The American

Part I

Killer

1

The first man died with a knife through the trachea. An awful way to die, but pretty quiet if you timed it right.

Once the man stopped his flailing, the American lowered the body to the brown grass behind the bushes and slinked on to the next man.

The American couldn't get behind this one, who had his back to a wall, but the man was out of sight of anyone else now that the first lookout was dead.

He didn't trust this crossbow and bolt to penetrate the skull, so he took a risk and aimed for the heart. The American's aim was true, and he dashed up to the lookout as the man looked in shock at the bolt sticking from his chest. A second later, his throat was slit, blood from his neck smoking in the night air. Still no alarm.

The American crouched and moved along the wall to the corner, peeking around and seeing the last lookout on the north side of the camp. The fool was leaning against a tree, giving the American a good angle to approach unseen. This one also died with his airway severed.

Perimeter clear. Next phase.

The American moved through the woods away from the wall the second lookout had been leaning against. He had no idea what it had once belonged to, but it was just a lone wall in a young forest now.

He approached the camp proper, hiding himself in the shadows of the trees and shrubs, his footfalls silent on the near-frozen earth. Beyond the trees was a clearing. In the clearing, bodies. Mostly sleeping men, boys, a few girls, one or two dead, he guessed, given the bodies this group left behind as it moved across the country. A few men were on their feet or sitting on their asses around the central fire, eating, drinking. One was off to the side, fucking.

Shit. Too many were awake. With good vantage and camouflage, he could take them, but not without collateral damage. And he didn't have good vantage. It was two in the morning, or thereabouts. He'd expected only one or two to be up at this point. How long before they realized their lookouts were dead? He couldn't afford to wait long.

Fortunately, he didn't have to.

After about ten minutes, one of the drinkers yelled at the fucker to get out of the kid's ass and relieve Benny. The fucker complained about being interrupted, but did as he was told. It was hard to tell, even when the fucker stood up and put his dick away, uncovering the child he'd been penetrating, but the American thought it was a boy. Whatever gender, the kid didn't move, didn't cover himself, anything. The American hoped he wasn't dead.

The fucker moved off towards one of the first two lookouts. The American followed. He guessed that Benny was the guy who'd been leaning on the wall. The fucker died just as he was rounding the wall, but before he had seen the dead body.

The American quickly stripped Benny's corpse and donned the bloody clothes. The American, with his Korean heritage, looked nothing like the dead man, but hopefully the others wouldn't notice too quickly.

Hopefully they didn't notice his rifle either.

He walked back to the clearing and, after a deep breath, stepped into it.

The drinkers ignored him, so he went to work. One by one, keeping an eye on the men around the fire, he stopped at each sleeping body. The children he left alone. The men got their spines severed just below the skull.

He'd made it about a quarter of the way around the circle when his luck gave out. "Hey Benny!" one of the drinkers called out, his tone clearly conveying concern of some kind.

The American dropped his knife and swung his rifle around from his back and up to his shoulder. The drinkers started to call out in surprise as the American began to fire. Eight quick shots downed the seven men who'd been awake. Four more shots into the largest sleepers kept them down, then the American turned and dashed for the woods.

Once back among the trees he turned back to the clearing and knelt. Five more men had gotten to their feet among the screams of the awakened, staring stupefied at the dead around them. The American dropped them as well. Four head shots, one double-tap. Then he turned his gaze to the perimeter. There were three more lookouts that way.

He was grateful that the children were choosing to cower rather than run. Having to shoot through a crowd of panicked children was the thing he'd feared the most when planning this night. The kids screamed and cried, but they stayed on the ground.

Motion across the clearing drew his aim, and the man fell before he even cleared the trees. Thirty-two dead men, assuming the four sleepers were kills, and nineteen shots. Twelve rounds left. Another face appeared from the south. Ten rounds left. There should be twenty-one men left. He ejected the magazine.

He had the next mag in his hand ready to go before hitting the release, anticipating what would happen. As soon as the release sounded, blankets were thrown off and the rest of the sleepers leapt to their feet and charged at him.

He rammed the new magazine home. Thirty-one shots left for twenty-one men.

2

Twenty-two men. It took him twenty-nine rounds to kill twenty-two men. The American's heart broke knowing what that meant.

He went body to body, making sure that each was dead, while the children wailed and cried around him. When he got to the second pile of blankets he'd shot, underneath it he found two bodies, both naked. One boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sobbed while clutching the corpse of a second boy, probably a little older. Hard to tell. Death, the American knew, made children look younger than they were. Or, had been.

Fifty-five dead. Fifty-four men, one child. He'd failed.

3

There were actually three dead children. Only the one boy had died by the American's own hand, but all three deaths weighed him down. Would these three still be alive if he'd been faster?

Or would more be dead? There had been no cover the night before and it would have come to shooting much sooner. In that case, he might be dead himself, and these children still bound for London. Considering how weak they looked and their thin clothing, he knew many more would have died on that trip.

The first of the other two dead was a girl, about six years old and skeletally thin, who seemed to have died from exposure, or maybe malnutrition. The other was the boy Benny's replacement had been fucking. It looked like he'd been strangled.

The American felt sick, but managed to keep from vomiting. Had he watched the boy die? Had he choked to death while the American waited for his opening? Fuck, he hated this world. He should have just shot himself all those years ago.

Part II

Vagabond

1

Little by little, his world ended.

Honorably discharged. Politely fired. His CO said it was for the American's own good. The man believed it, too. Maybe he was even right. "There are changes coming, sergeant. And not good ones. I managed to get you a pension, and maybe if you don't kick up a fuss on your way out they'll let you keep it after the shit hits the fan.

"Now, go home."

He'd gone, but not home.

"Don't you dare come back here!" Priscilla had told him when he called to give the news. "Get the hell out of the Middle East, but don't come to New York. It's a fucking war zone here."

"That's nothing I'm not used to, Priss. I've been in a war zone for the past—"

"There are people with klan hoods marching in the street, Soldier Boy. Fucking klan hoods, in New fucking York…" She'd cried then.

A little later she said, "go find some place in Europe where it's still a little bit sane. Let me know where you land, and I'll come join you."

2

His mother looked worried during the video call. Behind her, through the window, the American could see smoke wafting across a red sky.

"I don't like that girl, but she's right. You're much safer in Europe. The East Coast is at war and the West Coast is on fire. I'll call my cousin. She lives in England. You can stay with her."

3

Before he boarded the C-130, his mother texted him saying that she still hadn't gotten in touch with her cousin but she'd text him the address by the time he landed.

When he turned his phone back on after landing at the airbase outside of Harrogate, she still hadn't sent it. He hoped she was OK, and sent a text saying as much. Next he texted Priscilla.

"TD UK, headed t Manchester. C U soon?" He hadn't heard from her in a few days, but cell service had been very spotty in the Northeast. Some militia group had started bombing cell towers, claiming they were broadcasting mind control waves. The American tried not to worry about his girlfriend, but mostly failed.

It was late, so he got a ride into the town and found a hotel for the night. "No chance of getting anyone to take you down Leeds way at this time of night," the cabbie had told him when he got in. "There's no police to do nowt down there these days, and the crime… If I take you there, I'll probably never make it home meself." The American assured the man that Harrogate would be fine.

After he checked in, he tried to call his mother, but kept getting that boo dee beep sound and a very polite voice telling him that all circuits were busy. He texted again. Repeat for Priscilla. "I love you, Priss," he'd sent. He never got a reply.

He turned on the TV in his room. The news from the whole world was bleak these days, but one report made him question the wisdom of trying to settle in the UK.

There was another new pandemic getting started. The last super-flu was still raging in South America and Africa, and now some super bug, a bacteria this time, had been released from the melting permafrost in northern Europe. It hitched a ride with some reindeer or something in Norway and had been traveling south and southeast for months. It had been found in Moscow, in Prague, in Amsterdam…

And now in England. Cases reported in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and worst of all for his mother's cousin, Manchester. Maybe he'd wait a few days before setting out and see how things developed.

4

The next morning, the American went down to the Asda and stocked up on canned beans and vegetables, crackers, tinned fish and something called Peperami. It looked like tiny links of pepperoni, so he figured it would keep. He should have gotten bottled water, but he hated those things.

He regretted his stubbornness two weeks later when the hotel's water shut off.

The news was saying that it was likely that this new disease had been in the UK for a while now, spreading quietly, and testing was only now starting to catch up with it. Within 48 hours of checking into his hotel, every city around Harrogate was reporting massive outbreaks. It was probably here too, just not making the national news.

He'd only paid for three nights, but nobody had ever come to his room demanding he check out or pay more. If not for the lack of water, he'd have stayed longer, barricaded in his room and watching the TV for however long it kept working. But thirst drove him outside eventually.

The hallway outside his room seemed dead as he walked to the elevators. Hadn't he heard people walking around just a few days ago? The elevator call button lit up when pressed, but no car ever came, so he took the stairs. There were two old geezers sitting in the lobby. They were yacking away, though the American couldn't understand half of what they were saying. They clammed up when they saw him and just watched him as he moved through.

There was nobody at the front desk or in the offices behind it. It looked like the staff had abandoned the place. Or died, maybe? No wonder nobody ever came to him for payment. The first floor bathrooms still had water, though weakly, so he guessed it was a water pressure issue, or maybe the hotel's pump had failed. He didn't really know how these things worked.

He started looking around for buckets or bottles or something to fill with water and bring up to his room, but changed his mind and instead started looking around behind the front desk under the silent gaze of the two old men.

