Chapter 17: A New Problem.
The silence of the monitor room was a different beast than the kitchen’s. It was a pressurized quiet, filled with the low electronic drone of machines and the soft, constant scroll of data on screens. Cold blue light from the displays washed over the consoles, outlining Jesse’s silhouette as he sat, his eyes scanning the thermal images of the village. White and yellow blobs huddled in dark grey masses, shrinking as the cold leeched their heat.The door hissed open behind him.He didn’t turn. He heard her bare feet on the polished concrete floor, the sound soft and hesitant. She stopped a few feet from his chair.
He reached a hand back, not looking, and found the curve of her hip. His fingers slid down to the heavy swell of her ass, palming it, squeezing the flesh that was still warm and marked from his hands.He pulled her closer.
She came willingly, moving into the space between his knees.He turned the chair, finally looking at her. She’d cleaned up, her hair damp, wearing one of his old grey t-shirts that hung to her mid-thigh.Her face was pale, her eyes wide and uncertain in the screen glow.
He leaned forward, his hands cupping her ass, and pulled her onto his lap. She straddled him, her weight settling, and he could feel the heat of her through his cargo pants. He tilted his head up and kissed her.It wasn't gentle. It was a deep, consuming press of lips and tongue, a reclaiming of the silence. He poured a brutal kind of possession into it, his hands kneading the lush flesh of her rear.When he broke away, they were both breathless.
“I fucking love your ass,” he muttered, his voice rough against her mouth.
She blinked, a flush spreading down her neck. She shifted her hips, feeling the hard line of his erection press against her. “You want to fuck it again?” The question was a whisper, a ghost of her earlier bravado.He smiled, a thin, fleeting thing. “I have work to do.”
She glanced at the wall of monitors, at the dying world displayed in muted tones. Then she looked back at him, a new, desperate cunning lighting her eyes. “I can fuck you while you work.”
A slow grin spread across his face. He looked from her, to the screens, and back.The calculation was instantaneous. To have this warmth, this animal comfort, while watching the cold erase everything else… it was the purest form of power he could conceive.
“Come on then,” he said, his voice a low command.
He wheeled the heavy chair back from the console, giving himself room. With quick, efficient motions, he unbuckled his belt, pushed his pants and boxers down just enough to free his cock. It sprang out, already fully hard, flushed and thick in the cool air.McKenna didn’t hesitate. She slid off his lap and sank to her knees on the hard floor.Her hands went to his thighs, steadying herself. She looked up at him, her lips parted, and then leaned forward, taking him into her mouth in one slow, deep glide.
Jesse let his head fall back against the headrest with a sharp exhale. The wet, searing heat of her mouth was a brilliant counterpoint to the room’s chill.He forced his eyes open, back to the monitors. Feed Three showed a cluster of thermal signatures by the main fire pit. One of the yellow blobs slowly faded to grey, then winked out. He felt McKenna’s tongue swirl around the head of his cock, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked.
She worked him with a fierce, dedicated rhythm, her hands stroking the base, her mouth taking him deep until she gagged lightly, then pulling back to swirl her tongue around the sensitive ridge. All the while, her eyes were on him, watching his face, watching his eyes flick to the screens.
“Good girl,” he grunted, tangling a hand in her damp hair. He guided her pace, not gently, fucking up into the wet cavern of her mouth.She took it, her throat relaxing, a low moan vibrating through him. Spit slicked her chin, shining in the monitor light.
After a few minutes, he pulled her head back by her hair.A thin strand of saliva connected her lips to his glistening cock. “Enough,” he said. “I want to see it.”
He helped her up, his hands on her waist.She understood. Turning, she put her hands on the console’s edge, her back to him, and guided him to her entrance. She was already wet, her readiness a physiological truth he found deeply satisfying.He didn’t enter her.Not yet.
“Sit,” he instructed.She lowered herself onto him, a slow, breathtaking descent that made them both gasp. He filled her, stretched her, the hot clasp of her body a potent shock. Once she was fully seated, he locked his hands on her hips.
“Now work,” he said, his gaze fixed on the wall of screens.McKenna began to move. She rose up, his cock sliding almost all the way out, then sank back down, taking him deep. It started as a tentative rhythm, but desperation and a hungry need to please quickly took over. She rode him harder, lifting herself higher, slamming back down with a force that jolted the chair.
Jesse kept his eyes on Feed Two, zoomed in on the perimeter fence.Nothing.All clear. His hands tightened on her hips, guiding her, setting a deeper, more punishing pace.
