The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn (15 page)

There was a low, deep crunch when the asphalt ended, and we found ourselves on a gravel road barely visible through the long grass
.  In front of us, the trail climbed up a gentle hill, and at the top I could see a clearing.  I gently touched the accelerator to ease us up the incline, wary of damaging the truck on something I couldn’t see.

As if reading my mind, we hit something with a heavy clunk
.  I froze for a second, then leaned out the window to check what it was.  An old electric fence – electric no more – lay crushed beneath our wheels. 

“Oops.”
I gave Michael a sheepish grin. 

He laughed and patted my knee reassuringly
.  “Oh well, too late now.  Keep going.”

I nodded and put my foot down again
.  We cleared the obstruction and climbed the rise slowly.  Although it was only a slight incline, the view as we came over the crest was stunning.  The hill was just high enough for us to see the landscape for miles in all directions, and it gave us a commanding view of the land we had yet to traverse.

“This seems like a good place to stop for the night,” Michael suggested, pointing ahead of us
.  “In there?”

At the crest of the hill, our path branched off towards a high metal fence that still stood proudly, guarding a large house that had been turned to kindling in one of the quakes
.  I saw what attracted him immediately.  It was a defensible position that we would be able to fortify easily.  I nodded and eased the truck closer. 

With his gun at the ready, Michael hopped out of the passenger seat and moved to the gate, scanning the area for anything remotely hostile
.  Once he was done, he turned and gave me a thumbs-up, then he opened the gate so that I could drive through.  Once we were safely inside the ring of high metal fencing, he shut the gate and I backed the Hilux up until its tail rested against it, effectively preventing anyone – or anything – from entering without permission.

I put the truck in park, killed the engine, and climbed out to join him with my shotgun at the ready
.  Between the two of us, we stalked the interior of the compound, guarding one another’s backs as we circled the old house to ensure nothing was hiding behind it.  Everything seemed safe from a distance, but neither of us were willing to take chances with the life of the person we loved; we’d only just found one another, and I certainly had no intention of putting that love in jeopardy.

The long grass hid few secrets from our watchful eyes
.  The only things that stirred were the birds in the trees, singing and fluttering from branch to branch as they put themselves to bed.  I agreed with that notion; after a long day of travel, I was ready to rest.  Although the bare earth might have been softer, Michael and I unrolled our sleeping bags side by side on the cracked concrete of the old homestead’s driveway, because it felt safer than sleeping in the long grass.

“We could sleep in the back of the truck, if you want
.  It’d probably be more comfortable,” I suggested as we sat down on our sleeping bags, and began setting up the gear to cook our dinner.  The little gas cooker felt like such a luxury when resources were running low, and there were so few people around capable of making things to replace them.  We’d found it in a cache before we left Hamilton.  If it hadn’t been for that, then we would have had to gather dry wood and build a fire the old fashioned way.

“Nah.”
Michael shook his head.  “I think it’ll be more comfortable out here.  I’ve always enjoyed the thought of sleeping beneath the stars.”

“I think you’ve been living in a bunker for too long, honey,” I told him with amusement.

He gave me one of his quirky smiles and shrugged.  “Maybe.  I used to like camping in the old days, too.”

“I guess it’s all fun and games when your life doesn’t depend on it,” I answered, thinking back to my own childhood
.  I’d felt the same way.  To distract myself, I rooted around in my backpack and fished out the food I had planned for our dinner.  In addition to a few other things, I pulled out that old can of mushroom soup that I’d scavenged so many weeks ago.  I still hadn’t worked up the courage to open it and find out if was edible, but tonight was the night.  If it was still good, then it seemed appropriate to share it with someone that I loved.

“Hey, I remember this stuff.”
Michael reached over and took the can from my hands, turning it over to examine the familiar branding on the label.  “Where in the world did you find that?”

“In someone’s larder,” I answered, leaning over to take it back
.  “I’ve been hanging on to it for a while.  You up for a gamble, honey?”

He gave me a smile and leaned over to brush a strand of hair off my cheek
.  “I took a gamble on you, didn’t I?”

“You have a point
.  Okay, cross your fingers – and hold your breath.” I took my own advice as I reached for the pop-tag that opened the tin; I knew as well as anyone that when canned soups decided to go rancid, they did so in a spectacular fashion.  After weeks of anticipation, I was almost afraid to end the wait, but it was time.  I squeezed my eyes shut as I thumbed open the tag.  There was a creak as the lid rolled back and then… nothing.

