Megan had thought that she and Louis would always love each other. But then she had gone and ran around on him with other men and women, and then he had to go and get cancer and die right at the end of the world. Megan would always love Louis in her own twisted way – like naming the weapon she used to bash in the brains of the living and the dead after him. But Megan also knew that she'd never let herself love again. It was like what Michelle Pfeiffer said in that one movie, "Life's a bitch, now so am I."

Life certainly was a bitch if the dead came back to life hungry for flesh. For a while, Megan suspected that she was going to lose it, that in her grief for Louis she'd just give up and die to be with him. "Louis," she'd whisper to the bat when she was by herself, which was often. "Louis, why did you get sick when I was the fucking piece of shit? It fucking should have been me. Why wasn't it fucking me?"

But then at her lowest point, Megan came to a revelation – the world needed her. She had to implement some rules so that civilization could come back, so that the world could keep on spinning. So, she took Louis, stroked him fondly, remembering how she would stroke him in a similar albeit more pleasurable way before, and wrapped him in barbed wire. She didn't want to think about it like going to war, more like taming the world. Everything was already in her grasp, so all she had to do was make it bow, submit, and kneel to her and any only her. Then everyone would follow the rules and get along, and everyone would be Megan.

And when everyone is Megan, maybe she wouldn't feel so alone.

There were other ways that Megan tried to fill the void that Louis left her though. She collected men – several men. Sherman, Frank, Tommy, Alex, Michael. "I love you, Megan," Alex or Tommy or Frank would whisper after she'd climb off and orgasm-weakened legs.

Sometimes, Megan would let herself be touched, and pretend that she was playing house. "I love you, too, big boy." Then she'd give them a kiss and a cuddle, too tired to make them leave or to go to her own bed to sleep.

But more often than not, Megan would just smirk and giggle at them as she pulled on her clothes. They'd reach out, touch her arm, rub themselves against her like cats begging for cream, throw off the blankets and show their sex still streaked with evidence of her cum and their own intermingling, white and shiny. But Megan wouldn't let herself be tempted as she'd continue to lace up her boots, button and zip up and belt her pants, pop her leather jacket's collar. She was never cruel about it, but still, they'd withdraw and pout and Megan would just move on through the rotation of fresh dick.

At the end of the day, Megan knew that all these men were warm bodies and fucking cowards. They didn't want to work for a living – for really living, and they wanted to live more than just survive. Megan didn't mind keep them like her little pets and playthings. After all, screwing around by playfully rutting against Louis got boring after a while, and she wanted something thicker than her fingers but still manageable.

That didn't stop her from sometimes satisfying herself with only Louis. She'd pretend it was really her Louis and talk to him. "Louis, my dirty boy, you like it when I rub against you like a fucking bitch in heat? I'm so wet for you, Louis, like a fucking slip and slide as I fucking slip and slide up your handle." In those moments, she didn't think about how she'd tenderly clean Louis of brain matter and blood at the end of the day as if he were her baby. But once it was over, she wasn't hit by shame, just grief. Grief for the real Louis who had been long gone and rotting in that hospital, just another one of the dead.

The harem was a necessity for Megan's sanity. So, what if she spoiled them with her cream of the crop, they kept her sated, and a happy Megan made a good and fair leader. Besides that, her harem was a symbol of her status and power. She had only one rule for her harem: Don't cheat on her.

Unfortunately, Sherman did. Sherman who thought that he knew better than her, who thought that he should be in charge of the Sanctuary and lead the Saviors. He had a wife from before, a wife who was still alive and part of the group. Megan had seen her before, a sweet little blonde thing with some spunk. Diedre. "Dear Dearie," Megan would tease her as she'd push her blonde hair out of her eyes and tuck it behind her ears, all up in her face. Diedre would only look down or away, anywhere but at Megan.

Something told Megan that Sherman had strayed from before, that this wasn't the first time he had cheated on his Diedre. But Megan should have known better than anyone that once you start cheating, it is so, so easy to keep doing it.

