The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Fuck, it’s already June,” I groaned. It was hot as balls and I was regretting putting on my ‘go out into the world’ getup.

“How did you miss the 1st?” Erica asked, also done up in her gear.

“How did we miss Memorial Day?” I countered.

“Oh, shit,” Leo said, standing up from where he’d been sitting over near his RV. “You’re right, we did miss Memorial Day. Should we do something?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“We could throw a party,” Ivy suggested. “We could all dress up fancy and have a dance?”

The surveyors had been needing Leo and I less and less lately and I was starting to get a little twitchy with how little I had to do. Quarantine before all of this really kicked off had been one thing, but now we didn’t even have our big wide backyard to ourselves. When Erica had mentioned that she wanted to take a drive into Portland to pick up some things from the tattoo parlour and check her apartment I’d jumped on the chance and we’d made the plan.

The girls were already starting to excitedly talk about planning our late Memorial Day celebration as I stretched and sighed, checking my watch. We’d been planning to leave right after lunch and it was already 3pm. Vanessa had taken an extended break since she’d worked late the night before and we’d had some one-on-one fun in the RV, which had been sorely needed for her. Where the rest of us were struggling to find things to keep busy and motivated, the last week had seen more and more responsibility and work landing in Vanessa’s lap as the construction crews started to show up and move into the barracks. It meant there was an entirely new crew of cleaners, maintenance workers and delivery people under her supervision along with her ‘gorillas.’ Not to mention her wrangling of the other foremen and administrators on-site as her father handled the top-end details of the job. Every day it seemed like new equipment and supplies were being delivered and a third barracks was quickly being erected as even more hands were around.

But an hour with Vanessa had delayed us, and when I was finally ready to go Dani was busy with Leo over at their place, and since she was coming with us Erica and I had to wait. Then Erica and Kyla were ensconced in a private conversation in our RV when Dani emerged ready to go, so we lost another half hour before the three of us were all finally dressed and prepped to leave.

“OK,” I said loudly, trying to cut through the multiple party-related conversations. “We’re all agreed we’ll do a Memorial Day thing, but we’re burning daylight. Erica and Dani, let’s go.”

We took my truck, only needing one vehicle since we weren’t hauling a ton of stuff like the last time. As we pulled around the site offices I spotted Vanessa walking with one of the other foremen in conversation and gave her a little double honk. She smiled and waved. Driving down the old driveway path there were now a half dozen wide offshoots winding off into the trees and closer to the highway there were big swathes of ground that had been cleared and were starting to get flattened by scrapers and excavators. Vanessa had mentioned that we’d end up with a couple of strip malls worth of stores to help provide for the eventual community—a convenience store, a clinic, a dentist, that sort of thing.

Right at the end of the driveway a guard hut had been erected, little more than a fancy roadside fruit stall that could barely fit two people inside. I pulled up next to it and Erica rolled down the window.

“Hey Patrick,” I said, waving to the construction worker manning the booth and tracking the ins and outs.

“Hey folks,” the older guy said with a grin. He was supposed to be on the road crews but had arrived earlier than needed. I’d asked him once if standing in the guard booth all day working a clipboard was boring and he assured me that after three decades manning a ‘Slow/Stop’ sign in the middle of roads through sun, rain and sleet, the booth and the clipboard were welcome.

“We’ll be out for a few hours,” I said.

“Sounds good,” he replied and made a note on his clipboard. Then he wiped at his eyes and cleared his throat, blinking. “Y’all didn’t say anything about how bad the pollen got up here. I think my allergies are kicking up and I didn’t bring any of my meds, I thought the North West was supposed to be wet.”

“It usually is. We’ll pick you something up,” Erica offered. “We need to stop at a pharmacy anyways.”

“We do?” I asked.

“We do,” Erica said, patting me on the knee.

“Hah,” Patrick laughed. “And here I thought you was some sort of Big Dog, Harri. But you’re as whipped by your women as the rest of us.”

“See you in a bit, Patrick,” I said.

He waved us off, then covered his mouth to cough a little.

“Poor guy,” Dani said. “I’d hate if I had allergies like that.”

“We’ll get him fixed up,” I said as I pulled onto the highway and started heading in the direction of Portland. “It’s been weirdly dry and hot so I’m betting the dust from the brush cutting is doing it to him.”

And I didn’t think anything more of it.

Erica unlocked the metal grate that pulled down over the front of the tattoo parlour and lifted it up on the rollers enough to uncover the door.

The good news was that the whole thing with the ‘Autonomous Zone’ seemed to have burned itself out and Portland was no longer hosting big protests at the moment. The bad news was that only happened after a week of riots and several news-worthy moments of violence and vandalism. Thankfully the parlour wasn’t on one of the major routes the riots had travelled down and there didn’t seem to be any damage other than sprayed graffiti on the grate and some of the glass windows behind it.

I’d pulled my truck right up over the curb and parked us as close as possible. The streets were as empty of people moving around as the last time we’d come into the city, except there was more trash. I’d seen old newsreels of when there had been major strikes in New York City back in the early 80s and it wasn’t exactly that bad, but another couple of weeks and it might get there. Someone must have been doing collections, they were just overburdened or understaffed or something.

I had to nudge a pile out of the way with the front of my truck to wedge into the open space, but it almost immediately proved worth it as a trio of ambulances came burning down the street with their lights running. If I’d parked on the street one of them would have needed to swerve out of the way and who knew if those extra seconds would be the difference between life or death for someone—not to mention the potential of the ambulance not swerving fast enough and clipping my truck.

Inside the tattoo parlour Erica went straight to her bay and started unhooking and gathering her equipment. Dani was looking around at the place, grinning as she examined the wild decor. She would call out questions to Erica, who would tell her who had done what mural, or the brief story behind the broken surfboard hanging from the ceiling and the skateboard deck covered in almost a hundred different signatures.

I spotted a photo on the wall and realized it was of Erica and all of her staff at the most recent DragonCon where they had put up a booth and done live tattooing. Erica had said beforehand she thought it might be a waste of time, but the owner of the parlour was a huge nerd and wanted to do it so it was her job to organize. I never had found out how it went, but she looked happy in the photo. I grabbed the frame from the wall and brought it over to her.

