Secret Valentine

The Cabin

Tracks. They shouldn't be there. They most definitely had not been there the day before. This was his neck of the woods, beyond the ravine, where the trees thinned out so tracking became a whole bunch easier and the squirrels were so abundant, it made his stomach rumble just to think of the place. If anything other than a squirrel had come through here, it was fucking trespassing.

So who or what had made these tracks? Daryl squatted in the leaf litter and studied them. They meandered the way walker tracks meandered but there had been no shuffling. Whoever had made them had picked up their feet between steps. The footprints themselves showed the maker had small feet and a longish stride. A woman, then. Suddenly, the tracks showed she had decided exactly where she was going. They led in a straight line up a slope to the crest of a hill. No – there was one deviation. Daryl followed it and there was the answer to his question. A solitary Cherokee rose shone out from amidst the rhododendron tangle and the dead leaves, a white star amidst a mélange of rottenness.

Carol.

He instantly hefted his crossbow and swung it round in an arc, checking for walkers; checking no-one had followed her. What the hell was that woman doing out here on her own? No matter what anyone said, the vulnerable members of the group would take it into their heads to wander into the woods on their own and without adequate protection. Well, when he found her, he was going to give her a serious talking to and no mistake. Didn't she realise how alone she was?

He edged his way up the unfamiliar slope, treading as silently as jungle cat. When he got to the top, he turned to case the new landscape – and found a clearing in the woods, a dell surrounded by slopes on all sides with an itty-bitty log cabin bang in the centre of it. Daryl blinked. He'd momentarily hallucinated a gingerbread house and the track leading to it as a trail of breadcrumbs. He snarled silently to rid himself of that childish image and let his crossbow drop to his side. At least he knew where she was now. Clever girl, in fact, to find this hunter's cabin. He might very well start using it as a base for his hunting forays.

He began to make his way down into the dell, still scanning the ground for other tracks. He reached the dark wood cabin and made a tour of the perimeter. There was only one set of tracks - Carol's - leading to the front door. The cabin appeared to have just a couple of rooms plus a porch area. All the drapes were closed. What was she doing in there and how long had she known about this place for? He felt a spark of annoyance at the possibility she had known about it for some time and kept it secret from the group. Okay, it was just a cabin in the middle of nowhere, probably not much use to your average Joe survivor but surely she'd have mentioned it to him?

He stepped onto the porch and squinted through the front and screen doors. It was difficult to make out what he was looking at. There were a couple of pieces of furniture in the main room – a cabinet of some sort and he could see about half of a low couch but there was no-one in the room. Then something moved, something that was lying on the couch. Carol? Or something else? He pulled back immediately, his back flat against the side of the cabin, crossbow held at shoulder height. Then he inched his way around the side until he reached the main window of the central room. He ducked below the windowsill then slowly raised his head until his eyes just popped up over it. The drapes were not quite closed and through the gap, he got a good view of the room, the left arm rest of the couch being closest to the window.

There was someone lying on the couch. Someone with close-cropped grey hair. But why was Carol lying so still? Was she hurt? He was just about to head back to the door when he heard it. The guttural cry. It could easily be interpreted as a cry of pain or despair but his body and his mind were not so easily fooled. It was the cry of someone in the throes of sexual delight. Daryl's keen eyes flickered around the room trying to locate the one who was doing this to Carol but there appeared to be no-one there. He looked back at the couch. All he could see was the top of her head, a little of her torso stretched out beyond and two raised thighs. That was when he noticed the hem of her dress was up around her waist and her right hand lay between her legs, on top of her white panties.

Daryl blushed effusively and turned away from the window to look blindly out into the trees. Carol was masturbating! She'd found a quiet place to slip away to where no-one would disturb her and she was pleasuring herself. He frowned. He'd never thought of Carol that way. He liked her, sure, he might even have said he felt kindly towards her but, somehow, it had never entered his head that she had a sex drive. Or a pussy for that matter. It had certainly not occurred to him that it might talk to her, tell her that it wanted to be stroked, poked, petted, played with.

Naw – was that really what was going on? She was a decent woman, a sensible woman. He shook his frowning head. Then he heard her cry out again, this time in whimpering tones and every one of his nerve endings tingled. He felt shot through with blue fire. He knew he should leave the poor woman to her solitary comfort but curiosity, a ravening curiosity, had hold of him, and he found himself zombie-eyed and turning back to the window.

It was frustrating, how little he could see but he didn't want to switch position in case she heard him moving around. He didn't want to disturb her – did not want this to stop. She seemed to still be covered to the waist down – damn, he'd do anything for a glimpse of titties right now! Her raised knees had dropped to the sides, though, exposing more crotch. As he watched, she brought her left hand into play, reaching further down between her legs.

