Resistance
2. Saturday
Robert cleaned up the kitchen table. Meghan had barely touched her lunch, but that was to be expected, he supposed. He could hear her light footsteps upstairs, treading back and forth as she paced around nervously in her bedroom.
Picking up her backup, he sighed deeply as he emptied out all of her school contents—pens and notebooks and study materials. They were the things that were supposed to be in a teenage girl’s backpack, and should have been staying there, instead of the survival kit he was putting in their place—tarp, flashlight, matches, multi-tool, spare batteries. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a small, snub nose revolver, deliberating a few moments before he stuck it back into his pants, hoping it was the right decision. It was just too much to ask of his daughter to carry that too, or to think that she might need to use it.
Why were they doing this? It wasn’t too late to call this off. Logically, Robert knew that he was right—if anyone were to go at all, it should be Meghan. And although he hadn’t said so, Christine was probably right as well—if they didn’t take action, Derek’s life was in serious jeopardy. But the risk…
With another heavy sigh, he shouldered the pack and went up to get Meghan, knocking lightly on her door. She opened it, dressed plainly in jeans and a hoodie, sneakers.
“Time to go.”
She solemnly nodded. Robert noticed her give Derek’s closed bedroom door a quick glance before she seemed to steel herself and follow him out of the house.
The day was sunny and cheerful, seemingly incongruous with their clandestine plan. But Robert and Christine had talked it over and decided it was better to try and smuggle Meghan out in the daytime before curfew, when security patrols would be larger and more frequent, and anyone on the street at all was bound to arouse suspicion.
Robert gave his daughter a sidelong glance as she trotted beside him. “You ready?”
Meghan gave a small shrug that belied her nerves in the attempt at casualness. “I guess so.”
They walked in silence for a few blocks before he spoke again.
“So tell me… What do you know about what’s outside of the Quarantine Zone?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. A bunch of sick people, infected with some virus.”
“That’s right,” Robert said. Should he leave it at that? That was something he and Christine could not agree on.
“Tell me something else, Meghan,” he asked, carefully.
“Yea?”
How should he say this? He was never any good at all this parenting stuff. Might as well just come straight out with it. “Are you sexually active?”
“Dad!”
“I’m not asking as your father. This is information I need to know for the… you know for the uh… mission.”
Robert could see his daughter blushing furiously, and he tried his absolute best to look straight ahead and keep his face utterly non-judgmental.
“Well… I mean, I’m not… But I’ve had sex before.”
“What?!” Robert stopped completely in his tracks. “With who?!”
“Dad!!! I’m not talking about this with you!” Meghan started walking away, stomping slightly.
“You’re right, you’re right, sorry,” Robert said, jogging to catch up.
They continued on in silence for a few minutes.
“It was that Charlie Barrett kid you were hanging around with, wasn’t it,” he blurted out suddenly.
“Dad, seriously!!!”
“Ok, ok, sorry, sorry…”
Despite the shocking and rather upsetting news, Robert was at least somewhat pleased, seeing his daughter fume next to him. At least she wasn’t nervous anymore, at the moment anyway. The scientific part of him pondered what it meant though. Would she be more prepared? Or just more vulnerable?
He didn’t have much time to think on it, as they had arrived at their destination, the crumbling underpass of a long defunct highway. Running straight through it, anchored to the cracked pavement below, was a tall fence, topped with razor wire, humming quietly.
They looked around carefully, the area seemingly deserted.
“Christine!” Robert called softly.
“Shhhh!” His wife stepped from behind a concrete pillar, dressed in the dark navy blue uniform of the foot patrol, a baseball cap on her head with a ponytail pulled through the back, a heavy black utility belt cinched around her waist.
She too looked around before disappearing back around the column again, returning with a thick cable, with bulky clips on the end.
“Let’s move quickly.”
She attached one end to a post, then pulled the other across a section of fencing to the post on the opposite end, clipping the cable to it as well. She reached into her belt and pulled out a small pen sized device, holding it up to the mesh before touching the fence with her bare hand.
“Electricity is diverted. Help me with this, Robert.”
He handed the backpack to Meghan and came over, pulling the bottom of the fence up as high as he could. Christine was giving their daughter a quick hug and a kiss. “Be safe, honey, and come right back to this spot.”
Meghan gave her mother another quick squeeze, then clambered underneath to the other side. Robert let go of the fence, checking to ensure that there were no obvious traces that anyone had tampered with it.
He spoke to his daughter through the mesh as Christine unclipped the cable, the fence beginning to audibly hum again.
“Remember what I told you. Just find what we need and come straight back. Don’t talk to anyone and for God’s sake don’t touch anyone or let anyone touch you. Odds are you won’t see anybody around anyway.”
Their daughter gave them a brief nod and turned away from the fence, walking into the unknown.
It was strange, Meghan thought, following the crumbling road. Leaving the QZ was supposed to be the craziest thing in the world, and yet it seemed pretty much the same on this side of the fence as the other. This side seemed to have slightly more overgrowth of weeds poking through the cracks in the concrete, but otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot to distinguish between the two.