He found a stack of key cards, and one of them seemed to be a housekeeping card. He tried it on one of the hotel rooms on the first floor, and the door unlocked. He had barely cracked the door open when the stench of death hit him. He slammed the door closed again, moved to a different wing of the hotel, and tried again.

This time he found an empty room, made up and ready for the next guest. The water in the bathroom worked, so he moved in.

5

He hadn't been allowed to bring a gun with him when he flew to England, and he was starting to realize that he needed one.

He'd been living in the hotel for a month now, and needed more food. He'd barely poked his head out of his room since his move downstairs. Just last week entire sections of the town had been on fire. There had been entirely too few sirens given how much of Harrogate seemed to be burning. There was rioting everywhere in the country, according to the news, and he assumed this was more of the same.

He made his way back down to the Asda. There were people around, but everybody seemed to be keeping their distance, which was fine with him. When he got to the supermarket he saw that it had been looted at some point since his last visit. The doors had been smashed and the shelves picked clean. There were no workers or cleanup crew around. There wasn't even any caution tape or boards over the broken windows, so he went in anyway. He started raiding the warehouse section, which the looters seemed to have left alone, when an absolute whack-job just pounced on him from out of nowhere!

The crazed man was slobbering all over the American's neck, and he realized that the fucker was trying to bite him. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have any teeth.

The American managed to throw him off and smashed a glass jar of pickles into the crazy's face. He didn't want to kill the poor bastard so he booked it. The feral human chased him—often looking like he was going to switch to all fours—all the way back to his room. He heard a few screams behind him from people on the streets as the two of them ran across the town.

The American slammed the door shut and heard the wild man slam into it. The beast pounded, kicked and rammed at the door for hours while the American washed himself off and cleaned the few cuts and scrapes the fucker's fingernails had given him. He didn't have any antibacterial ointment, and he hoped that he hadn't just gotten the plague that was sweeping through the country. His old CO, and his older scoutmaster, would have given him an ass-chewing for not getting first aid supplies before now.

The insane man went away some time in the night, and the American quietly retrieved his groceries the next morning, along with a first aid kit.

The day after that, he started looking for a gun.

6

He couldn't believe his luck. What the actual fuck was this doing here. In England.

The police stations had been empty of both police and weapons, and breaking into houses one at a time seemed dangerous and an absolute waste of time, so he'd found a pack, loaded it up with water and dried food, and set out for the country.

He'd expected to find a hand gun somewhere, or maybe a shotgun or hunting rifle in some abandoned country manor; he'd heard that rich people over here liked to shoot foxes and quail and stuff like that. No, quail hunting was American. Partridge? Grouse, maybe?

He did find guns in the country. All three types, and then some.

It was just some cabin on the edge of wide open country. Maybe it was, like, a hunting lodge? Or a ranger station? He had no idea if they had those things over here, and he didn't really care.

The gun safe had been a joke; several smacks with a large chunk of pavement from out front had busted it open, and inside were indeed a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and a revolver. And a compact case that held a disassembled AR-15.

He put it together; it seemed in good shape. It was clean and well oiled. He cleaned it himself, anyway, with the supplies he found in the cabin.

In the end, the semi-auto was the only thing he took with him. The hunting rifle would be fine for…well, hunting, but it was large and conspicuous. Same for the shotgun, and he could only find birdshot for it.

The revolver was very heavy, and he could only find three bullets for it. But the AR-15 was light weight, had three boxes of ammunition and he could store it all in his pack. Not good for emergency defense, but he could keep it out when he needed it and put it away when he wanted to be discreet.

He loaded the weapon, slung it on his back next to his pack, and set off, deciding to see where the road took him.

7

In the years since his world ended, the American plodded up and down the country. He occasionally found welcome in little towns or villages, but eventually somebody always fell sick, and the sick spread quickly. He never stuck around to see if he'd get it.

In the days and weeks and sometimes months between, he wished he'd taken the revolver and its three bullets. They wouldn't do much to keep him safe, but they would be a much easier end than his rifle.

He could make the rifle work though, if he really wanted to. He hadn't quite gotten to that point, yet.

His training helped keep him sane, or at least he thought it did. He kept to a disciplined routine of hygiene and exercise. He kept his weapons in good condition. He'd found a few more over the years. He ran drills in his head, planned operations for any scenario he could imagine, practiced moving silently across the country, sometimes sneaking intentionally through the center of a village at night if he wasn't feeling like company.

It mostly kept his mind off things. Off of what must be happening all over the world. It kept him from wondering about his old platoon. It kept him from wondering about his mother or his girlfriend, and if they'd been dead before he'd even sent those final texts. From what he'd heard on the TV before leaving the hotel, and from villagers who'd stayed informed until the last news station went off the air some time later, as bad as things had been over there when he landed in the UK, they'd quickly gotten worse.

He came across several mercenary bands. They probably preferred to call themselves militias or some shit, but he could tell they were thugs. Poorly armed, fortunately, and they didn't stay in one place very long. Neither did he.

8

He mostly stayed in the north in recent summers. Partly to escape the heat, though having lived in New York City, the heat was never too bad wherever he went. Mostly it was the people. There weren't a lot of people anywhere anymore, but the north was even less dense. More than that, when he did find a village and decided to announce himself, they seemed reliably friendlier. More eager to receive news and more willing to let him share their goods and their work.

Winters got cold up north, though, so he usually headed south to Manchester or Sheffield. Cities were weird places these days, seeming to be emptier than the country, and quieter, but he knew that could be deceiving. He stayed to the outskirts, venturing farther in only when necessary.

It was during one particularly cold autumn—they were getting colder each year, he thought, probably as the gulf stream continued to collapse—that he decided to go farther south than usual. He'd made it to Manchester and found the house he'd occupied last winter as he'd left it.

But it was fucking cold. It wasn't even properly winter yet. NYC never got this cold. Oregon, where he'd grown up definitely never had. Kuwait? Forget it.

It was more than the cold, though. There was a kind of dark energy to the city that hadn't been there in past years. A sort of fearfulness to the few residents he saw. The way they looked at him and hid. He didn't mind being feared, but he didn't like the change; it indicated some trouble in the past year that he'd rather not have to deal with.

The American settled his gear in his house and decided to ask around for any news. Old Man Davies didn't seem to be home. He lived year round in a house a few streets over, and had done all his life, he'd proudly tell you. The American tried the door anyway and found it unlocked.

The house was cold and dead. He didn't see any sign of the old man, and a few pieces of furniture were missing. He'd probably died and neighbors had taken care of the body, helping themselves to any possessions he'd left behind. The American did a standard search for any weapons or ammunition, but found none.

There was a woman, a decade or so younger than Old Man Davies, who lived a few streets further. When he'd met her three years ago, she'd told him, "you can call me Miss Jones," with such vehemence and stink eye that he was sure that had not been her legal name before the end of such things mattering. She was always rude, and seemed ready to chase him with a broom, but that was just her personality, he'd decided. He never did actually see her wield a broom at anybody.

"Yes, Old Davies is dead," she told him when he knocked on her door. "In his sleep, I guess, or else he found some pills. Buried him in the park over there."

The American asked for any news. "No news. Same as ever. You hear about London, though?"

The country wasn't really a country anymore. It was just people living on an island. But some cities had been coming back to life, turning into city states or something. He really hoped humanity didn't have to redo the entirety of the last three or four thousand years of social evolution…

Anyway, it seemed London had put itself back together into a functioning society, but not a very nice one. Apparently they'd been having trouble feeding the city, and so had developed a massive appetite for unwilling workers to work the farms in the surrounding area.

London was so far away that it hardly seemed relevant to him. And this news could have been very old. Years old. It didn't explain the atmosphere, but then she mentioned that reports had been coming in of raiders killing a bunch of people to the north and east.

He'd come from that direction, and he hadn't seen anything, but it was a big island. A lot bigger than it used to be. That finally made sense to him why everyone was so on edge. He certainly didn't want to be around if one of those militias he'd seen in the past decided to roll through.

He thanked Miss Jones for the conversation. She replied with a "you're fine" so insistent that he felt himself itching to salute and shout "yes ma'am!" He restrained himself, nodded to her, and headed back to the house.

He took a few more weeks to stock up on food and feel warm for a bit, then moved on to check out Birmingham. Maybe it would be warmer down there.

9

Unfortunately, it started snowing on the first day of his journey south. It was a blizzard, really, and it slowed him down. It should have only taken him four days, given the good roads and the straight shot; but with trudging through the snow, it ended up taking him more than a full week. He'd lost the road somewhere south of Stafford. He'd hiked a ways off of it to camp under some evergreens. It started snowing again that night, and continued all the next day. His tracks from the night before were gone, and visibility was abysmal. He'd settled for heading vaguely south, figuring he'd pick up the road again when the storm cleared. He ended up way off course, eventually finding the city from the east rather than the north, having skirted around Birmingham on the toll road.

He arrived in the outskirts of the city in the morning. It had been a cold, clear, windy night, so he'd decided to push through rather than try to make camp in the cold and damp. Less chance of never waking up if he kept warm by moving now, and saved sleeping for when he had a roof and four walls around him.

He decided to get a feel for the place before picking out a crash house and worked his way inward through the rows of neat little houses.

It was nearly midday when he heard bellowing. A man's voice, too low and distant to make out the words, but clearly raised in anger.

Then he heard a crack split the cold winter air and he froze. Not a real gun. Air rifle, maybe? He was near a park, he though, so perhaps somebody was out hunting small game. Not with that shouting though.

The American unslung his rifle. After a moment's thought, he dropped into a snowbank and gave a roll, encrusting his clothing with crystal, then ran in a crouch towards the sound.

