THE ALPHAS Box Set (7 page)

IX.

It was put to a vote, proof that Anne and Damian knew the security of their leadership lay in keeping their people safe and content. Turned out no one felt safe with two would-be rapists in the community, there were too many single women, too many girls on the edge of womanhood, and too many men who had lost daughters or nieces in the war. The two men were sent out, with food and water.

The community was mapped out and the camp moved into their more permanent homes. The two-story house at the corner where the gate was set to be built had three bedrooms, one upstairs and two down. Anne and Damian took the upstairs room while Ryan and Sean took one downstairs and Pauline the other. An entire house near the center of the community was set aside for the children. It had a large, empty shop in the back yard that Sue wanted to turn into a school.

There was a lot of work to be done, a lot of building and planting and scavenging, but as Ryan sat on the back deck listening to his housemates talk about crops and walls, he knew he was home.

The Alphas

Emergence of the Alphas

Post Apocalyptic Dystopian Romance

By: A.J. Winter

It was dangerous for anyone to be out in the deserted, bombed out, stretches of America alone. In the two months since the last bombs were dropped the country had been carved up into city-states and isolated farm communities. Those with nowhere to go travelled, taking everything of use from anywhere they could find it and bringing it to the settlements to trade. Gangs ruled some cities, corporations ruled others. The small towns were miniature fortresses, protecting their people from the road gangs that moved from outpost to outpost harassing the caravans that had formed.

Somehow he had managed to navigate them all without coming to harm. Somehow. It made his escape and survival sound mysterious, but he knew there was no mystery involved, only the horror of what he was escaping, what he could never escape.

He’d followed in the wake of a caravan he had stumbled across in Wyoming but that group had fallen apart near the Canadian border and he’d nearly been discovered. Desperate he’d turned south, retracing his steps to the place where this caravan had crossed paths with another.

II.

Violet’s life before the war had been good, even if it had been pretty much ‘dead end’. She lived in an apartment with a friend from high school. After three years together they weren’t really friends anymore but Violet had nowhere else to go. She’d been on the bus when the sirens had sounded and the bombs had dropped.

It had been the end of the world as far as she was concerned. No phones, no internet, no running water. But now she was settling in and growing comfortable in this new life. She lived in a house with three other women. Some days she helped Pauline in the gardens but mostly she helped Sue with the kids.

“Hey Violet!”

Violet rolled her eyes and thought,
‘Well, I like most things about my new life anyway.’

“Evan’s back from the trading trip. I grabbed this for you.” The gangly awkward young man sat down beside her. She scooted over so there was space between them and didn’t touch the offered apple.

“Thanks Matt, but I can wait until supper tonight.” Fresh food always got eaten first, even now that they had a few working refrigerators.

“I didn’t steal it. Anne said I could take it.”

She sighed inwardly. This wasn’t his first attempt at courting her and she knew how relentless he could be. She held out her hand. “All right, let me see it.” As he handed her the apple she pulled out the pocket knife she’d taken to carrying and called, “Hey! Who wants a bite of apple?”

The kids dropped what they were doing in the backyard and swarmed over to her, bouncing eagerly. They made short work of the apple much to Matt’s dismay. As the children scattered again he said, “They brought back chickens too.”

“Good. I’m tired of oatmeal and dry cereal for breakfast. When do you think we’ll get a cow?”

“A cow was expensive before the war, now …”

“I know. Maybe we could trade a tractor or something.”

“So, I have watch tonight but maybe you want to have supper with me?”

“I’m sorry Matt, it’s my night for clean-up at the house and then I’m reading the bed time story …”

“What time do the brats go to bed? Eight? I have to be on the wall at six. There’s time.”

She stood. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

He stood as well, blocking her escape. “Why not? It’s just dinner.”

“Just dinner?”

His face turned red and he shifted uncomfortably.

“I’ve already told you Matt, I’m not interested in sex with you, I’m not interested in living with you, and I don’t want to date. Stop asking, stop bringing me gifts, or do I have to say something to Ryan?”

