Living In The Dead Of Night

"I always had a problem being close to you and not touching you," Ben said as he shared in the memory playing across Barbara's mind. "Of course, at the time, I saw no reason to resist."

He'd lightly caressed her freckled white skin, enjoying the feel of it under the touch of his dark fingers, not really paying attention to what was going on outside. Ben enjoyed the tactile sensation of her flesh against his fingertips. When he reached the valley dividing her bosom, his hand wandered longingly toward the smooth flowing contours of her sumptuous breast. Many times in the past he'd focused on this part of her, dreaming about the closeness of her full white breasts, seeing the perfect shapes of her breasts and nipples flooding his mind during intimacy. After a few moments of this play, Barbara took one hand off the shotgun, reached up and undid a button on her top, giving Ben's fingers more access to her upper body.

"Ah-ah! Eyes front. Don't take your hands off the shotgun," he'd cautioned.

Since all of her everyday bras were in a hamper in the laundry room back at Ben's ranch, Barbara had worn a pink silk bra with lace at the edges that day. It's cleavage had been cut deep and held together by only a narrow strip of material between the cups. Its thin, smooth material bolstered her perfectly ripe breasts, and with her blouse opened even further, Ben's hand had found greater freedom to caress her. His fingers moved along the graceful slope gently, lightly cupping either side of her exposed breasts with both hands.

Barbara and Ben had become consumed by this dangerous game. Barbara needed to keep all five senses alert, but her wondrously passive sense of touch seemed to take priority in her mind at the moment. Her other senses tried to remain on sentry duty, hoping to provide enough attention to stay aware of their surroundings.

Ben's fingers started slipping beneath the edge of her bra, probing deeper along the shape of her breast. The feelings his fingers left behind were soft, warm, glowing with light perspiration and surprisingly arousing. Benjamin Wick continued petting his woman for a long time. Stopping to tickle, stroke and generally examine every inch of her flesh, he caressed surfaces both outside and inside of her bra. "I found my body reacting to the touch and feel of your breasts," Ben told her later. "I noticed I'd become harder as the minutes passed and my attention focused entirely on you."

"I remember that," she responded.

Boy, did she remember. He'd massaged her breasts and nipples for several minutes, alternating between soft caresses and cupping, between stroking and teasing her. Barbara remembered that her right nipple hardened almost painfully as Ben continued to play with it. He then shifted his concentration to her other breast, until it also stood up hard, pushing against his touch. Benjamin Wick pushed both hands under the silk and elastic of her bra. Barbara exhaled very slowly as he cupped her naked breasts with both hands. It felt wonderful, warm, soft and definitely arousing. With full access to her bare skin now, Ben continued his caresses.

Moaning ever so quietly time and again, she lowered your head.

"No, don't!" Ben commanded. "Keep your eyes focused on the landscape."

"You are so mean," she complained.

He'd reached out to pull her bra up and away from both breasts, while undoing the central clasp which held both cups together in order to give his hands greater access to her lovely torso. His caresses alternated between soft and playful and hard and demanding. Ben cupped her breast, stroking it softly, focussing on the aureole of her nipples, teasing the skin there with playful pinches. Barbara's breathing became heavier, more labored. They'd been planning that night for weeks. That night was supposed to be the consummation of everything they'd worked for together. Sure they'd been making love to each other for a several months, but Barbara had recently taken herself off the pill. Since the timing was right, they both had agreed that Ben would try to impregnate Barbara beginning that night.

"Stand up," he told her. Oh so carefully she did just that.

There, by the bay window, Ben unsnapped Barbara's work jeans, and then yanked both her pantlegs down passed her ankles to the very floor.

"Ben what are you doing?"

He started rolling her pink panties down away from her hips and thighs until they too rested limply on the old wood flooring. "We had a very important appointment, remember?"

Barbara felt his hands slap the inside of her thighs on each leg. "Spread 'em." Barbara could just imagine the sight she must have displayed--a blue denim work shirt on top, her arms cradling a double barreled shotgun, and a bare-naked white skinned flesh with naturally red pubic hair fluffed messily around a huge warm chocolate fudge bar which had decided to make itself at home by sliding in and out of her very slippery intimate wet chute.

At that moment, Barbara felt her blood chill. "Oh Christ, Ben," she shouted, as about a dozen slow, ambling figures staggered out into the moonlit barnyard. "Here they come."

