("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' (((' (((-((('' (((( K R I S T E N' S C O L L E C T I O N _________________________________________ WARNING! This text file contains sexually explicit material. If you do not wish to read this type of literature, or you are under age, PLEASE DELETE THIS FILE NOW!!!! _________________________________________ Scroll down to view text -------------------------------------------------------- This work is copyrighted to the author © 2010. Please don't remove the author information or make any changes to this story. All rights reserved. Thank you for your consideration. -------------------------------------------------------- The Stranger by Ruthless (ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca) *** I saw standing men with jutting purple cocks thrusting from their hairy bellies, bare white asses with concave cheeks and a thrusting grunting mound, a gang fuck in the centre of the floor. At the sound of the door their heads had swung around, but they had not yet had time to grab for their weapons or for their erections to flag. I didn't see Barbara. She was part of the tangle on the floor. (M+/F, nc, rp, v, war, rom, nec) *** Author Note: This story was written for Barbanne, the heroine and victim of the story. It includes scenes of non consensual sex and violence, and a final scene with necrophilia. If you are underage or if stories of this nature offend you, please do not read it. Your comments, criticism, questions and requests for missing parts of the story are welcomed by the author at Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca *** I didn't come up until after the barrage was over. There were a few more houses down, with gaps in the street like teeth knocked out of a mouth. Grey greasy smoke hung heavy over the smouldering buildings. A pickup truck was upside down and glass glittered like diamonds in the road. There were half a dozen dead people down in the glass; most of them surrounded by splotches of their own bright blood. Starling crunched cautiously behind me. "Is it safe, Fitz?" "They're just civilians." I said. "I don't see any guns." The first few were guys. Dark trees of blood were flowing from their twisted bodies amid the glass. But the body nearest to the houses was a young woman. She was lying on the front step of a burning building with her head down and dark hair trailing. I moved slowly from body to body, sliding my hands into their pockets. Where I found money I took it. I was looking for something far more valuable. I wanted cigarettes and most of all; I wanted a lighter or matches. "Can we go, please, Fitz? The bombing might start again any minute. Can we go?" I went to the woman's body last of all. Her pale cheeks were flawless. There was no mark on her. Grey smoke trailed thin tendrils above her through the broken doorway. There was no blood. She looked almost asleep as she lolled bonelessly on the step. I crouched over her. "Fitz, please!" Starling gave a sniff. I slid my hands into her jacket. The coolness of her skin was palpable through her shirt. So was the softness of her breasts. I stroked searching. There was something in the pocket of her shirt: just papers. I went on, my rough fingers sliding deeper. I paused. Her lips were parted like a woman expecting a kiss. But she wasn't expecting anything. They were slack. Blinking, I stared at her lips. Dark lashes were motionless on her cheeks. "She's pretty, isn't she?" Starling asked sorrowfully. "Very pretty." I agreed. I pressed my hand hard against her side until I could feel the hardness of her ribs within the tender skin. "What are you waiting for?" "I don't think she's dead." The boy behind me inhaled sharply. I felt a heartbeat faint and slow beneath the woman's ribs. I looked up at the door. The yellow flames were crackling in the windows of the second story. There was always a chance that the woman would survive on the doorstep. It would depend on which way the house fell. Most likely the burning beams would settle on her. And she was probably dying anyway. But I slid one hand under her thighs and the other under her shoulders. I raised her. Her dangling feet swung and her throat stretched vulnerably as her head fell back. Her long loose hair trailed from my arm, reaching half way to the ground. Starling didn't ask any more questions as I carried her. I could not walk swiftly with such a burden. He scurried tensely at my side trying to look at my face, and then swinging around to look at the shattered street. She could easily have died as I carried her down the street. I could not feel her heartbeat, only the coolness of her flesh and the limpness of her body. She had a lovely face. There was a powdering of plaster dust in her hair. I had hoped for plunder. Instead I had a woman. When I carried her into the deep cellar where Starling and I had our shelter, the distant sound of gunfire died away. I laid her on the bed. It was dark and warm and silent, so far below the ground. Without being told to, the boy had lit some candles. He held them high so that I could look at her. In their light her pale cheeks were orange. I laid her out, spreading her limbs. Dark hair covered the pillow. The boy's eyes were large and dark as he watched me work. I opened her jacket and her shirt and pressed my hand firmly on the soft mound of flesh beneath. Again, I felt the slow heartbeat. I worked over her, feeling thoughtfully. I found no breaks in the skin. She had sneakers on. I eased them off of her feet, and bared her toes. She wore jeans, snug around her slim hips. I had to tug to pull these down. Her body shifted, torso easing as if she was awake and responsive, but the motion was caused by my pulling. I left her in her panties, feeling up her thighs: No swelling, no tenderness, no marks on the cold perfect skin. I rolled her onto her side to get her jacket and shirt off. Again I could not find any serious injuries. There were a few small blemishes on her side. She had no bra on. When she lay, naked except for the