I opened my eyes and stared down into the can, astounded to discover that the food was actually still edible
.  After all the build-up, I’d been expecting a congealed black mess.

“Hey, looks like we win,” Michael commented, eyeing the contents of the can
.  Then he leaned over and planted a kiss on the side of my neck, along with a little playful little nuzzle.  “Are you planning to share that with me?”

“’Course not,” I teased, putting on an offended face just to mess him
.  “What kind of girl do you think I am, sharing my food with creepy old men? Go get your own, this is mine!”

I wasn’t being serious and he knew it, but he made a show of whining like a neglected puppy and trying to steal my soup away
.  By the time we were done playing, I found myself giggling like a schoolgirl and feeling surprisingly refreshed.  After spending hours travelling through the devastated countryside, his good humour helped to elevate my mood.

“
Okay, okay, you can have some.  Now, give me the pot, you silly man,” I scolded playfully.  Grinning, he fished the little steel cooking pot in question out of his pack and put it in my hand.  I dumped the contents of my precious can into it and set it over the gas cooker to warm up.  While it was heating, I added some more water to thin it, then a packet of dried noodles and some smoked fish to turn the soup from a light snack into a proper dinner.

“Now, this is food I approve of,” Michael commented, leaning over my shoulder to watch me curiously while I was cooking.

“But there’s no vegetables,” I complained.

“Caveman need no vegetables, only meat.”
He made a few silly grunts, then caught me around the waist and pulled me up close against him.  “Meat and pretty lady.  Pretty lady looks tasty.”

I squealed in surprise when he unleashed a teasing love-bite on my neck, followed by a string of kisses and even a little light tickling
.  When he was done, we both collapsed in a panting, laughing heap, exhausted but happy just to be in one another’s company.

Once the food was cooked, we ate together, enjoying the delicious savoury taste of mushroom and fish, then we curled up to sleep in one another’s arms
. 

It may not have been the most comfortable camping trip, but having Michael there with me made it a hell of a lot more pleasant than the last time I’d slept beneath the stars
.  Before I knew it, I was fast asleep, nestled cosily in the crook of my sweetheart’s arm.

I awoke to the savoury scent of eggs cooking in the pre-dawn gloom.  Disorientated by waking up in a strange place, it took a second before my brain warmed enough to connect the sounds and scents to reality

“Good morning.” Michael looked at me over his shoulder, his ever-present smile resting comfortably on his lips
.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough, I guess
– but I miss my bed,” I said, stretching to get the stiffness out of my joints.  After six short weeks, my body had decided that it didn’t care for sleeping on the ground any more.  Or maybe I was just getting old.

“Your bed, or my bed?” Michael teased, leaning over to give me a quick good-morning kiss.

I returned it happily, and then gave him a grin of my own.  “Your bed is my bed; I claimed it.  Communal beds, that’s how we roll.”

He chuckled and went back to scrambling eggs
.  “That’s true.  I don’t know how I’d sleep without you snoring away beside me.”

“What?” I froze, staring at him
.  “I don’t snore, do I?”

Michael looked away and didn’t answer, which instantly made me suspicious
.  He turned even further as I crept around to get a look at his face, trying in vain to hide his smile.

“Ah-hah, I knew it!” I exclaimed, hopping up to my feet
.  “Pulling my leg again, you big meanie? You can’t talk.  You snore worse than I ever will.”

“Eh?”
He shot me a started look.  “I do not!”

“Yes, you do
– but only when you sleep on your back,” I informed him cheerfully, and then I skipped off to the bushes to relieve myself, leaving him to mull over that new revelation.

By the time I returned, breakfast was ready and waiting for me
.  We settled down together to eat straight out of the pot, leaning against one another for warmth in the early-morning chill.  We were both ravenous, and devoured our scrambled eggs in record time.

The sun had only just begun creeping over the horizon by the time we were done, casting golden threads of light and long, angular shadows across the landscape all around us
.  Michael went off to take his turn in the bushes while I cleaned up our breakfast utensils and packed our cooking equipment back into our bags.  He returned in time to help me roll up our sleeping bags, and then we were off on our voyage once more.  Or rather, we would have been...  if the Hilux hadn’t died in its sleep.

I turned the key in the ignition
.  The engine spluttered and whined, making sad, sad noises.  I tried pumping my foot on the accelerator to give it a little more juice, but all it did was whimper and click unhappily.  Michael stood outside the driver’s window, waiting for me to move the truck so we could get out, but the truck refused to play ball.