10

The American found the park, but whatever commotion had happened nearby was over. A large mound of snow towards the center was surrounded by a lot of trampled snow, with several sets of footprints leading to and fro.

Three or four sets lead from the road near where he entered, up to the snow pile. Another set led to the left toward a lane, though he couldn't tell the direction from here, and a third set lead off to the right into the distance.

The American approached the snow mound and examined the tracks. The set leading to the lane seemed to be out and back. Three pairs. Two smaller pairs side by side and one larger crossing them frequently. The set of prints leading the other way all faced the same direction towards the far end of the park.

He decided to head towards the lane. He saw snowy marks on the top of the fence indicating where somebody likely climbed over, and excited voices drifting from one of the houses. The American moved closer to the house and made out a child's frenetic chatter (perhaps two children, given the footprints), interjected here and there by a man's quiet rumblings.

A door closed and the voices muffled further. The American looked over the fence, checked the yard—or garden, he supposed. He was over here now—and windows, then hopped over. The glove on one finger barely caught on a small spike as he vaulted the fence. He saw that many spikes had been placed along the inside edge of the fence, probably to discourage what he'd just done! The American moved towards the door to listen further.

He heard the sounds of many feet climbing stairs, and a little snatch of a soprano voice saying, "…tried to grab us…"

The American returned to the lane, then the park, then the site of what had probably been intended to be a snowman. He looked at the set of tracks leading into the distance. They were scrambled, but by the sizes there were at least three. A man, probably, at least one small child, maybe two, and a set in between that could have been a small woman or an older child.

…tried to grab us... The American set off away from the house with the family, following the strange footprints into the distance.

11

He needed to sleep. He wasn't making good decisions. Somebody had shot a toy gun. The kid could have been talking about anything. And none of it was his fucking problem.

But the American kept on walking, following the footprints in the snow. At one point there was a small depression in the snow, like a kid had started to make a snow angel. After that the smallest footprints turned into drag marks for a bit, like the kid was protesting being taken home. The American almost gave up at that point.

But he kept on anyway. He could use some company and a warm place to sleep. He should have knocked on the door at that family's house and at least inquired about empty houses nearby, but the family ahead would probably do just as well.

The footprints exited the park, but this area seemed entirely deserted and theirs remained the only tracks on the street. They continued a long time, far longer than he would have expected. Through a tree lined alley, cutting across another pristinely white park and a long way past empty houses. Were they just moving through rather than visiting their local park?

At one point they turned onto a major road and the American paused. Across the street was some sort of complex, fenced off with a gate standing behind what once might have been a small park. A large slab of metal jutted up from the lumpy, snow-covered ground. He didn't see anything written on it, but it was caked with a decade of grime and crusted in snow and ice. Perhaps it was some sort of monument.

The footprints went for over three miles before they left the street and the sprawl and started cutting across fields. Visibility wasn't good, as there were rows of trees every 200 feet or so, and the fields were well on their way to reverting to forest.

The snow didn't form a nice blanket over the rough scrub, so the footprints were harder to make out, but the American saw enough sign of their passing to keep on the trail. He was mainly driven by curiosity at this point, but his anxiety was mounting again. It was a long way to trek with children. If they were a family at all, then they definitely weren't local.

…tried to grab us…, he thought again. He needed to solve this mystery.

12

He hadn't consciously been looking for lookouts, but he supposed part of his brain always would. Still, he felt more lucky than smart when he noticed the man with the bow and arrow leaning against a tree.

The American had gone maybe half a mile first through the fields and then dense woods when he stopped to rest and ponder the wisdom of continuing. The man had shifted, making the fabric of his coat rustle, and had drawn the American's attention.

The American sank into the brush and watched the man. The trail he'd been following passed near the lookout, so definitely he'd have noticed the group's passing. The American strained his senses and picked up voices. Multiple men. He smelled a faint whiff of woodsmoke. A camp or community ahead. Judging by the lookout, it was not friendly.

…tried to grab us…

Not friendly. The American sighed.

Probably raiders.

13

There were several other lookouts as well, the American noticed as he scouted around. Beyond the perimeter they were keeping was a large house or building, its windows lit up and its chimneys smoking.

Getting past the lookouts was no trouble for the American. When he did, he could hear the voices more clearly. There were plenty of men, but there were children too. The children didn't sound happy.

He could also hear what sounded like sex, and had a very bad feeling about that. He chanced a look in one of the windows, and his fears were confirmed: a man was raping one of the kids. A boy, maybe thirteen. The American didn't get a good look at him. Didn't want to. Couldn't bear to. But he did see the boy's face and his bored expression as he stood on all fours and was violated from behind.

The American dropped back down below the window. His rage built and warred with his nausea. There had been other kids in there. A lot of kids, all huddled in a corner looking terrified as one of their number was ass raped right in front of them! Oh, he wanted to kill that man. He wanted to kill all of them.

He almost did it. He squeezed the gun hard enough that he heard it creak, and his hands had turned white. All it would take: Pop up, pop a round in the man's forehead…

But would that actually help anything?

Fuck yes, it would! he thought. One less fucking pedo in this fucked up world!

But it wouldn't save that kid. Or those others. Might get them killed. And it would almost certainly get him killed. That didn't bother him much right now, but one dead American and a few dead monsters wouldn't change the world all that much, nor these kids' lives.

The American took a deep breath and let it back out, settling his rage and his stomach, then moved away from the house to find a better place to watch and plan.

14

Rage is not an emotion with staying power. It flashes hot but you can't sustain it long term. Even simple anger fades, though more slowly.

But not hate. Hate grows. The American's hatred grew stronger and stronger as the days and weeks passed. Hatred for the childfucking slavers, mostly, as they beat, starved, and of course raped the children each night. Most of them didn't seem to be interested in the sex. Seems they were just a band of thugs who went around killing people and carrying off their children. They certainly didn't need so many men to control the kids, but the American gathered that they had not started out as one group. There seemed to be several gangs that had joined together for some reason. He kept hearing them arguing about a boat. Were they…carpooling?

No, most weren't interested in raping the kids, but they certainly didn't seem to mind if the others did. Every single fucking night at least three of the men would grab a boy, seemingly at random, and force his way into the kid's asshole. Only one night did one rape a girl. One of the younger ones. Her screams, more than anything else, haunted him as he sat and did nothing.

He wasn't really doing nothing, but that didn't stop him from hating himself too as he listened to the kids get despoiled night after night. Sometimes saw it. And night after night, the men who did it lived on. Day after day they drove the children farther from their home.

The delay was absolutely necessary. He was one man, with one gun. He had plenty of ammunition, but only two magazines. Sixty rounds. Sixty-one if he started with one in the chamber. He wouldn't have time to reload the mags in the middle of a fight.

He needed a good plan of attack, and he needed to take out as many asshole rapists as possible before the shooting started. He needed to know exactly how many men there were, their patterns and routines. How many men were on watch, when did they sleep, all that. And he needed favorable terrain.

With these assholes, if he'd even had a single squad, he'd have taken them out that first night he'd found them. Maybe the second to be safe. But alone… Too risky if he actually cared about succeeding.

The group moved slowly. The slavers weren't feeding the children, at least not much, and they were almost all underdressed for the weather. So the American was able to scout ahead and make a pretty good guess where they'd be the next night.

Tonight they were in an open field, and the American had to stay well back to avoid being seen. Didn't stop the sounds from reaching him, though. Didn't stop his hatred…

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow they'd probably stop in that little wood. He had their numbers. He had their routines. And tomorrow, he'd have the terrain.

Part III

Shepherd

1

"What's your name?" he asked the little girl who was next in line.

After he'd taken care of the dead, including burying the three children, he'd gotten the rest of the kids up, rooting through the men's packs for supplies, and then moved them off to a different clearing.

There wasn't really any smell. That took time, and it was too cold. But even up wind he swore he could smell death wafting from the site of his shame.

The children were clearly terrified of him, and that was fine. They also seemed to realize that he intended to rescue them. But, that was going to be easier said than done.

"Tessa," the girl replied.

The American wrote it down. "And how old are you Tessa?"

The girl seemed to give it some thought. "What's today?"

Now the American pondered. "Middle of January, I think."

"Nine, then, I guess?"

He wrote it down. "Where are you from?"

"Wilmslow."

The American wrote it down hesitantly, then looked at his road atlas. "Uh…"

"It's near Manchester," she said.

Damn! All the way back past Birmingham, and then maybe three times farther. Thankfully, he hadn't really thought through this part when he'd set out on this road. Otherwise he might never have done it. He put a mark south of Manchester on the map.

"Do you know if you still have family there?"

The girl shook her head.

"No, you don't have any, or no you don't know."

"They're dead," she said simply.

"If we find some place for you, maybe in Worcester or Birmingham—"

"It's said 'Wustah,' " she interrupted, pronouncing the first part like 'wuss.'

The American shook his head. Why the fuck did they spell towns this way? "Would you want to stay there, or go back to Manchester?"

She shrugged. He put her down for 'anywhere.'

2

The asshole slavers, god rot their disgusting souls, had been a surprisingly effective murderous group for a bunch of childfuckers who didn't have a single gun between them.

Of the thirty-ish kids who'd stuck around—five or so older boys, upon learning that they were free, had split rather than stick with him—only a few of the boys from Birmingham believed they still had living family. They'd been kidnapped quietly, while the rest had been grabbed after raids. The orphans were from around Coventry and Leicester (apparently pronounced 'Lester') all the way north to practically in Scotland, putting Tessa's Manchester to shame. They all said the slavers had killed everyone. No way in hell could the human race survive at this rate. Not that he was anyone to talk, with all the killing he'd just done.

