Chapter 5: The Aftermath of the Claim
Tally’s eyes were wide, frozen on the glistening streaks on her cousin’s skin. Her mouth opened, a thin sound escaping, but it was choked off by the metallic click of the hammer. Jesse’s arm was extended, the pistol an unwavering piece of black steel pointed at the center of her chest.
“Wait—” she gasped.
The first shot was a deafening crack in the confined space. It punched her back a step, a crimson flower blooming instantly on her worn sweater. The second shot followed before the echo of the first had died, hitting slightly lower. Tally crumpled, her body folding onto the frozen ground just outside the tent flap with a soft, final thud. A sigh of breath, a rattle, then nothing.
Jesse lowered the pistol, nostrils flaring at the acrid scent of gunpowder that mixed with the stench of sex and oil. He glanced at McKenna. “Get dressed.”
She moved mechanically, her fingers fumbling with her clothes, pulling up her thermals and pants, buttoning her shirt. Her eyes kept flicking to the dark shape in the doorway, but her mind was a blank, white static. Jesse was already in motion, a study in brutal efficiency. He dumped the contents of his pack onto the bedroll, swiftly repacking only the essentials: vacuum-sealed meals, a medical kit, ammunition boxes, water purification tablets. He grabbed his rifle and a second, smaller carbine from its rack, slinging both. He filled a second, smaller pack with the remaining food and ammo.
He stooped, grabbed Tally under the arms, and dragged her roughly back inside, her boots scraping tracks in the dirt. He deposited her in the center of the tent, near the still-warm stove. Without ceremony, he picked up the kerosene lamp, unscrewed the reservoir cap, and began splashing the pungent fuel over the cot, the bedding, her body. The liquid hissed as it hit the hot stove. He drenched the canvas walls, the wooden supports, until the can was empty and the air was thick with fumes.
He pulled the Zippo from his pocket, flicked it open with his thumb. The flame climbed, a tiny, steady tear-drop of orange. He looked at McKenna, her pack on her shoulders, her face pale.
“Outside,” he said. She stumbled out into the biting cold.
He tossed the lighter. It tumbled, a tiny arcing comet, and landed on the soaked fur rug. The fire didn’t just catch; it roared to life, a blue-orange wall of heat that engulfed Tally’s form and licked hungrily up the canvas. Jesse shouldered his pack, ducked out, and they began moving at a fast walk away from the pine stand. Behind them, the tent became a crackling, glowing shroud against the grey dawn, thick black smoke coiling into the sky.
They didn’t speak for twenty minutes, following the frozen creek bed towards the clustered shanties of the village. The world was unnervingly quiet, just the crunch of their boots on hard snow and the distant pop and hiss of the burning tent.
“You okay?” Jesse asked, his voice flat, not looking at her.
McKenna blinked, the words pulling her from her trance. She saw Tally’s shocked face, the two quick holes in her chest. She saw her own smile as she’d mouthed fuck you.
“Yeah,” McKenna said, the word rough. She cleared her throat. “She was trying to do the same thing to me. Had to be her.”
Jesse just grunted.
They reached the edge of the village, a jagged silhouette of leaning plywood and corrugated metal half-buried in drifts. The smoke from his tent was a dark column to the east. It was too early; only the most desperate were usually out, hoping to find a scrap of fuel or a forgotten cache. The place seemed hollowed out, dead.
Jesse stopped behind the skeletal remains of an old delivery truck. He turned to her, studying her face. The cold was sharp, painting their breath in frantic clouds.
“Back in the tent,” he said, his voice lower. “All that stuff you said. About sucking my cock every morning. Being naked. Letting me fuck that ass anytime.” His eyes were searching, not for truth, but for commitment. “You meant it? Or was that just talk to beat her?”
McKenna stared back. This was the final gate. The last lie she had to sell. She let her pack slump from her shoulders onto the snow. Without breaking eye contact, she unzipped her coat, then pushed her shirt and thermal up, yanking them over her head. The frigid air clamped onto her torso like a vise, her skin erupting in gooseflesh. Her heavy, dark-nippled breasts bobbed free, the cold making the peaks pinch into hard, aching points.