He stepped aside. “No.” They’d already kicked out two men who had tried to rape Pauline. It didn’t matter that Violet wasn’t sleeping with Ryan like Pauline was; Matt still didn’t want to cross the town goon squad.

She jogged towards the kids shouting, “Who wants to play Simon Says?” Soon she was surrounded.

Matt stalked off kicking out at the flowers growing along the side of the house. Out of three dozen people only Matt and Violet were in their early twenties. There had been a few others in the Wyoming group but they had already found themselves romantic relationships and they hadn’t been interested in him at all. Matt wasn’t interested in older women, or in teenage girls, even if a few of them were batting their eyes at him.

He’d made it to the house where he and two other single young men were living. Across the yard between a thin row of trees he could see Pauline, Ryan, and Sean working the garden in the yard they shared with Anne and Damian. The sight of Pauline in a pair of tight shorts, laughing as she worked, was enough to give Matt a hard on, even if she was too old for him. He retreated into the house.

III.

Pauline was oblivious to Matt’s gaze; she was too busy working her garden. She bent to pull the weed she’d been working loose only to have Sean reach over and pinch her ample rear. She took a swing at him but the swat didn’t connect. Sean laughed as he danced back out of reach.

“I have real work to do. Help or leave me to it.”

“Am I distracting you?” Sean said.

Pauline shot him a glare but there was no fire behind it.

Ryan shook his head and buried the head of the spade he’d been using to dig up thistles at the far end of the garden. “Look, there are still a few hours until first watch, maybe we should take a break, grab some dinner, blow off some steam.”

Sean poked Pauline with the handle of the rake he’d been working with. “It’s a cold and lonely job watching the gate.”

“Keep each other warm,” she snapped but it was all just a familiar jest.

“How could I watch the gate with Ryan distracting me with his hot body,” Sean said his hand over his forehead.

Ryan rolled his eyes at his friend and roommate, as he did quiet often. He wrapped an arm around Pauline’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Come on, beautiful. What do you say we take his poor, suffering, sex fiend inside and do horrible things to him.”

She laughed. “Why do I even bother? Okay! Okay, a short break. I have to get this weeding done.”

“The weeds will still be there tomorrow,” Sean said.

“That’s the problem. I don’t want them there!” She was still laughing as they half dragged her up the steps to the back door. The bottle neck at the door was enough of an excuse to sandwich her between their bodies. Ryan kissed her, his hand cupping her jaw, while Sean kissed her neck and ran his hands quickly and thoroughly over the curves of her body, leaving her breathless.

From across the main floor of the house Damian cleared his throat. Pauline blushed and squirmed free of her lovers.

“I was just coming to find you two. The guards just spotted someone coming up the road alone. Grab your rifles.”

“For one man?” Sean said. He was trying to focus on Damian but his gaze kept sliding over to Pauline who had gone to fetch a glass of water.

“And how many are hiding, waiting for us to open the gates? Grab your guns and let’s go.”

Pauline smiled at them from the kitchen as they went by.

By the time they reached the gate, a moveable panel large enough for a truck to pass through in the makeshift wall of ply-wood, sheet metal, cars, and whatever scrap they had managed to haul in, Anne was already standing at the top talking to someone on the other side. The three men climbed the ladder up to the watch tower.

Down on the road stood a young man, probably in his twenties. He was dirty, his clothes were torn, and he was covered in scratches. His eyes were wide and he held his empty hands out at his sides. “Please. I’m unarmed and alone. I won’t survive out here alone. Please.”

“Where are you from?”

“I followed that other group north, I thought maybe they would accept me, but they scattered so I came back here. Please. If you don’t let me in I will die.”

Stan, one of the men who had taken up regular guard duties, climbed up the ladder and tapped Damian on the shoulder. “We can’t see anyone else in the bushes anywhere near the gate. It really does look like he’s alone. The rooms are full at my house but there’s a couch in the rec room. There would be three of us there to keep an eye on him.”