panties, I moved around and ran my fingertips through her hair, pressing carefully on the scalp. "They were probably in the house," I said, "And then it was hit. When they realised that it was burning they came running out. Whatever blast flipped that pickup truck also hit them. It threw her back on the step. Perhaps it broke her neck." "She's going to die, then?" said Starling. "I don't know. She could, easily." "Do you think she's a hooker?" "It doesn't matter, does it?" I said. "Not unless she wakes up." "What are you going to do?" "Rape her." The boy drew away. At thirteen, seeing casual cruelty to others still impressed him. His thin face was sober. He still held the candle high so that I could see what I was doing. I drew her panties down before I climbed onto the bed. The lips of her sex were blushed pink, the only part of her blanched body to have colour. The little lips were closed. Gently, I traced them with my fingertip. I kept my eyes on the woman's motionless body as I stripped. I did not want to take my eyes from her. She was perfect and still, like a funeral effigy. I dropped my clothing to the floor. Then I lay down, full length on top of her. Cool soft skin caressed me. Her head was lolled slightly sideways. I ran my palms over her, on her shoulders first and to her throat, straightening her head so that I could kiss the soft cyanotic lips. Her lips didn't resist me. I felt the hardness of her teeth through them as they yielded. I felt the bones in her face as I held her steady. My own breath came back to me as I breathed on her face; her breath was imperceptible. For a little while I caressed her breasts. I was already ready to fuck her, but her stillness demanded a slower pacing. I held one breast cupped in my hand and teased at the nipple with my tongue. The erectile tissue was stiff from the cold. I plucked at it with my lips before turning to the other breast and repeating my caresses. There was no quiver from the eyelashes that lay on her still cheeks. The thought came to me that she could easily die as I was abusing her, but I was too fascinated to stop. I ran my hands slowly over her, not feeling for injuries but savouring the delicacy of the fair skin. I drew back to open the lips of her cunny. They parted moistly. I traced my finger up and down into the groove wonderingly. I smelt the scent of her, salty and womanly. There was no resistance as I brought the head of my prick in to meet the pink lips. The rounded head butted against her vulnerable opening. I had pulled her thighs wide and her head had lolled sideways again, when I had released it. I had not expected the warmth. Her body was so chill that I never thought that she would be warm inside, but when I pressed into her, it was tight slippery heat that enveloped me. A deep guttural sigh escaped me. Covering her with the heat of my own body, I started to drive. I kissed her mouth as I fucked the unconscious woman. My hands roamed hungrily over her, cupping and squeezing her breasts. Her cunny resisted me. It was small enough that, although I could thrust into her without difficulty, my prick was encased firmly. Her body moved on the bed with every thrust. Her limp arms stirred, rocking with the pushes. There was no resistance, no muscular tension, as there would have been ordinarily. Starling had gone. At some point he had put the candle down and torn himself away. Perhaps it frightened him. The beautiful doll-like woman had me intensely aroused. She was almost floating, like a woman in free fall below me. I thrust harder and harder. I battered into the unresisting helpless woman. And then I felt it. It was a flutter, around my prick first. I didn't think I could have felt it, a tensing of the muscles that I was driving my prick into. Some of my warmth had gone into her cool skin. It was no longer so chill where my hot body was pressing against her. I felt it again, another flutter clutching around me. Startled, I stared into that slack, still visage. The long eyelashes quivered. I was panting hard. Blood was singing through my body. I kept thrusting urgently, fixing my eyes incredulously on that lovely sad face. Again. Her eyelashes quivered, the muscle around my prick throbbed. I felt a minute swelling of the ribs underneath me. She inhaled. Her eyelids raised, a dull dark gleam of sight staring uncomprehendingly from beneath them for an instant before they sagged again. I clutched her tightly. Her hips jerked as she met me. I thrust urgently, slamming into her. I did not stop. I did not pause although the eyes flung open now, staring huge and amazed into my face. I was clinging to her shoulders, her breast crushed under me. She moaned. Her legs widened. There was resistance now. Her pelvis was meeting my stroke, pushing back into me. I grabbed her lips with mine, twisting my face sideways. A long trembling moan burst out of her as I claimed her mouth. She breathed into my mouth. Her dark eyes were gleaming directly below mine. I battered hard. And then I felt myself cumming. Tiny groans were coming from the woman as her cunny clutched tightly around me. I felt the sperm surge up. The warm sweat of my body was fusing us together. I pressed deep with all my strength. Cum throbbed out of me, spurting inside her. She barely moved as I withdrew. She could not move yet. There was fear and wonder in her eyes. They blinked confused, staying on my face. She must have realised that she did not know me, that I was a stranger. My moist cock came out of her and I pulled the blankets over her. Her eyelids sank and raised again. My motions were rough as I pushed the covers close around her shoulders. I was perturbed at being caught taking use of her. She lay quite still. I kept tucking the blankets firmly around her, for something to do as I collected myself. Awake, she looked different. The funereal sadness was gone from her face. It was puzzled, alive, distressed, puckering. I saw her swallow and her tongue flicked out, licking the lips that I had just been kissing. "You were knocked