The sun was still out and it was a pleasant day, all in all. She felt her nerves settling a little bit as she continued on past some houses, again, just the same as the ones inside Quarantine, but more unkempt, paint peeling and windows boarded, clearly abandoned.
Thirty minutes later though, Meghan realized one difference—how much larger it was out here. In some spots, Meghan could walk the length of the QZ in 40 minutes or so; walk the entire perimeter in maybe a day or two. But here, there were no fences, just blocks and blocks of concrete, buildings and houses.
It took just over an hour to find one of the buildings her father had told her to search for. Large letters had fallen off the face of the brick front, cryptically spelling ‘S C’, but next to it was a circle emblazoned with a capital ‘R’, with an ‘X’ formed out of an additional strike across the lower leg of the letter. They would have medicine for Derek inside.
The front doors, though made of glass, were locked shut. Meghan went around the side, testing doors as she went, finally circling around back of the large building, where there was a loading dock, the large garage door raised, providing wide open access.
Pausing to pull out the flashlight provided by her father, Meghan nervously looked around in the cavernous gloom before entering, navigating through the murky warehouse area of the building, before coming upon a set of swinging double doors, which led to the store proper. Meghan was amazed.
Here, there were rows and rows of everything she could think of. Nothing she had never seen before, but there was just so much of it, all in one place. Soap, shampoo, makeup, candy, toys, food, tools, all sitting in dust covered packaging. It boggled the mind to see an entire aisle full of nothing but soda pop, which Meghan had never seen more than a can of at a time, and then only on special occasions.
Tempted though she was to take some items from the shelves, Meghan heeded her father’s words; she needed to find what she came for and get back home.
She found what she looking for in the back corner of the store, where her father had conjectured it would probably be. Her flashlight beam passed over the word ‘PHARMACY’, written on the white wall in tall letters.
Clambering over the counter, Meghan then pulled a sheet of paper from her pack, searching through shelf after shelf, until she found bottles marked with the peculiar scientific sounding names she had never heard of, that matched the ones on her list, written in her father’s neat, precise handwriting. She stuffed the bottles in her bag, hastily zipping it shut and traced her steps, emerging from the silent store back out into the sunlight.
Feeling elated to have the medicine in tow and somewhat relieved to be back out into the open, Meghan was taken totally off guard by someone who approached from behind as she made her way out of the alley. Hearing a clicking sound coming just from behind her, Meghan practically jumped out of her skin as she turned her head, just as the person spoke out:
“Hey!”
Although her first instinct was to run, the feeling gave way immediately to astonishment. Meghan turned to see a woman who could not be anything other than a prostitute. The woman was wearing ridiculously high stiletto heels, completely inappropriate for daytime wear, Meghan thought, which was a rather ludicrous thought, given that the rest of her attire was even less respectable. Her bright red mini dress had a series of slits going up each side, showing even more skin than was already on display, the hemline barely covering her full, shapely bottom, and the cheap material clinging to what was clearly a very fit body. The woman’s enormous bust, obviously without a bra, was practically spilling out of the scant outfit.
“Hi, sweetie,” the woman said, approaching with a bright smile, showing perfect, gleaming white teeth through a pair of lush lips. “Looking for a little fun?”
Meghan stepped back, edging toward the street, as she eyed the approaching whore, her instant assessment confirmed. She could see now that the woman was actually strikingly, surprisingly gorgeous, a beautiful face framed by long straight, dark hair. She should be a model on a magazine or something, Meghan thought distractedly before pushing the random, useless thought away. She was not supposed to talk to anybody out here, and the woman might be really sick. She sure didn’t look it, though…
“I’m… I’m.. uh, all good… thank you,” Meghan stammered, still backing away.
“Oh come on, sweet young thing,” the woman purred, licking her lips enticingly as she stalked forward with her long, slender legs, heels clicking on the concrete. “You’ll love it, I promise.
“How’s fifty dollars sound..?”
“No, really, I’m fine,” Meghan repeated a little more firmly, gaining some confidence as she moved out into the street.
The street walker’s face broke out into a pout. “Ok, then, Miss Hard-To-Get. A hundred then.”
Meghan blinked.
“Uh… If I just said no to fifty then, why would I..?”
“—What? Two hundred?! You greedy, fucking whore!” The beautiful woman’s face turned into an angry snarl as she reached down between her gigantic breasts, pulling a wad of bills from the cleavage. “Fine, whatever!”
She flung the money at Meghan, the bills scattering to the ground. “Ok?! Can we fuck now?”
Thoroughly shocked and baffled, Meghan’s mouth opened and shut a few times like a fish before she found words. “W-wait... you want to pay... me..?”
The beautiful sexpot’s countenance was growing stormier by the second, her foot tapping in agitation. “If you think I’m going to beg for it, you little slut…”
Meghan was spared a response. Just then, a brief siren blared, as a police car rolled up, to her great relief. The window rolled down, and the officer at the wheel leaned out, anonymous behind his hat and mirrored aviator glasses. “Ma’am, is this woman bothering you?”
