Chapter 44

"Ya fuckin' did wha'?" he demanded, turning to glare at her.

The ride out of town had been harrowing, the door had been barely half way open when the geeks had started pushing in – the truck was rocking as they had surrounded it even before Merle had seen enough daylight to be able to hit the accelerator. The truck bucked and rocked as it pushed through the crowd immediately in front of the door but then ran into the gitch that had followed Marion through the town. The truck jumped as some of the geeks hit the ground – with a lurch it came to a halt. The geeks howled, pawing at the windows, reaching over the bonnet towards the windscreen.

"Merle?" Marion's voice was stressed as one of the aggressive of the geeks started thumping on her window, she was leaning away it as far as her seatbelt would let her– Dog had already jumped down into the footwell.

"'ang on," he muttered, reaching over and slamming the truck into 4WD and then into reverse.

For a moment the car struggled against the press of the bodies behind them, then the back wheels got traction and it jumped backwards – Merle spun the wheel and Marion lurched into the door. He hit the accelerator and the tyres squealed. He had to dodge a few stragglers but after about ten minutes they seemed to be clear and there was a tangible release of tension.

He looked at her, turning his head from the road, then back to the road, then back to her. She looked exhausted; she was filthy – covered with dirt and splashes of blood. There were even bits of leaf in her hair. "Ya could 'ave told me ya 'ad a way out," he said finally in a disgruntled tone.

"I didn't have a way out," she replied tiredly. "I was working on one."

"And sticking ya tongue down young David's throat was part of it was it?" he snapped.

She winced a little. "That was actually a variation to get you out of there." There had been no tongue involved of course, David had been a perfect gentleman about it. In fact, almost too much of a gentlemen – when Merle had taken that step forward she had felt him falter, she'd had to drag him back to her.

"What?" he said very clearly, glancing at her.

"Well you started to lose it a little," she shrugged. "I needed you out of the way – otherwise I would have never gotten out of there."

"Wha' tha fuck ya on about?" he frowned. "How'd ya git out?"

"By convincing Joanna that with me out of the way that she'd be clear to get at you," she said simply.

"Ya fuckin' did wha'?" he demanded, turning to glare at her.

"You see why I didn't tell you?" she retorted indignantly.

He turned back to the road, blinking. "Horseshit," he grumbled. "I coulda played along – helped convince her."

She laughed out loud at that. "Oh please," she scoffed. "Jo loved the whole alpha male routine (1) you have going on from a distance – but she wouldn't have been able to cope with it in reality, she would have run straight to the hills – well to Ben anyway."

"David," he corrected absently. "You didn't run."

"Really?" she turned to him wide eyed to the first part of his answer. "I'm not a 16year old girl Merle."

He gave her a glance, scoffing back at her in turn. "Plain as tha fuckin' nose on ya face woman. David is smitten wit' tha wench." He looked at her again. "Tha ot'er women were frightened of me."

She sighed, a smile playing about her lips. "Good then." She realised that he might be confused with her answer with the sort of dual conversation they were having. "That David and Jo can now get together I mean." She didn't comment to the other part of his answer – she wasn't sure why she wasn't scared of him. She had certainly been that first day – the sight of him eating up her body with his eyes through the window, him with roughness worn like a cloak, one hand, shaved head – she'd been terrified. But then he'd saved her, for no reason that she knew of, he'd kept her from the other men. And then, even after she'd screamed those hateful things at him, he'd saved her again. Maybe he hadn't come back for her, although he'd done without the mysterious backpack for a while so maybe she'd been too harsh on him, but he'd put his life at risk to rescue her. And he'd continued to do so since then, for no real reason except his own, slightly warped perhaps, sense of honour. She knew, no matter what, that she was safe with him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why she wasn't frightened of him, but the words jammed up in his mouth. "Who else was in on ya plan?" he asked instead.

"My plan?" she shook her head. "No-one, I didn't know who I could trust."

"That's why ya didn't tell me?" he interrupted angrily.

