Elias stood back until she had pulled her clothes on and then he swept her into his arms, crushing her against his chest so that her spine popped in a couple of places. "You know, I think you're beautiful the way you are," he told her, running his mouth over hers. "You don't need that hair frying gizmo. And you don't need to be ashamed of your freckles."

His words brought a flush of heat to Rainee's cheeks. "I-I like my hair frying gizmo. It makes my hair look better."

"Your hair is perfect the way it is. Those curls are beautiful. And your freckles are beautiful, too," Elias told her. "All one hundred and thirty six of them. They look like little flecks of gold. They actually shimmer when you're out in the sunlight. And they dance every time your expression changes."

"One hundred and thirty six? You...you counted them?" Rainee asked, a large piece of her feeling quite appalled that he'd actually studied her so closely.

"When you were asleep," he admitted to her. "At least I tried to.  I got side tracked by the one freckle on your bottom lip. That one freckle drives me crazy. I can't stop kissing it." And to prove his point, he pulled her lower lip into his mouth, gently suckling at it until it filled with blood and began to pulsate.

Rainee shivered, wanting to believe him, but at the same time wanting the topic of conversation to shift onto something else. Every girl wanted to hear the things that Elias Stone was saying to her. In theory. But, actually hearing those things said aloud was not the most comfortable thing. In fact, it was just as embarrassing as being told that she was as hideous as a troll residing beneath a bridge.

"I-I should get back to work," she said, feeling incredibly uneasy.

"Alright," Elias said, taking a moment to kiss her mouth one last time. "Give me a yell if I can help."

She nodded and removed herself from his arms, her cheeks throbbing. She turned and headed from the room, her legs beneath her feeling so weak and unreliable she could imagine that the bones in them had been reduced to warm jelly. She couldn't believe that she was going to spend the rest of her life with a man who could actually reduce her bones to jelly. 

She could have gotten someone...so very different from Elias Stone. She could have gotten someone...so very, very different, which could have made her situation one that she probably wouldn't want to find herself living in.  And that knowledge left her feeling more than grateful for the bit of luck she'd been given...

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Living through an end of the world situation was a tough business. Nothing was easy without the creature comforts and modern technology that people had grown so dependent upon. Simple, everyday things were no longer so simple. Everything from using the bathroom, to brushing teeth, to taking a shower required so much more effort and energy than before. There was no turning on the tap and hearing that rushing streaming of steaming hot water, which a person could use for any sort of purpose they needed at that moment. Thought and preparation had to go into even the most mundane chore, like washing up the dishes. Water had to be hauled in from the river and placed in the collection barrels, the proper amount of purification treatment had to be added so that no one got sick, it then had to be carried from the barrels into the house, heated up on the camp stove and poured over the dishes to scald them...it was just a long, drawn out process. And doing laundry was even worse.

Even in an end of the world scenario, people needed clean clothes, clean towels, and clean bed sheets. Without clean things to wrap the body in, bacteria, parasites, viruses, and thereby diseases would become widespread, which would not end well considering there were several thousand people stuffed into an enclosed compound. No one needed an outbreak of body lice or bedbugs running through the city, so washing clothes and bedding often was encouraged, especially during the warmer summer months. But, with no running water, electricity, or washing machines, laundry day meant a lot of sweat and toil.

Every person or family had their own system for doing laundry, but since she had left the barracks and moved into a new home, a new system had to be devised. And again, Elias took charge and had come up with a nice, workable set up that could be transported to the city's water source and set up with ease. He'd even thrown together a handcart from two bicycle wheels, a piece of pipe, the handle from a lawnmower, and some scraps of wood for the body. That cart was strong and sturdy and would come in handy for a plethora of purposes, like hauling water to the house and supplies from the handout station.

Normally, doing laundry was done side by side with dozens of other people, all doing their laundry at the same time, all of them laughing and gossiping and turning what would be complete drudgery into a social gathering that was at least tolerable. But, here in The Sanctuary, with only a scant few people, the banks of the river were nearly deserted. But, at the moment, Rainee didn't mind. She had been cooped in the infirmary for a month and had been working on her new home for the past two weeks. So, getting out into the open and the fresh-ish air, being able to move her muscles, to walk the length of The Sanctuary and over to the river, was a nice change of pace.

