Author's Note:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This story is set between the conclusion of Cost of Survival and the Epilogue. While it isn't required that a person reads Cost of survival first to enjoy this story, reading it beforehand will give greater knowledge of the characters contained in this episode.
Chapter One: Celine
The farm always looked beautiful in the first rays of a morning sun. The picturesque Alabama countryside was a feast for the eyes. Spread out around the small farmstead was a series of verdant green fields separated by low hedgerows and some sturdy timber fences. A low range of hills sweeping across the horizon offered shelter to the valley they surrounded. Even the barn, workshop and storage sheds that were scattered about the large white washed farmhouse had a rustic charm to them, the aged lumber of the structures still solid despite the years of weathering that lay heavily upon them.
Between the beauty of the scenery and the still silence of the early morning, Celine could be forgiven for thinking that she was living in a perfectly idyllic spot. Only it wasn't perfect and it was far from idyllic.
Despite its appearances the farmstead was under siege, the occupants living in a constant state of fear. Fear of being attacked. That kind of stress, day in and day out, leaves a mark on people. Among a tight knit group of friends or comrades, like soldiers in a war, this pressure could bond them to one another. However, the people living in this rural location had been for the most part, thrown together by chance, and the strain on relationships had been intense at times.
Celine was a nurse by profession, a healer by inclination and the unacknowledged leader of the commune by necessity. She had done much over these last few months since she'd arrived to settle, sooth and smooth over the problems facing people.
Caesar saw himself as the head of his family and the leader of the eleven people living together on the farm. Father to Daniel and Tevin, brother to Brutus, he had discovered that the four men all shared a genetic immunity to the plague that had brought the world to the brink of destruction, all semblance of society crumbled and gone.
The Zombie outbreak had swept across the globe, no country or continent remaining free of the disease. Passed from victim to victim through blood or saliva, the innate urge of those infected to bite, gnaw and kill those who were free of the infection had meant that the spread of the disease had been rapid and violent in nature. All four of the men bore the scars of encounters with Zombies on their bodies, ragged scars mottling their black skin.
More than just a leader, Caesar pictured himself as a future patriarch to a world reborn. His vision being the repopulating of the earth through his and his family's offspring. All the children growing up immune to the deadliest virus ever faced by mankind. To this end, Caesar had gathered female survivors to the empty home he had commandeered.
Aside from Celine, there were six other women living on the farm. Darlene was the eldest of the women, mother now to a healthy baby boy who had been born only a few weeks ago. The black woman had undergone a troubled birth, the fact that Celine had seen both mother and child safely through the ordeal had made Darlene one of her closest friends and allies among the women.
Candace was shorter and heavier than Darlene, sharing none of the other black woman's kind nature, she was instead a troubled soul who was quick to take offence and even quicker to cause it. The months living with her had been hard on everyone, the young black woman's moods becoming worse as her own pregnancy advanced. Some of her angst rose from the fact that the father of her child was not Daniel whom she had an unrequited love for, but instead his brother Tevin who had bred her daily on his father's orders until she had fallen pregnant.
Linda, Jennifer and Deborah were all young white women ranging from their late teens to mid-twenties in age. Like Darlene, these three women had been quick to realize Celine's worth to the group for both her medical knowledge and her quiet, keen intellect that had so far been up to the task of keeping things on an even keel.
Like Candace the three women were all at different stages of pregnancy, Caesar responsible for at least two of the swollen bellies. Celine had been keeping a close eye on Jennifer and Deborah especially as they were both the furthest along of the group, due any week now and she was concerned for them given how hard Darlene's labor had been.
Lastly there was Anya, a young Polish tourist, who had found herself stranded and alone in America when the world had fallen apart. Dark eyed with raven black hair, the skinny Eastern European had become Celine's new best friend, both of them sharing a streak of independence and resilience to their new lot in life.
They were both practical souls as well for all that, knowing that however distasteful it was to be seen as brood mares by Caesar and his family, it was still better than a living death as a Zombie. They had taken to calling their lack of choice as the 'cost of survival' when they would speak of it. Anya was as pregnant as the others, her pretty face pinched thin from the effort of carrying her child. The father was either Caesar or his brother Brutus, both had plowed the young woman enough those first few weeks on the farm.