Without waiting for a response, both of the front doors of the car swung open, as the officer and his partner got out of the vehicle, Meghan’s eyed widening as they did so.
What is this place, she wondered.
They were dressed as a pair of male and female strippers parodying real police officers. Both of their uniforms were made of black, shiny latex, the man in shorts and sleeveless shirt that prominently displayed his bulging biceps and muscle-slabbed chest. His partner’s attire was equally as brief, practically identical to the woman’s mini-dress in cut, except without the side slits, a plunging neckline revealing a bust also identical to the woman’s, if not larger, her blond hair pulled up in a messy bun underneath her cap, eyes also hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, which contrasted starkly with the bright red lipstick on her full lips.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take it from here,” the officer said, giving Meghan a sideline glance as he walked past her, hefting his belt around his waist, the leather creaking noisily against the latex. He pulled a pair of handcuffs out approaching the woman, as his partner on the other side of the vehicle did the same, pulling out her nightstick.
“Soliciting again, huh?” He grabbed the woman by the arm, turning her around, cuffing her hands behind her back.
“No, Officer, it’s not like that,” the streetwalker denied, twisting uselessly against the cuffs.
“Save it,” snarled his blonde partner, pointing her nightstick at the bills scattered on the ground. “Really no point trying to deny it.”
The woman was shoved roughly over the hood of the car, the male officer behind her. “I just wanted a little fuck, that’s all,” she whined, as the cop held her head down against the hood by the back of her neck, his knee between her legs, spreading them.
Meghan stood rooted to the ground a few feet away, as the cop held the woman pinned, while his female partner walked over and began frisking her in an extremely thorough fashion, seemingly without any self consciousness or consideration, groping her all over, up and down and between her legs, then moving up, feeling up her front. Meghan could see the woman beginning to squirm, presumably trying to get away.
“Stupid slut,” the blonde officer said, bent over the woman, speaking into her ear as her she lay pinned to the hood. “You can’t go solicit on the street. There are laws.” She slid the shiny, black wooden nightstick underneath the woman’s skimpy red dress, between her legs.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” the woman moaned as ten inches of the shaft slipped inside. “I’m sorry… unhhhh… unhhh… I won’t do it anymore…”
The blond officer worked the nightstick in and out, a grim expression on her face. “That’s what you said last time!” she snarled, ramming the stick in to punctuate her words.
“Unnnnnngh!!”
The male officer let go of his hold, adjusting his belt again. “Know what I think,” he asked mildly, before answering himself. “I think she wants to get caught.” He unzipped his pants, pulling out his manhood, which was the largest Meghan had ever seen. She didn’t know they could even get that big.
His partner pulled her nightstick out of the woman, still bent over the car with her hands cuffed behind her, the long rod making a soft, wet sucking sound as it left her folds. The brawny cop grabbed the woman by her tiny waist and casually slid his huge tool inside with presumption and ownership.
“Fuuuuuuuuuck…” the woman groaned.
The blonde officer finally looked back towards Meghan, whom they appeared to have forgotten about. She had watched with numb amazement, and then something like guilt and shame, mingled, strangely enough, with a prurient interest she had never felt before. But then, when had she ever seen anything remotely like this..?
“You can move along,” the blonde cop said, gesturing at her offhandedly with a flick of her nightstick. And Meghan thought she felt what seemed like a small droplet of... something… brush across her eyelash. She jerked her head back, blinking rapidly, and then, finding her wits, complied.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Meghan turned and hastily walked back up the road towards the QZ, turning to look back only once. She could still see that the three of them hadn’t left yet, and the female officer was now sitting on the hood of the car, the streetwalker bent over between her legs as the other cop stood behind…
She didn’t look back again, putting as much distance between them as quickly as possible.
It seemed like no time at all that Meghan could see the underpass in the distance, and she broke out into a quick trot, breathing a little hard. She wasn’t in nearly as good shape as those… people out here apparently were.
As Meghan approached the fence, she saw her father appear from behind the concrete column, having spotted her from some unseen vantage point. He gestured at her hastily, then bent down and lifted the fence again.
“Come on, hurry! You’ve got the medicine?”
“Yes,” Meghan answered as she crawled back in underneath. “Where’s Mom?”
“Shhhh!”
Her father froze, head swiveling around for a few tense moments, before he began undoing the cable from the fencing and Meghan could breathe again. He stopped and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking at her up and down.
“Did you see anybody? Nobody touched you, right?”
Meghan hesitated for a fraction of a section. “…No.” She almost thought to tell him everything that happened right then and there, but nobody actually had touched her, after all.
Her father looked at her closely, brow wrinkled, as though sensing part of what she meant. But then he let go of her shoulders and straightened up.
“Good. Great. Let’s go home.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Either of you.”
Meghan turned to see a group of men, dressed in the same navy blue patrol uniform as her mother, guns drawn and trained on her and her father.