“Well, this is a fine time to cark it.”
I climbed out from behind the wheel, and jogged around to the front.  I lifted the bonnet up and set it on its little arm, then leaned over the engine and peered at it.  “Honey, can you please try to start it?”

“Sure, one second.”
Michael put his gun down on the roof, then leaned in and tried the ignition again.  Nothing.

“It’s dead, Jim,” he quipped morosely, shooting me a sad look
.  It had been so long that I couldn’t remember where the quote even came from.

I examined the engine for a few minutes longer, then heaved a long sigh and leaned back to stretch my spine
.  “I think it’s the starter motor.  There’s nothing I can do unless we can find a replacement.  Let’s just go, I’ll keep an eye out for spare parts along the way.  Maybe we can get it going again on the way back.”

“And here I was, hoping to give my poor feet a rest,” Michael complained, but he was still smiling
.  I had figured out weeks ago that he was just a glass-half-full kind of guy; I think that was part of the attraction.  He was quite literally the polar opposite of me, so we stuck together like magnets.

I also suspected that personality trait had helped him to keep it together in the wake of his beloved niece’s death
.  It’d been almost two months since he held her in his arms as she died, but he seemed to be coping well with the grief.  Occasionally, he lapsed into a dark mood, but they were rare and I could usually coax him out of them.

My other suspicion was that our relationship helped him to cope as well, since it gave him something new and exciting to cling to instead
– and it also meant that he had someone to help him through the grieving process.  Sometimes I wondered if our relationship had begun because we both needed someone to cling to, and I worried that when we had both finished healing I’d lose him.

Well, if there was one thing Michael had taught me, it was not to let my self-doubt get me down
.  Whenever thoughts like that crept up, I slapped them away and contented myself with the fact that I enjoyed what I had at the moment.  If something happened in the future, at least I would have these wonderful memories for the rest of my life.

“Well, I suppose you have to maintain your girlish figure somehow,” I teased him as I wandered around to take the keys out of the ignition
.  I stared at them for a second, then tossed them on the driver’s seat and slammed the door closed.  No point adding extra weight to my burden when there was no guarantee I’d get the truck working again.

When I turned back, I caught Michael watching me with an amused smirk
.  I blinked in surprise and asked, “What?”

“Sandy…”
He seemed on the verge of bursting out laughing, but I couldn’t quite figure out why.

“What is it?” I demanded, starting to get frustrated
.  He knew that I hated being laughed at, even if I knew it was only in jest.

“How are we getting out?”
He gestured towards the gate, which we’d pinned closed with the Hilux the night before.

Suddenly, I felt foolish, and I ended up laughing at myself
.  “I didn’t even think about that.”

“And here you thought that I was the pretty one, and you were the smart one,” he teased; this time, I was equally amused
.  Somehow, that sweet, silly man always seemed to make every situation funny.

“
Nuh-uh.  I’m the pretty one and you’re the strong one.  Get around the other side and push,” I ordered playfully, then I yanked open the driver’s door, took the handbrake off and set the car in neutral.  Between the two of us, we managed to roll the truck forward just enough for us to be able to squeeze out of the gate.

Once we were free, we stripped everything useful from the car, shouldered our packs, and set off on foot towards the rising sun.

***

Saying that it was a long walk was the understatement of the century, but two fit people on foot could travel almost as fast as two in a four-wheel drive in our day and age
.  It was actually easier to negotiate the uneven landscape without a car – but that didn’t mean it was fun.

The sun climbed slowly in the sky as we made our way eastwards
.  Eventually, clouds began to gather, but they were light and fluffy, not rain clouds.  Just enough to keep the sun out of our eyes, for which we were grateful.  We stuck to the remains of the old roads for most of the journey, occasionally cutting diagonally across fields when it was necessary to keep us moving in the right direction.

After an hour, we found ourselves skirting around the edge of the outermost suburb of Te Awamutu, avoiding the worst of the destruction
.  East of the town, we reached the main road towards Arapuni.  We followed it until midday.

By the time our rumbling stomachs advised us it was about time to stop for lunch, the sun had burned away the last of the clouds and beat down on us with an intensity that was almost painful
.  Michael shielded his eyes against the sun and stared at the road ahead of us, then he looked back at me.

“We should stop soon, and wait until the heat of the day passes,” he suggested.

“Agreed.” I nodded.  “My foot isn’t too happy right now.  This is the most walking I’ve done since it healed.”

