The Murdered World 43

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Frank looked up. Footsteps were tapping along the concrete, echoing down the corridor, giving him a blessed break from the repetition of typing in a would-be code and being audibly, very audibly, rejected.

He saw Emma coming and stood to greet her, taking the opportunity to stretch the kinks out of his body. Twist his neck until it cracked in both directions.

“Emma,” he said, slipping into the formalistic military bearing he used when addressing civilians.

“Hey Frank,” Emma shot back, putting some snap on his name. Angry at him. Frank wondered what for. Then he wondered at how domestic things had gotten in a very tiny span of time. “Are you doing the fucking beeping?”

“The vault’s doing it.” To demonstrate, Frank punched in the next number.

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Emma jumped a little at the noise. “Well… why?” She headed off his blunt answer. “You’re trying to get inside. To get a gun? Why do you need a gun?”

Frank shrugged. “Don’t know yet. But if I need a gun, I’d like to have one.”

“Everyone’s nuked, Frank. They’re radioactive. They’re glowing green.”

“Not everyone.”

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Emma stopped bracing herself for the blare of sound, now that it’d come. “So of the fraction of the population that survived, you think you may need to blow them away?”

“Them. Wild animals. Locked doors…”

Emma held up her hands. “I just realized I’m trying to talk the Punisher out of carrying a gun.”

Frank tapped out the next number, with predictable results.

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“I guess I’ll see what there is to do on the floor furthest from this one,” Emma said snidely.

“Decontamination, atmospheric testing, and overburden waterproof EMP protection,” Frank recalled.

Emma sighed. There was a directness to Frank that was almost refreshing, almost charming. There were three people left in her world and it didn’t take much to be more personable than Christina.

“Y’know, I’m sorry for what we did to you.”

Frank punched in another number.

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Emma got the feeling her apology wasn’t cutting it.

“Leading you on. Drugging you. Putting you in a cage. It wasn’t… it wasn’t real cool. It’d probably be a lot better if we hadn’t done that—even if it didn’t cause you that much trouble or anything.”

“Fucked your kennel up,” Frank quipped, and Emma was surprised to find herself laughing.

“Yeah. I had my heart set on getting a Labradoodle. Now that’s ruined for all of us.”

Frank nodded. “It happened. It was fucked. Now it’s done with. Stop worrying about it.”

“Yeah… you don’t need much philosophy, do you?”

“Only grab onto what you can carry.” Frank typed again. Five little tones, then the big blare.

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“Uh-huh,” Emma said listlessly. “Doesn’t that annoy the hell out of you?”

“I can withstand torture. I’m not afraid of a sound.”

“Yeah, but it’s fucking irritating, right?”

“I’d like to find the guy who thought it up and tear down a building with his skull.”

“Thought so.” Emma reached into her pocket. “Here. iPod.”

Frank looked at the little plastic notch, wrapped in wire, earbuds dangling gently off it. He said nothing.

“I listen to a lot of different music,” Emma continued. “So there should be something on there that you like. And hey, anything’s got to be better than that fucking… if stubbing your toe was a sound!”

“Thanks,” Frank said dubiously.

But he took the iPod.

He turned back to the keypad. “Hunh. Lost count. You remember what number I was on?”

Emma’s eyes became circles. “No, I thought, you didn’t…”

Frank turned back to her. “I was kidding,” he said.

He wasn’t smiling. But there was a smile in his eyes.

***

Christina felt hatefully untouched as she lay in bed that night, if it even counted as night when there’d been no real day… Energy, a fevered anticipation, ran up and down her body, between her legs, but didn’t deepen into pleasure. She felt her bedclothes, the sheets, the mattress, but none of it really hit her.

It was like she was a ghost, only able to feel the echoes of what Frank had done. In the bed. In the shower. Even when they’d kissed, with Emma going down on him, there’d been a passion there that made all the difference.

Christina remembered how close she’d been to orgasm, when he’d licked her, tongued her, tasted her, entered her. She knew her own hands couldn’t manage the arousal she’d felt then, the ecstasy she’d almost had. She’d keep comparing it to what might’ve been. What could happen, if only it would fucking happen.

She’d wanted to masturbate all day, before her talk with Frank and especially after. She’d been fighting the urge, hurting herself with self-denial because she was all out of excuses. It had happened once to manipulate him, once as a tryst… now the dust had settled. It was all real. She couldn’t plead temporary insanity now. Anything she did was her choice, a part of her.

Only it wasn’t. Her body was choosing for her. Forcing Christina to decide between a sleepless night and at least sating herself. Only if she gave in, she didn’t know if she could choose a sleepless night the next time. Hell, she didn’t know if she’d be able to choose simply relieving her urge when it cropped up next. Not when she knew the incredible things Frank could do with her urge—her urge that only grew bigger and bigger and—

“Can you hear any beeping?” Emma asked.

The words jolted Christina, but she was grateful for them. She knew that soon she’d start thinking of touching herself. Then of getting out of bed, sneaking off to somewhere quiet. And as long as she was out of her bed, satisfying herself…

Another hot shower to end the night. Another going to bed with the taste of boiling cum in her mouth.

Christina forced herself to listen to the night air (if it was night) instead of everything ricocheting around inside her. “I can’t hear anything.”

“You think Frank stopped?”

“No. Maybe he took a break.”

“Maybe the speaker broke,” Emma mused.

Christina nodded to herself. It did sound more plausible.

“Maybe he figured out the code,” Emma added.

“Good for him. Emma, I’m trying to sleep,” Christina lied.

“What would he do if he figured out the code?”

“I don’t care.”

“Would he tell us? Or would he keep punching in combinations for a while, then make a point of not doing it anymore?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Then he’d be able to get a gun whenever he wanted. He could even keep one in his bunk. We’d never know.”

“Frank wouldn’t do that,” Christina said automatically, then wondered about how automatic what she’d said had been.

“It’s so cute how you support your boyfriend,” Emma smarmed.

“I didn’t suck his dick,” Christina lied.

“That was your idea! You wanted him caged up! Among other things…”

“You brought it up!”

“I didn’t come up with the plan! I wanted to play a drinking game!”

“Yeah, I’m sure the Punisher loves playing beer pong.”

“He loved ponging your fat ass…”

“It’s not fat, Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing!” Emma insisted. “I’m trying to stay in control of the situation. If Frank has a gun, which he probably does—”

“You’re insane,” Christina muttered.

Emma pressed on, heedless of her sister. “This could be our one chance. We search his room, we find the gun, we take it. Then it doesn’t matter if he has the code. We’ll have the one gun that’s not in the vault.”

“If he has a gun,” Christina reiterated.

“Can we take the chance that he does have one? Just because he’s your boyfriend?”

“You sucked his dick!” Christina reminded her sister, still pretending she hadn’t. Her own hypocrisy settled on her like rancid sweat after a work-out. She swore. “Okay, fine. Say he does have a gun and we want it. How do we get it?”

“Easy. We wait until morning, he goes off to do whatever he feels like—one of us searches the room, the other does look-out.”

“That’s it? That’s the plan?”

“What do you want me to do? Hack the security cameras? Rig his car to blow up? We’re not big on resources down here.”

“Our biggest resource is Frank,” Christina reminded her. “He saved both our lives.”

“He’s only a resource if we can trust him. Do you trust him? Just because he gave you some good dick?”

“Do I trust you just because you’re my sister?”

“Of course!”

Christina sighed: “Of course,” she echoed.