“That’s it,” he muttered. “Bounce that fat ass on my dick.”
She obeyed, her movements becoming more fluid, more confident. The sounds filled the room: the wet, rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh, the creak of the chair, her sharp, panting breaths. Her ass, those magnificent, heavy cheeks, rippled with each impact. He watched, mesmerized, as they clenched and released, the pale skin jiggling, the red marks from earlier dancing with each bounce.
“You see that?” she panted, glancing over her shoulder.Her face was etched with strain and pleasure. “You see my fat ass swallowing your cock?”
“I see it,” he growled, giving her hip a sharp smack.The sound cracked through the room. She cried out, bucking harder against him.
“Fuck yes, spank it!” she urged, driving down onto him with renewed force.“Spank your bitch’s ass while she rides you! Make it redder!”
He obliged, delivering another stinging slap, then another, punctuating her strokes. The violence of it, the sheer obscene spectacle of it here in this nerve center, sent a brutal thrill through him.“Look at the screen,” he ordered, his voice tight.“Feed Four. Top left.”
She turned her head, her body still working, rising and falling. The monitor showed a thermal close-up of a makeshift shelter.Two blobs were close together, motionless. One was larger.A man and a child, maybe.
“They’re dying,” Jesse said, his tone flat, even as he thrust up to meet her downward plunge. “They’ll be ghosts by dawn.”
McKenna’s rhythm faltered for a second.A choked sob escaped her. Then, as if fueled by a terrible, survivalist guilt, she rode him with a frantic, savage energy.“Fuck me!” she screamed, her voice raw. “Fuck me while they die!I’m alive!I’m warm! I’m your fucking cock sleeve!” She bounced wildly, her ass a frenzied blur, the slapping sounds becoming a continuous drumbeat. “This is my hole!My warm, wet hole!You feeling it? You feeling how alive I am?!”
He was. The heat, the tightness, the raw, vocal claim of it all fused into a white-hot point of concentration. His hands dug into the softness of her hips, holding her down as he pistoned up into her from beneath. His eyes were locked on the dying blobs on Feed Four, but his universe was the violent, clenching heat of the woman impaled on him.
“Come on, Daddy!” she shrieked, her body slamming down, taking him so deep it stole his breath.“Shoot it in me! Fill this live bitch up! Mark me hotter than them!”
Her words, a vile and perfect anthem of survival, shattered his control. With a final, grinding lift of his hips, he buried himself inside her and came. It was a silent, intense eruption, a flooding pulse that seemed to pull from the very core of his being. She cried out, her inner muscles milking him, her own climax triggered by the feel of his release.
For a long moment, they were still, joined, the only movement the slow fade of the two thermal blobs on Feed Four into uniform, lifeless grey.
McKenna slumped forward, her arms giving out, her forehead resting on the cool console. Jesse stayed inside her, his breath slowly steadying, his hands limp on her waist. The monitors continued their silent vigil.The dead were grey.The living were warm.He finally shifted, pulling out. She made a small, wet sound and slowly straightened, her legs shaky. Without a word, he pulled his pants up, fastened them.He wheeled the chair back to its precise position before the console.
“The pantry list,” he said, his eyes already scanning the other feeds.“Alphabetical. I want it before dark.”
She stood there, his t-shirt clinging to her sweaty skin, the scent of sex thick around her. She looked at the back of his head, at the screens, at the grey static where life had been. A profound understanding passed over her face, settled into the set of her shoulders.“Yes, Jesse,” she said quietly. There was no Daddy now.It was the voice of a subordinate acknowledging an order.
She turned and walked out, her steps firmer than before.The door hissed shut behind her.Jesse enlarged Feed One. The main gate of the bunker’s perimeter, a quarter-mile down the mountain. A lone, faint thermal signature was moving toward it, a small, determined blot of yellow and orange in a field of blue.It was too far for detail, but the timing was right.
Someone was scouting the bunker.x
The pantry was a cool, deep alcove off the main storage module, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of polished alloy. McKenna clicked on the single overhead light, its sterile beam illuminating rows of canned vegetables, sealed grains, and stacked hydration packs. She took a deep breath, the air smelling of dry metal and preserved food, and let it out slowly.