“It wasn’t talk,” she said.
A hard, eager grin split Jesse’s face. He closed the gap, his hands, hot even through his gloves, cupping the generous weight of her. He bent his head, taking one stiff peak into his mouth. He sucked hard, his tongue lashing the nipple, teeth grazing the tender flesh. A shockwave of sensation—cold, heat, roughness—shot straight to her core. She gasped, her head falling back.
“Keep going, baby,” she moaned, tangling her fingers in his short-cropped hair.
He switched to the other breast, sucking just as fiercely, worshiping the flesh she’d offered as her trophy. One hand fumbled with his belt, then his fly. He pushed his pants down, his cock springing out, already thick and full from the cold and the violence and the sight of her. He was painfully hard.
“Suck it,” he grunted, pulling his mouth from her breast with a wet pop. “Need your mouth on me before we do this.”
McKenna dropped to her knees in the snow. She didn’t hesitate. She took him in her hand, feeling the solid, veined heat of him, and guided him between her lips. She took him deep, her throat relaxing to accept him, the salty-slick taste of him filling her senses. She looked up at him as she worked, bobbing her head, her mouth a tight, wet sheath sliding up and down his shaft.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he hissed, his hands on her head, not forcing, just holding. “You suck cock like a goddamn champion. Better than she ever could.”
McKenna pulled off, panting, a string of saliva connecting her lip to his glistening tip. “I’m glad you shot her,” she whispered, the filth pouring out, fueled by adrenaline and a terrible, growing power. “I wanted to watch her die. Now let’s burn this whole fucking place down with them in it.”
His eyes glittered with feral delight. “Yeah? You wanna hear them scream?”
“I wanna hear you make them scream,” she said, and took him deep again, her nose pressing into the coarse hair at his base. She gagged slightly, then swallowed, taking him all. She sucked with a relentless, hungry rhythm, using her tongue, her hands clutching his ass to pull him deeper. She was claiming him, here in the snow at the edge of ruin, with the taste of his skin and the ghost of gunpowder in the air.
“Gonna kill them all for you, baby,” he panted, his hips starting to thrust gently into her mouth. “Gonna paint this village with ’em. For you.”
The words, the possessive fury, made her ache. She moaned around his cock, the vibration drawing a ragged groan from him. With a sharp intake of breath, he pulled himself from her mouth. He was throbbing, slick from her saliva. He stuffed himself back into his pants, awkwardly fastening his belt. McKenna stood, her breasts numb from the cold, and pulled her layers back on.
He grabbed her face, kissing her deeply, a messy kiss tasting of salt and her own slick. “I wanna fuck you so bad,” he growled against her lips. “Soon as this is done. I’m gonna bend you over the first clean surface I find down there and ride you for a week.”
She nodded, breathless. “Okay.”
They split up. McKenna scurried low between two shanties, heading for the lean-to where Finn, her eleven-year-old brother, was quartered with the Olson family. Jesse moved like a shadow in the opposite direction, towards the communal fuel depot—a collection of rusted gasoline drums and a pile of scavenged firewood.
Inside the Olson shack, it was dark and smelled of sickness and unwashed bodies. Finn was awake, curled in a corner, his breath a faint, worrying wheeze. Mrs. Olson stared at McKenna with hollow eyes but said nothing as she grabbed Finn’s hand, wrapped a spare scarf around his face, and pulled him out into the cold. “Just a walk, Finn. For your breathing,” she whispered, and he followed, too weak and trusting to question.
Jesse found the fuel drums. He tipped one over, the gasoline spilling out in a pungent, shimmering river that snaked between the shanties. He used a rusty bucket to slosh more onto walls, over tarps, onto piles of debris. The chemical stench overpowered the woodsmoke.
A door creaked open. Old Man Tierney stepped out, holding a chipped mug. He saw Jesse, saw the bucket, saw the glistening trail. His mouth dropped open. “What in hell—”
Jesse dropped the bucket and drew his pistol in one smooth motion. He didn’t aim. He just fired from the hip. The shot hit Tierney in the stomach. The old man cried out, dropping his mug, and stumbled back inside.