Stroking her own distended stomach, Celine sipped carefully at the lip of the metal mug holding her tea. She at least had no confusion over who had bred her. Brutus had claimed her as his own in a private agreement with his brother. Although his nephews and brother had all fucked Celine before Brutus, she knew in her heart of hearts that it was the giant black man who had knocked her up. His style of fucking was direct, primitive even, just a raw power that had given her more orgasms than she could possibly count and now a black baby grew within her white womb as a result of his efforts.
The faint noises coming from within the house behind her alerted Celine to the fact that the other occupants of the house were finally stirring from their sleep. The peaceful solitude she'd been enjoying was at an end again, for this day at least. She finished her tea as quickly as she dared, the liquid still piping hot and liable to burn her tongue if she didn't take care. By the time she had swallowed the last of the tea and made her way back inside to the kitchen, there were already three figures in the room.
Tevin was crouched in front the old-fashioned range that they used for cooking. He had already removed the cold ashes from yesterday's fire and was adroitly laying in fresh kindling to heat things up for breakfast.
Standing at the table wielding a knife with practiced skill was Linda. The tall redhead was carving up steaks of venison in preparation for everyone's morning meal. Her pretty face was screwed up in concentration, freckled nose crinkled as she did so, taking care to cut even portions off of the meat.
Celine was pleased to see this display, glad that it wasn't just herself who was keeping an eye on the rationing. That said, the heavily pregnant Linda didn't have to worry so much when it came to portioning out meat. That was probably the most abundant of all their resources, the game in the locality was plentiful enough, deer, rabbit, squirrel all staples of their diet. As if her mind was being read, Linda raised her gaze from her work to meet Celine's stare.
"We're running low, what with the past few weeks, nobody has been out hunting." Linda explained quickly and Celine colored slightly at having forgotten that obvious fact.
Almost a month ago Brutus had returned early from one of his scavenging trips, he had sighted a mob of zombies making their way towards where the farm lay.
'Mob' had turned out to be a serious understatement. Over the next week, in pairs and small groups of five to six, the vanguard of the mob had meandered through the land surrounding the house. At first, the four men had culled the approaching undead, attacking them in coordinated silence, weapons rising and falling with the same lack of passion as if they had been chopping wood rather than dealing heavy blows to the heads of the shambling, moaning zombies.
Then the numbers had increased, groups of twenty, thirty strong forcing Caesar and his family to abandon their ambushing techniques, retiring to the safety of the farm instead.
Eyes wide with fear, men and women both had peered through the darkened windows of the house as hundreds of Zombies had migrated across their small valley. For two weeks the human survivors had been forced to remain hidden, quiet. Food was eaten cold; conversation was sparse and conducted in whispers only. The occasional thump on the walls of the house as an animated corpse blundered into the outside walls had every sphincter in the room tightening in apprehension. Even going to the toilet had to be completed in silence as there always seemed to be a zombie close to the house. Unable to leave the house to use the latrine pit dug for their waste, the smell of excrement, unwashed bodies and fear that permeated each and every room in the house was one that none of them was likely to ever forget.
Darlene's baby boy had never received as much attention as he had during that time. Constantly watched, played with, fed and entertained. Every adult had taken their turn to stop the infant from crying, it's shrill wails sure to bring the zombie horde down on their position. Thankfully Caesar junior had been stoic and relatively quiet the entire time.
"Yeah, good thinking. I'll tell Caesar today, see what he decides," Celine replied to Linda as she dragged her thoughts back to the present.
At her words there was a snort of derision from the third figure in the room. It was no surprise to Celine that Candace was sitting at the table, not helping either Linda or Tevin. The only surprise was that the young black woman had risen this early at all.
"Something on your mind?" Celine spoke quietly to Candace but she caught sight of Tevin from the corner of her eye, his hand hoovering over some firewood as he strained to hear what Candace would say.