“Do you want to bring this, too?” I asked.

She glanced at it and paused her work, then smiled and hugged me. “That’s sweet, Harri. Yes, absolutely.” She took the frame and put it in one of the boxes we’d brought for her to carry stuff, then turned to me. “Hey, could you just empty all those drawers there into the boxes? Don’t just dump them, but there isn’t anything particularly fragile. It’s mostly inks and cleaner solutions and stuff.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Thanks, babe,” she said and kissed my cheek. “Dani and I are just going to slip through to next door.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned. I hadn’t realized that was her plan.

“Don’t worry,” she grinned. “It’ll all be fun for you, I promise.”

The owner of the tattoo parlour also owned the sex shop next door and had installed a door between the two since the clientele crossed over fairly consistently. Erica led Dani through the door, opening it with her key, and I could hear them laughing and giggling.

By the time I was done with the drawers Erica had pointed out, placing what seemed like hundreds of little vials and bottles of inks and other liquids into the boxes along with some other art supplies, they hadn’t come back. I went to the door and opened it, looking in.

Erica glanced over, grinning as she held another box and Dani was placing something inside. “You want any porn, babe?”

“What do I need porn for?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she said. “Variety?”

“Ooh, this one is called ‘Big Black Booties 15,’” Dani said, grabbing a DVD from a nearby shelf and waving it at me. “You don’t have that kind of variety yet, Harri.”

I snorted and shook my head. “I’m perfectly happy with the booties at my disposal, thank you.”

Dani shrugged and put the DVD in the box. “I’ll see if Leo wants it.”

“Gag!” Erica laughed, making them both start giggling. I had a feeling that was a running joke between them.

“How are we paying for this stuff?” I asked. “Everything is turned off and we don’t have any cash.”

“Artie told me I could Venmo him at a 75% discount,” Erica said. “Plus anything with an expiry date I could have for free. So we’ve got a lot of lube now, along with a bunch of penis-shaped candy and some candy underwear.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Oh my God, we should take her with us,” Dani said, pointing up on a high shelf where a creepily lifelike sex doll was sitting.

“I think you mean rescue her,” Erica said. “Harri, help me get her down.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes,” they both demanded.

When we packed up the truck we had two boxes of Erica’s tattoo gear and other possessions from the shop, another full box of Sex Shop stuff, and Dani was sitting in the back next to ‘Sexy Susan’ who had also happened to get dressed in a sexy nurse costume. They thought it was fucking hilarious, I just thought ‘Sexy Susan’ was a little creepy.

Dani stayed down in the truck, taking the front seat as I pointed out that the 1911 was in its case under the passenger seat if she needed it, while Erica and I headed up to her apartment. The elevator had an ‘out of order’ sign on it, and Erica had to use her key to the building to get into the stairwell which she said she’d never had to do before. That was an immediate red flag to me, but I kept my cool to try and not worry her.

“You know,” Erica said as we climbed the stairs. All our sex cardio seemed to be paying off because we weren’t puffing from the exertion yet. “You haven’t officially asked me to move in yet.”

“What?’ I asked. “Leo and I—”

“That wasn’t asking me to move in permanently,” Erica cut me off. “That was just for quarantine.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing where she was going with this. At the next floor I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to me, pulling down my mask and hers and kissing her hard and deep.

“Erica Lacosta, will you move in with me forever and ever?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she grinned. “Yes, I will.” She kissed me lightly to seal it, then sighed and we raised our masks and started climbing more stairs. “With that out of the way, I should really try and find a way out of my lease. Just because you have money doesn’t mean I should be wasting mine on a place I’m not ever planning on moving back into.”

“I’ll help with some research,” I said. “I know there’s all the clamour about halting eviction notices, but maybe there’s something that will help. I could text Miriam, see if Captain Bloomberg knows anything offhand.”

“Hmm, maybe—” Erica started, but stopped as we reached her floor and found that door locked as well. “What the fuck?” she sighed and unlocked it.

“Let me go first,” I said.

“Why? It’s just…”

As we entered the corridor Erica trailed off, seeing the tracks of dirty footprints in the hall and the spray paint on the walls. She immediately started to move forward, but I grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Wait,” I said. “Look.” I pointed at the big circles on the walls next to each door, but she clearly didn’t understand what I was pointing out. “Those are FEMA search and rescue marks.”

Erica blinked once and was obviously unsure of what to say.

“Let’s just take it slow,” I said.

We walked down the hallway. Some of the doors were shut, but others looked like they’d been kicked in.

“What do they mean?” Erica asked me, looking at the circles and the scribbles of letters and numbers on the walls. Each circle had an X dividing it into four parts, and each quadrant was marked.

“The top part is the date the location was searched,” I said. “5-24 means it happened May 24th, so a little over a week and a half ago. The left side is who did the search, the numbers are probably a military code for a National Guard unit. If it said PPD that would be the Portland police, or CDC or DEA or whoever. The right side is if there are any hazards.” I pointed to one of the doors that were kicked in. “NE means ‘No Entry.’” Then I pointed to another. “F/W means there’s contaminated food and water.” I pointed at another door, this one wasn’t kicked in. “A 0 means no hazards.

“What are the bottom parts?” Erica asked.

I frowned and swallowed. “The crossed 0 means no one found. DB or DOA means dead bodies. LB means live people are, or were, inside.”

Erica looked at the carnage of the corridor, her eyes scanning the doors of her neighbours as she weighed the number of DBs. There weren’t many 0s, but about half of the apartments were labelled LB and hadn’t been kicked open.

Half.

We got to Erica’s place around the hall corner, passing the old lady Diane’s door. It was kicked in and labelled NE, DB. Erica poked the door with her boot and it swung in. Inside, other than the dirty boot prints, it looked generally neat and tidy… other than the pool of dark something that had dried on the kitchen linoleum.

I grabbed Erica and held her as she gasped and her knees went weak. I pulled her away from the door and she saw that her own apartment had also been kicked in, but was labelled 0 hazards and 0 bodies. We went in and she sat down on the couch, burying her head in her hands.