The Holston River was an incredibly wide and rushing body of water that ran straight through the very center of the compound, which allowed all four sectors access to the water supply without the residents having to travel too far. In fact, the sight for the compound had been chosen because of the river. The walls had been built up around an industrial park that had once housed a chemical manufacturing company, a bit of a downtown business district, and the edge of a residential area. Sufficed to say, actual housing was hard to come by, so people were forced to set up their dwellings in any place they could find. It wasn't an ideal location as far as comfort for the residents went, but it was the only location with access to the river from both sides that could be completely walled in, thereby keeping out the sickness that had destroyed half the world.

The sanctuary had been set up in the residential area and was practically right on the banks of the river, so a walk from the house only took about ten minutes...and that walk was lovely. Here, in this part of the compound that had been untouched by the masses and set aside to house future generations, the streets were wide and clean, there were sidewalks and shade trees and plenty of green space that would eventually be used to grow food for all the families there. For now, though, the community garden had been set up in a small, park like area running right alongside the river and having to walk through that park to get to the water, Rainee got to see how far the garden had come in only a year's worth of time.

It really was impressive. Every single inch of green space had been put to use and as far as the eye could see, things were growing. It was nearly the end of summer, so the crops were already being harvested. The tomatoes and sweet peppers, the roasting corn and pole beans, the shell peas, zucchini and summer squash. There were even plots of fruits, such as water melon and cantaloupe, which couldn't be preserved like all the other foods that were grown, but during the summer were a nice treat from the monotony of MREs. There were even sapling fruit trees growing in small clusters along the banks. There were apple trees and grape vines, raspberry and blackberry bushes which would, in the coming years, bear fruit that would feed countless people.

It was a very beautiful and comforting sight, seeing all those plots filled with food that could be canned or sun dried, nutritious food that would get the people in the compound through the long winters and through those worrisome times when supply deliveries were delayed. There were very few people living in The Sanctuary, but the people who did reside there were obviously working hard at keeping the gardens going. She figured she'd be out there toiling away one day soon, working hard the way she'd worked in the community gardens out in The Barracks.

"It's a nice sight, isn't it?" Elias' coarse voice cut into her thoughts.

"It's lovely," she answered, rather feeling like the landed gentry she'd read about in one of her mom's romance novels.

"I've been working this garden since I was brought in, with the exception of the past couple of weeks," Elias stated, sounding proud. "There's a lot of harvesting and preserving to do, so we'll both be out here pretty soon."

There was always a lot of preserving to do at the end of summer. Canning, sun drying, harvesting the seeds to be re-planted next spring. And she was looking forward to the work. She enjoyed that sort of chore, sanitizing the glass jars in the big barrels kept for that purpose, preparing the vegetables and capping and boiling the containers, working the drying racks, and stringing the beans and ears of corn and hanging them on the lines.

That's when she was the happiest. Toiling away to make sure the community could keep functioning. That's what her father preached. No one has unless we all have. And she believed that. None of them could continue to exist if they only worked to help themselves.

"I'll set up the laundry. Why don't you go and see if the cantaloupes are ripe yet," Elias told her, halting the cart on the sidewalk beneath the shade of a large oak tree. "I've been dying to get my hands one of them."

"Are we allowed to take them?" she wondered, feeling uneasy.

Out in The Barracks, and she assumed the rest of the compound, no one could take food from the community gardens for their own purposes. The food had to be harvested and then the General's troops would hand everything out to make sure that everyone got a share. The punishment for stealing from the gardens was three days confinement, no food, no water. That was not worth a moment's satisfaction, in her opinion.

"You won't get in trouble. We're supposed to stay fit and healthy, remember?" Elias reminded her with a smile.

"Are you sure? Who gave you permission?" Rainee wondered skeptically.

"Dr. Barker gave us each express permission to take what we want and to make sure our partners get what they want," Elias stated matter-of-factly. "There are so few of us here that we can have a bit of food for ourselves without making a dent in the supply."

Rainee regarded Elias for a long minute, finally deciding she believed him. She truly didn't think he'd be willing to risk having her thrown into confinement over a bite of melon. And besides, there were no troops here in this garden, watching every move made with an eagle eye and checking everyone who left to make sure they weren't carrying food away.