"Of course not," her indignation was back. "I was going to tell you that Thanksgiving night – after I'd sussed out my chances. But you'd already started playing your games – if you'd gone all meek and compliant after that there would have been some pretty strong warning bells ringing in Samson's head. So I worked on Jo, trying to get her to a point where I could get out of there..."

"So ya was goin' to leave me t'ere?" he snapped.

She gave him a look. "Since when did you have a problem getting out of there?" she snipped at him. "You got out the first bloody night didn't you? To move the car? And it wasn't like they were watching you was it? I figured that once I was gone, you'd just slip out."

He sniffed, unable to fault her reasoning. "And gettin' me out? David was in on it?"

She nodded. "He was worried about you Merle – he cared a lot for you. You scared the tripe out of him of course, but he told me that he learned a lot from you and he was very grateful. I went to Samson after the fight, made sure that he would get you out – David and Hannah were happy to help."

So her grand plan was to make him think she hated him he sniffed. The only thing that would have made him leave. "Yar a fuckin' clever bitch."

"Why thankyou Mr Dixon," she said in her best (which was still pretty bad) breathy Marilyn Munroe impression, her pinkie finger held against her lower lip.

He snorted a laugh. "I'll 'ave ya know though t'at I was a virtual Casanova in my day."

"What?" she laughed. "Merle Dixon took a girl flowers?" He shook his head. "Chocolates?" He shook his head again. "Gave them massages?" Merle pursed his lips, his definition of a massage possibly wasn't the same as hers and shook his head. "Took her for a walk along the riverbank at sunset?"

"Wha' type of pussies do t'at shit?" he demanded.

She smiled, but it was a tight one. Her real husband ya dummy. "But you were still a bit of a ladies man were you Merle?"

He covered his confusion with Dixon bravado. "Tha ladies couldn't git 'nough of ol' Merle," he boasted.

"I can imagine," she said drolly. And she could. Merle, even at his age which she put at mid to late forties, though slightly worn around the edges was a well built man. She imagined that with hair, even if it was a curly 'fro like he said, and a less used look he would have been a very good looking young man. With his outrageous personality, the right woman would have been attracted like a moth to a flame. And probably got burnt too. "I only ever had three boyfriends – two of them when in primary school, I even was 'married' to one of them in the playground," she was in her memories and didn't appreciate the irony of her comment, but it grated on Merle. "The next one wasn't until work experience in university. He served his purpose."

Huh? thought Merle. Ya dummy snorted Daryl's voice and he got it oh.

"Then a workmate set me up on a blind date with my husband and the rest, as they say, is history."

Not quite he thought, looking down to where her fingers were playing with her rings automatically. Except..."Wha' 'appened ta ya rings?"

Marion looked down, almost in surprise and picked up her hand. There was a white mark around her finger and the skin was still indented from where they used to sit. She shrugged. "It was the price of admission – well departure I suppose," she said dully and buried that hand in Dog's coat.

She was silent for a moment, then she seemed to recover herself and told him about the ride through the forest, Thompson's farm – she was still worried that Toby might not be recovered before the geeks found him – and then the final run into town, sleeping in a tree when the night got too dark for her to be able to see her way. He in turn told her of Samson driving him to the car, using the 50cal to distract and decimate the geeks (she was very impressed with that) and the work that he had to do to make it driveable.

"Malcolm hey?" she repeated with a smile. "I always wondered why he was out of order. It was Samson and Delilah wasn't it?"

Merle nodded. "Samson was the strong man. He was seduced by Delilah and gave away the secret of his great strength – she betrayed him and he was imprisoned. He found God later on and was given his strength back to destroy his enemy's temple."

She blinked at him, perhaps wondering where he would have learnt that given his attitude towards the church.

