So, good news, I’m making good progress with Haven 3! As of right now, I’d say it’s a little under halfway done, and despite being sick and, at times, overwhelmed, I’ve manage to hit my word count every single day since the beginning! So I’m on track to release this month.
For now, here’s the first chapter.
If you want to read both Chapter One & Two, you can do so over on my Patreon if you’re a 1$/month Patron.
David walked into the abandoned campgrounds that were now his home, passing slowly through the main gate.
He took a deep breath, held the chilled air in his lungs, and let it out slowly in a puff of haze.
He felt good. Despite everything, despite the cold and the somewhat precarious situation they found themselves in and the potential threat of attack day and night...he felt good. Elated, actually. He continued his slow walk in between the initial few structures, which still remained abandoned. Two weeks. It had been two weeks since that day that the thieves had made their assault on his home, and had successfully been repelled.
For the time being at least.
He felt like that moment had been a good call to arms and it was then he had made up his mind to go after them. Unfortunately, the world had different plans. That night, a bad storm had begun, and it hadn’t let up for three solid days. They’d all pretty much been stuck in their cabins, snowed in, waiting for the worst of it to pass. It let up on the fourth day, but then barely twenty four hours had gone by before another blizzard descended on them. And so it had gone for two whole weeks. Even during the lulls in the storms, when they had the opportunity to leave, all of their time was taken up by tasks necessary to stay alive.
Chopping firewood. Melting snow for water. Hunting game for food. Making crucial repairs to the inhabited buildings to keep the cold out and the warmth in. Even when he managed to get away from the campgrounds, it was only to hunt the surrounding buildings for supplies. They were having to go farther and farther out at this point. He usually went with either Cait, Ellie, or Ashley. Surprisingly, Ellie had stuck around for most of the two weeks. Although she’d disappeared about four days ago and had yet to return.
He thought she’d gotten cabin fever, or maybe she was just sick of them.
David walked up to the first of the places he intended to visit this morning. He had just finished taking a little stroll around the exterior of the campgrounds, making sure nothing was out there, nothing lurking. Besides a few zombies stumbling around off in the distance, he didn’t see anything. He stepped up to one of the cabins and knocked on the door.
A moment later it opened up and the old man who had initially been living with Ashley and her family answered. David had come to know him as Paul. He, his wife, and the young child they had essentially adopted and were now caring for had taken up residence in one of the cabins. Paul smiled as soon as he saw him.
“David,” he said.
“Hello, Mister Walsh. How are you doing today?” David replied.
“Fine, David. And I believe I asked you to call me Paul, and you agreed to that. I’ve already got enough reminders of how old I am.”
David chuckled. “Sorry, habit of mine. Do you need anything, Paul?”
“Yes, actually. We’re running low on firewood. I went to get some at sunrise, but the bin’s empty. I would’ve chopped some, but you and Evelyn advised us not to go out unless we absolutely had to...not that I’m necessarily complaining. I’ve had enough outdoors and winter to last me for the rest of my life, all six months of it,” he replied, laughing softly. That was another thing he was getting used to: Paul’s dark sense of humor. Hell, not just his but his wife’s and the other older woman who had since moved in.
They were always joking about death.
He supposed it was one way to deal with it.
“I’ll make sure you get some firewood. Anything else?” David asked, pulling out the notebook he’d found and started carrying around for this. Doing morning rounds had become part of his routine at this point.
“No, we’re good otherwise. Thank you for checking in, and, uh, thank you again for taking us all in. It’s very, very appreciated. And if there’s anything either myself or Martha can do to help out, please don’t hesitate to tell us. I admit it’s been nice getting my breath back after all the madness, but before long it’s going to feel strange, not pulling my own weight.”
“You could consider this retirement,” David replied, replacing the notebook after making the notation.
Paul snorted ruefully. “Son, we don’t get to retire anymore. Retirement is a long dirt nap, nowadays.”
“I guess so,” David murmured. “When I think of something, I’ll let you know, I promise.” Because he could understand that. It’d feel weird, living with other people and not doing anything in return. In a world where it felt like everyone always needed to pitch in, where it seemed like there was often more work than workers, the need to get shit done was powerful. Especially if you felt like you were sitting on your ass at the expense of other people. But for now the place was running pretty smoothly. Although he did intend to get more organized, and soon, he just...kept getting distracted. Living in close proximity to five women who were all highly sexual and highly interested in you tended to be very...exhausting.
On top of dating Evelyn, April, and Cait, Ellie usually jumped him once a day or so, and Ashley had revealed herself to be downright amorous. She was one horny fucking woman, and she seemed to have taken a particular liking to him. And to Ellie. And interestingly, it seemed like Ellie was returning that interest. More than once they’d gone off on their own. And he’d had to hear about it from her parents more than once.