Kneeling in front of her, I cradled her head on my shoulder and hugged her tightly as the reality of the world settled on her. She cried, though not as long as she probably needed, as I talked her through what had probably happened. Enough people had gotten sick and called emergency services that they came to do a sweep of the building. They knocked on every door, and anywhere someone didn’t answer they kicked it in. Then I assumed they had extracted the bodies.

“I need to get out of here,” Erica breathed.

“OK,” I said. “Do you need me to grab anything? Did we forget anything last time?”

“No, nothing,” she shook her head. “Just get me out of here.”

I picked her up and carried her out. Erica wasn’t Ivy or Vanessa, or even Kyla. She was a full-figured woman. But I carried her every fucking step, down every stair. She stopped me right at the doors to the building and had me let her down.

“I don’t want Dani to see me like this,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. “She would understand.”

“I know,” she said, blinking under her ski goggles. “But if she sees me like this, she’ll start thinking about what might be happening back home for her, and she doesn’t need that.”

I held Erica’s hand at the door for another minute as she breathed deeply and got control of herself, and finally she smiled at me and it actually travelled up to her eyes.

“Thanks, babe,” she said.

“Love you,” I said.

“You too,” she said and touched her forehead to mine since we were both masked and goggled.

“Hey, Charlie,” I grinned, waving to the little four-year-old as she sprawled in Mary’s arms and waved back with her little grin.

“Hi,” she chirped.

“OK,” Mary said, setting her daughter down. “Scoot, you. Let Mommy talk with Harri for a second. Go see what your brother is doing.”

“OK,” Charlie said and pounded off in the way only a four-year-old could.

“You’re looking more like yourself, Mary,” I said. I was standing off the porch and we kept the screen door closed, but I had my mask lowered so she could see my face.

She smiled softly and shrugged. “I don’t feel like it, but thanks.”

“How are the kids doing?” I asked.

“Well, I regret letting them eat sugar again,” she smirked a little. “But they’re good. Better than me, anyways, though Thomas misses his friends from school and keeps asking when he can go back to class.” She laughed and wiped under one eye. “He used to hate going to school every morning, now it’s all he wants to do.”

“We’ll get there eventually,” I assured her. “What about you? How are you doing?”

“Physically? Better, I guess. I can’t stop worrying about Eddie though, I just wish I knew anything. And I haven’t even seen my neighbours around recently. You’ve been the only adult I’ve talked to in person in—God, a week and a half? Maybe two? Even with the kids I’m feeling isolated.”

“How about next time I come by, I’ll bring some lawn chairs and my girlfriend and I can sit and chat with you for a bit?” I offered.

Mary smiled and shook her head, then nodded. “Harri, you’re too good for your own good. That would be really nice. Is that her in the truck?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And her brother’s girlfriend that’s quarantined with us. We had to drive into Portland to pick up some of her stuff. The city is weird right now, Mary. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie tried to head somewhere else to look for work.”

“Thanks,” she said, and I knew she was thanking me for keeping her little false hope alive. We both knew her husband was probably just gone, one way or another.

“Any special requests for the next grocery run?” I asked her.

“Um, yeah…” she said and blushed. “Could you, uh, pick me up some pads or tampons? Whatever is available.”

“I’ll have Erica text you for details,” I assured her. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Harri, I’d kiss you if it were safe,” Mary said with a smile.

“Don’t go saying that,” I said, backing away. “Mary Duncan, the Mary Duncan, offering me a kiss? I might go mad!”

I left her laughing, which was how I preferred to go. I’d been by twice more since the first time, once to drop off meat from the butcher, and once just to say hello like today.

Back in the truck Erica asked me how they were. “Good, the kids are good. I can tell she’s eating more now that she doesn’t have to worry about the kids. She’s just really lonely and feeling isolated.”

Erica glanced back at Dani and they did that ‘women talking to each other through a glance’ thing and Dani rustled in one of the boxes and handed forward a plastic-contained device.

“Bring her this,” Erica said. “You can say it’s from us.”

I flushed, looking down at the vibrator in its packaging. “I don’t know if that’s appropriate,” I said.

“Harri, either you go give it to her, or I’ll dig out the dildo that’s just about your size and bring her that, and let her know why I picked it for her.”

I was out the door and back knocking on the front door.

“Harri?” Mary answered the door with a raised eyebrow. “Forget something?”

“So, when I mentioned to my girlfriend that you were feeling lonely, her and our friend decided that you should have this,” I said, and set the vibrator down and backed off.

She looked down at the vibrator on the porch, then back to me. “Really?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Erica works in a tattoo shop, which is adjacent to a sex shop, and when we- you know what? I’ll let her tell you next time we come by, OK?”

“OK,” she said, suppressing a laugh. “Tell her thank you.”

“I will,” I said. “Uh… enjoy.”

Mary had fetched the vibrator from the porch by the time I was back in the truck, and was standing on the stoop waving to us. Erica and Dani both waved back proudly, while I just tried to focus on backing out of the driveway and driving.

Patrick was sluggish getting up from the booth as we pulled in. I rolled down the window and held out the bag from the pharmacy in town. “Wasn’t sure which you preferred so we got you Benadryl and Claritin,” I said. “Whichever one you don’t use feel free to pass it off to someone else if they need it.”

Patrick coughed into his arm, blinking drearily above his mask as he got just close enough to take the bag and then back off. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll mark you back in.”

“No problem,” I said and rolled up the window.

“We should tell Vanessa he needs a day off,” Erica said.

“If he gets one, maybe we should send Sexy Susan to go take care of him,” Dani giggled in the back seat.

“Oh my God, can you imagine!?” Erica cackled. “Patty opens his barracks door and she’s just sitting there?”

“Fucking hell,” Vanessa grumbled, typing away at her phone as I was massaging her feet. We were sitting around the campfire and it was late for her to be up at almost midnight, but she’d been dealing with a couple of minor messes that the night shift supervisors felt like she should handle instead of them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There’s almost a dozen guys calling in sick ahead of time for tomorrow. If they called in the morning that would be one thing, but this just means they’re planning it.”

“Isn’t a dozen workers barely 1% of your workforce?” Kyla asked. “Is it that big a deal?”

“No,” Vanessa sighed. “Unless people start getting ideas and it spreads. Get enough knuckleheads in one place and they can convince each other of anything. If I don’t squash this tomorrow they’ll all think if they take some sick days that the incentive bonuses will get pushed back. That’s not how they work, but they’ll still think it’s true and get all butt hurt when they don’t get paid.”