She slept after that, her head leant up against where her seatbelt was connected to the chassis, the exhaustion of her journey, and perhaps the fear of arriving too late finally catching up to her. A stone dropped in the pit of his belly – what if he hadn't been there when she'd arrived? What if he'd left the night before? What if the work hadn't taken him as long as he thought it had? Would she have gone back to Babylon? Would she have tried to follow him to Fort Benning? On foot – with only a crossbow and sword. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

He looked at her it had all been an act. He didn't know what that meant exactly, but he knew that he felt better knowing that it had been. He looked at her fingers, the white indented place where her rings had been. She'd moved his ring that first morning – he hadn't been worried – and she wore it on her other ring finger. His own he hadn't bothered moving: his knuckle had swelled as soon as the ring had been put there, he'd have to try pretty hard to get it off, probably would have to use his teeth. And then where were ya going to put it uno-hand? asked a caustic voice. He shrugged it wasn't like they were actually married. She looked peaceful, the lines in her face eased while she slept, her fingers relaxed in Dog's coat. The blood on her was drying, he knew that she'd want to have a wash before she got changed and that was why he slowed finally. Dog stirred at the change in the car's motion and that caused Marion to wake, she looked at him sleepily. He jerked his chin towards her side of the car and she turned, her brows rising with what she saw and she opened the car door.

Dog jumped out first, running across the road and through the fence, Marion and Merle following more slowly and leaning against the fence. It was a creek, trickling clearly over the rocks, feeding into a small pond, which then discharged back out into the creek. On the other side they could see where the road curved around, there was some type of track leading down to the water.

"May as well camp tha night 'ere," offered Merle in the silence that was only broken by the occasional bird call and the splashing from where Dog bouncing in the shallows.

"Are we far enough away?" she wondered.

Merle snorted. "T'ey ain't coming for ya woman," she frowned and turned towards him. "Samson's knows ya done 'im, t'at ya wit' me. He might 'ave gone as far as tha town, but once he sees we're not t'ere, he'll know."

She smiled in acceptance of his reasoning and nodded. "Dog," she called, giving a short whistle – there was a flurry of bushes and he bounced out of the shrubbery, his tail wagging and drenched from the belly down. "Oh Dog," she groaned as Merle chuckled.

Dog ran straight past them, headed to the car, and then propped – growling with his hackles up. Automatically Merle stepped in front of Marion, lengthening his stride to take him next to the dog, reaching into his belt for the silenced gun.

The geek had apparently caught hold of the back of the truck in the town – at some point it had not been able to run any further and had just hung on – the feet would have gone first, then the legs, the knees and then finally up to the hips. After that the angle it floated out from the car while it drove must have been enough to protect the rest of its body – there was no trail of gore immediately visible so it must have been a while.

Marion made a gagging sound behind him and turned away, her hand pressed tight to her mouth.

The geek moaned, not in pain but in hunger –ravenously insatiable for human flesh and it turned its head, its jaw snapping, its eyes wide and white. It released its grip on the car and with a soggy plop, hit the tarmac. One arm reached out and, shudderingly, it moved towards them – the other hand reached out and grabbed more of the tarmac. It moved about half a metre before its grip failed. It reached the next hand out.

Merle shrugged and turned away. "Come on," he said.

"We can't leave it like that," she protested, looking back at it with pity in her eyes.

"Why not?" he shrugged. "It ain't goin' ta git anywhere at tha pace it's goin'. It ain't hurtin' anything – waste of a bullet."

"It used to be someone's daughter Merle," she argued. "You wouldn't leave an animal lying like that."

"It ain't an animal," he replied but he knew he was talking to himself. She had already turned to the car, reaching in the get her sword. He turned to look at the geek again – it did look like it had used to be a teenage girl. Fuck. "Git in tha car," he ordered, reaching out and taking the sword out of her hands.

The relief in her face was answer enough. He waited until she was in the car, a soggy Dog perched on her lap, then stepped forward.

Marion heard the moans, the almost wails intensify from the geek as it saw food approaching within its reach, then there was a twang as the metal of the sword impacted against the tarmac and there was no more noise from the geek. She sniffed a couple of times, blinking hurriedly and was able to turn an almost normal face to him as he came to his door, passing her the cleaned sword hilt first before sitting behind the wheel of the car and starting it up.

She didn't look in the side mirror at the half a heap lying in the middle of the road.

The trail from the road snaked through the trees and then turned to follow the creek for a bit; they ended up a couple of kilometres from where they had originally sighted it. Merle pulled the truck to a halt but left the engine running, watching the couple of cars and tents suspiciously to see if there was any movement. He shot out his stump as he heard Marion's door open, but she had merely let Dog out, watching him as he started to sniff around.