The image of a naked nine-year-old boy lying dead on the cold, hard ground appeared in his mind. Why had he been naked? What horrors had he suffered earlier that night before… What nightmare did the American's bullet transform into that little boy's final memory?

The orphans didn't seem in any hurry to travel all the way back to where they'd come from, so the American figured he might be able to find homes for most of them in Birmingham.

He split up the Brummie boys (as they called each other) who still had families, putting them in groups with other kids their age, hoping they'd make friends on the long walk north and want to bring those friends home with them.

The American figured it would take them four or five days to reach Birmingham. He doubted the kids would be able to travel very long or very fast. Maybe four hours a day if he was lucky. They had plenty of food for the time being, at least, though carrying it was going to be a problem now that the biggest boys had taken off.

There were a few boys who were around thirteen, most of the kids were around ten, give or take, and a sizable number were eight or younger.

They split up what they could carry, ate what they couldn't in a very solemn feast, and started the march north with very full bellies.

3

Tessa and the rest of the girls left them on the third day. The American didn't like it, but he couldn't stop them.

The first day saw the troop of children on the outskirts of Worcester. He knew that a little community had tried to form there recently, but he saw no sign of it. Perhaps they were just hiding, worried he might want to pawn off little mouths to feed. Which he did want.

They trooped through the center of town the next morning. It seemed entirely deserted. Silent. Dead.

The previous day had worn out the little kids and he didn't get a lot of traveling out of them on day two. They camped in a field south of what looked to the American like an American suburban sprawl nightmare.

He managed to get some solid mileage out of the kids the next day. As much as he wanted to find pockets of civilization that might take a few children off his hands, all the small towns and villages on the way to Birmingham made him nervous. Going east would involve too much cross-country for some of the little legs to keep up, so he decided to cut north to avoid the rest of the decaying sprawl. They ended up passing through a little forest late in the day that many of the kids found spooky, and finally stayed the night at an absolutely tiny village, if it could be called that. Just a few farm houses. But they were occupied.

Around twelve families seemed to occupy the seven houses. Mostly older couples with a few younger families with teenagers. They were friendly enough. Too friendly for the American's taste. It felt…creepy.

It felt even creepier when they offered to take the girls in. "But not the boys," the matriarch of the village had said. "They look like trouble-makers."

The American looked over the ragged group of boys. They looked so beaten down that a whispered curse would send them cowering for the most part, same as the girls.

But Tessa and the others seemed to take to the old-timers, and when he offered to take them on to Birmingham, every one of them declined.

He resolved to come back in a few weeks to check on them. He wasn't sure what good it would do, since he kind of expected to find them all eaten, but he'd do it anyway.

The next morning they redistributed the supplies. They were down the eight girls, and had twenty-four boys left to take the weight. Most of the girls had been eight and younger, so it wasn't much of a burden to spread the food around.

After that was done, they hit the road.

4

There were now seven little ones; twelve boys were between nine and eleven; five were twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.

There were seven Birmingham boys. Five who still had families. Little Sam was six, and the youngest in the pack. He had recovered his spirits the fastest after their liberation and was pumping his little legs in his excitement to get back home sooner. The American desperately hoped the boy got a happy ending. He chatted endlessly to the American—"You look like me!" the curly-haired half-Asian boy had declared—and to the other boys about his home and his family. If the boy's parents lived, and they were willing, Sammy would probably convince a number of the little ones to stay with him.

Ibrahim was nine. He was fairly quiet, but the two Olivers (eleven from Newcastle and eight from Leeds) seemed to be glued to him.

Noah was also nine. He was a bit…fem, which the American had worried would put the other boys off of him. But they seemed to rally around him like a mascot. The American got the impression that Noah had been the subject of a lot of lewd comments from the slavers, who maybe considered him extra valuable. The thought made the man sick, but regardless, the verbal abuse seemed to make the oldest boys in particular extra protective of him. The American didn't know which boys would go with Noah, but probably it would be as many as his family would take.

Roman was twelve. The American didn't like the cocky boy much, but the kid had swagger which seemed to make the middlers look up to him.

And finally, Mohammad was one of the two thirteen-year-olds. He was nearly as tall as the American (who wasn't particularly tall) and had a rich baritenor voice that made the other boys sit up and listen. He was level headed and fair-minded, and a great help in keeping the kids together and pointed the right direction. The American hoped that his family would also be able to take a number of boys in.

The American's plan to get the Birmingham boys well mixed into the full group had worked well. With two exceptions.

5

They left the village along the lane heading north. After a couple miles, the American determined that they needed to start moving east soon or they'd risk skirting around the city instead of passing through it. After another mile of going east they came to a crossroads with a large building. In front stood a sign that read, 'The Bell End Tavern.' Mohammad started snickering, then read it out loud when some of the other boys asked what was funny. Soon all the boys were laughing, leaving the American quite confused. The boys laughed harder when he asked why it was funny, but nobody would tell him. Their blushes lead him to believe that it was some sort of English dirty joke.

The road started to climb after the tavern, and they stopped for a rest and a lunch when they reached the hill's peak several miles later. There was an old campsite nearby that had working outdoor taps, so they were able to drink to their thirst and refill their canteens and bottles.

As they rested, the American started thinking about a fact he'd been avoiding. Getting to Birmingham was only the first step. It was a big city and the boys' families could live anywhere in it. He started interviewing the Brummies and consulting his maps to try and figure out the best route to get them all home.

Mohammad lived in an area called Small Heath, Noah and Roman both lived near the old university, and Ibrahim lived near the city center. Sam, however, didn't know where he lived. He kept trying to describe what it looked like, and what sort of playgrounds were nearby, but couldn't produce any street or place names to help locate his home on the map.

When Sam started to realize he might not get home after all he started to cry. Mohammad comforted the small boy and told the American that he'd keep trying to figure out where he lived. The teen had seen more of the city than any of the other boys, and more than the American himself who'd barely set foot in it before leaving again.

6

After they resumed, the countryside rapidly gave way to denser housing. As they moved deeper into the city's outer neighborhoods, the boys became more and more animated, but the strange dynamic with the two outcasts became more pronounced as well. The five Birmingham non-orphans had always been cold to these two, but it had taken several days for that attitude to spread to the rest of the boys. Or at least for the American to notice. Now, they were becoming downright hostile.

"I hope you don't think you'll be living with us!" Noah said to little Harry at one point, causing the little boy to cringe away and go seek out Jude's hand.

At first, Jude had seemed rather aloof towards everyone but Harry. Now the American realize that the young man simply knew where he stood among these boys. Even Mohammad, who seemed endlessly patient, would walk away if Jude tried to talk to him.

Jude and Harry were both Brummies too. It was Jude the American had seen after following those tracks through the snow to the big house, getting raped while wearing that bored expression.

The boy looked mildly stocky. A big kid, but not a fat kid. The American had thought Jude was thirteen when he first…saw him. But Jude had later said he was twelve. He, like many of the children, had had some old bruises on his face that first night, but they'd already been fading and his face was clear now. Of bruises, at least. He did have one zit above his right eyebrow. He also looked perpetually tired.

Tired of life, thought the American. He's been through some shit. Is that why the other boys don't like him? Kids could be cruel like that, he knew. But he didn't think that was it. He wasn't about to ask, but he'd be shocked if Noah was still a virgin after his time with the slavers. And he knew from his weeks watching the group before he'd acted that… Actually, he didn't want to think about it.

That first day, when he'd interviewed the children, Jude had spoken both for himself and Harry, who'd pulled his hand free of Jude's and run to the far side of the camp when their turn had come. "That's Harry," the young man had said, gesturing at the boy who now slumped crying against a tree. "Him and Mike and me, we're from Birmingham, but we haven't got any family."

"Which one's Mike?" the American had asked, writing down their names. Jude had stayed silent, and when the American looked up he saw the boy had his head turned to the side, eyes screwed shut. Oh.

Harry had been under the blanket with Mike when the American had killed the older boy. At first Harry had almost refused to talk to the man, and tried to stay as far away from him as possible. But as the other boys turned colder, the little boy had taken to walking beside the scary American man, reminding him constantly of what he'd done.

Both Jude and Harry were fine to live anywhere, Jude had told him. It was starting to look, though, like 'anywhere' wasn't going to be anywhere in Birmingham.

7

They were approaching a commercial center. The American saw a big Sainsbury's coming up and thought they might be able to camp in it when one of the boys made a comment about a road sign. Very few of the boys could read, he'd gathered, but Arthur (10, Yorkshire) was one of them.

"Ey, up! Cadbury World! Isn't that the chocolate place?"

Little Sam immediately went berserk. Mohammad and Noah were trying to calm him, but it soon became clear that Cadbury World was a landmark the boy knew. He lived nearby, apparently.

The boys were, of course, all excited to see the chocolate attraction and perhaps get Sammy home so they pushed on, leaving the Sainsbury's behind.

8

From Cadbury World, which was unsurprisingly devoid of chocolate, Sammy recognized a park he sometimes played in. From there, after a few wrong turns, he was able to lead them to his house.

The American hung back at the tearful reunion. He didn't much want to talk to any of these families. He was exhausted, physically and emotionally. He wanted to unload some boys and move on.

But to do that, he would have to talk to them.

After suffering their thanks and their praise, he talked to them about taking a few extra. Sam's little buddies clustered around him looking adorable, which helped a lot.