The crack of the gunshot was the breaking of a spell. A shout went up somewhere. Jesse dumped the last of the bucket against the wall of a shack, pulled the Zippo again, and sparked it. He touched the flame to a pooled stream of gasoline.
The fire didn’t just spread; it erupted. A blue-white line of ignition raced along the fuel trail with a demonic sigh, leaping onto walls and over rooftops. Within seconds, a wall of heat and roaring orange flame climbed into the morning, and the screaming began.
Jesse ran, weaving between structures now catching fire. He saw McKenna, a small figure dragging a smaller one, darting out from between two burning shacks and sprinting for the treeline. Good. He cut a parallel path, bursting out of the chaotic light and heat and into the cold, clear shadow of the pines.
He found them fifty yards in, behind a thick, scarred trunk. McKenna was huddled over Finn, who was coughing, his eyes wide with terror at the inferno lighting up the village behind them. The crackle of fire and distant, panicked yells filled the air.
Jesse knelt. He grabbed McKenna’s face, turning it from the boy to him. His skin was smudged with soot, his eyes reflecting the dancing hellfire. He was smiling, a wide, white, genuine smile of pure, unadulterated triumph.
“You ready?” he asked, his voice a low, excited rasp.
McKenna stared at the conflagration, the heat painting her face even at this distance. Finn’s small hand was a claw in hers. “Yeah,” she breathed, the word swallowed by a sudden gust that carried ash and embers into the pines. “I’m ready.”
A BLIZZARD WAS BREWING.
They could smell it on the wind, a crystalline sharpness beneath the smoke. The sky to the northwest was no longer grey, but a bruised, woolen blanket descending. Jesse nodded, shouldered his rifle, and pointed east, away from the flames and the dying cries. “That way. Move.”
They moved. The walking was a brutal, silent trudge through deepening snow. Finn struggled, his wheezing breaths becoming shallower, more ragged. After half an hour, his small legs buckled. Jesse stopped without a word, crouched, and pulled the boy onto his back. Finn clung to him, a limp bundle of coat and scarf.
McKenna felt something then, watching the man who had just murdered a village hoist her brother like it was nothing. A confusing fissure in the ice around her heart. “Thank you,” she said, the words ripped away by the wind.
Jesse just adjusted his grip and kept walking.
They walked for two hours. The world contracted to the next step, the next breath. The blizzard arrived not with a howl, but with a silencing, pervasive fury. Snow fell thick and fast, a white wall that erased the trail behind them and turned the trees into ghostly sentinels. McKenna’s world became the dark shape of Jesse’s back, the sound of his boots breaking trail.
“How far?” she yelled into the gale, her voice thin.
“Not much further!” he called back, his voice muffled.
They walked another ten minutes, the bitter cold starting to take its toll, leaching through layers, numbing faces, making thoughts sluggish. Just as McKenna’s legs began to tremble with real exhaustion, Jesse turned abruptly off the invisible trail and pushed into a dense thicket of younger pines. They climbed a short, rocky rise, and there, nearly buried by drifts and woven with deadfall, was a large, tarp-covered mound.
Jesse set Finn down gently against a tree trunk. He began yanking at the frozen tarp, heaving snow-laden branches aside. With a final, grunting pull, he revealed the grimy, boxy shape of an old 2000 Silverado, four doors, its silver paint long-faded to a patchwork of rust and primer. McKenna stared in total shock. A vehicle. A working vehicle was a myth, a fairy tale from the old world.
Jesse dropped to his knees at the front passenger side, dug through the snow, and fumbled around inside the wheel well. His fingers, red with cold, emerged clutching a rusted magnetic key box. He beat it against his thigh to break the ice, popped it open, and the keys jangled in his hand—a mundane, miraculous sound.
He cleared the driver’s door, shoved the key in, and turned. The engine didn’t just start; it roared to life, a deep, throaty, living growl that seemed to shake the very air. The headlights blasted cones through the swirling snow. McKenna almost wept.