"The melon plots are down that way," Elias told her, beginning to take the five gallon buckets off the handcart. "Is your weapon loaded and ready to fire?"

"It is," she nodded, giving her .9mm Glock on her side a little pat.

"What about your backup weapon? Is it ready to fire?" he wondered seriously.

"It's off safe and ready to go," she told him, speaking of the small piece on her ankle. "I also have my knife and my personal defense baton." She spun around, showing him the plethora of munitions her weapons belt contained.

"Okay, then," he said, sighing. "You should be fine just going down the way, but if you need me, fire off a shot and I'll come running."

Rainee nodded, not quite sure why Elias was so paranoid that he'd made sure they had both strapped on an entire arsenal just to do laundry and in a sanctuary that was practically deserted. It wasn't like she was going out into the compound all alone in the middle of the night.

With Elias properly convinced that she would be fine on her own for a few minutes—he seemed to not consider that she'd been getting along just fine for nineteen years without having him watching over her—she turned and started away down the sidewalk, feeling his eyes boring into her as she walked.

She had honestly never met someone as flat out paranoid as Elias Stone. They were behind the secure fence of The Sanctuary. It was such a sparsely populated neighborhood, they hadn't seen another soul other than the patrols coming through in going on three solid weeks. Yet, he still seemed to think they were in some sort of imminent danger and barely slept at night because he wandered around the house, checking locks and windows, and making sure no one was lurking outside the house. She was actually starting to think he'd been through a little something at some point in his life and he was trying his best not to have a repeat of that incident. But, she wouldn't ask him about it. They had only known each other a few weeks and she didn't want to start prying into his life just yet.  Maybe one day...

She walked away from Elias and the shade tree and strolled past all the neat vegetable plots, enjoying the sunlight despite the fact that it had to be nearly a hundred degrees. It was so quiet here that it was stunning. There were no jeeps and trucks chugging in and out every few minutes, there weren't hundreds of people bustling around getting things done. Here, there was only sunshine overhead, vegetable plots to the right, and the wide and sweeping Holston River off to the left, preening and glistening in the sunlight as it flowed on its set path through the compound. The opposite bank of the river, which was part of the East Sector, was peppered with people doing their own washing and cleaning and she could hear a voice or two wafting on the breeze every now and again. 

The wind was pretty strong as it came in off the water, which was moving at a clip that would try even the strongest of swimmers, and it cooled her skin as it brushed over her, but with that lovely breeze came the ever present scent of decay, which reminded her that despite the beautiful day...there were some not so beautiful things just outside the city walls.

She hadn't been outside the high walls of the city since her family had entered through them, no one who wasn't part of the military had. The sickness lurked outside those walls and so did the walking corpses that spread that sickness. To step outside the steel barriers was to risk exposure to the Naegleria Fowleri Strain Two virus, which meant that everyone in the compound could be at risk. An outbreak would be the downfall of their stronghold and no one wanted that. So, only the military were allowed to leave the city and only when necessary, like trips to dump the septic trucks or the garbage or to carry out supply scavenging missions.  But the troops were highly armed and well trained, and were always suited up with gas masks to prevent exposure.

Sometimes, she thought she'd like to venture outside the high walls, just to see what was left out there, but then again...she didn't want to really know what it was like now. She'd much rather keep the world the way it was in her memory. That way, she could at least have hope that it would be that way again someday.

After walking for what felt like a good long while, she came across the plot of melon plants she was after, finding them way down toward where the river crooked to the left, which brought her right up against the high steel wall that marked this as the end of the South side of the compound.

There was just something about being so close to the wall, which was built from highway noise barriers that loomed eighty feet into the air, that sent a feeling of unease running through her. She knew she was perfectly safe. It had been four years and the walls had not been breached once, but still...just knowing that a sliver of steel was the only thing standing between herself and the walking corpses that might be prowling around, looking for...food...was highly unsettling. Especially considering that she was all alone, with nothing but the sun above her and the silence surrounding her. 

She felt incredibly open and vulnerable and after a moment of standing in the quiet, she imagined she could hear something shuffling around just on the other side of that rust colored barrier. Of course, it was probably just the wind, but she found herself suddenly moving, hurrying through the small melon patch, quickly searching for any fruit that might look ripe enough to pick. 