The American learned that there were three other families, all with kids, living on their street and the next, with lots of empty houses between. The boys camped in a few for the night, while the families met to discuss the possibility of…adopting? Certainly that no longer existed as a legal concept, but he supposed it still applied.

In the end, Sammy's family and one other agreed to take two little boys. The other two agreed to take one each.

It was about as good a result as the American could have hoped for. He wanted to offload the youngest first, but he knew that Harry wasn't likely to be welcome, and Oliver-the-Younger absolutely refused to be parted from Ibrahim. Elijah and Femi, who were both seven, went to live with Sam and his parents. Arthur went to one of the one-boy-families, eight-year-old Reuben from Sheffield went to the other, and the other two-boy-family took a liking, it seemed, to George (13, Leicester). George, in turn, seemed very fond of eight-year-old Mason who'd come from around the same area, so he went too.

The chosen boys left their packs and rations, said goodnight to the rest of the boys and went off to spend their first night with their new families, getting to know their new siblings and parents. It seemed so…sudden, and perfunctory. But the American supposed that, in a world without bureaucracy, this is how it went. 'Kid, you wanna live here? Great, move on in.'

Most of the boys were bedded down, but Jude was sitting on the steps out front. The American went to join him, to take advantage of a moment of privacy.

"Why don't the other boys like you?" No point in easing into it.

Jude didn't acknowledge the question, or the man at all, for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Because I helped catch 'em."

That… That had not been what the American expected! "Um…I'm not sure that…"

"That bloke, the boycatcher, he called himself: he used me and Mike and Harry to catch other boys. He'd send us out looking for a kid. If we found one, we'd play with him for a bit, then invite him back to camp for some hot food. Once he was there…"

Jude said all this with a surprising lack of emotion. The American was flabbergasted, staring at the boy with his mouth hanging open. "Wh…why?"

Jude turned to face him. His eyes were wet with tears, the man realized, but his face was full of scorn. "Because if we didn't, he'd smack us about." The boy turned away, hunched in the cold, breezy air. He whispered. "Because, if we didn't…he'd fuck us."

The American's face burned with anger. But also with shame. Why did he fucking think, right? What else would a piece of shit called a boycatcher do? He really didn't want to know, but… "And if you did? If you brought a boy back?"

"Then he'd fuck him instead."

Not only Noah, then, but also Mohammad and Roman and Ibrahim.

And Sammy.

The American stood, and went inside.

9

This was a serious problem. An absolute disaster.

After leaving the four newly extended families, the American decided to take the crew to the university. Two boys who lived near each other with highly educated parents—both sets had been professors before the world ended—seemed a great option for offloading a number of his charges.

But when they got there, Noah's and Roman's families were gone. So were the few neighbors they remembered. The boys were absolutely inconsolable. The American was actually shocked seeing Roman acting, well, like a scared twelve-year-old boy. He'd been so full of piss and vinegar that the American had actually come to believe that the kid was as tough as he acted. He felt ashamed now to realize that, of course, the child was just a child. And now, a heartbroken one.

The houses were empty of their things. It was clear that they had thought their children gone forever and had moved on.

With two boys red-faced and tear-stained, and the rest of the assembly feeling solemn, they moved northeast towards the city center. Ibrahim had said that the area was actually pretty spooky, and the American thought that it might be actually dangerous given what he knew of other urban areas, so the American didn't hold much hope that he'd be able to rehome many kids there. But Ibrahim at least needed to get to his parents, and maybe they'd take his two friends…

But they were gone too.

Ibrahim joined Roman and Noah in grief, but the American had a growing suspicion that something was happening that was far more evil than some hopeless parents seeking a change of scenery. The coincidence was too great.

10

The American hadn't wanted to stay in the city, but it was too late to get far by the time Ibrahim was in a state to move again, and they had no guarantee of shelter if they left, whereas they had Ibrahim's apartment if they stayed.

The building where Ibrahim lived—had lived—seemed to be all steel and glass and was taller than any of the surrounding structures. The American agreed with Ibrahim's assessment: the place was creepy. The broad street and surrounding buildings would once have been full of life but now seemed vacant. Despite the dead feeling to the area, all those buildings with all those windows made the American's skin crawl with the sensation of being watched.

The American felt certain that the tower was empty as they approached it, but the whole crew had climbed the twenty flights of stairs anyway.

There were several spacious rooms for the eighteen boys and one full grown man to spread out in, but they all found themselves crowding together in the living room, each finding a stretch of floor within arms reach of each other to lay on for the night. The American stayed up most of the night, gun in hand, not trusting that they wouldn't be attacked in their sleep. Mohammad didn't seem to be sleeping either, staring out the dirty window overlooking the city. For the last few hours of the early morning, the American got the lad to watch the front door instead and managed to get a little sleep in twenty minute snatches.

The crew departed in silence as soon as the sun was up. The American was grateful to not have to keep the boys quiet, but the reason for their silence was more troubling to him than the danger would have been had they been excited and noisy.

They moved north down the wide road in front of Ibrahim's old building, past low shuttered storefronts and bars with the occasional tall building looming over them. They continued on until their street split, ramping up to a raised roadway running by the city center.

Looking at his atlas, the American saw train tracks cutting through the city towards their last stop and thought it might be a good idea to try and follow them rather than the streets. If they could find a place to get on them, they might have a smaller chance of running into strangers, though they'd yet to see another living soul that day.

As he navigated the troop towards the tracks, they saw a huge building that seemed covered in mirrors. Individual letters had once stood above it, probably spelling its name, like a miniature version of the Hollywood sign. Too few still stood for him to make out what it once said, though. G…N……RA…

As they got closer, he realized that it was the train station. His map called it "New Street," which didn't fit the letters. He didn't want to take the children inside that behemoth, so they skirted around it. He took them down what once would have been an attractive pedestrian street lined with shops that now seemed an oppressive canyon filled with broken glass.

They turned north at a big round tower, then the American saw a lot of open space down a cross street and so took them that direction. He saw the train tracks rising from underground a few blocks away next to a long abandoned construction site dotted with shrubs and tall grass. He had the boys wait while he double-checked his map to make sure they were the right tracks. It wasn't very direct, but it looked like they could follow the raised tracks about half way to Small Heath. The track was elevated as far as his eyes could follow it, and with walls on either side… They wouldn't be entirely out of sight, but it felt more sheltered than the trip along the streets had been. So he led the pack of children to a stretch of ground that was nearly level with the rising track, boosted them over the wall one at a time, then scrambled over after them.

They followed the tracks a ways and past some old warehouses. The tracks split there, and the group swung south. They crossed over some kind of creek or canal, and the tracks started to dip below the surrounding ground again. The American felt a bit uncomfortable traveling along the bottom of essentially a canyon—the map didn't show the rail's elevation or he'd have picked a different route—but with the surrounding trees, even bare of their foliage, they were pretty out of sight. The boys hadn't stayed silent the whole time, but were now chatting quietly. The American didn't try to quiet them.

As they passed a stadium, the boys perked up a bit and asked to look inside. It was time for them to abandon the tracks anyway, so the American agreed.

The berm was very steep, and the climb out of the gully took far more time and effort than the boys had expected, but the trees and shrubs provided hand-holds enough that they eventually made it out at the northwest corner of the stadium.

The entrance here had originally been blocked off, but the once-blue gates had been mangled and thrown aside at some point. Past the entrance, the field was overgrown and dotted with half collapsed battered tents, clearly long abandoned. The large stands that wrapped around the far corner had collapsed in places, leaving piles of rubble and a view of the open sky behind them. The brief joy the boys had felt upon noticing the stadium seemed to be gone. They stood silently viewing the decayed monument to a time before any of them could remember, then turned and resumed their trek.

They were very near Mohammad's home now. He'd visited the stadium many times before, and he lead them down a main street into his neighborhood. A remarkable thing happened as they moved along the road that seemed to surprise even Mohammad.

There were people. A lot of them. Families, men and women working on projects, clearing snow.

"You seem surprised," the American said to Mohammad.

The lad nodded. "There are people… I mean, there are a lot more people than there used to be…" He looked over at the American—he was nearly as tall—and gave the ghost of a conspiratorial grin. "A lot more white people, in particular."

The reason for this was soon explained to them. When they reached Mohammad's home, word of their presence apparently had moved ahead of them. His family stood in the street ahead of them, looking hopeful. When he realized who the clump of people were, Mohammad took off at a sprint, wrapping his arms around a woman and being mobbed by a few more adults and a number of teens and children.

After the hugging and kissing had settled down, Mohammad's family told him what had happened after he was taken.

11

After Mohammad had been snatched, the sparse Muslim community he lived in had been galvanized into action. They gathered in one of the nearby mosques and formed a somewhat more formal association. Not quite a government, but they did form a watch force and agreed to help each other out. Knowing that numbers would improve their chances against raiders or other opportunists, they'd sent out "ambassadors" to other neighborhoods where they knew a few families lived and invited them to move to Small Heath. There was a large park with a pond, and a few smaller parks and school yards, that they planned to start farming, and there were several community buildings that had never been abandoned. A surprising number of people had accepted the invitation from all over the city and relocated to Small Heath.

Mohammad's uncle, who was also Mohammad and maybe ten years older than the American, told him all this. "Small Heath is perfect, you see?" he said. "There are plenty of houses what need fixing, but there are plenty more good ones left. More than we need! They share chimneys, so they share heat, and the streets are easy to defend if raiders ever come round these parts.

"It's like in Peaky Blinders! Ever watch that? It was on the last few years before… But maybe you didn't have it over in America? It was a BBC programme."