“Maybe they are sick and lonely and need some female attention,” Dani chuckled. “Sexy Susan can be your nurse.”

Vanessa barked a laugh and then made a disgusted face. “They’d probably love that, but way too many of those guys would be down to share her. I’m sure we’d have a chlamydia outbreak or something within days.”

“Where is Sexy Susan?” Kyla asked, looking around. When we’d gotten back from our trip all the girls had been introduced to our new ‘roommate’ and thought it was hilarious. Aria had straight up started making out with ‘her,’ and India had lifted up the nurse’s skirt and pretended to eat ‘her’ out.

The RV door opened behind me. “Ahem,” Ivy cleared her throat for my attention.

I turned around and saw she was posing in the doorway of our RV, dressed in Sexy Susan’s nurse outfit.

“The doctor will see you now, mon amour,” she said with a wicked smile.

All the girls jeered me and wolf-whistled Ivy as I set down Vanessa’s feet and stood up with a little grin on my face. Vanessa just grumbled, “Guess I’m waiting a little bit longer for the bed.”

I went to Ivy and she planted a kiss on me, showing off for the others.

“That looks so much sexier on you than on the doll,” I said to her.

“Good,” she giggled. “Now come play doctor with me.”

“Yes, Nurse,” I said, and let her pull me into the RV.

I winced and blinked, sitting up slowly. It was rare these days that I woke up in the middle of the night—partially because I was usually dead tired by the end of the day after one final round with someone, and partially because extricating myself from the pile of bodies was a bit of a hassle that my subconscious apparently didn’t want to deal with.

Kyla always slept on the edge of the bed, and the girls had decided on some sort of rotation so I ended up next to her every other day, and on the others she put a pillow between herself and the others as they dogpiled me. Tonight was a Kyla night, so I only needed to sit up and softly move Vanessa’s arm from around me.

Red and white lights were flashing off the RV, and a crack in the curtain coverage had let it in to play against my face. I squinted, trying to look through the window without moving any more.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked quietly, woken up despite my attempt not to disturb her.

“Looks like ambulance lights,” I said. If it had been cops there would be blue as well.

“Mmf,” she grunted softly. “If it’s an emergency someone would have called me. It’s probably nothing.”

I hesitated, wanting to curl up with her again, but then decided if I was getting nominally paid to be ‘security’ I should probably know why there was an ambulance on the property. Slipping out of bed, I pulled on my jeans and a shirt in the dark. When I glanced back Vanessa was dead asleep but Kyla was looking at me in the dark. I shuffled down the edge of the bed and leaned down and kissed her softly. “I’ll be back in a few,” I whispered.

“OK,” she said and took my fingers in hers for a moment.

I made my way out of the RV as quietly as possible, slipping my boots on without socks, and got hit with the cool night air. Leaving the compound I considered riding one of the ATVs over but decided that I didn’t want to risk the noise waking everyone up, so I started hoofing it. Crossing the football field worth of dirt expanse between the compound and the barracks didn’t take long, but it was enough time for me to consider the time I’d been asked by a German why Americans measured things in football fields to begin with. I hadn’t had an answer for him at the time and guessed it was because it was a standard size and very common feature in every town and high school.

I also happened to have time to consider Kyla, and that little touch of comfort in the dark between us. She’d only been with us a little under two weeks and so far she’d fallen into the family naturally. She was more ‘adult’ in maturity than any of the other girls except Erica despite the fact that she was actually the youngest, and I had to assume it was because of her upbringing and training. Kyla was a natural leader but a quiet one, and I’d noticed she was deferring to Erica whenever she was around and I wondered if that was a choice, or her training, or something else.

It was the ‘something else’ that bugged me the most. I was sharing my bed with four women and sure, there’d been small issues here or there as they tried to find their spaces, but there hadn’t been a fight. Not a single one. The most anyone ever even raised their voices was when they were laughing, or orgasming. I was the only one getting yelled at, and it was always, ‘More!’ and ‘Harder!’ and ‘Please!’

The whole peaceful coexistence was great, but it also felt downright unnatural. There should have been some real friction.

I’d have to ask Miriam about it, or one of the nurses who came around to test our blood for the vaccine labs. It had happened twice in the last month and took barely more than twenty minutes for all of us. Maybe if I got lucky the next nurse would be chatty and I could get some info out of her.

As I approached the barracks and offices I saw that the ambulance was pulled up alongside the main door to the first big dormitory and a handful of men in reflective construction vests were milling around. There was more activity going on in the offices and even at night I could hear the telltale sound of machinery working by the light of the portable spots out across the forest.

Two EMTs were wheeling out a man from the dormitory on a gurney, a medical mask and neck brace on him, as I arrived.

“Hey, clear out- Oh, it’s you,” said one of the construction workers. He had a white hard hat on, marking him as a foreman or higher.

“Yeah, just wanted to make sure everything is alright,” I said. “Saw the lights.”

“Mm,” he grunted, then turned and waved off the other workers around him. They left, some into the barracks and others to whatever other work they were supposed to be doing, and then he turned back to me as we watched the EMTs get the gurney into the ambulance. “Nothing major. Well, not for the project. Someone found Old Phil on the ground in the barracks common area unconscious and with a gash in his head. One of the guys did first aid and realized he’d probably had a heart attack so we started CPR and called the ambulance—shitty luck for Phil, the AEDs are supposed to get installed in the buildings in a couple of days. We had to send a runner to the offices to get one.”

“That is shitty luck,” I said, watching as the EMTs worked on the guy a bit in the ambulance. “We’re sure it was a heart attack?”

“Couple of guys said he’d been short of breath after work, walking around scratching at his chest and ‘feeling funny,’” the foreman said. “Guy’s a fucking ox so he was probably ignoring the worst of it. Honestly, we’re lucky he didn’t just keel over on the job, that would have been a way bigger issue and could have shut us down for a day or two of investigation.”

“Alright, well, thanks for the update,” I said.

“No problem,” he nodded.

I approached the ambulance and knocked on the door when the EMTs didn’t look particularly in a rush. “Hey, sorry to bother you. I’m technically security on the site. You guys good?”