She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get away from the wall and get back to Elias.

It was late July, so most of the cantaloupes and watermelons weren't big enough or ripe enough to bother with, but there were a couple of fruits that looked ready to go, so she picked her way through the tangle of large, prickly leaves covering the ground and pulled out her Bowie knife, picking up one of the large melons with the pale, nubbly skin and quickly severed it from the vine, all the while keeping one ear focused on what she could have sworn was the sound of shambling feet on the other side of the barrier.

With a measure of fear slicing through her stomach, Rainee holstered her knife and picked her way back through the tangle of vines and leaves, carrying her prize with her. But, as her feet hit the sidewalk, the sound of scuffling on the other side of the wall stopped her short. And it was most definitely the sound of shuffling feet that she was hearing! Whoever...or whatever... was lurking outside the wall seemed to be walking slowly along, obviously not even lifting their feet off the ground as they moved. She could make out the scraping of their shoes as they ambled back and forth along the barrier...ambling back and forth...perhaps looking for a way inside?

Hearing that sound, and realizing that she actually was hearing it, sent cold dread shooting through her limbs and pushed a loud gasp out of her. Almost instantaneously, a deep, animal like grunt fell onto her ears, reminding her of the sound of a hog rooting, and that feral, jarring noise caused to her gasp again. And that's when the air around her exploded with a sound that she had never heard before. It was guttural and wet and juddering, like the warning growl of a sick and rabid animal, only intermingled with a choked and broken human scream. It pierced her eardrums and shook her insides and turned the blood in her veins cold. But, even worse than that terrifying, gurgling scream echoing inside her skull was the dull, reverberating thud that sounded out as the thing outside threw itself against the steel barrier.

Horrified, Rainee stumbled backward away from the high wall, her heart leaping up into her throat, and terror splintering through her.  And the very next second, something heavy landed on her shoulder, pushing a sharp shriek out of her.  As that sound rent the air, she whipped around, her free hand grabbing the handle of her .9mm.

"Rainee, its okay!" the familiar voice resounded as large hands took hold of her upper arms, preventing her from drawing her weapon. "It's me!  Its just me."

With her heart thumping and her body spiking with fear, it took her a full few seconds to realize that she was looking up at Elias and not the undead creature a part of her had been expecting.

Another juddering, wet, animal-like scream shattered the air around them, driving a second shriek out of her...and she instantly regretted that sound. She was a well-trained member of her father's family, trained by The Major General himself! She was not a frightened little girl who fell apart at the first scary noise!

"It's okay, Rainee. It can't get inside. I promise," Elias assured as another dull thud echoed, letting her know that the thing outside had slammed itself into the wall again. "You're safe in here."

Rainee nodded, trying to get her breathing under control and trying to pull herself together. What would The Major General think if he saw her shrieking and carrying on this way? He'd be mortified and ashamed.

"I-I...I know. I know," she rasped, trying not to flinch as the thing outside flung itself against the wall again while letting out another shuddering screech that echoed through the garden.

Elias shot an annoyed look past her, toward the high wall separating them from the thing outside...the thing desperately trying to force its way through the barrier. "They're loud and obnoxious when they hear a meal, but they can't inside. So, you don't have to be scared."

"I-I know. I know that," she repeated, forcing her hand to let go of the hilt of her weapon. "I-I just...I've never heard...that...before. It just...it caught me off guard."

Elias' sandy brows shot upwards as another dull thud echoed along the wall. "You've never heard a Nefer scream?"

She shook her head, his disbelieving tone somehow making her feel shameful over that fact. "I-I don't spend a lot of time near the walls," she admitted, her breath catching as the thing again slammed into the wall.

Her friends all liked to sneak out of The Barracks and hang out as close to the walls as they dared, despite their parents warning them against it. They seemed to get a thrill out of defying their families and putting themselves as close to a dangerous situation as they dared to get. But, she had never found that kind of behavior appealing. And now, having heard the screeching thing on the other side of the wall, she knew that her head was in the right place. 

It was fact that the city walls had never been breached before...but, what if there was a first time?