David stepped up to the next cabin and knocked. This time, Jim Carlson, the man who he had helped at the abandoned gas station a few weeks ago, answered.
“Hello, David,” he said.
“Hello, Jim,” David replied, remembering that Jim had told him something similar about what to call him. “How’s everything going this morning?”
“Good, for the most part. We need more food, though.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I thought I’d been doing a decent job taking care of it, but two kids, one of them being a damned teenager...they can eat.”
“Yeah I remember what it was like,” David murmured.
“Amanda’s on guard duty now and I intended to go hunting.”
David considered his words. It was interesting. It wasn’t exactly a question, but it wasn’t exactly a statement, either. At this point, he and Evelyn and now Cait, too, were sort of seen as leaders of the community. People weren’t coming to them for everything, but...they asked a lot questions. They all clearly wanted to be part of a community, and all that went with that.
“I haven’t seen anything around but some zombies in the distance,” David replied finally. “I guess, let Amanda know when you leave and where you’re going, and it’d be great if you didn’t go too far. We haven’t seen those assholes for two weeks, but...they know where we are.”
“Yeah,” Jim muttered. “I hear you.”
“All right. Good luck on hunting. I’ll make sure to bring some food over today.”
“Thanks.”
David glanced at the main building as he began crossing to the next cabin to check on their only new arrivals since they’d invited Ashley’s group and Jim’s group to live with them. He was starving, and on the way out, he’d smelled bacon frying up in the kitchen. He figured either Evelyn was making breakfast. He wanted to eat. But no breakfast yet. He walked over to the next cabin and knocked on the door.
Ann was a pretty hardcore older woman. Although she was, he guessed, in her sixties, she had not only been taking care of three kids by herself since the village fell, but managed to make it to them during a blizzard about a week ago. The place they had been staying at had been attacked by a small horde of zombies and the resulting battle, which she had been winning, had caused a fire, forcing them to abandoned the property.
She already knew about their little setup here, and so she’d led the children off through the snowstorm, and had actually made it there. She was still pretty fit and capable, and had proven it since showing up. Although she spent a lot of her time tending to the three children she’d basically adopted, she also had no problem pulling guard duty, helping when the occasional zombie or other mutated monster showed up, chopping firewood, or making repairs around the place. She was definitely extremely helpful.
She answered her door promptly and looked a little worried. “Oh, David, good. I just wanted to let you know that one of the kids is sick. I don’t think it’s anything serious, just a cough and a fever right now, but I’m going to go get some medicine.”
“All right. Let me know if they get any worse.”
“I will,” she said.
“Do you need anything else today?”
“No, we’re fine for other supplies. Thank you.”
She headed off for the main structure, where they kept their stores of supplies: food, clean water, medicine, weapons. He looked at the cabin across from him, the one nearest to the main office on the right side, where Ashley and her family lived. He always felt uncomfortable talking with either of her parents. Although, to his knowledge, they didn’t know he was banging the fuck out of their daughter on a regular basis, he felt they probably suspected heavily. It had to be awkward. He also wasn’t sure how they felt about his current relationship status. Living around inhumans was one thing, dating more than one of them was quite another. Although it might not be very obvious to the casual observer that he and April were dating, given her shyness, it was certainly common knowledge that he and Cait and Evelyn were dating.
They both had no problem kissing him on the mouth frequently and visibly.
Not that he had a problem with it.
Ashley was at least attempting to be discreet, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Either she was embarrassed to be seen with him because it would make her parents uncomfortable, or because it would make her uncomfortable, or because he was so obviously in a relationship with at least two other women, or something else entirely. But she’d been a little more...careless, lately. Especially with Cait. They kissed a lot, too, and not always behind what might be considered closed doors. Not that he minded that, either.
Speaking of which, the front door to Ashley’s family’s cabin opened up as he approached and the woman herself came out.
“Hey you,” she said brightly as they came to stand together.
“Hey, Ash, how are you doing? I was just coming to see if you or your family needs anything,” David replied.
“Aren’t you sweet? No, we’re fine. I just got done checking that myself. I intended to ask Ellie or Cait if they wanted to go out and do some hunting or exploration today,” she said.
“Cait just got off nightwatch,” David replied. They began walking towards the main office.
“Oh, right. Well, just Ellie, then...fuck, she isn’t here, is she? I just remembered. She didn’t show up at any time last night, did she?”
“I...” he hesitated, thinking about it. “I don’t think so. But you know her, she can sneak in and out with a little too much ease.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
As they walked in and headed upstairs into the kitchen and dining area, David laughed softly. A certain blue-furred jag was sitting at the table. He could tell immediately that Ellie was agitated, between the look on her face and the way her tail twitched back and forth. Across the hall, through the open window that looked into it, David spied Ann talking with Evelyn, who was finishing up making breakfast.