"I wish I could say the same," he muttered. Nothing like a little extra pressure to jolt a guy right out of the mood, he thought. Ben pushed and thrusted harder and faster, while Barbara grimaced under his renewed attack. She too felt her tissues drying up with fear. Soon her entire body flushed red, and Barbara knew her delicate tissues were going to be sore as hell tomorrow morning. Still if it worked, it would be worth every bit of that friction, she thought.

Night hadn't quite fallen yet, but Barbara Talbot trembled with anxiety. "Why did it have to happen that night of all nights?" Barbara groaned as she tried once more to capture the memories of Ben's last caresses, and the searing moment when he'd finally spilled a mild spurt of his liquid essence into her loins. Though she continued to look out the broken glass of the bay windows in anticipation, Barbara felt her memory jolt back into the present.

Things hadn't worked out quite like they'd expected. Ben got himself killed in this house, instead. Like some headstrong, he-man, vigilante, John-Wayne style, hero, Ben had decided to protect his woman from the oncoming hoards of the walking dead. "All we had to do was run away, Ben," Barbara Talbot remembered. "It took me only a few seconds to pull my panties and jeans back up. But no, you had to be a hero, take them all on, and die."

About a dozen zombies scooped Ben's struggling body up off the floor and began dragging him away. But the strangest turn of events revolved around the fact that even after eighty-four days, nobody had located Ben's body yet. Apparently, even Ben didn't know where they'd hidden him. Barbara had asked him.

"We'd made such wonderful plans."

"I know, sweetheart, I'm so sorry about that," his voice echoed inside her head.

"Listen to me bitching about my bad luck," Barbara berated herself out loud. "All I ever wanted was a little part of you to keep selfishly for myself. And here, you lost your goddamn life."

"I understand, Barbara."

"I sure as hell wish I did."

About sixty to seventy hours after the zombies had dragged him away, Ben's voice began to reverbate inside Barbara's head. It seemed very, very weak at first--almost as if it were one of those little hissing voices which emanate from the showerhead when you least expect them. At first, Barb knew little more than it actually sounded like it might be Ben's voice whispering. She couldn't understand a word he was saying. But as the days progressed. his voice became stronger--the words became clearer. At first, she spoke out loud, and he'd chat with her internally. Soon they could communicate at the telepathic level.

However, the essence which carried the spirit of Benjamin Wick into Barbara's mind, failed to do the same for her reproductive system. Barbara's period came right on schedule. She cried on and off for days afterward. At least Ben's voice remained to comfort her.

"You know, I must have asked you a hundred times," Barbara said. "But we haven't been in here since that night." She stopped and checked the floor for paw tracks one more time. "Do you have any idea where they took your body?"

"I think it might be close," Ben's essence replied. "For the first time in weeks, I think I might have some inkling as to where it could be hidden."

Barbara caught a quick glimpse of furry feet as she passed the stairway leading upstairs. The animal they'd been stalking appeared to zip upwards from the stairwell landing. "There you are," she muttered. She double checked the rounds in the chamber to make sure, and then carefully treaded up each step--very slowly, very cautiously.

Barbara's cell phone rang, suddenly startling at least twenty years off her lifespan.

"Talbot." She paused listening to the other end. It was Flayhigh the county liaison calling her from his home. He was pissed. "I gave strict orders about staying away from the Celeste place at night. You think you're an exception?"

"I'm inside the Celeste place, but I've got something cornered in an upstairs bedroom," she stated. " I hoping it's just a raccoon."

"Well, if anybody knows how to handle coons, it's you, Talbot."

You're a class act, Flayhigh, she thought to herself. Why don't you take it on the road?

"If you don't get that creature in fifteen minutes, I want you out of there," the voice at the far end of her cell phone ordered. "Got that? I don't want you in there by yourself any longer than is necessary."

"Believe me, I'm not that thrilled to be here either."

Flayhigh told her to call the dispatcher back as soon as she finished her business at the Celeste place.

"Barbara," Ben suggested when she'd finished her phone call. "Let's look inside the walk-in closet in the far bedroom."

"Do you think...?" she couldn't finish her sentence.

"I don't know for sure," he told her. "It's just a hunch."