“We have the space,” Ryan said softly. “We were in his shoes not long ago.”

Anne glanced over, catching Damian’s eye. He nodded and she turned back to the stranger.

“What’s your name?”

“Eddie.”

“Welcome to Little Bismark, Eddie.”

The gate groaned open just far enough for him to pass through and closed again behind him.

Violet didn’t usually pass the gate, her home and the orphanage were both deeper into the village, but there was a large shed closer to the gate that was used to store the central food supply and she was interested in getting some apples to go with supper.

She was coming out with half a dozen of the small, tart, crab apples when she saw the gate opening. She paused to watch but it wasn’t a patrol coming home, it was a lone, scraggly, individual who entered with his hands in the air. Five armed men came down from the watch tower and for a moment the stranger disappeared behind them. She held her breath and a moment later he appeared, walking with Stan, an older man who was housed with Matt.

She knew rumours of the stranger would abound through the evening and in the morning Anne would call them all together to address it.
‘So get your butt home and help get some food on the table,’
she thought. Still she stayed and watched until Stan and the stranger disappeared into one of the houses.

Matt heard the gate open and jogged upstairs to the only window with any sort of view of the gate. Anne and Damian’s house blocked most of the view but he could see a commotion down on the street. He frowned. “I’ll probably be the last to hear about whatever the hell is happening,” he muttered. He was about to walk away when he saw Violet across the street. She had her arms full of apples and appeared to be watching whatever was happening at the gate.

A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that,” he said softly. “But one of these days I’ll wear you down. You’ll want sex, you’ll want a relationship, and I’ll be the only one here who wants you.”

He was staring so intently at her that he missed Stan leading someone up the street and down their driveway. When he heard the front door open he turned away from the window and jogged downstairs.

“Who’s on supper tonight? I’m on evening watch,” he called as he came down. There were four watches, morning watch from six in the morning until noon, afternoon watch which ran until six in the evening, evening watch which went until midnight, and the late watch which covered the last six hours. There were enough people on watch rotation that each pairing had to work each shift once each week.

“Sorry, that’s me. I just got called to help at the wall.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Matt said. He rounded the corner and stopped. “Who’s this?”

Stan was older than Matt by an easy ten years but his laid back attitude made it hard for him to take a solid stand against the boy. He shrugged. “This is Eddie. We just let him in. He’s going to sleep on the couch downstairs for a few nights. I guess they didn’t call you ‘cause they knew you had watch in a few hours and didn’t want to bother you. I’ll get dinner on so you won’t be late.”

They had canned beans, refried and smothered in tomato sauce, on stale buns. The best part of the meal was the fresh apples, even if they were tart. While Stan cooked Matt turned on Eddie.

“What are you doing here, Eddie?”

The ragged young man shrugged. “I was alone, I was lucky you were willing to let me in.”

“If it were my choice I wouldn’t have. Where are you from? Why are you alone?”

Stan looked over at them. “Matt, ease up.”

“No. We know nothing about him.”

“It’s okay, Stan. He’s right to ask. He cares about your village. I’m from south of here.”

“South where?”

“Utah. I’m alone because I escaped a gang. We got hit early in the war and it got really ugly. I ran. I just wanted to find somewhere where I could be safe. You’re tight on supplies here, I understand, and I’m willing to work, but there are nasty things out there now, things worse than missing a meal.”

“How old are you, Eddie?”

“Twenty-four.”

Suddenly Matt smiled. “Same as me. I have to leave right after supper ‘cause I’m on watch but Stan will help you get settled. That first shower is like visiting heaven. Tomorrow I’ll show you around.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Matt ate quickly, ignoring Stan’s shocked expression. He grabbed his rifle and jogged off towards the gate. “I’ll show you around,” he muttered. “And I’ll make sure you don’t have the chance to get anywhere near Violet until you understand she’s mine.”