Daniel hadn't watch a lot of TV since high school, and told the man as much.

"I miss telly…" Mohammad replied wistfully.

Runners were sent through the neighborhood to spread the news of their arrival, and almost the entire community converged on the large park to meet the strange troop that had returned their lost son.

During that meeting that turned into something of a lunchtime feast, they got more good news.

Ibrahim's mother had grown up in Small Heath, back before the world collapsed, and she and Ibrahim's father had moved back after their son had been taken. After a great deal of crying, Ibrahim introduced his friends to his parents. They gladly agreed to let the two Olivers live with them.

When they'd heard that the impromptu party was because of a visiting group of kidnapped boys including several Brummies, two frantic families pushed their way through the crowd to see them. Roman's and Noah's families, along with almost all of the university neighborhood, had also relocated.

Once it was made clear that the rest of the children were orphans, offers to give them homes started pouring in. Far more offers than there were children!

Miraculously, all the boys seemed to be keeping quiet about Harry and Jude's role in the kidnappings. The American saw several of the boys speaking to Jude throughout the afternoon. While none of them smiled, they did seem to be making peace with him. He'd nodded solemnly to each one of them, saying something that the American couldn't hear.

After Noah went and spoke to Harry, the little boy burst into tears and started hugging everyone. He wasn't the only tearful boy in the group, so the adults paid little attention to his outburst. The American went over to Harry and received a hug. "What did Noah say to you?" he asked.

"He said they forgive me and I can live here if I want," was the little boy's tearful reply into the man's shirt.

The American felt…strange. He was relieved, of course. He couldn't care for all these kids long term. He didn't want to. But he had certainly gotten used to them, and having company.

Obviously, there were far more houses than families, and the American received many, many invitations to pick one and settle in. He guessed he would, for a little while. But he doubted he'd stay long.

In fact, he stayed only one night. When word started to spread that the American might move into one of the houses, Max—one of the twelve-year-olds, who'd ended up here all the way from Carlisle—grabbed his arm and begged to live with him. The American was so surprised by the undersized boy's enthusiasm that he'd only managed to stammer at him, unsure what to say.

Immediately Peter (10, Coventry) and Huw (9, Chester), overhearing Max's pleading, joined in as well, and soon there was a whole knot of boys clamoring to stay with him. He was touched, of course, but it was far more than he wanted. He'd end up one man with ten sons, and never be able to pull up stakes and leave. So he started making it clear that he'd only be staying the night and then moving on.

While his efforts to push the boys to other families was mostly successful, it backfired in one instance.

Jude, hearing that the American would be moving on, declared that he would be too.

12

Rehoming Jude and Harry some place other than Birmingham had been the plan for a while, so the American wasn't too disappointed to have Jude setting out with him after they made their goodbyes the next morning.

In fact, he found that he was glad. Being alone after shepherding all those kids… It would have been too abrupt. He was glad to have the company, even if it was Jude.

He tried hard not to hate the boy, and mostly succeeded. The boy had been in an impossible situation, and, despite being a big kid, Jude was only twelve. Did he really expect that a twelve-year-old child would be able to say no to a grown slaver? Max and Roman were both twelve too, and were much smaller than Jude. Despite Roman's tough boy attitude, the idea of him or Max successfully refusing to do as they were told by men like that, it was absurd. Why should the American think any differently about Jude? Just because he was taller?

So, whenever the American found himself getting angry about what Jude and Harry had done, he pushed the thoughts aside and tried to give the boy a smile.

They moved directly outward from Small Heath, getting into the country as soon as possible. They had plenty of food to last them. Supplies for the troop had been getting low towards the end, but it was still more than they could carry when you shrank that troop to just two people.

About two hours after setting out, they found themselves staring at a long, narrow, empty field with a strip of pavement down the middle. The two gazed at the dilapidated airport in silence.

The American felt homesick in a way he hadn't felt in years. Not so long ago, he could have come here, dropped a few hundred dollars, and been in New York less than a day later.

He imagined that Jude was more awestruck by the idea of these giant metal birds actually soaring through the air. He didn't ask, though.

They moved on.

Part IV

Homesteader

1

"What are you doing?" The American said it with ice, and the boy immediately froze.

2

After leaving Birmingham, the pair had swung through Coventry for a look around. The American had hummed "Lully lullay" nearly the entire time. The place seemed pretty dead, and they'd moved on quickly.

Over the next few weeks they worked their way around the south of Birmingham, far outside the city, mainly cutting through fields rather than following roads. They made their way back to the tiny village near the Bell End Tavern—Jude told the American that "bell end" was another term for dick head—but didn't go in. They looked from a distance. The girls seemed safe and happy, so they moved on.

They worked their way southeast until they found another minuscule village, this one empty. It had a grocery store, though, that seemed to be untouched.

After more than a decade, the produce and meat that must have been unbearably disgusting the year the place was abandoned had basically turned into soil and the place smelled more of mulch than it did of rot. The canned goods were still good, and the sealed crackers and cereal were…edible.

They broke into a nearby house and settled in for the rest of winter.

The beds were dusty, but there were lots of sheets in the linen closet that felt and smelled clean. The elastic on the fitted sheets had given up long ago, but that didn't matter.

One bedroom had a big bed and a fireplace. The American felt slightly uncomfortable sharing a bed with the twelve-year-old given the boy's particular history, but they'd been sleeping next to each other for so long now it would have felt wrong to sleep in separate rooms, especially when only one bedroom had heat.

So they made the bed, the American looked up the chimney to make sure it wasn't blocked, they found some split logs behind the house, and they lit a fire.

Fire! Warmth! That night they ate hot beans and slept in a soft bed in a warm room. They slept better than either of them had in months. Even longer for Jude.

The American woke with a chill running down his spine, though, and not just because the fire had burned down in the night.

Jude had his hand in the American's underwear, holding his cock.

3

"Please," Jude whispered. The American was lying on his side, and Jude was snuggled up behind him. His whispered plea warmed the back of the American's neck.

That warm need melted the man slightly. The warmth of the hand on his cock did as well. "It's wrong," he said, but more kindly. "What they did to you was wrong."

Jude gave him a stroke. "I want to. I hated them. Him. But I… I like you."

The American shuddered, and not entirely with revulsion. Oy loyk you. It was such a clumsy, earnest confession. It touched him, and warred with his disgust at the pleasure he felt from the child's hand. He pulled away from the boy, slipping out of bed and out of Jude's grasp. He walked around the bed and put more wood on the coals of the fire, bringing it back to life.

He turned back to the bed and saw Jude, facing away from him, huddled under the blankets and curled up, heaving gently, silently. The last of the icy feeling in his chest and spine faded away. He walked to the bed and sat, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. Then—and perhaps it wasn't wise but the cold gave him little choice—he slip back under the covers and spooned the quietly crying child. How had he ever thought of this boy as big? He looked and felt so small right now.

"Jude," he said, "I like you too." And he realized that he meant it. His feelings of disgust for what the boy had done had faded away in the days since Birmingham, replaced with a quiet, familiar fondness. Forgiveness? "But what you're asking for is wrong. I don't like guys in that way anyway. I'm straight."

Jude had stiffened at the word 'wrong,' and remained silent and motionless for a few moments. "What's 'straight'?"

For a second, the American thought the question was philosophical. Then it occurred to him that the boy might actually have never heard the term before.

" 'Straight' just means that you're attracted to the opposite sex." Bigger words probably weren't the way to define slang to a kid who'd never seen the inside of a school. "It means I don't want to have sex with…men."

"I don't want to have sex with men," Jude countered. "I just want to do this with you." At 'this,' he pressed his ass into the American's crotch.

"Well, I don't," he said, with growing exasperation. What was wrong with the kid?

That wasn't fair; he knew exactly what was wrong.

"Please?" the boy begged. "It will feel good! I want you to feel good!" The boy rolled over and grabbed for the American's dick again.

"Jude, no!" The man slapped the boy's hand away and shoved him back a little.

The tears started again, and not silently. The American sighed and reached out his hand. "Jude, I'm sorry—"

"You hate me!" the boy shouted and pulled back from his touch.

"I don't hate you, Jude…"

"You think I'm disgusting!" This was closer to true, and Jude felt his momentary hesitation and renewed his tears.

"No, Jude," he said, grabbing the boy and pulling him close. He wrapped his arms around the child. "You are not disgusting. What those men did to you and the other children: that was disgusting. What they forced you to do for them: that was too. But not you. Never you. OK? You're not disgusting. You're… I…" He swallowed, unsure of what he even wanted to say, let alone how to say it. He didn't continue.

"But…I had sex with those men, and you said that it was wrong—"

"No," the American said firmly. "You didn't have sex with them. They raped you."

"What's 'rape'?"

Holy fuck! "It's…when somebody forces you to have sex without your… When they make you have sex with them even though you don't want to."

"But…it's still having sex, right? This is confusing!" It sure is… "Am I…raping you?"

Is he? "No. You're not forcing me to do anything. I do wish you'd stop asking for it, though."

A new tremor shook the boy. "What's wrong with me?" the boy wailed.

"What they—he—did, it hurt you," said the American, "and that kind of hurt will take time to heal."

They held each other for several minutes, and Jude calmed down. The American thought the boy might have fallen asleep, but when he looked down at Jude's face the boy was wide awake, eyes staring in thought. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

"Rape is sex, right? So, even though it was rape, I did have sex. Right?"

The American sighed. "Yes, I guess so."

"And, rape is bad, or…wrong, because it's rape. So, is sex wrong?"