Jesse bundled the barely-conscious Finn into the back seat, wrapping him in a coarse wool blanket he pulled from behind the driver’s seat. He turned the heater on full blast, and the fans began pushing stale, then increasingly warm air into the cabin. He left the door open for ventilation, the engine rumbling a steady promise.
He turned to McKenna. Her whole body was shuddering, from cold, from adrenaline, from the seismic shift in reality. He stepped close, into the small sanctuary of warmth exhaled from the truck’s open door. His eyes were dark with more than the storm.
“Take your tits out,” he said, his voice a low command barely audible over the wind.
She happily did. Her fingers, clumsy and numb, worked the zipper and buttons. She shoved her layers down to her waist, her full, heavy breasts swaying as she arched her back into the warm airflow. The contrast of freezing air on her nipples and the engine's heat on her skin was electric.
Jesse groaned, a raw, hungry sound. He buried his face between them, his hot mouth latching onto a stiff peak. He sucked fiercely, his tongue a rough, welcome abrasion. He bit down just shy of pain, making her cry out and fist her hands in his hair.
“Talk to me,” he mumbled against her skin, switching to the other breast, his stubble scratching her soft flesh. “Say that filthy shit you said before.”
She was so turned on, the arousal a shocking flare of life in the dead, white world. “You like these fat tits, baby?” she panted, her head rolling back. “You gonna cum all over them later? Mark them up?”
He released her nipple with a wet pop, his breath steaming. “I wanna fuck you so bad,” he growled, his hands squeezing the generous flesh, kneading it. “I’m gonna bend you over the hood of this truck. Gonna make you scream so loud the storm won’t cover it.”
“Yes,” she hissed, pushing her chest into his hands. “Fuck me. I want it. I’ve been thinking about your cock since you put it in my ass.”
Jesse shuddered, pressing his hard length against her thigh through his pants. “I want you to bounce on it again,” he said, his voice tight with need. “Like you did in the tent. I want to watch all of you moving.”
“I will,” she promised, leaning in to lick the shell of his ear. “I’ll ride you until you’re fucking empty. Just like you emptied that pistol into Tally.” She pulled back, looked him dead in the eye, her own dark with a mirrored hunger. “That was so fucking hot when you shot her. Right after you came in me. I felt your cock twitch when you pulled the trigger.”
A sharp, animal noise escaped Jesse’s throat. He crushed his mouth to hers, the kiss brutal and consuming. He groped her breasts roughly, possessively, for another long moment before pulling back, his breathing ragged. With a practised efficiency that brooked no argument, he tugged her layers back up, covering her. The sudden loss of exposure was its own kind of intimacy.
“Get in,” he said, his voice gravel.
He helped her into the passenger seat, the interior now blissfully, almost impossibly warm. He slammed her door, circled the truck, and slid behind the wheel. The world outside was a howling white void. In here, it was silent but for the rumble of the engine and Finn’s shallow, steady breathing from the back. Jesse put the truck in gear, and with a lurch, they moved forward, leaving the fire, the dead, and the dying world behind them in the blinding snow.
The truck carved a slow trough through the deepening whiteness. Inside, the heater roared, a dry, divine gale that slowly thawed their frozen bones. In the back seat, Finn’s breathing had evened out, the terrible rasp replaced by a soft, normal rhythm; the warm, stable air was working, unknotting the constriction in his small chest.
McKenna watched the wipers fight a losing battle against the storm. A profound, almost dizzying warmth spread through her, deeper than the air from the vents. It was the truck’s growl, the certainty of their movement, the solid way Jesse had carried her brother. It was safety, purchased with blood and lies, and it made her wet. She shrugged out of her heavy coat, letting it fall to the floorboard. Her hands went to the buttons of her flannel.
“What are you doing?” Jesse asked, his eyes flicking from the white void ahead to her.
She didn’t answer, just pushed the fabric apart, then yanked her thermal shirt up and over her head. Her large breasts tumbled free, the sudden exposure making her skin tighten. The heated air washed over them, a sensual caress after years of perpetual chill. She sighed, a sound of pure, animal pleasure.