It was fascinating and it was confusing. Her hands hardly seemed to be moving and she still had those white panties on. Where were the dildos? Daryl raised himself up a little further to get a better look at those hands. The right one nearest the top was so still, just a tendon moving in it. So what was she doing? Rubbing or somehow tickling her clit, he supposed. His cock jerked inside his jeans, its heat like an iron poker against his belly. Her left hand was more active, engaged in a slower but more dynamic piston-like motion. So, she was either pressing at the entrance of her cunt-hole over the top of her panties or maybe, just out of sight, she'd wormed her fingers under the leg and was pushing a couple of fingers in and out. Whut does that feel like, he wondered, a clit diddle and a pussy pound? Was that whut she liked best? Her hips bucked a couple of times and more pathetic little noises escaped her. Daryl suddenly realised he was moving, too, his hips thrusting in sympathy. For a moment, he felt embarrassed, then Carol's head fell to the left, and her pelvis tilted upwards and quivered. She cried out half-formed words. "Yeh – go, Duh – go on, Dah…"

What was that? Was that – Daryl? Was she saying his name? He clamped a hand over his crotch and found himself mouthing, Say my name. Say my name! At the same time, Carol's hips released from their taut position in several bucking spasms and her body sank into spent relaxation.

She'd said his name! Hadn't she? She'd been thinking about him while she touched herself, imagining it was his strong hands touching her the way he knew he could, his cock pushing into her sending her hips bucking. She needed him. Now. He was just about to start for the door when a new sound reached his ears.

Sobs, heart-rending sobs. He looked back at the couch and could see that Carol's arms had come up and her hands were covering her face as her chest heaved with the crying. This time, he was sure who she was thinking about.

Sofia.

Maybe she felt guilty about enjoying herself in even this small way when her daughter's death was still fresh in her mind. But she shouldn't! It was normal, wasn't it, to look for comfort in the midst of pain? Why, even he himself had –

There was a noise behind him – way up on the slope behind him but Daryl's senses were finely tuned and always, no matter what he was doing, in peripheral mode. He turned and saw a walker standing on the crest, leering down towards the cabin. Fuckin' Peepin' Tom, he thought. Can't you leave this woman in peace? A mean look crossed his face as his crossbow came up and he fired it almost before it reached eye level. The male walker plunged backwards, out of sight on the other side of the crest, a crossbow bolt transfixing its skull.

Daryl glanced back through the window and saw Carol had heard something, too. She was sitting up on the couch, looking at the door. She'd picked up the car fender she'd brought with her for protection and had adopted a puma pose, eyes strong, every limb poised for explosive movement. Smart cookie, he thought and almost smiled then he turned back to the woods and was gone.

As Carol made her way back to the farm, she had no idea who lurked in the bushes, determined to destroy any dumb thing that wandered into her path.

That night, as Daryl lay in his tent and began his own nightly caress, he took far longer than usual just getting his cock out of his pants. He spent some time just rubbing his hand over the bulge in his jeans – the first part a woman would see and feel – enjoying the healthy size of it. The he undid the zipper snick snick snick and let the hard, cut prong spring into his fist. Jerking off had been perfunctory for him for a long time now, just a way of emptying the tense feeling in his balls. Sometimes, it was accompanied by a collage of disparate images – pussies he'd seen, the breasts of some of the women in the Atlanta group pushing against their shirts, Andrea's ass and thighs in her tight jeans, sweat trickling down Maggie's cleavage but this time there was only one person on his mind. He got a dollop of hand lotion he'd managed to steal from one of the tents before retiring into his hand and applied it to his prick. He squeezed as he pulled slowly at his hard-on, enjoying the pressure, enjoying just looking at his dirty piece of meat being manipulated like that. He brought in his other hand, rubbing the flat of his palm around the head in a sliding, twisting motion. Every exhalation now came with a husky moan, a hiss from deep inside his lungs. He stopped briefly to pull his shirt off over his head then looked down at his prick over the bulges of his chest. He was muscular. Sure he was. The muscles in his arms looked beefy, too. He could pick up a girl in one of those arms, easy; beat up a bad guy; hold a girl down while he fucked her, if that was what she was into. Any girl would surely be happy to run her hands over this chest of his, even if he was just an ugly, dumb-ass piece o' white trash.

He put his head back, exposing his thick neck in a way he never normally liked to do. He squeezed his eyes shut and pictured her spying on him, watching this bad boy playing with his own prick. His head came forwards again and rested on his left shoulder as his hand began to work faster. He imagined looking her in the eye as he pulled on it, thrusting his hips up towards his hand, his creamy-slick shaft so close to her face. He ran his tongue slowly across his upper lip, seeing her do the same in his mind's eye and then he was there, hips bucking just the same as hers had bucked earlier that day, his semen shooting about a foot in the air in several gushing gouts.

He fell back against the pillows, panting with exhaustion. After a minute or two, he lifted his head and surveyed the damage caused by a heavy cummer such as him. There was semen on his belly, on his jeans – he'd even managed to catch the tent flap with a dramatic Jackson Pollock streak. His lip curled with disgust as he reached for his old friend the face flannel and he pondered whether what Carol had really been about to say was, "Dale".