unconscious by blast." My voice came out harsh. "Is it hurting?" I got a slight nod. Either she was not strong enough to talk yet, or she was guarding her words until she understood who we were and where she was. Starling came up behind me. "She's awake! You made her wake up." "Where does it hurt, Girl?" I asked. "Your head? Anywhere else? Does anywhere else hurt?" She mouthed the word, inaudibly faint. "Just your head? Sorry. The only painkiller we got is booze. And I can't give you any of that with a head injury." I told her. "Is that why you did it? To wake her up? How did you know it would wake her up?" Starling asked. I looked down on him. "I didn't know it would." "Is she going to get better, then?" "I don't know." I dragged my shirt on. I looked at the woman. She was really pretty; even with the covers pulled up about her throat, you could see how pretty she was. "What's your name?" I said. "Barbara." I heard her voice, a little whisper, faint with her weakness. I smiled slowly. Barbara. Stranger. The name Barbara means stranger. Well, that was fitting. Barbara lay in that bed for days. Mostly I left Starling behind when I went out. He didn't want to go out on the cold windy streets anyway and risk being shot at. I left him not because I figured he knew how to do good nursing her, but because I told him it was his job to get her out of there if our cellar was hit. "Take her by the armpits." I told him. "And get her out. You understand? Don't worry about salvaging anything else. Get her out and don't you dare leave her to burn." "Because you need her for a hooker?" "Yeah." I said. It was mostly me that nursed her. I fed her out of a cup at first. I held her head up in the crook of my arm and I made her swallow whatever kind of soup I could cook up. The first day it was only a couple of swallows. She didn't ask for anything for awhile. I had to make sure she got fluid into her. The blast had knocked her pretty silly. For a couple of days she didn't try to talk and then when she did, it was Starling that she talked to. I figured that she was scared of me or hating my guts for what I'd done. "Fitz isn't so bad." Starling told her. "You know you'd have died if he hadn't picked you up. All that street, it burned. You were beside a truck, and the gas tank went on the truck. You'd have burned up if he hadn't brought you away." Feeding her, that wasn't too much of a problem. She drank boiled water from the cup and soup, and then I fed her by spoonfuls. But she couldn't go crawling up to the street like we did when we had to piss. I had to drag her out of the bed and hold her there in a midair sitting position over a bucket. "Go ahead and take a piss, Barbara-Girl. And then I can get you back under those warm covers again." I looked at her slender waist and full breasts when I had her out from under the blankets. They were worth looking at. But I didn't try fucking her again, not while she was so weak from the concussion. At night we slept three to the bed. There was only the one bed. Barbara got shoved over against the wall and Starling slept between us. It was right crowded but it was warm enough. Starling slept one time with his head on her shoulder, almost pillowed on her breasts. I got to think maybe he had something like a crush on her, but I didn't see him do anything, and I kept my hands to myself for a time, though when I saw her breasts, I just wanted to reach out and feel them. Daytimes I went out. I kept scouting over the causeway, slinking cautiously through the ruins. Sometimes I heard the noise of the truck engines of the militia, but more often I just saw where they'd been, by the smashed windows and the scars in the brick when they let off their assault rifles for fun. I was looking for clothes for Barbara. She had the clothes I'd found her in, of course, and I washed them out for her to take the plaster dust out. But jeans and a jacket weren't what I had in mind. It took quite a bit of rifling through broken buildings and then a trade, five packs of cigarettes just for stockings and one other garment to get what I had in mind, but I got it in the end. It was maybe five days after I found Barbara that I found the two little boys. They were dead. They had been dead since the day before. They were civilian kids, maybe six and eight. I didn't know. I stood there angry and looked at them. But I didn't get the bodies and bury them or anything. Poor little shits. It wasn't right. There couldn't have been any reason to kill two kids as young as that. It was too bad they couldn't be buried. It was better I leave them be. Better if nobody cottoned on to the scouting I was doing. Anyway, I had my hands full getting food enough to feed the three of us, now I couldn't get Starling to do any of the foraging for me, so I didn't need any extra work. ** After a week Barbara was sitting up and wearing her clothes and I was horny. It was a cold day out, a thin scum of snow blowing around in the ashes. I looked at Barbara and I looked at Starling. Barbara was sitting curled up in the bed. Starling was trying to clean one of my guns. I'd been showing him how, teaching him how it came apart. He was kneeling on the floor surrounded by the pieces. "Starling," I said. "Go on up to the street." I jerked my head towards the door. He stood up at once. "What do you need?" "Just go on up there." He looked blank. "How long?" I gave a shrug. "Give me awhile." His expression cleared. He shot a quick look at Barbara and went. I got up and sat on the bed by the woman. She met me with a level gaze. "Usually," I said, "Starling takes care of me when I got a physical need." "He told me that." I frowned a bit. "He doesn't mind doing it. He wants to hang around with me. It's how he pays me back for letting him hang around." "He told me that you look after him." "He's useful to me other ways too." I told Barbara. "Like he stayed here with you when I had to go out." "He seems to admire you." I didn't want to talk about Starling. It was her I was interested in. "You're a lot prettier than