The EMT raised an eyebrow at me and I could immediately tell the guy was haggardly tired. His eyes were sunken above his medical mask and he was wearing a clear face shield to go with it, and he was buttoned up and gloved including a hood.

“Existentially I’m fucked,” the guy said.

“He meant right now, fuckhead,” the other EMT grunted. That made me blink—sure, I figured EMTs and other emergency services could be rough and tumble, but in front of someone who wasn’t part of their system?

“Right,” the first EMT said. “Dude’s dead. Apologies for my bluntness but I’m running on hour twenty-three of a twelve-hour shift and we’ll probably hit thirty-six before we can clock out for a nap.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Yeah. All of it. Everywhere,” the second EMT said. “You need us to sign anything or can we get out of here?”

“Uh, not for me,” I said. “Stay safe.”

For some reason that made them laugh, and there was a tinge of crazy in there that I really didn’t like. I backed off and they shut the door and soon the ambulance rumbled down the well-driven driveway towards the highway.

“Fuck me,” I sighed, watching it go. First I got weird responses about police response time, and now the EMTs were going loopy around the edges. All we needed now was a firefighter arsonist and a mailman axe murderer.

“Why?” I asked myself as I turned to start walking back to the RVs. “Why would I even think that?”

Vanessa’s alarm went off somewhere under her pillow. It was the best thing we could come up with for her to wake up for work and possibly not wake everyone else.

She shut off the alarm and started to stretch and I rolled over and planted my face between her little tits and kissed her chest.

“Morning,” I grumbled.

“Morning,” she sighed. She kissed the top of my head then slipped out from the covers and down the length of the bed.

Erica extracted herself from Ivy and got up without a word, walking naked through the RV to the kitchenette to start brewing coffee. Ivy, half-asleep, took the chance to squirm across the bed and plant herself against my side, mirroring Kyla on my other.

I missed Vanessa leaving, but felt Erica crawl back into bed and spoon up behind Ivy. I vaguely wondered if we could get Vanessa’s father to give her a better shift schedule.

Bacon and a Blowjob were on the menu for breakfast when Miriam called. Erica had brought me breakfast in bed, Kyla making herself scarce to make her own breakfast, but Ivy stuck around to watch with a little smile on her face. When my phone started buzzing over where it was plugged in Erica groaned unhappily around the head of my cock, but there weren’t many people who weren’t in the compound who would be calling me.

“Morning,” I said, suppressing a bacon burp as I answered the phone.

“Harri, what the hell is going on down there?” Miriam asked.

“Wait, hold on. What?” I asked, sitting up and pulling my cock away from Erica.

“I’m getting a bunch of conflicting reports from the site. Is there something going on?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We had an ambulance in last night because a worker had a heart attack, but I assume there’ll be an incident report or something about that. Let me get dressed and go find Vanessa to find out. I’ll call you back.”

“OK,” she said, and I could feel the pregnant hesitation on the line. “Be quick, please.”

“Will do,” I said, and we hung up.

Erica looked at me with a pout on her lips. “Really? Mid-blowjob?”

I scooted around and leaned down to kiss her. “Babe, I promise I’ll fuck your face later, OK? And eat you out until you squirt.”

“Fine,” she sighed, flopping over onto her back on the bed. “I guess that will do.”

“You know,” Ivy grinned, slipping out from under the covers as I got up to get dressed. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

I left them in the bedroom, shutting the door as Ivy sat on Erica’s face. Kyla would have heard everything and she just reached out a hand to me, again brushing her fingers with mine and giving me a soft smile as I passed her and slipped on my boots—without socks, again. Once they were on I turned to her and pulled her by the back of her tank top to me, kissing her hard.

We didn’t say anything, she just smiled wider as I left her there in the kitchen in her panties and top.

This time, even though it was early and Leo and his crew might not have been awake yet, I didn’t hesitate to go for the ATVs. I drove over to the offices first and went to the ‘main’ admin one and asked for Vanessa. There was a flurry of activity going on and the admin folks inside were almost all on the phone. One person I’d never met before cleared their throat heavily and radioed for Vanessa, and what I found to be an inaudible squawk back turned out to be directions over to another one of the portables. I jogged over there and knocked before entering, finding Vanessa and two of the other foremen just hanging up the phone from some sort of conference call.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” I said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I’d love to, but I’m in the fucking trenches right now, Harri,” Vanessa said.

“Miriam called,” I said.

She hesitated, then turned and gave some directions to the other two foremen and they brushed past me. “Come in,” she said, waving me on.

I went in and, once the door was shut, I took Vanessa’s hand in mine and made her stop for a second. Instead of kissing her I just held her hand and looked into her eyes, and I could see her immediately match my exaggerated breathing until we were in sync.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem,” I told her. “Miriam called and wants to know what’s going on. She says she’s getting conflicting reports.”

“Well, that’s probably because I’m dealing with conflicting reports. We’ve got almost thirty guys calling in sick, and there’s a site-wide slowdown because men are fucking gossips,” she said. “My best guess is that someone snuck drugs into the barracks and started selling last night, so we’ve got a bunch of guys who are fucked up and now that there’s a noticeable number of guys off sick other people are trying to take advantage. Or trying to find out who has the drugs. Or both.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this would eventually be a problem or not with the quick spinup of the camp. In industrial construction jobs, the spinup takes months and there’s a lot more infrastructure and planning in place first. We’d have a subcontracted security company doing bag checks, and we’d have cameras in the public halls and spaces to monitor people doing shady shit. Hell, most camps have a bustling but controlled underground highway for drugs, booze and hookers. No one wants to fuck it up for everyone else, so no one lets anyone else go overboard. But this is the wild fucking west and one asshole can convince a bunch of other guys to be assholes too.”

“You want a hug, an ear to bounce off of, or just to be left alone?” I asked her.

“Yes?” she answered, and then took a breath. “I just need to work. Thank you, though.”

“OK,” I said, and squeezed her hand one more time then stood up. At the door I turned to her and smirked. “You know, your ass looks great in those jeans.”

She threw her hard hat at me as I ducked out the door, hearing her bark a laugh.