“Over there?”
Michael pointed towards a huge oak tree that grew close by the roadside.  Together, we made our way over to the cool, welcoming shade, and flopped down side by side.

“I may be a little out of shape,” I admitted, unlacing my shoes and easing them off to examine my feet
.  The right one was swollen and sore, so I massaged it between finger and thumb to ease the tension in the scar tissue.  Michael made a sympathetic noise and reached over to take my foot in his strong hands.

“Poor little foot,” he rumbled softly, rubbing it gently to ease away the aches and pains
.  “So abused.  Your mistress is so mean to you.” Then he leaned down and planted a kiss on my big toe, which took me completely by surprise.

I yelped and pulled my foot away, staring at him with wide eyes
.  “What on earth are you doing? I’ve been walking all day in sweaty socks, you crazy man.”

“Do you honestly think I’m concerned by how you smell when you’re a little sweaty?”
He raised a brow at me, then grabbed my foot again and resumed massaging it.  His nimble fingers kneaded away the tension more effectively than I could do myself, so I let him have it.  “You do realise that I’ve kissed you in far sweatier places, right?”

“That wasn’t
sweat
, per se,” I sniped back.

He grinned wickedly at me
.  “Hmmm… true.  Perhaps I should find another way to distract you from your sore foot.”

I felt a surge of warmth in my belly at the look of lust he shot my way; all of a sudden, I found myself giving serious thought to the possibilities
.  Even though there was no possible chance of being caught in the act, there was still something inherently naughty about a tryst beneath the open sky.  It was… appealing, and more than a little arousing.  Not that I had any intention of telling him that; the chase was half the fun.

“Oh, you mean lunch?” I retorted playfully, giving him my most innocent look.

“No, that’s not what I had in mind at all,” he rumbled back in that deep voice of his, the one that sent chills all up and down my spine.  I’d swiftly learned what it meant when he used that husky tone on me, but I still loved to hear it.  It made me quiver all over.

“Oh, really now?” I murmured back, enjoying the rising tension in the air
.  It crackled between us like static electricity; every touch of his hand sent tingles through me.

“Mmhm,” he answered inarticulately
.  He pressed his lips against the inside of my ankle, then he drifted higher, trailing kisses along the inside of my leg.  Even with us both fully clothed, my breath began to quicken in anticipation.  By the time he reached my stomach, he had me all a’quiver.

“Out here in the open?
And I thought you were such a good boy,” I commented as his kisses drifted higher; I could hear the huskiness in my own voice, and I felt his body respond to it.  He lifted my tank top up painfully slowly, inch by inch, rolling it back to expose a little more skin with each kiss.

“It’s your fault,” he murmured breathlessly as he finally lifted my top enough to expose my bra
.  He slipped his thumbs beneath the band and raised it up as far as my chin, exposing my skin to the warm breeze.  I gasped as his head dipped down to taste me, and I felt my back arch but could do nothing to stop it.

“Ooh… My fault?
How is it my fault?” I was having trouble following the conversation, and yet the conversation was half the fun.  The heat in my belly was so intense, I could barely breathe, barely focus.

I felt him unzip my trousers and ease them down off my hips, and then those same fingers were teasing me, with just enough pressure to drive me mad
.  I couldn’t bear it any longer.  The chase was over – I had to have him.

His lips found that sensitive spot on my neck while I was still struggling to get his trousers off, and his breath was hot across my ear
.  “Because you’re irresistible, Sandy McDermott.  You’re irresistible, and I love you.”

That was the last coherent thought either one of us had, before we tumbled head-first into the world of voyeuristic pleasure.

***

An hour later, we lay together watching the fluffy clouds roll by, satisfied, exhausted, and energised all at the same time by our brief lunchtime tryst
.  Michael lay on his back with his hands folded behind his head, perfectly happy to let me doze with my head lolling on his firm belly.  I felt safe and comfortable, knowing he was watching over me while I napped.

Eventually, hunger won out over the desire to sleep
.  I sat up and stretched lazily, absently wondering where my clothing had gone.  Then I felt eyes upon me, and glanced over to find him watching me with great interest.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I teased him
.  “We’ll end up stuck here all day.”

“I know, I know.”
He heaved a long-suffering sigh.  As I hopped up to retrieve my trousers from where they’d landed in our frantic haste, I almost missed the slow, self-satisfied smile that crept across his face.  “That was fun though, wasn’t it? Who knew public indecency was such an enjoyable crime?”