“Ellie! I’m so glad you’re here,” Ashley said.
Ellie smiled warmly and it seemed to break through her agitation and unease for a moment. “Hello, Ashley. I missed you, too.”
“I was just going to ask if we could go on another excursion today.”
She opened her mouth to respond, then hesitated and her smile faded. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.” She looked squarely at David. “You and I need to talk. Alone.”
He felt a chill splash his guts. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing immediately dangerous, just...a serious talk we need to have. Have you had breakfast yet?” she asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Okay. We’ll eat, and then we can take a walk.”
“...all right,” David replied. He was tempted to try and get it out of her here and now, but immediately shot that idea down. No way he was getting Ellie to tell him even a single thing before she was good and ready to. Well great, now he had that responsibility dumped in his lap. Hopefully it wasn’t too serious, whatever it was...what could it be? He had the idea that it had something to do with their...relationship? Did they have a relationship? Ellie was strange. She had no problem having sex, but also clearly kept him, and everyone else except for Cait and perhaps now Ashley, at arm’s length. He respected her desires and privacy, but…
It was getting kind of frustrating.
But he had his own problems. Like being in a four-way relationship in a post-apocalyptic landscape while trying to maintain a quartet of families attempting to form a community. Too often, he felt like he simply didn’t have time for everyone. Speaking of which…
“Where’s April?”
“Still in bed,” Evelyn called. “With Cait.”
“Oh. Okay then,” David said. “I’m going to go...check on them.”
“Don’t get distracted,” Ellie said, and her tone indicated that she was serious about getting a move on. He just sighed and nodded. He’d had wake-up sex with Evelyn, but he was still horny. He jogged upstairs and listened closely as he made his way down the hallway, towards April’s bedroom. He didn’t hear anything, although as he drew very close to her door, which was almost closed, he heard quiet conversation.
Things had been going well with April, he thought. She was very kind to him, and clearly liked him a lot, though she still seemed very awkward. Which he understood. He’d taken the time over the past few weeks to build her a bookshelf out of scrap lumber laying around, and thought he’d done a pretty good job putting it together, even managing to sand it down. He’d also managed to find and give her close to a dozen books so far. He had to admit, she had certainly incentivized him to do so, thanking him vigorously in her own way each time he brought one. It always resulted in a wonderfully intense orgasm for both of them.
He knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Cait called sleepily.
He opened the door and stepped in. “Hello, David,” she said, and yawned.
“Hi,” April said, smiling tiredly.
“How are you doing today?” he asked. April had been prone to bouts of weakness and exhaustion over the past few days. She’d explained it was a combination of her anemia and insomnia, and her tendency to get too involved in her projects to remember to eat properly.
“I definitely need more sleep today,” she replied. She giggled. “Especially after what Cait just did to me.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” he replied.
“Me too, but...I’ve still got enough energy to perform again, you know,” Cait said, smirking tiredly at him.
He groaned. “It is...so fucking tempting, it truly is, but Ellie has demanded my presence and warned me not to dawdle.”
“Oh, she’s back?” Cait asked. “I must’ve missed her on my way in.”
“I think she just got here.”
“Well, I know how she gets when she’s in one of her moods. Don’t let us keep you. Come wake me up for a bang when you’re free though. You know I’m always ready for you, handsome,” she said. She looked beyond sexy right now, the blankets almost, but not quite, covering up her large, bare breasts, her face slicked with sweat, her red hair a wild mess as she laid beside an equally nude April, who had a very satisfied look on her face.
“I promise I will,” he replied. “Have a good sleep, my lovers.”
“Be dreaming of you, I’m sure, David,” Cait said.
It was hard, but he left them, closing the door behind him and heading back downstairs. Damn did he want to fuck right now! Cait was an exceptional lover. Not that he didn’t appreciate Evelyn or April. Although if Ellie was pulling him off somewhere, he’d absolutely love to be inside of her. He wouldn’t say it out loud but…
She had the best pussy, so far.
Good fucking God did she have such an amazing vagina. And she could fuck. Oh could that woman fuck so good.
An uncomfortably powerful erection accompanied him by the time he headed into the kitchen. Ann had since left, and now Evelyn was finishing up the meal. He could hear Ellie and Ashley chatting in the dining room.
“Hey, honey. I assume all’s well out there?” Evelyn asked.
“Yeah, although Jim’s family needs more food, and Paul’s almost out of firewood, and we are out of firewood. Jim’s going hunting, too,” he reported.
Evelyn sighed. “I guess it’s for the best. I intend to deal with the firewood problem today. It’s what I’m going to do for the next several hours, in fact. Ellie popped in before sitting at the table. We had a conversation. She’s going to have a similar conversation with you when you go out for a walk with her.”
“What does she want to talk about? I’m nervous,” David asked.