Starling." I said to her. Her mouth twisted. "You're telling me that you want me to take care of your physical need." She said. "Yeah." I said. She didn't move. I waited a couple of seconds and then leaned in close. I took her hand and brought it to my mouth. She had slim fingers. I bit gently on the inside of the palm, kissing upward to her wrist. When I spoke my voice was hoarse. "You don't have to let me do this. If you don't want to put out for me, you don't need to. Understand? There's something else you got to do for me, but not this." I rubbed her hand against my cheek, nuzzling against the fingers. They were warm now. "You going to tell me to stop?" I asked. She shook her head. I reached out and took a trailing curl of hair from the edge of her face, tracing it back. I didn't tell her I was sorry I'd raped her. I didn't tell her I'd take care of her. Two luminous eyes stared into mine, watchful and guarded. She didn't talk so I didn't tell her anything. I laid her back. As I opened her shirt I kissed her throat. *** I think it started to bother Starling what I was doing with Barbara. He never told me he wouldn't go up on the street when I told him to. It could be that he was jealous, that with that crush on her he had, it made him angry that I had her putting out for me. He used to sit and look at her kind of hopeful and if she wanted anything, even to having her slop bucket emptied, he was ready to jump right up and do it. He tried to coax her to eat sometimes. I didn't always bring food home that was appetizing. I brought home some apples once, which had been frozen. They were still okay food but they were kind of mushy. Barbara kind of picked at hers. Starling asked her, didn't she like them? They weren't good like that? And then he got up and he cooked them into a kind of applesauce for her because he thought she'd like it better. She smiled at Starling. Starling got more of her smiles than I did. The two of them would be sitting there and Starling would be staring and then Barbara would catch him staring and give him a little smile. He'd start beaming. The two of them would share that look. And then Starling would look at me suddenly and his smile would go. That was why I figured that Starling was jealous or mad at the use I was making of her. I got mad at Starling. When I was inside he went out foraging and he took risks. He went over the causeway, I found out. "If the militia catch you they'll shoot you, you know." I told the kid. "I know. But the foraging is better on that side. Look what I got." He'd brought back books, for tinder and for Barbara to read and a couple of knives. "See? This is good stuff, Fitz. I kept out of sight." It was his life so I didn't tell him to stay on this side of the causeway any more. I took some risks myself. I brought back a pair of black army boots for Barbara. I knelt beside the bed as I laced them onto her feet. "These'll be better than those sneakers." I said. "You'd never get through the winter in those sneakers." "Thank you, Fitz." She looked down at her slender ankles, encased in the heavy boots. I don't know if she was really grateful or not. *** After two weeks she was going up to the street herself. I figured that she was going to run off on me, so at first I went up with her and stayed close every time, so I could keep her from taking off. Then I thought that was stupid. I was going to make her do what I wanted when she was completely recovered, but I'd have to have co-operation from her. I couldn't take her over to the militia screaming and fighting and then sell her. Well, I could. But I wasn't going to try to do it like that. I decided that if she took off, she took off. I wasn't going to make her stay and do what I told her if she didn't want to. I didn't tell Barbara that. I still told her she had to do it. And I kept on going up with her to the ruined street every time she wanted to go outside. The thing was, even the days when there was no shelling, it wasn't safe anywhere. I went up with my gun and stood ready to guard her, but not to keep her from going away. There was an old woman that did some trading just this side of the causeway, and she would let me know what news if there was any. Where she lived she could hear the shooting and maybe see who was out. It was a couple of days before I figured that Barbara had gotten enough strength back, that I went over to trade with her. I found her house burned to the ground. It was an old man told me, the militia had come over, looking for her, because they'd heard she was trading booze, and when they'd got there, this side of the causeway they'd found that she hadn't any. "I don't know. He quavered. "Did they take her with them? Or did they leave her in the house? Those boys are brutes, Fitz. I don't think I can call the human. I hope she died and I hope she died quickly." "If they took her with them." I said thoughtfully. "They are getting real desperate for women." I told Barbara. I explained about the militia. "They're trigger happy. A lot of the time they're drunk. And they're meaner than pit bulls. Whatever they tell you to do, you're going to have to do it. You don't hesitate or tell them no. That's the only way you'll get through without scars that'll ruin your looks." She didn't seem scared. She was so self-possessed. She would look at me quietly and listen, with her head cocked, and the boy would be sitting with his face mobile with anxiety. "Are they going to kill Barbara?" he asked me. "No." I said. "They won't want her dead, for certain. She's too pretty for them to want her dead." *** On the day I picked, I dressed Barbara in the clothes that I had gathered and traded for so carefully. I had gotten a black satin corset. It was low cut and pushed her breasts up into enticing mounds, the rim of lace barely concealing her round rosy nipples. I didn't leave her bare armed. I had a black leather jacket for her to wear, but I had the jacket unzipped so that all that creamy flesh below her throat was visible. She had black three-inch heeled sandals. The