"We're clear I think," she said finally, turning to him.

"I'll move tha car, just in case," he said and she nodded, getting out with the sword and closing the door. Merle reversed the car in a 3 point turn, backing it up close to where the fireplace sat.

Marion backed out of one of the tents and shrugged. "Empty," she reported. "Nothing – no sign of anything."

"Prob'bly wandered off by now," Merle shrugged. "I'll go do a scout around – ya goin' ta 'av a wash?" She nodded vigorously. "Take tha bow," he instructed and rolled his eyes when she gave him a look. He grabbed the rifle, checked how many bullets he had in the silenced gun and swore. He opened the car door and rummaged through the weapons bag, finding the bullets for the gun and reloading it so it was full. He threw the box back into the bag and went to turn away – then something caught his eye.

His backpack.

He hadn't even thought of it the night before, he wasn't sure why. If ever he'd needed a hit it should have been last night. But now the hunger, the desire, the want hit him harder than ever. He looked up, he could see her walking away – she'd be at her bath for a while, the day was still warm enough although in a couple of hours the sun would dip behind one of the mountains and it would turn cold very quickly. He hesitated: he needed to walk the perimeter, make sure they were safe, well as safe as they could be, he needed to start the fire – something he insisted on doing even though she was as capable – and maybe even have a look at one of those tents to see if they might use it tonight.

A night alone with her in a tent. Just him and her. He and his wife.

A little bit won't hurt he thought: he'd need something to take the edge off, and reached for the backpack.

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He was still buzzing just a little when he came to the clearing, having walked for almost an hour across the creek and along the other side of the valley, checking for signs of game or geeks. He'd found none, which was good and bad. The colder nights had sent the game packing, the squirrels had finished the last of their gathering and were hunkering down for the winter, the hares had gone into their burrows, the deer – well they'd gone to wherever they went. They certainly weren't here. Neither were there geeks either that he could see, but he had to yet walk on the other side of the creek.

The little clearing came out of nothing, and ended abruptly: he walked to the edge to overlook the view – and froze.

She'd tracked the creek longer than he thought, finding a deep pool which had been dug out by eons of falling water so that she could entirely submerse herself. That must not have been enough for her though because she had swum over to where the trickle of a waterfall cascaded over the rocks and was standing up underneath it, apparently washing her hair. Her eyes were closed as she tipped her head back to catch the water, she had absolutely no idea that he'd just walked in on her.

Walk away.

Of course he should – he knew that – for his own sanity as much as for her. But he couldn't – he was rooted to the spot. Her hands up to the back of her head did magic things to her bust, lifting them up and out and he felt himself harden right then. His gaze traced down past her breasts, down her ribs– which at least had managed to put on a little weight in the sheltered existence of the farm –over her flat stomach and to where the hair accumulated above her legs.

He groaned to himself and dragged his eyes away, back up, even as Dog stood up and barked.

"Merle Dixon!" she all but screeched, and turned – presenting him with what was only a close second in scenery. "Get out of here!"

He smirked, placing the rifle on his shoulder and leaning in a little. "Ya ain't got not'in' ta be ashamed of woman," he assured her. "I seen lots o' tits and pussies and yours..." he brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them.

"Perhaps somewhat surprisingly Mr Dixon," she said witheringly over her shoulder. "Your appreciation of my attributes means shit all! Now turn the fuck around."

"Okay, okay Mrs Dixon," he quipped back at her, smirking back at her glare as Dog continued to bark. He started to turn away when a flash of something caught his eye and he turned back quickly.

"Merle!" she shouted in exasperation.

"Git outta t'ere woman," he snapped, bringing the rifle up against his shoulder.

She turned then, seeing the geek stagger out of the trees, snarling and growling. Dog barked as he moved forward and the geek turned, but Dog was halfway around the pond and Marion was closer, so it turned back to her. It splashed in the shallows, the water moving up over its feet, up its legs and then it vanished with a splash, obviously finding the edge of the pool.