“She asked me not to tell you. It’s...important, I’ll say that. She wants to put it in her own words. Just listen to her, talk with her. She’s smart and she knows what she’s talking about. It involves all of us here. Now, help me carry this food in.”
“All right,” he replied after a few seconds. He really wanted to know more, but he’d just have to wait. Evelyn leaned down and gave him a kiss, and then they began gathering up the food she’d prepared. It was mostly bacon and scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, all of it gotten from the farm. Their deal had worked out nicely so far. He thought about his relationship with Evelyn as they set the table for breakfast.
She was...patient. Which was good, given how busy they both were. He thought it helped that it was her bed that he came to almost every night. They’d finished their project last week, building a custom-made bed frame big enough for her and him, (and one or two others), and then they’d spent a few hours breaking it in. He was glad they hadn’t literally broken it, because they had gone pretty rough. Especially when Cait and Ellie had jumped in at one point. And April. And then Ashley, later on. Such a fuck that had been.
They were getting along well, and mainly she seemed to want to just be around him. It didn’t really matter what they were doing, so long as it was together. Consequently, he found himself happily patrolling outside, chopping firewood, making repairs to the cabins, or taking long walks to check out abandoned buildings in her company. Sometimes they had long, pleasant conversations. Sometimes they walked in lengthy bouts of companionable silence. That sense of intimacy, of connection, had only strengthened over the past few weeks.
He and Evelyn set the table, and the four of them began to dish out food for themselves. Feeling the press of time and knowing that he had a lot of walking ahead of him, David didn’t go too heavy on the food. That, and he was actually pretty eager to get going. It had been several days since his last real excursion beyond the fences that surrounded the campgrounds, and surprisingly, he was itching to go out. Plus, he really wanted to know what was so important that Ellie had to tell him, herself, alone. He wasn’t sure whether to be excited or nervous, though from what Evelyn had said, he didn’t think it was anything to get excited for. Like sex.
They all considered sex important, sure, but probably not in the context she had placed it in. Or maybe he was totally off base and it was something sexual? Maybe she wanted to be in a relationship with him? He was even less sure about that one. It seemed more unlikely. This was the problem with having no fucking information. David just made himself relax, eat, and be patient. He’d find out soon enough.
“So what are you guys actually like doing out there that I can’t come too?” Ashley asked eventually.
“David and I have something important to discuss,” Ellie replied.
“Oh really? Is it serious? Are you two serious now? Boyfriend and girlfriend?” Ashley asked, smirking.
“No,” Ellie replied simply. Well, that answered that. Unless she just didn’t want to admit it to Ashley.
“Yeah, I guess he’s got enough of those, huh?” she asked, still with that smirk.
David sighed. Ashley had a habit of teasing him a lot. He glanced at Evelyn. She winked at him and then turned to Ashley. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of saying you’re interested in taking things to the next level with David?”
“What?” she asked, startled, immediately losing her smirk. “No. That’s not-no. I’m happy with the way things are.”
Both Evie and Ellie laughed.
“Not so fun to be on the other end, huh?” David asked.
She sighed heavily. “Whatever. Just don’t take too long fucking out there in the woods. I want another expedition today.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ellie replied, and finished off her meal. She began to say something else and then her gaze jerked to the side, her eyes widening. “There’s a mouse,” she said.
David looked over and saw a little white mouse scurrying across the floor. “Oh, hey! There you are,” he said, and plucked a piece of bacon off his plate. He tossed it onto the floor in the mouse’s path. The mouse hesitated and put its little nose up in the air. It twitched a few times, then it regarded them cautiously for a few seconds, then it began scurrying over to the bacon.
“You know this mouse?” Ellie asked.
“Yes. This is Frostbite. He lives here,” Evelyn replied.
“He showed up last week. Caught him in the pantry, trying to get into our food. Luckily, we’re adamant about sealing it up, so he didn’t get in, but we feed him now,” David said.
“He’s smart. And brave. He’s learned to come ask for food during mealtimes, usually when I’m preparing. I guess he was outside while I was cooking today,” Evelyn murmured.
“So you’ve got a pet now?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. He lives here and we named him and we feed him. Although he seems pretty independent,” David replied.
“Huh. Well, okay then.”
She sat back and crossed her arms, waiting impatiently for David to finish. So he did, tossing what was left of his meal into his mouth. He kissed Evelyn and then when she complained, went for a kiss with Ashley as well. She grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him into a hard, long kiss on the mouth. Before she fully released him, she looked up at him and said, “We haven’t fucked for two days, David. You’d better fix that soon.”
“Uh...yeah, I can do that,” he replied.
She laughed and released him. “Good.”
Ellie was already on her feet. “We should go.”
“All right, let me get my gear,” David replied, and hurried upstairs.
I hope you enjoyed that!
Again, if you want to read Chapter Two, check out my Patreon!