skirt was long and insubstantial, gauze with slits in it, so that her long legs, encased in the stockings were visible right up to the thigh. Starling watched me as I moved around her, working on the finishing touches; the jewellery, a low slung leather belt that emphasised the sexy tilt to her hips. I brushed her silky dark hair and fixed it so that it cascaded over one shoulder. I put the cosmetics on her, mascara to make her long eyelashes almost unbelievably long and lipstick. "But that lipstick isn't red! It makes her look so weird. Like a vampire." The boy objected. "They won't mind, trust me." I told him. "Blue lipstick is all I could get. She looks good." And she did look good. In her jeans and her ordinary jacket she was one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. In the sexy swaggering outfit that I had put on her she was stunning. My breath caught. "You're beautiful, Barbara-Doll." I told her. "You're beautiful enough to drive men mad." I was practical enough that I had her put her boots on and carry the high heels as we walked over to the causeway. I kept looking at her. She was right distracting. I had to remind myself that I didn't need to stare at Barbara. I needed to be wary. We made it over the causeway without incident. We crouched in the lea of some rubble while she put her shoes on and stashed the boots. "There's nothing you have to do," I told her. "If they shoot me before I tell them where you are, lie low. Wait for the night and then try to get back to Starling. Otherwise, just do what they tell you to, remember?" "I remember." Her tone was very low. "Are you scared?" She didn't answer me. I waited and when she didn't answer I gave an uneasy laugh. "Hell, I'm scared enough for both of us!" The militia didn't have much of a perimeter on their camp. They had some barbed wire and a sentry, but the wire wasn't much. It was the guys inside the wire with the assault rifles that had me feeling as skittish as a cat in the middle of the road. I took a risk coming at twilight, because they might have been startled seeing me suddenly in the half light, but it had to be late in the day when I approached them, or they wouldn't have been back in their camp where I could try to bargain with them. I just came out onto the road facing their gate. Behind me charred mounds of rubble were cover if I moved quick. I found myself facing the gate sentry's levelled weapon. "Hey, who the fuck are you, Man?" "Name's Fitz." I told him. "No weapons, see?" I raised my arms high and half-turned. The sentry's voice brought some of the other militia members. They had weapons too. Half of them were teenagers. I knew that, but I felt a sudden curling up in my belly when I thought that they were some of them no more than five years older than Starling was. They weren't all kids. A bulky man with an ex cons tattoos came out of the house. "Okay, Fucker. What you want, coming here in our territory?" "I want to know if you want to trade." I said quickly. "That's all. I hear you got this side of the city pretty well searched out. I got something you want. Nothing but trading. How's that?" "What you got to sell?" Their eyes travelled up and down me. Their faces were hostile. "I got a cunt," I said. "If you want to rent the cunt that I've got, I'd like booze. Or you can buy her outright, if you don't rent. Any of you interested in a girl?" "Yeah, she pretty, Man?" One of the boys asked swiftly. Another exclaimed, "Shee-it. It's not another fuckin' pre-teen is it? I don't want to settle for any more little girls crying at the end of my cock! Is it a real chick or just another little kid?" The big man spoke up, "We don't rent. You can sell her to us outright or you can give her to us, but once we get a cunt, we keep it." "She'll cost more," I said. "How much you want for her?" "Twelve bottles." I said. "A whole case, bonded liquor, not beer. She's worth it. She's a beauty." "A whole fuckin' case just for a cunt?" "Yeah, but she's worth it." "No fuckin' way, Man. We're not paying twelve bottles just for a few days of getting our pricks greased!" One of the boys exclaimed. "She pretty?" The man demanded. "You never seen a cunt this pretty. I ain't shitting you," I said. "You can have nine bottles if she's as pretty as you say she is." I thought for a moment. "The bottles sealed?" The big man nodded. "Okay," I said. "Nine bottles. You got a good deal here. Bring me the bottles." The big man nodded. One of the teenagers ran back into the house. There were seven guys standing there by their gate and two more on the front step of the house. How many inside I didn't know. Nine guys at least for Barbara to keep busy. They brought the booze out in a box and put it by the gate. "So what about the bitch, Man? Go and get us that cunt you offered us." I put two fingers into my mouth and whistled. Barbara rose up from the rubble not far away. She was closer than I had expected, so close that she startled me. She must have been creeping closer to hear what was being said. The militia boys drew their breaths. She looked like a succubus. The wind had tossed her hair so that it floated like a flag in the wind. Her eyes were gleaming like coals. Her full soft lips were thrust out in a sneer, in a little girl pout of fear and distaste. The black corset emphasised how slender she was. When she started to walk forward her long legs in the filmy divided skirt seemed to go on forever. As she walked forward, she took off the leather jacket. She tossed it to me without looking. The militia boys were frozen, their eyes glazed as they stared at the creamy pale flesh visible at the top of the corset. "Oh, Honey..." One of the militia boys moaned. A big ugly grinned bared the teeth of their leader. "I get to fuck this cunt first." He said. Barbara swaggered through the militia gate. The younger men reached for her, groping. Their leader knocked their hands away. Then they surrounded her in a circle, groaning and crooning with their lust. They took her inside the house. I gathered up my bottles