Merle lowered the rifle back down and she turned her head, not her body, back to him. "They can't swim," she told him with some relief and lowered herself back into the water, casting a glance at where the geek went in the water.

From his vantage point he saw it before she did and he instinctively flicked the rifle back up into place. "T'ey don't drown eit'er," he snapped, but he lowered the rifle again without taking a shot. The head of the geek was below the water and he wasn't sure that the bullet would stay true through the water and if it didn't, then he would have rung the dinner bell for any others that were around.

Marion was swimming to the edge, where Dog was waiting next to her clothes and cross bow. He turned and growled and Marion propped in the water, swirling her arms to keep afloat as another geek, then a third stepped out of the trees. Dog barked, dodging as one of them reached out towards him.

"Git back t'is way," yelled Merle even as she called to Dog to get away, shouldering the rifle and stepping over the edge, balancing with his stump as he climbed down the rocks. The rocks finished in a ledge, about a metre off the water and he stalked along its edge as she stroked over towards him. He squatted down and reached over with his hand – she paused, treading water in front of him and giving him a tantalising if somewhat hazy view. "Come on," he urged her, reaching his hand down a bit further. She grabbed his hand with both hers and he stood up: with a surge of water she came flying up, her body landing against his chest and her feet on the ground. He wrapped his arm around her back, his hand just feathering across the top of her bottom.

"Now what?" she asked, turning her head to watch the third geek disappear into the deep water.

He looked down at her, her hands were hard against his chest but he had a nice view down the front of her chest. He smirked.

"Merle," she said warningly.

"Marion," he replied, pulling her a bit closer and tightening his grip on her bottom. He looked down at her face, her lips parted a little with nervousness and he felt a surge of desire.

"Merle," she said again, but this time in a different voice and he turned to follow her eyes. He released her and turned: there wasn't enough room to wrangle with it on the ledge or the cliff so he brought the rifle up and fired in one smooth motion. The geek folded to the ground at the top of the cliff, but then another one came into view.

"Time ta move again," he said as he let off another shot, but he could hear more groans – there were more coming.

"Back through the water?" she queried, looking doubtfully at the other options around the rockwall and covering her chest with her arms.

"Yep – go wide," he nodded, putting his head through the strap of the rifle so that it sat across his back. He turned in time to see her dive into the water smoothly and he paused momentarily in appreciation before following somewhat less smoothly. Dog barked from the edge of the water as they came towards him – Merle hit bottom before she did and he surged up past her, grabbing her around the waist as she stumbled on the rocks. He unslung the rifle and let go another shot quality workmanship he thought as the geek dropped with a bullet through its brain. There was a whoosh as she released a bolt and he turned, swallowing as she bent over to draw in another bolt before straightening with the crossbow to her shoulder. Fuck he couldn't concentrate with that. "Here," he called, shrugging off his vest and throwing it at her "put some fuckin' clothes on woman."

She lowered the bow to do that – throwing it around her and tying up the string hurriedly before she picked up her bow again, letting the second bolt go.

The water in front of them bubbled and surged and a geek resurfaced, growling as it came up into the air. Merle waited until it made it to the edge before stepping forward and slamming the blade through its eyeball. It crumpled into a heap as the second one surfaced. He heard a whoosh and spared only a glance for the fallen body a couple of metres behind him, stepping forward to dispatch the third geek as it came out of the water. He turned, looking around – she stood still but with the bow still braced, his vest down to her knees and the armholes showing him far more of her chest than it was designed for.

"We clear?" she said cautiously, lowering the bow and looking around, taking in Dog who was now sitting down and scratching himself.

He looked around – there were no more geeks on the cliff and he wondered whether they had turned around or whether they had followed them into the water. He couldn't see anything moving. He looked at the dead bodies around him, there was a 'dad', a 'mom', a 'grandma' and a 'grandpa' and what could have been a couple of younger people. So this is where they'd got to he thought. "Should be," he nodded. "There could be more out there though."

"But where would we go?" she asked, "It's almost dark."

The shadows had begun creeping up the side of the valley. "Git dressed," he told her absently. "I got an idea."

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(1) as identified by RandomGuest some time ago