That thought had something sickening running straight up her spine and caused her to try and pull away from Elias so that she could get moving...so that she could get away from that piercing, horrible sound. "Can we go? Please?" she asked in a hoarse voice as a sense of urgency swirled through her.

Elias took the cantaloupe she was still clutching and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close against his side and quickly moving her down the sidewalk, away from the wall and the screaming thing thudding against it.

"You've really never heard a Nefer scream?" Elias questioned, his tone almost...worried.

"No. I-I stay in the barracks most of the time and when I go out, I go with my dad.  He never takes me close to the walls," she stated, wishing she could put her hands over her ears to block out the screaming and thudding happening behind her, but she didn't want to seem like that much of a...girl.

"So, have you ever seen a Nefer?" Elias wondered, hurrying her forward at a steady clip, putting the screaming and thudding quickly behind them.

Rainee shook her head, glad that the horrible sound was fading into the background. "I was taken to a military base right after the outbreak started and then brought here. My parents made sure I didn't get to see much of anything." And she wasn't complaining about that. At least she didn't have terrible memories filling her mind, haunting her every night.

Elias looked down at her for a lengthy minute, his arm around her shoulders tightening a bit. "Wow. You're really green, then, huh?"

"Guilty," she stated unabashedly.  Green she was.  Thoroughly.  And until this very minute, she hadn't fully appreciated that.

"Well, I know people who would envy you," Elias stated firmly. "You should thank God that you didn't have to live through some of the things the rest of us lived through."

God had nothing to do with it. It was her father who'd made sure she was kept away from what was happening in the world.

"I don't have the laundry set up yet," Elias confessed, changing the subject. "I didn't feel right about letting you go off on your own."

"So, you followed me?" she asked, though she wasn't upset by the notion.

"Guilty," he said, shooting her a crooked grin. "And I'm glad I did."

"Me, too," she told him honestly. How horrible it would have been to make the long walk back all alone and feeling as if the thing thudding against the wall was right on her heels.  "I'm really glad you're here with me."

Hearing her say that brought Elias' shoulders back just a fraction and had his eyes darkening in a way that sent heaviness creeping through her veins. Elias had been sleeping in her bed every night and every night he had been doing things to her that she had never dreamed possible, yet no matter how many times he set her body free, she found herself craving him still, craving the numbing, blinding release that he could give her with simply a few strokes of his body. She was craving him now...

"We should get through laundry as fast as we can," Elias said, his voice deepening an octave and Rainee didn't even pretend to not understand the meaning behind his words. "And then I think I should spend the rest of the afternoon in your bed, counting how many different sounds you make when I'm inside you."

Rainee felt heat lighting up her cheeks and need weighing heavy in her center and for what felt like the hundredth time, she found herself astonished that she'd been so lucky as to wind up with Elias Stone for a mate. She wanted to be with him. It wasn't a chore or a moral duty for her. It was a beautiful thing that she was sharing with a beautiful man...who she was coming to truly feel for. And how could she not feel for him? He was proving himself to be a kind and gentle man who respected her and did his very best to so far take care of her.

"Are you thirsty?" he wondered, turning his intense gaze away from her. "It's boiling hot out here."

"Yeah. I could use some water," she told him, turning her own gaze out over the swiftly moving Holston River and the small throng of people along the opposite bank, gathered in small clusters as they worked.

"I have an idea for the cantaloupe, if you wanna wait to eat it until we get back home," he proposed.

Rainee shrugged. "I don't mind. You can do whatever you want." She wouldn't be all picky about it. It was a hundred degrees outside, so her appetite wasn't exactly raging right then. In fact, the heat was making her stomach feel slightly unsteady.

"Okay. I'll see if I can whip us something my granny used to make for me and Sam," Elias said and Rainee glanced around to find a slightly somber expression on his face.

She felt a pang of sympathy lance her. "Are you missing your brother?" she wondered, knowing he had to be. She had only been in The Sanctuary for a few weeks and she was missing her family. He'd been there longer, so he must be missing his.

"Yeah, I miss him. I wish I could make sure he's alright," Elias intoned.

Rainee gave him a sympathetic smile, but remained silent on the subject. She wanted to try and remedy that, but didn't want to get his hopes up and then not be able to deliver.  She knew that would hurt him and the very last thing she wanted to do was hurt Elias Stone.