hurriedly and got out of there before the sole sentry left at the gate decided that he wanted to get their booze back. *** It was twenty minutes later, only twenty minutes before I was inching under the wire on my belly. I heard the sound of excited delighted screams coming from the house. It was the deeper screams of men, the edge of their inhibitions knocked off by booze, and the shrill hysterical cries of adolescent boys. The rubble gritted under my jacket. I was dragging something heavy and metal and long with me as I slithered flat to the ground in the shadows. It was an automatic rifle. Like Barbara's boots, I had stashed it in the rubble close to the militia's camp. I had abandoned the booze although it was worth a fortune as trade goods. You could trade for almost anything with bonded liquor like that. You could trade and get a whore as frighteningly beautiful as Barbara. If I got killed tonight and someone found it where I had stashed it, they could live for the winter on what they could get for so much good booze. The barbed wire was low to the ground. I caught in it. It pinged lightly as it bounced. I laid flat. The sentry would be used to hearing it swaying with so much wind. I had wire cutters in my pocket. I dragged them out. They clipped the wire with pressure and a faint snap. All the small sounds that I made were lost in the wind and the laughter drifting from the house. Once more I crawled slowly forward. The sentries. Where were the sentries? I could see one. He was right where I wanted him to be. He was outside of the house, but he was looking into it. He was on the porch, his head and shoulders a silhouette as he peered through the glass. I was inside their perimeter, but all I could see was the one sentry outside. Where was the other? They always had two or three. Where the hell were the other two fucking sentries? Barbara, I thought. The men inside the house were shouting encouragement. I heard something break, probably glass, probably a bottle, dropped or thrown. I wanted to get the sentries who were farthest out first. I wanted to get the men who were alone. But there weren't any sentries at the back of the house. There was only one man, right beside the front door. His back stayed turned to me. He was guarding nothing. The rifle stayed on my back as I rose into a crouch. I took my knife in a steady tight grip. I remembered two little boys used for target practice. I thought of Barbara in the house, being pillaged. I have to move swiftly now for their sakes. It had been so long since I had been in military training, a decade since the week on my GMT in basic hand to hand combat skills. I have to remember this. I have to do it right. I did it right. One hand clamped over the sentry's mouth from behind. The other thrust the knife. The point didn't catch on cloth; I thrust it into his throat, so hard that I felt my leading knuckle hit the skin. The blade stabbed through tissue and soft bone. His back stiffened. I clutched him tightly, feeling the moistness of his crushed lips in my palm, feeling him kick. It was just reflex. The man was dead on his feet. Red round drops of blood pattered softly on the window. I felt the heat of it flow down my arm. I lowered him to the ground softly. There was another twitch, the resonance of a feeble kick, boot against the porch boards. I jammed the bloody knife back into the sheath. My hands were slippery when I swung my rifle down and ready. Inside the house a loud shrill laugh, almost a whinny, rose louder above the others. I kicked open the door. There were three men, back to me, in this room, crowded into the opposite doorway. They were shoulder to shoulder. One squeeze of my trigger fired one hundred and sixty bullets in a burst. I fired high, at shoulder height, before they even turned. When they went down I saw the next room and the sound of my rifle and of the screams rose so loud that it was as if the house was filled with a dense block of sound. I saw images, but the action was too fast to follow. I saw standing men with jutting purple cocks thrusting from their hairy bellies, bare white asses with concave cheeks and a thrusting grunting mound, a gang fuck in the centre of the floor. At the sound of the door their heads had swung, but they had not yet had time to grab for their weapons or for their erections to flag. I didn't see Barbara. She was part of the tangle on the floor. I kept firing high, crossing the room with it, just above waist height. They were tumbling down like they were dissolving. Exploding plaster and spurting blood fanned out back at me. One rifle muzzle was swinging up. It was in front of my living, vibrating rifle before it could answer me. The man holding it bounced back as my automatic rifle fire ripped into him. I had no time to watch his body spasm, not even an instant. I had to try to see who was left alive in that room, which motion was the falling plaster, which motion was the ducking men who would be dangerous, which motion was the dead men being heaved aside as the gang fuck broke apart. I saw one man crawling, on all fours, bare ass up turned trying to get away through the far door. I dropped the rifle muzzle low enough to kill him. Another man reared up screaming. He uncovered Barbara. She was completely naked. Her long legs were spread and kicking. Her teeth were bared. Her slim white arm had lunged out. As he rose, Barbara's hand clamped on his groin. His scream was shrill with pain. His hands pawed the air inches from his rifle. I fired above her head. The man had reared up on his knees, higher than Barbara. When he fell back on her, there was no one moving in the room any more. Plaster rattled slowly falling. I was almost deaf from the gunfire in the enclosed room. When I grabbed the dead man by the collar and yanked him off of Barbara, I shouted at her. "Get up, girl! Quickly!" But I could not hear my words for the ringing in my ears. Barbara's bare chest was covered in rivulets of blood. Her breasts were striped with it. She lurched up, the cascade of