"Christ," he whispered to himself, then said to Jude, "No, sex isn't always wrong. There's nothing wrong with sex itself."

"So, when I wanted to have sex with you, it was wrong because you didn't want to, right? Because it would have been rape?"

"That's one… no, it's…" The man rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Sex is only rape if you force somebody. You weren't forcing me, you were just—"

"But they didn't always force me!" Jude sat up, looking worried. "Sometimes he would just take my clothes off and I didn't tell him to stop or—"

"Stop," said the American, gently, before the kid could panic. "If you'd said 'no,' would he have listened? Or would he have forced you?"

"He'd have slapped me up and done it anyway."

"Then it's still rape. The threat of force, or even you just not having a choice is enough. You didn't want to, and he never asked. That's rape."

Jude still looked troubled, like he was afraid to say something. The American had a suspicion as to why.

"It doesn't matter if it…felt good sometimes. Even if you…liked it…sometimes. You didn't have a choice, and he'd have forced you if you'd tried to say no. Still rape. Still wrong."

Jude settled back down, but still looked disturbed. "So, you and me. We can never… Because you don't like blokes, if we ever did it, it would always be rape?"

The American wished he still had thirty kids to watch over. That was a lot easier than explaining sexual morality to a liberated kiddy sex slave. "If we ever had sex, it would be rape…" Jude looked sorrowful. "…but that's not why. It's not rape automatically just because I'm straight. I can choose to have sex with somebody I'm not attracted to, and that wouldn't be rape. Only if I said no and was forced, or wasn't given a choice." Like if I wake up to find a hand in my underwear… Jude suddenly looked hopeful again. The American groaned. "Stop that. It's still rape. If we…had…sex…" He swallowed. "Then I would be raping you."

"What?" Jude's incredulity was almost cute. "That doesn't make any bloody sense! I grabbed your cock! I want to have sex with you! You can't rape me!"

"Yes, I can." The American rolled his eyes. "Because I'm a man, and you're a kid. When a grown-up has sex with a kid, it's always rape."

"But…what? That's stupid!" Jude looked utterly confused. "You said rape is when somebody makes you do it when you don't want to! I want to!"

The American let out a groan. "It's called consent. When you say you want to have sex with somebody, it's called consenting. Kids can't consent to a grown-up."

"Yes they can! I want to! I consent!"

"It's not… It's not that easy! Like with those slavers, you couldn't say 'no.' Grown-ups have too much power over kids. They can't say 'no,' so they can't say 'yes' either."

"That's so daft! I can say 'no.' Watch. Ask me to have sex with you."

"No," said the American. "If I ask you to have sex with me, you'll say 'yes'."

Jude giggled.

For the first time, maybe ever.

The American smiled. Suddenly, the conversation didn't seem so…dire. Suddenly, Jude was happy. The American was too, he realized.

"So, is it wrong for me to want to suck your dick?" The American froze for a moment at the specificity. Then he considered the question. Part of him thought it was wrong, actually, but he realized it was also probably normal.

"No, you're allowed to want that. Especially if you're gay."

"What's that?"

"Gay? Oh. Opposite of straight."

"Really? I thought it would be something like, 'bent'."

"Actually… I think that means the same thing over here. But it might be rude. I'm not sure."

"Makes more sense to me. How do I know if I'm bent?"

Oh jeez. "If you only want to have sex with guys, not with girls, then you're…" The American trailed off, not wanting to say 'bent' in case he was wrong about what it meant. Then quickly added, "but you're still young. You don't have to decide yet."

"When do I have to choose by?"

"No! Sorry, I mean…" The man rubbed between his eyes again, grinning. "Never. You don't ever have to choose. You'll figure it out. Or not, it doesn't matter. Point is, you can want whatever you want."

"If it's rape when someone makes you have sex you don't want, and I want to have sex with you, I still don't get how it can be rape unless I'm raping you."

"Ya know what? We're not going to figure this out today. Let's eat."

4

Between spoonfuls of canned corn, Jude paused and looked at the American, thoughtful.

"What now?" the man asked, rolling his eyes.

"What's your name?"

Oh, shit. "Wow, um… I never told any of you, did I?" Jude shook his head. "Daniel Kim."

Jude thought for a second. "OK." He ate the rest of his corn.

5

"We should kill more slavers."

Daniel looked at Jude with shock, shaking his head. "What I did was dangerous. I easily could have died trying that. And I…I killed a kid, too. Your friend."

"Mike…"

"I don't really want to have to kill again. I don't actually like killing."

"Do you like kids having their parents killed and then raped and made into slaves?"

"No."

Jude stared at him with tired patience.

Daniel sighed. "I'll think about it."

6

Jude had been seven when the boycatcher caught him. His mother had just died a few days earlier after eating rotten food, having given everything decent to her son. She'd already been sick for weeks. His father had died before he could remember. Jude was sitting, crying, in front of his house, no longer able to stay inside because of the smell.

The boycatcher had found him there and sat with him. He'd been kind at first, feeding him, giving him a place to sleep and stay warm, giving him hugs and kisses to cheer him up when he felt sad.

After a while, those hugs and kisses became more frequent, and they involved a lot more touching below the waist. Jude really hadn't minded; it felt good to be touched like that. And when the boycatcher started putting his hand down the front of Jude's pants and rubbing his hard willy, it felt really good.

But then one day the boycatcher pulled out his own cock and told Jude to suck it. He'd still been eight at the time and the idea seemed nasty. When he said so, the boycatcher gave Jude his first beating.

After he'd turned nine, the boycatcher said he was going to fuck Jude, and explained what that meant. Jude had cried and begged to be allowed to suck the man's dick instead. That had also gotten him a beating, and he still got fucked.

When he was ten, they'd found Mike. Jude didn't really mind the sex anymore, and the boycatcher seemed to miss the fight. So when they found the boy bathing naked in a pond, the man sent Jude in to befriend him and bring him back home if he could.

Mike didn't end up fighting the boycatcher at all, but already seemed to expect to trade his body for food and shelter. The man was a little disappointed, but kept the boy around anyway.

For a while, the boycatcher seemed nicer again. More like when he first found Jude. There were fewer beatings and more hugs and kisses, and he really seemed to like watching Jude and Mike suck each other's willies; if he walked into a room and found them already doing it, he'd smile at them and rub their backs and bums and tell them what good boys they were.

When Jude was eleven, the boycatcher started to get mean again. Especially when he noticed the hairs that had started to grow around Jude's penis. When Jude realized that it was the hair making the man angry, he started pulling them out, but they had to be long enough for him to grab first, so he could never be entirely bare.

Then one day, the boycatcher disappeared for a week, leaving Jude and Mike home alone. It was wonderful. Jude cut Mike's hair real short, which made the boy really happy. He hated it when his hair got long. They played a game where one of them would hide somewhere in the house and the other one would look for him. Whenever Jude found Mike, the younger boy would shriek and laugh, running away to get Jude to chase him. When Mike found Jude, the older boy would leap out and grab his friend and tickle him. They would sneak out at night and go swimming in the round pond in the woods near their house, and they ate canned peaches in sweet, sticky liquid that they found hidden in the basement. One morning, after a few days, Jude asked Mike if he'd like his willy sucked, and Mike had said yes. The eight-year-old had squealed again at the pleasure, and they lay in bed until late, just cuddling. Jude had never heard such happy sounds from the boy, and he never did again.

Then the man came back, dragging little Harry by his upper arm. The boy was sobbing, and didn't stop crying for the rest of the day. The boy never said, and neither did the boycatcher, but Jude suspected that the man had killed Harry's parents to get him.

Harry did fight. For a while. Then he mostly went quiet.

That was when the boycatcher started sending Jude, Mike and Harry out to lure other boys back to the house. Beatings for all three boys were a nearly daily occurrence, and the sex had gotten beyond rough. Success meant getting left alone for a few days.

The boycatcher would keep each new boy around for a few days, weeks, or a month, then he'd disappear with the boy and come back a few days later with a load of food and cigarettes, which he would later trade for more food or anything else they needed.

This winter, the boycatcher had suddenly announced that they were moving to London. They'd go out and catch a whole bunch of boys, then meet up with this crew the man knew that was in the area. They'd all go to London together, and when they got there they'd be rich and live in a big house that was always warm in a city full of people.

They'd moved around the city, grabbing boys and dropping them off at the slaver's camp. Jude had cocked up the job for boys number six and seven right before they left the city to head for London, and earned the typical fucking, in full view of the other children. Mike and Harry had gotten it too, from some of the other slavers. After that, they'd been beaten pretty bad. The American hadn't seen that part, but he'd seen the fading bruises later that month.

7

"What do you mean, you 'cocked up'?" Daniel asked. "When was this?"

"Right before we left the city," Jude said. "They shot a gun at us as we were running away."

"It was an air rifle…" Daniel muttered to himself, putting it all together. He'd stumbled into that aftermath and then followed Jude, Mike and Harry…and that man to the house in the woods, and witnessed part of Jude's punishment.

"What do you mean by 'cocked up the job'?" the American asked again. Jude shrugged his shoulders, looking off into a corner of the room. "I think I saw them. Or, heard them, rather. The two boys. I heard them talking to their dad, telling him what happened."

Jude looked up with wide eyes, maybe hopeful. "So, they were OK? They really did have a dad?"

"They had somebody who was taking care of them. I assumed he was their dad."

Jude was staring forward, eyes unseeing, and he'd gotten a vague smile on his face. "Good."

"What happened, Jude?"

"I told 'em to run," Jude said. "The boycatcher was coming, and I didn't want him to get them, so I said for them to run."