I called Miriam once I’d ridden the ATV back to the compound, letting her know that it was a slow down and that the best guess was it was getting caused by contraband on the site, and that they were trying to track down the source. She thanked me and asked me to update her if I heard anything else.

“Harri, I need you,” Vanessa said over the phone.

I sat up from my spot on the deck chair at the tone of her voice. “Where and how?” I asked her.

“It’s not drugs,” she said. Her voice was calm and even, but I could hear the barely contained thread of anxiety behind it. “People are sick. I don’t know if it’s the Covid one or the Duo Halo one, but people are sick. I need you to lock down the site. Go down to the front entrance and direct anyone trying to come in over to that motel where I was staying, and don’t let anyone leave.”

“OK,” I said. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I am,” she said. “We just have a lot of shit to deal with and we’re trying to figure out what the protocol is and I can’t reach Patrick down at the gate.”

“Alright, I’m on it,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, the gratitude heavy in her voice.

“Be safe,” I told her.

“I will.”

“What’s wrong?” Dani asked. She and Ivy had been sitting with me in the chairs painting each other’s toenails while Leo and Erica were facing off against India and Aria in a game of cornhole on the other side of the compound.

“People are starting to get sick over at the barracks so we need to go into quarantine,” I said, standing up. I raised my voice. “Hey, guys? No one leaves the compound for now, OK? We’re on quarantine.”

They had questions that I didn’t have answers to, but I tried to tell them as much as I could as I went and got my jacket on and fetched my masks. A moment before I hopped onto the ATV I decided ‘Don’t let anyone leave’ might require more than a stern frown so I went into the storage containers and fetched my M9 from the gun safe and holstered it to my hip.

I burned it wide around the barracks and offices, running the ATV at speed. There were people milling around and I thought I could see Vanessa trying to direct some traffic in her white hard hat and mask. I raced down the driveway and pulled up, parking the ATV across the middle of the drive and wishing I’d driven my truck down instead since that would have blocked more space.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I had to worry about when I dismounted and turned to the little guard house to talk with Patrick.

He was on the ground inside the hut, and while I rushed over to check on him my instincts clicked in and I stopped about half a dozen feet away and slowed down.

Inside, he was on his side. His chest wasn’t moving, but I could see a leak of blood out of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. I don’t know why, but my eyes went to the open box of Claritin in his shirt pocket.

“Fuck. Shit. Fucking hell,” I swore, backing away and grabbing my phone out of my pocket. I dialled 911 first, following the First Aid protocol, and I was almost struck dumb when I got a busy tone. “Fuck!” I shouted and almost threw the phone, but knew that was a bad idea. I hung up and dialled Vanessa, but she didn’t pick up. I left a message telling her about Patrick, and then I called Miriam.

“Harri?” she answered. “Talk to me.”

“It’s not drugs. I think it’s an outbreak. I’m looking at our gate attendant collapsed and probably dead. He’s got blood leaking from his mouth and eyes, maybe his nose.”

“Shit,” Miriam grunted. “OK, we’re already on it. I think Brent Peters tried to downplay it, maybe he thinks he has it under control but he doesn’t get it. We’re already spinning up an emergency response but it’ll take some time to be able to handle the number of people on site. You said you’re at the gate?”

“Yeah, Vanessa asked me to come down here,” I said.

“Good. Stay there,” Miriam said. “Don’t go near the body. Even vaccinated you’re not perfectly immune. Do not let anyone get on or off that site, OK? Its vital people don’t add to this problem.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“Good. OK,” she said. “Be safe.”

“Be quick.”

I hung up and glanced at poor Patrick, then went and sat on the ATV.

“Shit,” I said to the wind.

“Harri, things are getting weird up here,” Kyla said.

I was still down at the gate and had turned away several trucks looking to drop of supplies or equipment, directing them to the motel like Vanessa had asked. As soon as I told them we were on quarantine lockdown and motioned to the just-visible form of Patrick in the guard booth they stopped bitching and were happy to drive away.

“What do you mean ‘weird?’” I asked.

“I’ve just got a bad feeling,” she said. “I went up on the roof of the RV and the workers are clearly agitated, and it looks like they’re being kept out of the barracks buildings. Some of them are wandering around and are getting closer to the compound and looking more curious than usual. No one’s come right for us or anything, but I’m just- You know that feeling?”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. I knew it. That tingle, that edge, when you knew something was brewing. “Look, the code to the gun safe is 4-83-16-7. Grab everything and bring it into the compound. Dani can help, she knows her way around firearms. Try not to spook the others, but don’t let anyone leave the compound and definitely don’t let anyone in unless it’s me or Vanessa.”

Kyla was silent for a long moment. “Thank you. For trusting me.”

“Kyla, if I trust you enough to agree to have a mess of babies with you, I hope I can trust you with my guns,” I said with a nervous smirk.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“I do,” I said. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

“Harri, you need to come back,” Erica said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, already heading for the ATV. I’d been pacing for almost an hour. The trucks had stopped showing up so I assumed someone had re-routed them and no one had tried to come down and leave. Part of me wondered if that was because construction workers were drilled to be safety-focused and so a basic quarantine rule felt like an instinct to stay in place, or if they thought there was more than just me down here keeping them in.

“Guys have been approaching the compound and asking weird questions,” she said. “We’ve been telling them to go away and respect the quarantine, but there’s about a dozen of them hanging around about halfway to the compound, and I can’t get Vanessa to answer her phone.”

“What kind of weird questions?” I asked, feeling a growl from my chest that I didn’t intend to put in it.

“They’re asking about the vaccine,” she said. “I- I think there’s been rumours about us going around. We always knew people would be talking, but I never thought it would be more than awkward. This is creepy, though.”

“Fuck, OK,” I said. “I’ll be there ASAP.”

“Harri, if they are thinking about us, they’ll be thinking about Vanessa.”

“I’ll find her,” I said.

I almost just drove off, but I couldn’t leave the entryway open. I looked around but I didn’t have a single sign or barricade to work with. All the pylons and stuff that had been up during the widening of the highway and driveway entrance had been carted off somewhere else.