Megan was a little sad that she had to scar Diedre's pretty face, but once she had, Diedre threw herself into serving her, and Sherman didn't try and stray or usurp her any further. The only reason Megan didn't burn Sherman's face or cut his dick off or bash his brains in is because Sherman promised not to do it again, and Megan felt guilty. "Please," Sherman had begged, a pretty picture on his knees that got Megan's pussy wet. "Please don't kill Diedre. I will only be yours. I'm your husband, Megan."

Staring down at Sherman and glancing over at wear Diedre was tied up in a wooden chair, Megan felt like she deserved to be cheated on. She considered it karma for what she did to Louis, and then moved on. Megan tenderly brushed Diedre's hair away, and then put the iron to her cheek, dangerously close to her eye. Diedre screamed, almost passed out, pissed everywhere, but Megan was satisfied with that punishment, and let it be.

Though later in her rooms with Sherman, she did mercilessly punish that man for the rest of the night. "Who do you fucking belong to?"

"You, Megan," he mumbled around the panties in his mouth.

"Who owns this dick?" Megan grasped him firmly and squeezed, digging her nails into him.

"You, Megan!" Sherman moaned.

"Who owns your fucking, cheating ass?"

"You, Megan!"

"Say my fucking name!"

"Megan! Megan! Please let me come, Megan!"

"No! You get what you earn and you haven't been fucking good enough. You haven't earned your come! You don't get to fucking come!"

And Sherman didn't come for a week. Diedre didn't fully heal up for a month before she was back out there collecting for Megan. Megan admired Diedre's go-getter attitude, and she admired Sherman's pretty ass covered in purple bruises. It was a win-win for Megan to have an opportunity to flex her power like that and reinforce the rules for everyone.

The rules for the rest of the Saviors were pretty simple. No stealing – standard Ten Commandments shit. But surprisingly, during Megan's time as a leader, she had to make one of her rules explicitly clear: No rape. That shouldn't be something that had to be said, but Megan had to say it. They had recently annexed a group of survivors they had found, and Megan accepted them because they were strong and valuable. People are a resource now, and while the argument could be made that all life is precious, Megan agreed in her own twisted way. If more people worked, there'd be less people starving. Pretty practical thinking.

But this group had been out in the wild too long. They had resorted to being absolute fucking animals, and Megan told her as much when she found out. "You want to fucking rape someone?" Megan kicked one of them in the ribs until she heard it crack and then she grounded her heel on it for good measure. "Fucking rape me then! My pussy will grow fucking teeth so fucking fast that I'll eat your pathetic one-inch dick as a damn midnight snack, motherfucker!" She didn't even need Louis to kill the first one, but after the first one Louis was thirsty for blood, too, so Megan shared.

Once she was finished, the bodies littered the floor everywhere. The factory had had a blood bath and Megan's bloodlust abated momentarily. Tired, Megan halfheartedly made some half-ass joke about cracking skull to make a rapist omelet, but then she sighed and turned to her second-in-command. "Simone, handle this shit for me, would ya?"

"Sure thing, Boss," Simone, a tall and muscular woman said, and then Megan was left alone with her thoughts.

Megan had heard the whispers. There were rumors that the reason Megan reacted so explosively was because she was a rape-victim, because someone in her family had been raped, that she had had a daughter who'd been rape. None of it was true. Megan shook her head and it all but didn't bother to dispel any of it. She would've thought it clear that no one needs a reason to abhor rape when the act itself is absolutely, inherently evil.

But Megan had done her share of evil things, but never, ever rape. Even when she raised a hand to her husbands, she told gave them safe words, too. Sometimes they would use the words, and Megan would always abide by them. But Megan also burned the shit out of people's faces with an iron and beat people to death with her fists and a bat named after her deceased husband. Megan knew that she was hardly a Savior, but she wasn't that damn evil, was she?

