then headed down the steps to begin her patrol. Behind her, Frank looked the weapon over again, then stood and looked her direction. He stuffed the pistol in the small of his back, calling out, "I'll have the dishes done by the time you get back ... Boss."

She didn't look back at him, only giving him a wave. And a moment later, she'd disappeared into the ditch that gave her a more concealed route down the slight incline to the forest. Frank took out the gun again, checking the clip and looking to see if there was one up the pipe which there wasn't. He jacked a round into the chamber and again slipped the gun into his belt.

"Time to head inside, Little Bit," he told Robert. Getting late, getting cold ... getting to be skeeter time, too."

He collected the kid, took him to the highchair that Allison had also found in the baby corner of the cellar, and returned to the porch to fold up and bring in the playpen. Inside, he did the dishes as he promised, cleaned the counters, and returned to the out of doors again to secure the BBQ pit and utensils.

He was inside laying on the couch with the gently fussing Robert between him and the back of the sofa, passed out after his long day of work when Allison returned from her tour.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

(OOC: Sorry, out of turn.)

"The Last Plague" (closed)

Frank could hear the love for her family's estate in her voice as she talked about how hard it was to keep it running. He admired that. It had been a long time since he'd felt that way about anything.

Well, there had been Jennifer. They'd fallen in lust initially, following that up with love in the end. They'd been good together. That was over, obviously, but the feelings he'd had for her were still within him.

When she spoke of dying and wanting to be buried in the family plot, he said with humor in his voice, "Well, if I'm still here when that happens, I'll see to it. But after that breakfast, which was unbelievable, thank you ... I'd prefer that you didn't give up the ghost too soon."

He headed inside, showered, and found a new set of Allison's grandfather's clothes to don. He chose a plaid button-up and jeans, but -- because of the patriarch's relative shortness -- they were tight in the crotch and high at the ankles. He went with a pair of overalls again, which he could hang loose on his shoulders to give room to his package.

"Try this," she told him when he rejoined her on the porch. She talked about the family's ale recipe and what it took to raise one of the main ingredients. "I almost let the crop go this year. Might not even put it in next."

"No, don't do that," Frank told her with a stern tone. "This is delicious. If I have to come back here in the spring to help you plant and fall to help you harvest, you'll see me comin' up the driveway." He looked to the dogs, saying, "I'm sure the Stooges will let you know I'm coming."

Frank didn't know if it was what he'd said -- half in jest, half in all seriousness -- but a moment later, Allison was inviting him to stay around a while, possible a long while. "...if you thought you'd be interested ... you and Little Bit could make a home here."

He smiled at the nickname his hostess had given Robert. Jennifer had had her own loving terms of endearment for the infant, but she'd never given him what Frank would have called a nickname. He liked Little Bit. It reminded him of a movie, of what a female character had called a child in her care. One day maybe he'd recall it came from Quigley Down Under, but for now it would remain a mystery to him.

"That's quite an offer, Allison," he told her with a smile and nod.

He thought about the offer, looking out about the property. He understood after just one day of labor that the farm, ranch, orchard, etc., was far too much for one person, even one who'd spent her entire life learning the work. Two people would half the work; simple math.

But was this what he wanted to do, be it for a week, a month, a year, or the rest of his life? He had nothing else going on in his life. Nothing he'd done over the last many years had been satisfying in any way to him. And since the pandemic, life had been one tragedy after another, including near starvation, forced labor, and conscription to a militia for which he did things that still woke him his sleep on bad nights.

"Deal," he said, almost before he knew he was even saying it. He looked back to the playpen, where Robert was milling about and testing out his language skills in yet more babbling. "Little Bit needs stability ... safety and security. I don't think I'm going to find that for him out there anywhere. I think yesterday showed that."

He looked back to Allison, smiled again, and continued, "You show me what needs to be done and I'll get it done. If I come up with ideas on how to lessen the workload, I presume you'll want to hear them ... however! ... it's your place, and I'll understand if you shrug them off. You're the boss."

Pre-pandemic, Frank would have leaned Allison's direction and offered out his hand to seal the deal. If was interesting how pandemics -- COVID-19 before this one, I-55 now -- had changed the world in such simple ways. He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen a birthday cake with candles on it, for instance. The idea of blowing spittle all over a cake's frosting and then serving that cake to others was just so wrong anymore.

He looked off again, to the distance forest that surrounded the majority of the estate's acres. "So ... what else can I do? There's got to be more that you want me to participate in. I could do the dishes, since you cooked, I mean."

He lifted his glass of beer in toast, sipped at it, and smiled.

"The Last Plague" (closed)

(OOC: We forgot about having to bury Jennifer. I'm going to pretend Allison made it a morning priority. Okay?)

Outside in his new duds, Frank followed Allison to the garage where Jennifer's body had been stored overnight. He found her neatly wrapped in the sheet his hostess had taken down to the highway with her the night before. After a moment of recollection of the life they had together -- short as it had been -- he asked, "Okay, where's this plot you talked about ... and a shovel."

Allison took Frank out back of the house and another 50 yards or so north, just past a small grove of nut trees. There, on a slight rise in the ground, was a private cemetery with headstones that Frank would see dated back over a hundred years. They selected a place for Jennifer and Frank got to work with a garden pick and shovel.

"I've got this," he told Allison before she even had a chance to ask if he wanted help moving the dirt. "You've got your canning. And someone needs to watch Robert. I mean, if you don't mind?"

Frank worked on the hole the rest of the morning, taking a rest occasionally. Allison brought him water and food, and they sat together mostly in silence, with the exception of Robert's baby babbling. When he thought the hole was sufficient, Frank enlisted Allison and her cart to deliver Jennifer to her final resting place. He'd never been a religious man, so his parting words to her were simple and to the point.

"I'll see to Robert as if he was my own son," he spoke softly. "I promise you that much. And ... I'll miss you. I miss you already."

He didn't know if Allison would have words of her own, but if she did, he would honor them. With that done, he began shoveling the loose dirt back into the hole. Once done, Frank smoothed the surface neatly. He would see to a headstone later, today or tomorrow but soon.

What he wanted to do was chores. He'd told Allison he was going to earn his keep. She led him through the barns and to the other outbuildings and ran through a dozen chores. He wasn't familiar with farming/ranching work, so he had plenty of questions. She answered them, and when she headed back to the house with Robert in her arms, Frank got to work once again.

Every once in a while, the dogs would come whipping past him, traveling from one pasture to another or simply playing. Each time, Frank's heart would leap in his chest, followed by him laughing. The animals intrigued him in a way. A pandemic had killed -- was still killing -- the human race, with the estimates of the final fatality number being 98%, and yet the dogs still ran around doing their jobs and playing. They didn't care. It didn't affect them. They didn't know. Frank sometimes wished he didn't either.

When he finished his last assigned chore, he went to the house and collapsed back onto the wooden porch, exhausted. Allison came out a few minutes later, and without lifting his head he made eye contact with her, chuckled, and confessed, "I haven't worked this hard in a long time."