Her anxiety, a constant hum since the world died, quieted here.This was a task.A beginning. She ran her fingers along a can of peas, feeling the cool, smooth metal. If they had to move with ARC, Jesse would need to convince them she was useful.She couldn’t just be a hole. She needed to be an asset.The thought solidified her resolve, giving the meticulous job a personal, urgent weight.
She found a datapad on a small shelf by the door, its screen blinking with a simple inventory program. She started on the left, bottom shelf. “Beans, black,” she said aloud, typing each entry. The methodical click of the keys, the physical act of counting, was a strange, calming meditation.Her body still ached from him, a tender, satisfying reminder. Her feelings for him grew stronger every day, a twisted vine of dependency, awe, and a raw, hungry need to please.She didn’t feel guilty about what she’d said in the monitor room. Those desperate, filthy words were just another kind of inventory, a cataloguing of her willingness to survive. She didn’t feel guilty about Jesse shooting Tally while he was buried inside her, either. The memory of the gun’s crack, the way his thrusts never faltered, now felt like a necessary surgery.She would have done the same to me. The truth of it was cold and clean, like the shelves she organized.
Back in the monitor room, Jesse was locked onto the main thermal feed. The signature had reached the perimeter gate, a lone, persistent bloom of yellow and orange against the deep blues and purples of the frozen landscape.He tried to zoom. The image pixelated, refusing clarity.It was too far out for the external cameras to get a visual. He watched it pace along the fence line, a slow, deliberate pattern.It seemed less and less like a coincidence.
He wheeled his chair back from the console with a sharp push. In the corner of the room, under a bank of secondary monitors, sat a large, black Pelican case. He flipped the latches, the snap echoing in the quiet. Inside, nestled in custom foam, was a long-range transceiver, a headset, and a thick, leather-bound notebook.
He lifted the radio and notebook onto the console. The book’s pages were filled with dense, handwritten entries, frequencies, and call signs. He dragged his finger down a page, past inked diagrams and weather notations, until he found a name circled in faint pencil: Tree Frog. That was Sasha’s code name.Next to it was a frequency.
He powered on the transceiver, its dials glowing a soft green. He tuned to the frequency, plugged in the headset, and keyed the mic.“Dagger to Tree Frog. Dagger to Tree Frog.” His voice was flat, devoid of the fire from earlier.He released the button. Static hissed back, a white-noise ocean.He waited.Five minutes later, the static broke. A woman’s voice, strained and thin through the compression, responded.“This is Tree Frog. What is your code?” Jesse rolled his eyes, a flush of irritation warming his neck. ARC had established procedural codes for agent-to-agent contact, a paranoid holdover from when there were still enough people to warrant paranoia.There’s an emergency and they want a fucking code.
He put the mic down and flipped through the notebook again, pages rustling. He found it near the back, circled in red marker this time: Cavalier Alley Novice.He keyed the mic. “Cavalier Alley Novice. What’s up, Dagger?”
He shook his head in disbelief at the ritual.“I need some information on that religious group. The one calling themselves the Cleansed Flame.Anything from our downed bases? Did they scout, and how?”
There was a long pause, filled with the whisper of dead air. “I’ll have to get back to you,” Sasha’s voice finally crackled.“Why? You got an invited guest?”
Jesse’s eyes flicked to the thermal feed. The yellow bloom was stationary now, pressed against the gate.“I don’t know,” he responded, and terminated the transmission. He sat in the sudden silence, the hum of the machines feeling louder.The guest was at his door. He now had to decide if he was letting them in.
He now had to decide if he was letting them in.
Hey s
He now had to decide if he was letting them in.
His leg started to move up and down, a rapid, nervous jitter that vibrated through the floor. The static from the radio was a taunt. The orange bloom on the screen held its position. Waiting. He made the decision in a heartbeat, propelled by a logic older than codes or protocols: see the threat with your own eyes.
He pushed away from the console so forcefully the chair rolled and clattered into the wall. He strode from the monitor room, his boots echoing in the hallway. He passed the open pantry door. McKenna was inside, datapad in hand, her fingers pausing over the screen as his shadow filled the doorway.
He didn’t stop or speak. He moved into his bedroom and went directly to his closet. The door sighed open on smooth hinges. He pulled out the heavy, empty plate carrier, its MOLLE webbing a grid of silent potential, and then the ceramic plates from their rack. Each one thudded into place with a solid, final sound. He cinched the straps tight across his chest, the weight a familiar and comforting burden.