That's good enough for me, she thought. Then she made her way to the back bedroom. Once inside, Barb spotted one of those hand made miniature doors which masked the old style walk-in closets. Once inside, Barbara yanked on the chain at the end of the pull cord to illuminate the small walk-in space. Nothing out of the ordinary hidden here. None of Lovecraft's non-Euclidean angles, she thought, just the ordinary pitch of a farmhouse roof and a lot of twenty-some year old moth eaten clothing mildewing on a couple of hundred rusty hangers.

"So much for your hunch."

"Move some of those clothes off to the side, Barb," Ben directed. "There's more to this room than meets...." Then he stopped. A hole had been gnawed into the wall board on the backside of the closet. Barbara had a miniature flashlight which she kept clipped onto her belt. Moving the shotgun to her left hand, she pulled the mini-flash with her right. Barb shined her flashlight on the breach, but the hole didn't lead out to the roof and the outside air as she might have expected.

"There's another room hidden back there," Barbara said. "Did you know about it?"

"All I know is that your coon is probably hiding somewhere inside of here," Ben answered. "You'd better keep your shotgun ready."

Shining the light directly into the rear section of the dark compartment, Barbara ducked her head down to stare into the chewed up hole. Then she mumbled. "Are you in there, big guy?"

"Nnno...I'mm...rright...behindd...yyyou!" A gurgling travesty of a man's voice said, as a sweatshirt hastily pulled over her head caught Barbara Talbot totally off-guard. She found her head and eyes plunged into the dim grayness of the sweatshirt while her arms were pinned quickly to her sides. Her shotgun had been ripped out her left hand first. Then her right hand had the flashlight knocked from her grasp. The movements were so well timed that Barbara found herself totally restrained in the grip of something possessing inhuman strength.

"Goddamn it!" she screamed. "Tricked!"

Ben, she thought, I hope you can hear me. Christ, do I need your help.

"I-I...hhear yyou...j-justtt...fffine," the strange voice said. "Bbut...wee...haff..mmore..imp-port-tant things to d-do."

Although her brain had been burning with anger just moments ago, somebody had poured anti-freeze into Barbara's blood veins at that moment. Her heart felt like it was trying to pump melting icewater throughout her body. Barbara shivered all over, knowing that she might never warm up again.

"B-Ben?" she whimpered. "Ben, is that you?"

"Yyesss." The hands which gripped her held her even tighter. "I haff beenn w-waiting f-for you, B-Barbara," the soggy throated voice gushed out an answer. "I-I ccouldn-n't c-come to get you, so I had to fffind a way to b-bring you to me. I had to b-bide m-my t-time until now." Quickly, her captor pulled her arms over her head, and wrapped them in wide strong belt.

"That's right, sweetheart." the voice said in her mind. "It's the western belt you gave me for Christmas. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Why are you doing this?" she groaned as she felt her arms lifted up. Barbara had been hoisted into place so that her arms were tied up and over a strong four-by-four beam in the walk-in closet.

"Eighty-f-four d-days," he replied. "I've b-been with you, w-waiting for you ffor eighty-four days."

Ben's voice seemed to be improving she thought, but what was so important about eighty-four days?

"Imp-proof-ing? Y-yes...the in-initial s-symptoms of the p-plague are m-maddening. The body is in constant hunger...constant pain...mindlessness," Ben said. Then he reverted to their private telepathy. [i]"The condition lasts for several days, during which time the madness is almost unbearable, but then, when I found out that I could reach out for your mind, I could cope with the hunger. With you close to me, I had something I could hold onto, someone to keep my mind stable."[/i]

"Then there's hope for a cure?"

"Nnnoo," he growled. "N-no c-cure. Sstill c-carry p-plague. It's...mu-mutatiing," Ben stated. "My sanity rode piggy-back in your mind, while the plague continued to change my body and mutate itself. I believe I might have been prepared come fifty-six days--but I could tell you had to have more time. So I waited until today."

"Eighty-four days," Barbara's mind responded. "I still don't understand."

"D-d-do the m-math!" Ben might have tried to laugh, but it came out a gurgling cough.

Do the math?

Suddenly her captor unbuttoned Barbara's jeans and yanked them downward. She kicked out with both feet in desparation, hoping her boots might connect against his hip, stomach, or head--any body part at all, but her efforts only managed to tear at the socket joints in her shoulders. Damn! If this really was Ben, then his next obviously move would include peeling her panites down from her hips. Shit, even if it wasn't Ben, that might happen. It didn't take a Ph.D in logic to figure that one out.