“Fuck it,” I said, a little disgusted at what I was about to do, but it would definitely deter people from entering at the very least. I took off my jacket and wrapped my hands in it, then went over to Patrick and grabbed him by the feet and dragged him out into the middle of the driveway. I dumped my jacket with him and looked into the hut again for his clipboard so I could write a note or something, but it was covered in splatters of blood so I didn’t touch it.

And I left him there. The only warning I could come up with.

If I thought I’d ridden the ATV hard and fast going down the driveway I’d been kidding myself. I didn’t let up on the throttle once going back up, the rip-roar of the engine crackling hard from the strain. Instead of crossing around the wide way to the compound, however, I headed right into the thick of the temporary buildings where something like a thousand men were currently milling about.

“Move!” I roared over the thrum of the ATV engine. Some people moved because of the vehicle. Other people moved when they heard my voice, or looked over and saw the expression of my angry eyes over my mask. As I got deeper into the crowd I had to slow down as I stood as high as I could while still moving and tried to spot Vanessa.

One group only moved out of my way when I put my hand on my pistol.

I finally spotted Vanessa, along with her father and another white hat, in the side vestibule of one of the barracks buildings. They all looked over in confusion as I pulled right up next to the door and hopped off without even turning off the engine. I threw open the outer door and stepped in, heading right for Vanessa.

“Harri, you’re supposed to be down at the gate,” she said through her mask, concern and surprise in her eyes.

“We need to go,” I said, taking her by the arm.

Fortunately almost any other time except right in the middle of this specific emergency, Vanessa was strong-willed, dutiful and didn’t take any shit.

“Harri, what the fuck?” she said, tugging her arm away. “I’m working here. We need to try and keep people calm and you’re acting like an asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But there’s too many of them and not enough of you. There are guys poking around the compound and asking questions about the vaccine, and they’re getting closer. We need to get back there and lockdown.”

“You sonofabitch,” Brent said, shouldering around the other foreman in the little room. “You let go of my daughter or I’ll stick my foot so far up your ass that—”

“Shut the fuck up, Brent,” I growled, levelling my finger at him with a glare. “Just shut the fuck up and listen to me. You’ve got a thousand guys around here who are worried that they’ve got the sickness, and they’ve been talking. And talking. And you know what they’re talking about? Not wanting to be sick. Do you know what one of the usual topics of conversation is? Me and my friends and family, including Vanessa. The rumours about how we’re in the experimental vaccine group? That includes her. And practically everyone knows how- how sexually active we are, and how that might be connected. So what do you think a bunch of scared, angry guys who have been quarantined for months are going to start thinking of doing when the only answer they have on their minds is that there are women, right over there, who could fuck the sickness away no matter how fucking stupid that sounds?”

Brent had gone ashen-faced.

“Come on,” I said, pulling Vanessa with me. She didn’t hesitate or try and pull away. Brent didn’t say anything.

I got Vanessa on the ATV and sat behind her, protecting her with my body as best I could, and then I revved the engine and people backed away, and then I was driving. I revved the engine again to make people move. Someone didn’t move fast enough and got bumped and I didn’t care.

We broke out of the crowd and I gunned it, heading for home. I could see the guys gathering, about twenty of them now, a stone’s throw from the compound. I went straight at them and several had to jump out of the way because they thought I was playing chicken.

I wasn’t.

“Miriam texted,” Erica called to me. “She said ‘ERT on route.’”

“That means they’ll be at least an hour and a half,” I said. I didn’t look down at her, keeping my eyes on the assholes out in the field.

There were about thirty of them now, but a couple smaller groups were further back and watching what would happen. A few of them had tried to follow me to the compound until I’d ordered them back and pulled my M9. I’d escorted Vanessa inside, then driven the ATV right into the entryway between the RV and the storage container and plugged it. Someone could climb over it, but they’d be slowed down. I got the other ATV and did the same thing at another one of the corners before going inside. I would have used the cars as well but that would mean people could use them to climb onto the roofs of the containers and RVs.

Kyla had been watching me from the roof of a storage container as I did this, sitting low to try not to draw attention but clearly holding my DDM4. Erica, Ivy and Dani had all wanted to hug me when I got back, but I warned them off. “Vanessa, you were close to me so you need to quarantine. I had to move a dead body, so I might be contaminated. None of you should come near me.”

Erica looked like she was about to approach me anyways, so I held up a finger and glared at her. “I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worrying about you,” I told her.

She looked like she wanted to bite back something, but swallowed and nodded. “OK.”

I’d ended up trading places with Kyla, and she left the rifle up there for me to use.

“Are you feeling OK up there?” Erica asked.

“I’m heated, and could use a granola bar or something,” I said. “But I’m not feeling any sickness. How’s Vanessa?”

“She says she’s fine,” Erica said. “She’s in our RV.”

“OK,” I said.

A granola bar hit me in the head, making me look down at her as she smirked up at me. “Don’t ignore me and you could catch your snacks,” she said.

My facade cracked as I snorted and bent to grab the granola bar. “Thanks, babe.”

“Love you,” she said.

“Love—” I cut off as a group of five guys split off from the group and started walking towards the compound. I dropped the granola bar I hadn’t even had a chance to unwrap and held my rifle at the ready. “Stop,” I yelled at them.

“It’s OK,” they yelled back. “We just want to talk.” They kept walking.

“I said stop!” I said, raising the rifle to point towards them. That made them stop.

“Look, we just want to know if it’s true,” one of them yelled.

“What?” I asked.

“We want to know if it’s true,” one of the others shouted louder.

“No, is what true?”

They seemed to confer with each other for a second. “Is it true you guys are vaccinated?”

“We’re locked down, just like you,” I yelled.

“That didn’t answer the question,” said the first guy.

Fuck, there had to be a semi-smart one.

“Fuck off,” I called back.

“That’s not a no,” he yelled. “Why are you so aggressive, man? Is it because you have something we might need?”

“There’s a thousand guys out there, and I’ve got women who you all have been staring at for weeks in here. I don’t give a fuck what you think is going on, I’m not letting you creeps near them,” I said.

They backed off, but I could clearly see their agitation. I hadn’t convinced them of shit.

“Please,” moaned the lone figure. “Please, I just need help.”

He was staggering across the field and I’d watched him come on from almost the start. I could because the crowd parted around him like a school of fish around a whale. As he got closer I could tell why.