That all changed when there was a new group. They had slaughtered an outpost of her men – somewhere between twenty and fifty of them butchered like goddamned pigs. Their throats were cut, and more than half of them were in their beds, lying in their blood, dead or one of those dead-alives now. Megan was outraged that they didn't even kill them properly.

She sent Simone out with a bunch of men, and even gave Dear Dearie a chance to prove herself. That shit wasn't going to fly and Megan was angry – angrier than she had ever been before. She had built this empire from the ground up and it wasn't often that she lost people. Before she was used to the people she met dropping like flies, but now she thought she had fixed this. Megan thought she could protect them, and these people – whoever the fuck they were – proved her wrong. And Megan hated being wrong.

It happened like this one night. Simone and Diedre's groups pinned the other group to this spot in the middle of the woods. Megan had agonized over the plans, cleared out the area in advance. The staging and timing was everything; it would make the inevitability of someone dying that much more bittersweet.

And it was all of that any more. After beating the piss out of some trembling girl driving the RV – and Diedre doing the same to another group member that she seemed to have a personal vendetta with – Megan made her grand entrance. She stepped out of the RV after Simone knocked, and Louis was propped up on her shoulder and she was smiling. Megan had always been a happy-go-lucky woman, a heinous bitch yes, but a smiling one at that. It was in these moments right before the kill, with her victims powerless against her, that Megan felt the most alive. Being able to choose who would live and who would die thrilled her. It was heady and she let it over take her in these few moments.

In the end, she picked the redheaded broad. Ol' Red looked like she'd give a lot of shit to working for her now, and Megan couldn't have that. The blue-eyed beauty – the leader that was sniveling with a huge snot bubble – Rachel – she was broken. Her daughter wasn't yet, but she will be. Megan had to admire her guts. Going around the semicircle, Megan taunted them with Louis who still had tufts of red hair and red brain matter clinging to his barbs. And the redneck chick, punched her for it. Immediately, Diedre was ready to kill her, but Megan saw potential. Either the redneck would switch sides or she'd die, both options too much fun for Megan to pass up.

Now there was a matter of settling the redneck's fuck-up, and Megan was tempted for it to be the Asian woman except for the fact that there was something wrong, something Megan couldn't put her finger on. It was almost familiar, the clamminess of her skin, the sallow and sweaty complexion, the downward pull of her mouth as she kneeled there uncomfortably. Megan wondered if it was because she looked like Louis in the hospital, and Megan remembered the hell that came after chemo treatments where Louis threw up and just kept throwing up. There was something else, too, something even more personal than that, but Megan wasn't sure and couldn't be sure.

Still, a decision had to be made, and if not that sick girl, then who? Megan swept her eyes around the group again. She'd taken their brawn, but left them their brains. They'd need it since they were so damn stupid. But their heart… they could live without a heart. That would really break them.

Zeroing in on the sick girl, Megan could see that she was their heart, but she looked like she was dying anyway. That would be a mercy killing. But the girl had her eyes riveted on a handsome, young boy. Megan pushed her silver strands of hair out of her eyes. It was love. She knew it well. The boy loved her back, too, and he was staring at her the same way Megan had stared at Louis in that damn hospital bed. Killing the boy would be an even bigger mercy, and he'd be reunited with the sick girl in no time at all.

Gripping Louis tighter in her hand, Megan gritted her teeth. Why should either of them get to see each other so soon in the afterlife when Megan has lived for what felt like whatever without Louis? That was really hell. Watching your loved one die was nothing. It was the living with yourself afterwards knowing that there was nothing you could do to bring them back that destroyed you. And despite everything Megan had endured, had created, had worked to achieve – she was still destroyed, a fragment broken shell of what she was. She pretended to be otherwise, but she couldn't lie to herself. Megan knew that she was.

Surprisingly, Megan could see it in Rachel, too. And she quickly glanced at the woman with her brunette curls sodden with sweat despite the nip in the air. Megan could visibly see her breath with every exhale and yet Rachel looked almost as sick as that Asian girl. Almost.

