I knock the kickstand down and dismount my bike, approaching the rickety front gate of the unnamed settlement and pounding my fist against the sheet metal. "Yo! Need a place to stay! I can fix pretty much anything in exchange!" I don't usually stop at random settlements, and for good reason. It's asking for trouble trolling around in some places. I recall multiple occasions that I've stumbled upon satanic cultists while trying to find a good place to rest my head. Normally, I'd just tie myself into the canopy of a tree and call it a night, but I have a secondary interest in acquiring information about the mayor's daughter that I can't get from the squirrels. "Sun's going down!"
A husky voice responds from the other side. "Why didn't you stop back in Ann Arbor?"
I sigh with exasperation and bang my forehead against the gate. "There's a crowd of zombies blocking the interstate. I thought I was going to be able to make it to Toledo tonight but I had to reroute and it fucked up my plans. All I need is one night and I'm gone."
"Got guns?" He asks, and I bite my lip. Ness restocked my 9mm ammo for my Glock and added a tricked-out AR-15 to my arsenal, including 150 rounds of.223 to release into the world.
"A couple."
"Toss them over and I'll let you in."
"Not happening. I'll give you one of them. You get the other when I'm inside and the gate is shut behind me." I listen for a moment as the man exchanges some quiet words with another.
"We'll accept that, but fuck around and we turn you into Swiss cheese." He replies, and I nod my head. I toss my Glock over the gate, and wait for a moment while they unlock and swing it open. The bottom of the gate drags against the dirt, forming a quarter-circle design in the ground as it creaks open just enough for me to push my bike through. I keep a good grip on my AR in preparation of a surprise attack.
I scan the surroundings quickly, grateful to find nothing of concern. There's two men near the gate, one of which is holding my Glock, and the other toting a mean sawed-off double-barrel shotty. There's a dozen more men scattered across the settlement grounds, all off which are staring directly at me. I don't sense any hostility, only curiosity, and perhaps a hint of trepidation, though the apparent lack of women strikes me as a notable oddity. The settlement layout consists of a walled-off cul-de-sac with what appears to be a small, elegant wooden statue of some kind erected in the center.
The man holding my Glock points toward the house nearest the front gate. "That's my place. You can stay in the guest room for the night. In exchange, if you could take a look at our windmill, I'd appreciate it. Damn thing's not kicking out power the way it did last year, despite the weather being twice as windy."
I see the mill mounted atop his rooftop, and conclude that he must be in charge of safeguarding the power supply as well as the front gate. "Sounds like a deal." I prepare to follow him, but he holds out his hand. "Your other weapon, sir. I hope you understand we can't allow you to remain in our tiny settlement with a weapon like that when all we have to protect ourselves is this shotgun and kitchen utensils."
I click my tongue repeatedly, considering my options, before finally relinquishing the AR. If things go south, I'll just need to trust my skills like I usually do. I roll my bike beside myself as I follow the man to his home. The rest of the residents begin to disperse to their homes, and the other gatekeep locks the front gate as the sun disappears behind the horizon.
...
I collapse into the bed, ready for some sleep. I'll need to get up early tomorrow if I want to get the windmill serviced and make it to Cincinnati before sundown. The man, who introduced himself as Richter, showed me where he was to store my guns, which I made an effort of thanking him for sharing with me, knowing that he would be able to easily move them during the night. I had tied together a few sheets and attached them to the bed, leaving the end of them draped on a chair next to the open window. If I needed to make a quick departure, then getting to the ground from the second story would be tricky without preparations. I had also wedged a chair underneath the doorknob to slow any intruders. They'd be forced to kick the door down in order to get in.
With the room ready for whatever may come, I rest my pike on the floor next to the bed and close my eyes, hoping for the best but expecting more cultish mischief.
Something slams into the bedroom door with a deafening bang, splinters from the doorframe exploding into the room and skittering across the floor. I jump to my feet and grope groggily for my pike.
"Really?" I yell at the intruders. "You didn't even have the decency to wait five hours? Fucking cunts!" I'm not certain how long it's been, but my internal clock is telling me it's been something between 2 and 3 hours. Hearing a cacophony of booted footsteps in the hallway, I rush at the door and punch the pike directly through the center of it, earning a shriek of pain from an unknown man on the other side. I stab three more times, until the sound of the double barrel shotgun hammer being pulled back dissuades me from attempting further attacks. I dive to the side as the doorknob explodes with a mighty pop of gunpowder.
Scampering to my feet, I dive headfirst out the window, grasping the sheets on my way by. The makeshift rope slows my decent enough for me to toss my pike aside and right myself in midair. I land on my feet and perform a crisp safety roll on the soft grass. I rush to my pike and pull it out of the ground, scanning the surrounding darkness for hostiles. Seeing none, I conclude that most of the fuckery must be taking place upstairs.
I hear muffled shrieks. I squint in the direction of the noise, and see what I had originally considered to be a wooden statue moving. The statue is actually a naked woman tied in an uncomfortable position to some kind of wooden assembly. She's writhing against the restraints and trying to free herself. I sigh with exasperation, amazed that they had been able to hide her from me just by making a couple guys stand in front of her in the dim light of dusk.
I hear trampling footsteps and yelling in the house behind me, and sprint toward the house's front porch. Throwing my pike at the roof, I jump to the porch railing, then to the gutter, swinging myself onto the porch roof just as the men barrel through the front door and spill out onto the yard. In the dim light, I can make out three figures roaming around blindly and exchanging confused words. Two of them run toward the side of the house that I had escaped from, and the third makes his way around the other side, brandishing the shotgun. I crouch in preparation, waiting for the man to properly separate himself. Confident that I have enough time, I launch myself off the roof and land on top of the man, ramming the spear through his back. With his lungs fully destroyed, he can't manage more than a bubbly wheeze, though his finger tugs the trigger of the shotty, letting off another blast of light and noise that blows a hole in the siding next to us.