dark hair falling in front of her face. I snatched up clothing, a pair of green fatigue trousers that had been discarded by one of the eager men, which lay in the mess of dust and splashed blood between the corpses. A moaning man moved, but the motion was feeble. I ignored him and thrust the trousers at her. I dragged her by the arm. Into the dark and the cold, away from the smell of blood and plaster, we made it out of the house. I gripped her fiercely as I dragged her into the dark. She stumbled on the rough ground. I kept my grip on her, aching with the fear that she had taken a bullet. There was a few seconds delay while I fumbled with the fastening on the gate to get it open. We made it away from the perimeter and from the charnel house without any return fire following us. We found her boots and her leather jacket where I had left them. We got her dressed. When I dragged the jacket up her shoulders, my hands were trembling. I felt the slipperiness of the blood on her arms. "Were you hit? Answer me." I panted. "Do you think you were hit?" "No..." Her soft hair moved against my arm as she shook her head. I left the booze where I had stashed it. Only the boots and jacket were important, the clothing to help keep her from having to run naked in the night and their warmth to keep her from going into shock after her ordeal. Starling was waiting crouched by the fire in our hideout when I brought her down and inside. "Put some water on to heat," I ordered him. "You're covered in blood. Your arms covered in blood!" he cried. "I know. I killed their sentry." "Oh Jesus, Fitz!" Starling suddenly screamed. "Barbara's covered in blood!" "It isn't hers. I don't think it's hers. Get that water on. I need to clean her off and check." The boy's face was stiff and sullen. He didn't speak again. When he faced me, his eyes glittered with anger. I held Barbara near the fire. I undressed her gently and explored. Her face was bruised and between the smeared mascara and the dark where they had probably punched her face her eyes had become fearsome hollows. The streams of blood wiped away. There were finger marks indented into her breasts and thighs where they had clutched her. There were no large gashes, no bullet wounds, only bruising, shock and pain. "You shouldn't have made her do it." Starling's voice was flat and contemptuous with anger. "I know," I said. I took Barbara on my lap in front of the fire. I held her where it was warm, where my arms could give her warmth and I stroked her hair. "It's okay now, Barbara. It's done. You're safe. It's over." I rocked her like a little girl. I kissed her forehead. "You did wonderfully well, Barbara. You kept them busy. It's done." She sat shuddering. Her shoulder leaned up against me as she huddled on my lap, permitting me to try to comfort her. But her two hands clutched her cunny, clasping that injured part of herself protectively, and there were little tears gleaming on the bruised cheeks. "You did it, Barbara. You got me inside. You're going to be okay." I tried to kiss the tears away. I held her clasped against me, rocking slowly and soothingly. I moved gently and slowly, but all the same my heart was still pounding with a quick fluttering beat in my chest, as I saw again, the image of Barbara under that grunting mound of half naked men. Starling barely said two words to me the next day. When he looked at me, his look was full of hate. When he went outside, I thought that he would walk away and not come back. It would be safe to cross the causeway now, with the militia gone. But Starling stayed. He came back for Barbara, not for me. At night Starling curled up on the floor by the fire and left the bed to Barbara and me. I didn't turn to her and try to coax her to open her legs. How could I, with that part of her so brutally abused? But we brought her food and little gifts, and I went and retrieved the bottles of bonded liquor that I had left stashed in the rubble on the other side of the causeway. "These are yours," I said. She looked at me with melancholy eyes and left me with the helpless feeling like I should say that I was sorry. A day later Barbara was outside of our shelter. She was strong. She dressed in her jeans again, and in layers of sweaters that could not hide how graceful she was as she played with Starling. He laughed and they circled. It looked like a game of tag. When I came toward them they stopped. Barbara sank down on the broken frame of a fallen window to rest and Starling stood still and looked at me with his face stiff with resentment. "Be careful," I said. "Even with the militia gone, it's still not safe. There are other people who could be as dangerous. Don't laugh so loudly." She had repaid her debt to me, so of course I could not make her stay. I knew I could not have before, but now that it was paid, I would not ask her to stay. She went out with Starling. I thought that they might go away together, the boy with the beautiful woman that he worshipped. But although they went out foraging for hours in the daytime, they were back at night for us to share out supper and Barbara to lie still and warm and drowsy in the bed beside me. "Are you both being careful?" I growled. "Yes," said Starling impatiently. "Look after her," I ordered the boy. "He takes very good care of me." She assured me and she laughed softly. Her laugh was so warm and resonant; it was like a little strain of music. Slowly life was coming back into her as she put her ordeal behind her. When we went foraging I went over the causeway. The pickings were better there. The militia had only gleaned the ruins carelessly. We were making our shelter very snug with everything we found. Finding fuel, of course, to keep the fire alight was the most time consuming foraging task, because we always needed more fuel. Starling and Barbara had gone out looking for wood to burn, for shards of splintered boards and joists from the fallen houses. I was working beside the shelter, above it at the level of the street. When I heard the noise it made me stop. It