He put the carrier down on the bed and grabbed clothing from a shelf: thick black fleece work pants, a long-sleeved black thermal shirt. He changed swiftly, his movements efficient and sharp. From a locked drawer, he retrieved the mask. It was molded polymer, a stark white skull that would cover his entire face. He laid it beside the carrier.
Next came the heavy winter coat, a dark matte shell designed to break up his outline. He slung the AR-15 over his shoulder, the strap crossing his chest. He checked the mag—fully loaded—and tucked three extra magazines into pouches on the carrier. He holstered his Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter at his hip. The final touch was the pair of insulated LL Bean boots, which he laced with quick, tight pulls.
When he turned, McKenna was standing in the bedroom doorway, the datapad forgotten at her side. Her eyes were wide, tracking each piece of gear as he equipped himself. “Where are you going, babe?” Her voice was thin, airy with fear.
He walked past her, back toward the monitor room. She followed, a silent shadow. He pointed a gloved finger at the main screen. The orange thermal outline was still there, a persistent blur of heat against the cold fence. She just stared, her hand coming up to her mouth.
He reached into a console drawer, his movements precise, and pulled out a small, tactical earpiece. He inserted it into his ear with a click. From the same drawer came a compact walkie-talkie. He thumbed it on, a crackle of static breaking the quiet, and handed it to her.
“I need you to be my eyes,” he said, his voice already changing behind the mask he hadn’t yet donned, becoming more remote.
She shook her head, a tiny, reflexive motion of denial. Her knuckles were white around the radio.
“If you see any more orange on that screen, you tell me,” he instructed, his blue eyes locking onto hers, allowing no argument.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He leaned in then, and they kissed. It was brief but deep, a transfer of warmth, a silent contract. He pulled back, picked up the skull mask, and fitted it over his head. His face disappeared, replaced by an expressionless, grinning bone-white visage. The man she’d been fucking was gone. Something else stood in his place.
He didn’t use the front entrance. He moved instead to the utility hallway, a narrow, brightly lit space of conduits and shutoff valves. He remembered the schematic Sasha had hastily drawn two days ago, the route she’d used to sneak in. He found the large ventilation access panel where she said it would be. He looked up at the dark opening, a square mouth leading into the bunker’s guts.
He shook his head, a gesture of pure disgust at the inconvenience, and hoisted himself into the duct. It was a tight, grating crawl, his plate carrier scraping against the metal sides. The world narrowed to the sound of his own breathing inside the mask and the slow, difficult progress through the dark. He emerged through another panel into a secondary maintenance airlock, its outer door hidden by a false rock face.
He pushed it open and the cold hit him like a physical wall, a dry, punishing freeze that seeped through the coat instantly. He was on the eastern slope, well behind and above the position of the thermal bloom. He moved quickly, his boots crunching on the crystallized snow, using the skeletal trees for cover.
He circled wide, his breath pluming in the mask’s exhaust ports. In ten minutes, he had flanked the gate. He saw the figure. A single person, bundled in mismatched layers, their back to him as they examined the formidable electronic lock. Jesse moved silently to a thick pine and melted behind it, watching.
He watched them.
He watched them. The figure was pacing a tight, angry pattern before the imposing steel gate, footprints churning the virgin snow into a muddy slurry. Their shape, obscured by bulk, was wrong for a man—narrower in the shoulders, wider in the hips beneath the layers. A woman. Her breaths came in visible, furious plumes that hung in the still air. Jesse remained utterly still behind the pine, the bitter cold seeping through his gloves, his rifle a familiar weight in his hands.
They were just pacing back and forth. He listened, the world reduced to the crunch of snow and the distant wail of the wind through the valley below. He noticed they were saying something. Muted, swallowed by the vast silence, it was a harsh, rhythmic cadence of venom. He got closer so he could make out what they were saying. He moved from the pine to the thick, frozen husk of a fallen birch, his steps silent, his eyes never leaving her bundled back.
He got as close as possible, the distance now just thirty feet of open, snow-drifted ground. He finally heard what they were saying. "I know you're in there, you son of a bitch!" The voice was a woman’s, shredded by cold and total anger. "You're gonna pay for what you did to my village! For what you did to those girls!"
Jesse stood up. He took his mask off, hanging it on the side of his pants by its strap. The sudden exposure of his face to the freezing air was a shock. He aimed his rifle, the red dot of the sight floating over the center of her back, and walked tactically toward her. Each step was deliberate, crushing through the crust of snow.
"Turn around," he shouted, his voice flat and commanding in the stillness.