With a start, Megan realized that she was taking too long. The pain in her cheek from the redneck's slap had nearly resided to a low sting now, the heat disappearing in the chill air. Swinging Louis high in the air, Megan marched back over to the redneck woman and put every bit of her brute strength in the swing and smashed Louis' business end against one the redneck's hand. It would be ruined. "Don't fuck with me, motherfucker." Megan snarled. "Bunch of fucking pussies." She was barely able to bite her tongue from adding that they were lucky to be alive at all, that death would have been a kindness, that no matter what they can't win.

Instead, she swung Louis until blood rained down on all of them, and the Latino looked devastated. A particularly generous portion of blood splattered right over Rachel's cheek. Megan zoned in on it as she stalked right up to Rachel and crouched down at eye-level to her. "Well, lookie at you." Hungrily, Megan's eyes roved all over Rachel's face and while Rachel was looking right at her, Megan knew that she was looking right through her, too. "You look like you just gave some lucky fuck the best time of his life before you bit his dick off." Megan cupped Rachel's cheek and for a moment, Rachel was back within herself, and then Megan cuffed her hard and Rachel disassociated again.

"That fucking reminds me," Megan sang as she stood upright again, twirling Louis around like an umbrella. "Dear Dearie? Come here."

'Dear Dearie' approached, hiding behind her hair, and Megan threw an arm around her waist, allowing her hand to slip lower. Diedre never reacted, stiff as a board. "Didn't one of these fucks try to bite your pussy? That's not very fucking nice!" Looking around at the those kneeling, she watched them cower, rippling around her like blades of grass in the wind. Well, Megan was very close to being a fucking lawnmower. "Which one of these fucks was it?"

Wordlessly, Diedre pointed at the girl Megan had already brutalized earlier. Abandoning Diedre, Megan walked right up to her. "You, huh? What the fuck is the matter with you? Don't you know how to eat pussy?" Megan shook her head. Then she held Louis in front of her, a makeshift penis, end bloody and barbed. Megan couldn't imagine riding that end. It was the handle she had experience with, after all. "Do you prefer sucking dick instead?" The girl quivered before her, too shaky to form words, and Megan was frustrated that she couldn't play anymore games. They were no fun.

Addressing the crowd at large again, Megan raised her voice, "You fucks try any bullshit with us again, I'm gonna teach every fucking one of you how to suck my big honking, swinging, fat dick." She shook Louis for emphasis. "Starting with that bitch," she pointed at Diedre's assaulter, and then pointed at Rachel, "And ending with you, bitch, so you can taste every one of your fucking friends. You are responsible for their fucking deaths. Not me. And that fucking redneck almost got one of you killed. For that, I'll take that dumb shit off your hands. Gotta train her not to be so damn reckless. Maybe I'll give her back once she can be trusted not to get any of you fucks killed. But until then,

"Half your shit belongs to me. I don't get my shit, you never see that redneck. Hell, you may not see shit at all. Dear Dearie will take your fucking eyes out. She's good at that." Megan glanced at Diedre proudly and then looked at Rachel's daughter, wearing that ridiculous sheriff hat, "And some of you sorry shit can't afford to lose another fucking eye, so you better watch out." Megan's face broke out in a smile, "While you still can."

Looking around at her surrounding men, Megan was satisfied. She nodded at Diedre to collect the redneck, and while they started loading up, Megan said her goodbyes. "I'll see you, Rachel, in a fucking week. Stay beautiful, stay alive, for me." Megan winked at her and Rachel looked like she was about to faint and keel over at any second. Deciding to give her heart a rest, Megan waved Louis at them in goodbye. "Ta ta, fucks."

With that Megan was gone, self-assured that she owned those people now. One day they would be Megan, too, and Megan was already starting to feel less and less alone. That's all she ever wanted. She hated the killing, living with the killing, all of it. But every day it got easier to do and easier to live with. All that was left for Megan to do was accept the facts: life was a bitch and so was Megan.