The guy must have snuck out of the barracks somehow. Based on what Vanessa could tell us, they’d tried to quarantine anyone who was sick inside the barracks. As he got closer I saw that his sleeve was covered in blood and he was stopping to cough and hack.

By the time he was within speaking distance he was leaking blood from his nose and bloody spittle was covering his chin.

“Stay the fuck back, buddy,” I said, pointing my rifle at him.

“You need to help me!” he cried.

“I don’t have any way to help you,” I said. “There’s an emergency response team on its way, you just need to rest and try and keep calm until they’re here.”

“Fuck -cough cough- Fuck you! We all know that you freaks are juiced up with some vaccine, and everyone knows it’s got to do with you having sex with them. Just- Just, please, someone come out and fuck me! I need it to live!”

Any other situation and that might have been comical.

“That’s not how it works,” I growled. “Now back the fuck off and go back into your quarantine, or at least go sit by yourself outside. You’re putting everyone in danger.”

“Everyone but you and them!” he screamed. “You’re killing me!”

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said, flicking off the safety on my rifle as he took another staggered step towards the compound.

He hesitated, and went down to one knee and started hacking up blood on the ground. Then he looked up at me with a pitiful expression of hate, and he turned and crawled his way to his feet, staggering away.

Sixty or so other men were watching from around the field now, their presence a looming menace.

I watched as Brent Peters, in one of the official trucks, tried to disperse the crowd. He shouted, he threatened and he cajoled. I was pretty sure a couple of Vanessa’s ‘gorilla’ crew who had been around the site since the beginning were with him.

To be fair, he split off about fifty of the workers and drove them back towards the barracks and offices.

That only left another fifty ignoring him and slowly circling like a pack of wolves.

I fingered the safety of my rifle again and flipped it off and kept it that way.

“Stay the fuck back,” I shouted. “One more fucking step and I will end you.”

“You can’t do that!” shouted one of them. “They have the vaccine. You can’t just keep them to yourself!”

I leaned forward slightly, pushing the muzzle of my rifle just that little bit closer to the construction worker. My finger was on the trigger.

“One. Fucking. Step,” I growled as loudly as I could. “And I will murder every last one of you.”

Someone in the back of the crowd of twenty burly, rough-looking men threw a wrench at me. He missed wide by a good two yards. I fired a shot into the ground a foot from the front line of men, the boom echoing across the open space of the construction site. It turned more heads down at the offices and barracks buildings, and I could only hope it would warn people away instead of bringing them over.

“How about we clarify,” I yelled. “Back the fuck off, and the next person who throws something gets a bullet between their fucking eyes.”

Leo was up on the other storage container with one of the hunting rifles, looking nervous but following my lead. Down in the compound Dani, Kyla and Erica were each in the centre of the little barricade they had fashioned in the last hour, armed with the rest of the firearms from the safe. I was proud to see them there, keeping calm, but prayed to God they wouldn’t need to shoot. Ivy, India and Aria had used one of the back entrances to the compound to slip inside the storage containers for shelter just in case the shooting did start since the metal walls were thicker than the RVs. Vanessa didn’t want to leave quarantine and risk the others, so she stayed where she was.

“You can’t shoot all of us,” one of the construction workers yelled.

“I’ve got a full auto enabled rifle, three mags of ammo, and a sidearm, motherfucker,” I shouted back. “I may not get all of you, but how much do each of you want to bet you’re one of the few I miss?”

I didn’t see where it started, but I definitely saw it coming. Someone had decided to try me by getting smart, and now a big CAT backhoe was rumbling across the field toward the compound.

Honestly, I couldn’t be sure what his plan was. Crash into the RVs or storage container? Swipe me off with the shovel held up really high? Just battering ram through?

Whatever it was, whoever it was, the crowd of men in the field cheered when they saw it coming. Part of me wished it was Brent out in the machine and he was planning on squashing the sons of bitches, but no such luck. It didn’t veer off course.

I couldn’t yell any warnings to the driver, the heavy machinery was too loud.

Dropping to one knee, I sighted down my rifle, and at about 60 yards I put a bullet through the front glass of the cab.

I don’t know if the guy thought the cab was bulletproof or what, but I could see I’d put a hole in the glass. Couldn’t tell where or if I hit the guy because of the tint and the glare from the afternoon sun, but I hesitated on pulling the trigger a second time and was rewarded by the big machine slamming to a halt and the cab door bursting open as a guy fell out.

Someone else rushed for the cab, mounting the side of the backhoe, trying to be a hero to his people.

I aimed a little low and took another shot, and his legs went out from under him. He bounced off the wheel and rolled to the ground. A couple of other guys rushed forward and grabbed him, pulling him around the backhoe for cover. The cab door hung open, the engine of the big machine thrumming loudly, but no one else went for it for now even though the cheering of the crowd of animals had turned to boos.

They made a rush for the backhoe. A group of them started to move closer to the compound in anticipation. What they didn’t know was that I could see something they couldn’t.

I could see the helicopter.

It buzzed over, low to the ground, the wind whipping around dust and dirt as men hit the ground in fear at the sudden sound of propellers just above their heads. I lowered my rifle and covered my eyes with one hand from the blasting grit as a loudspeaker crackled to life.

“By order of the United States Air Force, hit the dirt and stay there!”

It wasn’t exactly professional wording for dispersing a crowd, but then the tone of Miriam’s voice did a lot of work.

The Pave Hawk circled, its door gunners deployed and scanning the field, and it lowered down next to the compound and a fireteam of airmen in gasmasks disembarked and moved out onto the field with rifles raised, shouting for the men to stay down. At the same time, military trucks began circling around the barracks buildings, their heavy frames and engines rumbling in counterpoint to the whining engine of the helicopter as it powered down.

Miriam stepped out in full combat fatigues and shielded her eyes as she looked up at me.

“I feel like I should make an Alamo joke right about now,” she said.

“I was thinking more ‘look to the west in three days at dawn,’” I countered.

“Dude, that is such a misquote,” Leo said from the other container. “‘Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east.’”

“Erica, your brother is a fuckin’ nerd,” I called down into the compound, and then I turned back to Miriam. “So, got time for that beer now, or do you think you’re a little busy?”