She flinched, shoulders hunching, then spun. It was a woman. Her face was a patchwork of grime, windburn, and desperation. She looked to be in her late twenties, with wild, matted black hair escaping a fur-lined hood. Her eyes, a startling light brown, were sunken and blazing with hate. Her lips were chapped and bleeding. She wore a mismatched assortment of a torn ski jacket, stained cargo pants, and boots wrapped in duct tape.
She started ranting at him, spittle freezing in the air. "You! You killed Tally! And that fucking whore cousin of hers, McKenna! That fat whore helped you kill her! I know she's in there with you!"
Jesse kept the rifle leveled. "Stop talking about her like that." His voice was low, a warning rumble.
She ignored him, her rant gaining momentum, a torrent of grief and rage. "You took them! You came with your fucking backpack and your promises and you picked them! And now they’re dead and my sister is dead and the whole fucking village is just corpses in tents!" She was raving, her body trembling from more than the cold. "You have a castle in the mountain and you just watched us die!"
Jesse noticed something. A flicker at the tree line to the east, opposite his approach. He started to look around, his gaze sweeping the monochrome landscape without moving his head. Too still. The wind shouldn’t make that shadow shift like that.
He touched his earpiece, his voice a whisper. "Do you see anything?"
McKenna’s voice, thin with static, filled his ear. "No. Just two orange outlines. You and them. The screen is clear." A beat of hesitation. "She asks who it is."
Jesse kept his eyes on the woman, then back to the tree line. "Someone from your village." He spoke to the woman now, his tone shifting to a cold interrogation. "What's your name?"
The woman stared, her chest heaving. "Anya. Tally was my sister. McKenna was my cousin, you piece of shit."
In his ear, McKenna’s breath hitched. "Anya? Oh, God… Jesse, she’s… she’s not stable. Even before all this. She blamed everyone for everything."
Jesse ignored her, his focus on Anya and the persistent wrongness in the trees. "You walk here alone, Anya?"
"I had to see it," she hissed, her eyes darting for a fraction of a second toward the eastern ridge. A confirmation. "I had to see the fortress of the man who murdered my family."
That glance was all he needed. It was a diversion. A poor one. He spoke into the mic, his voice urgent now. "Look again. Thermal. East ridge, fifty yards from my position. Look for a cold spot. A shape that isn't radiating."
He saw the moment Anya realized her mistake. Her bravado fractured, replaced by a flicker of animal fear. She took a half-step back.
In the bunker, McKenna zoomed the thermal scope, her heart hammering against her ribs. The software filtered, highlighting differentials. Behind the solid, warm glow of Jesse and the raging woman, the eastern snowscape was a deep, uniform blue. Then she saw it. A long, slender outline, colder than the surrounding rock and snow, almost blending in. A person wrapped in insulated, heat-retaining gear. Not moving. Waiting.
"Jesse," her voice was a tight wire in his ear. "I see it. One cold outline. Just sitting there. Like a hole in the screen."
Jesse didn't smile. He simply raised his voice, projecting toward the trees. "You can come out now! Your sniper's thermal signature is shit! I know you're there!"
For five heartbeats, nothing happened. Then, from behind a jagged outcrop of rock, a figure stood. They were clad in a white-and-grey ghillie suit over modern insulation, a long rifle slung across their back. They moved down the slope with a relaxed, almost casual grace, their hands visible.
Anya looked between them and Jesse, her fury collapsing into pure confusion. "What...?"
The new arrival stopped ten feet away, pushing back their hood. It was a man, early forties, with a gaunt, lined face and eyes the color of flint. He looked at Jesse with a measure of professional appraisal, then at Anya with faint disdain.
"Told you the direct approach was idiotic," the man said, his voice a dry rasp.
Jesse kept his rifle centered on Anya, the greater threat. "Who are you?"
"The name's Hale," the man said. "And we need to talk about the Cleansed Flame. They’re not just burning villages anymore, friend. They’re marching. And your little mountain fortress is directly in their path." He nodded toward the bunker entrance, hidden in the rock. "I suggest we continue this inside. Before their scouts get here."
Jesse’s mind raced, calculating the angles, the threat of Hale, the liability of Anya. He made a decision. He lowered his rifle, just an inch. "McKenna," he said into the mic. "Open the secondary airlock. Utility hallway. Now."
Then he looked at Anya, her face a mask of betrayal and dawning horror. "You wanted in," he said, his voice devoid of any triumph. "You're in. Move."