was the kicking rhythmic slap of running feet, the sound of someone running breakneck, never stopping for a stumble. The footsteps pattered and I stood upright until they burst through the rubble into the broken street. It was Starling, too winded to speak, face raw with fear. He staggered into my arms and collapsed. "Where is Barbara?" I demanded. "Where?" "He turned his horrified eyes back the way he had come and waved his arm. "Help…!" he worked out a gasp. "Help her." "What's the problem?" I demanded. I made him stand facing me although his exhausted body had buckled. "People? Fire? It's people? Men?" He answered me with nods. "Where?" One word, taut with urgency. "Guh..guh..Gulliver street. Store. The old store…" I dropped him onto the ground and ran. The men were gone before I found her. It took me long minutes to get there, with the streets choked by the ruins of the fallen houses. It had taken Starling long minutes to get to me. I ran my hardest. I could not run fast enough to get to Barbara in time although I gave it everything I had. She was inside the store, right inside behind the cracked glass. She was lying on the bare floor sprawled back where the men had left her when they had finished with her. I crouched over her, panting. "No!" Barbara's naked legs were sprawled wide, a mute accusation of what they had done. Her eyes, which had gleamed with amusement and fear and thought, were still open, but staring with a sightless gaze that was far too wide. Her head was flung back; the long expanse of her throat exposed, and marked with uneven purple blotches where brutal hands had squeezed her. There was no breath coming from between her parted lips. They had raped her and then strangled her. "Barbara? Barbara-girl? Baby? Oh, Baby!" I whispered. "Oh, Baby, please be alright!" I didn't have to slide my hand under her clothing this time to seek for a heartbeat. Her clothing had been ripped open. I slid my hand between her soft still breasts. She was so warm. There was no vibration, no steady throb below the skin. She was so soft, too soft. "Baby?" I slapped her cheek to try to get a response. "Oh, God! Barbara!" She's not breathing! Artificial respiration, I thought. I put my mouth on hers. Her lips gave mine no resistance. I breathed out urgently, then kissed her frantically. Her head stirred below me, because I pushed against her. There was no resistance in her warm limp body. I kept kissing her, kept trying to breathe air into her. My hands roamed over her, shaking her gently, searching her, stroking her. I lay down on her clasping her, dragging her towards me. The marks of strangulation were livid on her throat, an obscenity that made my vision blur. I clung to Barbara. Once before I had held her when she lay like this, held her when I was not sure if she was a dead woman or not. I had lain on her. I had brought life back into her. I placed tender hungry, desperate kisses on her lips and on her breasts, trying to coax the life back into her. I made love to her. Her dark eyes stared back at me without seeing me. I didn't have to uncover her. They had left her open. I tore my own clothes open and slid my prick into the slime of other men's leavings. Her skin was warm. Her cunny was hot. How could she be so warm when before she had been cold but had life in her? I thrust. My rhythm rocked her and my panting racked me like sobs. I thrust again and again, fucking her. She could not feel it. I thrust harder. My hands tried everything, stroking that lovely tragic face, cupping about her pale perfect breasts. There was no response. There could be no response. "Wake up! Oh, Baby. Oh lovely Barbara, please, please wake up!" I begged her. There was no heart beat deep inside. This time the woman would not wake, could not learn what I was doing to her. I kissed her eyes. I kissed her forehead. I could not bring her to life. *** Starling was crouched in the road, very near where I had dropped him when I brought Barbara back. He hunched with his forehead on his knuckles. He did not look up to see me bring her. Once more her weight filled my arms, sagging as if my arms were bringing her complete comfort, lifeless. When I was near him I stopped. "Starling? They had guns, didn't they?" He nodded, not looking up. "There was nothing you could do." I said. "I shouldn't have let her go out with just a boy. There was no way you could have stopped them." "They told me to go," he whispered. "If I had stayed…" I shook my head. "All that we can do now is bury her." "Fitz!" Abruptly he cried out my name, a howl of despair. "Get up." I said. "And let's get her buried." Starling stood. His face was puckered with woe. He looked like a very little boy. "She's still pretty." He whispered. "Yes," I said. "Barbara liked you. Come here and give her a kiss before we bury her." Starling came to stand beside me. Barbara's head lolled, resting in the crook of my arm as I held her. Her hair was tangled now. The boy leaned over to place his kiss lightly on the woman's smooth still cheek. Then I kissed her and then we buried her. We dug a grave in a small patch of earth that was not covered in rubble. I laid her down there, with precious blankets to keep her warm. I curled her hands so that they lay on her body, but I let her hair cover her face. "What about a headstone? Something like a headstone?" Starling's voice trembled. He could not control his tears. "No," I said. "No head stone. She has to lie in an unmarked grave, or someone might dig her up again to see if there is anything buried with her worth plundering. But we can get flowers to grow on her grave. In the spring time, we can bring the seeds or the bulbs here and get them to grow." Starling clung to my arm, crying and I stared at the smooth mound of fresh dirt that we had just made. END ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This story was written as an adult fantasy. The author does not condone the described behavior in real life. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kristen's collection - Directory 68