His hands suddenly yanked her panties down to the wood floor.

I hate being right! her mind screamed out. "Ben, please don't! Y-you don't have to do this."

"I haff to," was all he said.

"Ben, you have to tell me," she cried out. "Are you alive or dead?"

"I don't really know, Barbara. But I am a carrier of the plague, so it makes no difference."

There could be no joy in an act like this one. Barbara knew from the moment he lifted her hips up, opened her thighs, and hauled her ass down on his semi-erected cock, that Ben found no satisfaction in what should have been a loving moment. He jammed his erected dick as far up her dry cunt as he could possibly shove it and...left it rigidly standing in place. No thrusting, no rhythmic movements, nothing!

"Are you alive or dead?" she had asked him. Instinctively, Barbara had her answer.

"Th-they're c-coming to g-get you, B-Barbara," Ben muttered. "I'm sorry, but they're c-coming to get you."

A gushing stream like an ice cold douche suddenly burst into her vaginal canal. As soon as the cool flow began pulsing through her, Barbara felt her arms released from the bindings of her belt

"It's over. Good-bye, Barbara."

"Good-bye?" Flushed with rage, Barbara turned to confront the dark figure behind her. "What the fuck do you mean...?" She felt her stomach wrench as she laid eyes on her former lover's body. Ben had been dead for eighty-four days. Oh, God. I'm gonna be sick! Barbara had been fucked by the walking dead.

"T-take the shot...gun," Ben spoke though a mouth twisted and contorted by the ravages first of moving while in the grips of rigor mortis, which, even after it had softened, had taken a serious toll on his facial features, and secondly, the natural decaying process which effects all flesh had commensed many weeks before. "You s-see, Barbara, you must end th-this n-now!"

"What?"

"K-kill me."

Barbara shook her head. Between her work boots and her jacket, Barbara was totally nude. She should have felt wanton--sexy! This wasn't how a girl dressed to blow somebody away with a shotgun. But something deep inside of her, a revulsion for what this creature had become, twisted around in the pit of her gut, and told her that she had to do this no matter what.

She bent down to retrieve the shotgun. "It's not fair." Automatically she broke it down to check the side by side chambers. The walking dead in front of Barbara made no attempt to stop her.

"N-no," Ben agreed. "N-not ffair."

"God damn you, Ben!" Barbara looked down at the floor for a moment. Then both her head and the barrels of the SKB 485 came up at the same time. She fired one barrel into his face from less than four feet. How the hell could he remain standing.

"God damn you!" Then she fired the second barrel slightly lower than the first totally decapitating him. "Damn you back to Hell!"

"Thank you, Barbara. I loved you." Ben's essence was flowing away from her mind. "I may not always be a part of you, Barbara, but I'll always be there."

She could sense his voice receeding ever more rapidly away from her consciousness. "God damn you, Ben! You said that you'd always be a part of me!"

He must have told her that a hundred times. "I'll always be a part of you, Barbara."

Apparantly always lasts exactly eighty-four days, she thought as she pulled her panties up and wrestled her jeans back on. Eighty-four days...why eighty-four days?

Do the math. he'd said. Three months is ninety days so it couldn't be...Oh, shit. Three divided into eight goes two times--carry the two, and...Do the math! Twenty-eight days.

"I may not always be a part of you, Barbara, but part of me will always be there."

Barbara rushed out of the Celeste place and back into the darkness. She knew that she had only one option and she ran for the last of the inflammible mixture in the five gallon cans. Why not? she thought as she sprinkled the combustable liquid all over the steps leading to the house. After all, accidents happen. She'd gotten careless and somehow she set the house on fire. Accidents happen, don't they? Tears welled up in Barbara's eyes.

A sacrifice of wood and aluminum siding flared up through the night, and a much more personal sacrifice had been incinerated in the same pyre. She'd arranged a viking's funeral for her darker cowboy.

It was over. It was all over. There could be nothing left of Benjamin Wick for her to keep in her arms or to hear in her mind. Nothing but dwindling memories.

Solemnly Barbara Talbot phoned in the fire. The Celeste farmhouse burned down entirely before any fire crew arrived. Just as well. she thought.