“Christ,” Jesse muttered, his grip tightening on the wheel.
She shimmied closer on the bench seat until her bare side pressed against his arm. The heat blowing from the dash felt like a sun she’d forgotten. This was the warmest she’d felt since the world froze. She leaned her head against his shoulder, nuzzling into the rough canvas of his coat. She just cuddled there for a moment, silent, her exposed flesh a stunning intimacy in the moving vehicle.
“It’s fucking hot you took your tits out in a blizzard so I could suck them,” he said, his voice rough.
She smiled against his shoulder. “They’re yours, baby. Whenever you want.”
They drove in silence for another minute, the only sounds the engine, the wipers, and Finn’s quiet sleep-breaths from the back. Jesse’s hand left the wheel, came to rest on her bare thigh, his thumb stroking the inside. His touch was electric, proprietary.
“I want you to do somethin’ for me, baby,” he said, his eyes back on the road.
“What?” she asked, tilting her head to look up at him.
“Take your pants off. Get on all fours on the seat. I wanna stare at that ass while I drive. Need something pretty to look at in all this white.”
A fresh surge of heat pulsed between her legs. The command was absurd, debasing, and it thrilled her completely. “Okay, baby,” she breathed.
She shifted away from him, quickly unbuttoning her jeans. She wriggled them and her long johns down over her hips, kicking them off her ankles. The cool vinyl of the seat touched her knees as she got into position, facing the passenger window. She arched her back, presenting the full, round expanse of her ass towards him. It felt illicit, vulnerable, powerful. The truck swayed slightly with the terrain, making her sway with it.
“Fuck yeah,” he hissed. His eyes danced between the white road and her bare skin. “That’s the view. That’s my view now.”
She rested her head on her forearms, looking out at the blurring snow. “You like it?” she purred.
“I love it. It’s so fucking fat. Made for my hands. Made for my cock.” His voice was tight, distracted. “Remember how it felt when I was in your ass? Stretching that tight little hole wide open for me?”
She clenched unconsciously at the memory, a slickness gathering. “I remember. I felt you in my guts. I felt you claim it.” She pushed her hips back slightly, accentuating the curve. “You wanna claim it again? Right here? While you drive?”
He groaned. “Keep talking. Tell me what you wanted when you saw me put Tally down.”
McKenna closed her eyes. The image was there, crisp and violent. “I wanted to drop to my knees and suck you hard again. I wanted you to bend me over her body and fuck me while she was still warm. I wanted you to know her death made me so wet for you.” The words tasted like poison and truth.
Jesse’s breath hitched. The truck’s speed faltered for a second. “You’re a perfect, filthy creature,” he rasped. “My perfect creature.”
“Are you hard, daddy?” she asked, her voice dropping to a low, hungry whisper. “Are you stiff in your pants just from looking at your ass?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you need to touch it?”
“Fuck, yes.”
The truck suddenly slowed, veered, and bumped roughly onto what felt like a snow-covered berm. Jesse jammed the gearshift into park. The engine idled, a low rumble in the sudden stillness. The only light came from the headlights reflecting off a wall of swirling white.
He was on her in an instant. His left hand tangled in her hair, not pulling, just holding. His right hand came down hard on the plump flesh of her right cheek. The slap was a sharp, stinging crack that echoed in the cab. She cried out, a yelp of surprise and intense arousal. The heat of the impact bloomed under her skin.
He did it again, the other side, a matching blow. Then he leaned in, his breath hot on the sensitized skin, and pressed his mouth against the reddening swell. He kissed the spot he’d just struck, his tongue tracing the heat. He kissed lower, near the crease of her thigh, his stubble rough against her. He was muttering, his words muffled against her skin. “Mine. This is all mine. That whole fucking village is ash and this… this is mine.”
He bit her then, not hard enough to break skin, but a possessive, pressure-filled clamp of his teeth on the fullest part of her ass. She moaned, pushing back against his face. His hands spread her, and he exhaled, a hot, damp gust against her most private skin. He didn’t do anything else, just held her open, breathing her in, owning the view completely in the frozen, silent heart of the storm.