"Why? Why didn't you want him to get them? You'd helped him get other boys."

Jude shook his head. "I dunno. The smaller one, I can't remember his name… He was trying to be nice, even though I'd been… He was acting all worried about Harry, and the other one said we could play, and I'd been mean to them, and mean to Harry, and the bigger boy was looking at me like he knew, and I was—" Jude's words tumbled out of him and then cut off as he started to cry.

"That doesn't sound like you botched it," Daniel said gently, reaching his hand out to rub the boy's back. "It sounds like you changed your mind." The man thought a second. "It sounds to me like you saved them."

Jude shrugged.

"And you got punished for it."

The boy shrugged again.

"Jude, look at me."

Jude looked up, his watery brown eyes looking into Daniel's darker, steady gaze.

"That was very brave. You were a hero."

8

The American's ammunition supply was not unlimited. He'd gone through two of his three boxes last time, and he didn't know where or if he could ever get more.

That's not ideal for training a new shooter. So Daniel had Jude start with the crossbow. In the meantime, he did teach Jude how to care for and handle the rifle. When the boy got good with the bow, they'd start thinking about practicing on the rifle with live ammunition.

Daniel would also have to take Jude hunting. Killing a deer or a fox wasn't the same as killing a man, but it was killing, and they had to know if Jude was capable of that before they thought about slavers.

Given the boy's feelings, Daniel feared that Jude would find it easier to kill men than foxes.

9

"Can we have sex tonight?"

"Jesus, kid! No! When are you gonna quit asking me that?"

"When you say yes. Then I'll stop. Until after we do it. Then I'll start asking again."

"Fuck."

"OK!"

"No."

10

The problem was, if Jude didn't stop asking, Daniel was afraid he'd say yes eventually.

He wasn't gay. He didn't even think he was bi. But he was…stopped up. He tried to rub one out when the kid wasn't around, but the kid was almost always around. He obviously couldn't do like he did with his buddies in high school, when they'd occasionally jack off during a sleepover and the rest of the guys would pretend to ignore it, or sometimes join in. But, like, alone. They never did each other.

If Daniel started jerking in bed, Jude would absolutely take over.

It also really didn't help that with his longish, dirty-blond hair, and the woman's winter coat they'd found in the house—taken to replace the smelly, ratty, oversized coat Jude had taken from a dead slaver—and his…maybe 5 foot 4 or 5 inch height… Well, sometimes Daniel would be out splitting wood and Jude would walk by on some errand or other, and out of the corner of his eye, Jude looked an awful lot like a petite woman. Daniel's head would whip around by reflex. Jude caught him a few times, and boy did that boy grin.

Then there was the bathing. They both stank, and really needed to bathe again, but Daniel was not going to suggest it. It was a pain in the ass to heat buckets of water in the fireplace and pour them into the old bathtub in the bathroom, but that wasn't the reason.

The reason was, when Jude stripped down and stepped in, from behind… Well, he was at that stage of development where his bones had started to grow, but he hadn't filled out at all, and the difference between his narrow waist and his adolescent hips was rather…feminine.

And the kid had an ass.

11

"I'm sick of canned food."

"There's some stale crackers."

"Sick of those too. I wish it was summer. I want blackberries."

"Shit in one hand, wish in the other…"

Jude stared at him horrified.

"And see which one fills up first? It's an expression."

"That's disgusting."

12

There was no fresh fruit, but there was fresh meat.

Daniel took Jude hunting, as promised, now that the boy had gotten good with the crossbow.

It was a good kill, clean through the lungs of the doe. She was a roe, smaller than the white-tales Daniel had been used to before the world ended. That was fine, given there were just two people to feed.

Jude handled it well, only turning a little squeamish and misty-eyed when it came time to gut, skin and butcher it.

He liked eating it, though.

13

Now they really stank. There was no avoiding it. Bath time.

If Daniel tried to go first he was sure that Jude would just join him. So he had Jude go first. He tried to get out of the bathroom quickly after pouring the last bucket and checking the temperature, but Jude seemed to have anticipated his plan.

The boy was standing directly in front of the closed bathroom door, blocking the way, and already half naked by the time Daniel turned around. Daniel tried to dodge around him, but Jude matched his movements, pretending like it was an accident and laughing at how silly they were.

Daniel got an eyeful of naked boy, front and back, before he managed to get out and away from a very self-satisfied Jude. That image haunted his mind. The air was pretty cold in the bathroom, and Jude's nipples had testified to that truth. They were maybe quarter sized or a little smaller, pink and very slightly puffy with hard-looking white nubs. His chest was skinny, but his shoulders were slightly broad.

When wrapped up in his old ratty coat, his broadening shoulders and solid legs made him seem stocky. But without his clothes, the boy was wasp-waisted, and his pelvis seemed abrupt in its prominence, covered in nascent muscle with a prominent 'V' pointing to his groin.

Daniel had managed to avoid seeing Jude's penis until that day, and he dearly wished he could have gone twice again as long without seeing it. Not because it was ugly or gross. Quite the opposite.

It was long and slender. Elegant, goddammit. A hint of vasculature showed where it was headed, but it was neither a man's cock nor a little boy's wiener. It was something in-between. There was a patch of light brown hair above it, so neat it looked trimmed, though Daniel knew that wasn't the case.

That dick dangled and swayed and jiggled in his mind as he waited his turn, along with the boy's lean, muscular thighs and lightly dusted shins. Daniel felt so confused by his thoughts, and by the boy's form and its affect on him. Jude seemed neither feminine nor masculine, but had very strong features of both at the same time. He was neither mature nor immature. Boyish chest, manly thighs, womanly waist, girlish hair… He seemed to be nothing and everything all at once; some mythical every-sex being. Jude was so far from Daniel's perfect woman, but in his current state…

The haunting image of Jude's perfect-imperfect nudity was finally shattered when Daniel's turn in the bath came. He really should have known better. Maybe he did.

Daniel entered when Jude called to say he was finished. But finished did not mean dried and dressed, apparently. Jude was just stepping out of the water as Daniel entered, and the man's eyes were instantly glued to the boy's erection.

It looked exactly as he'd imagined it, and goddammit he had imagined it. Long, slender, and yes, elegant still seemed to describe it. Also, virile. And cute. The boner pointed straight up. His foreskin had retracted almost past the corona, showing his pink…bell end. If the hint of vein still showed, it was on the wrong side of the dick for Daniel to see. The side facing out was smooth and even with two fullers running most of the length. The boy's dick was smaller in every way than Daniel's own, but there was nothing innocent about it. It was four-and-a-half to five inches of pure sex.

Jude grinned at him as he dried himself, then grabbed up his clothes and slipped out of the bathroom. Daniel undressed and settled into the cloudy bath.

He jerked off quickly and exploded into the bathwater. Then he did it again. After he cleaned off all the stink and soil, he did it a third time before draining the tub.

And god fucking damn it, he was still hard as he put his clothes back on.

14

His three orgasms had relieved the pressure enough for him to rebuff Jude's advances that night. He should have been angry with the boy. He was angry. But he didn't say anything about it. He didn't tell Jude off for continuing to badger him for sex.

He was doomed, and he knew it. Eventually he would cave. Daniel didn't actually want Jude to stop asking any more. He wanted to give in. So he didn't tell Jude to stop.

It had been a long time since he'd had sex with a woman. It had been a longer time since anyone had wanted him as badly as Jude did.

Daniel held out another night. But the third night, he finally said yes.

15

"Are you gonna let me suck your cock tonight?"

"Yes."

Jude stared at him wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open. It seemed darkly funny, that mouth gaping wide, given what was about to happen.

"You'd better start before I find my courage and change my mind."

Jude dove under the covers, yanked Daniel's underwear down and stuffed his mouth full of Daniel's dick.

It was maybe the worst blowjob Daniel had ever received. It felt amazing! He stared at the ceiling while he stroked the long hair of the head that pleasured him. He tried not to think about it as being Jude's head. As a boy's head.

He failed. He looked down and watched the twelve-year-old boy devour his meat, and sighed with pleasure.

Soon after, a new category of food was added to Jude's diet.

16

After he came, he pulled Jude back up beside him, kissed the boy's forehead, then turned him over so Jude faced away from him.

He reached over, pushed Jude's shorts down his thighs, took hold of Jude's pretty cock and started to stroke him. Daniel's deflating semi reversed course, boning up again, and he pushed it between Jude's thighs. He thrust back and forth, his circumcised head rubbing against Jude's smooth balls while he continued to jack the boy.

"You can put it in me, if you want," Jude gasped.

"No," Daniel grunted. They both came together a few minutes later.

17

The goddamn frozen winter had finally thawed some time in March and the trees were pushing out their leaf buds maybe by mid-April. Spring seemed to come later and later each year, though maybe that was Daniel's fatigue more than an actual change in the weather.

Sex hadn't become a nightly occurrence for them, but it was more than weekly. Daniel gave up feeling any guilt about it. He'd tried to resist, and Jude was happier than any boy had a right to be in this world. And there was nobody else around to care anymore.

Jude turned thirteen at some point. He'd announced one day that it was his birthday. Neither of them actually knew the date, but Jude was insistent that he must be thirteen now. Daniel didn't fight it. One day was as good as another.

They celebrated with target practice. Daniel had Jude fire five rounds at their target stump. He did pretty well; a nice tight grouping, only slightly off center.

That night they shared a tub of only slightly gritty cake frosting. Daniel lit a slender twig on fire and poked it into the goop, sang happy birthday, and then Jude blew it out. It tasted alright, actually.

Later, in bed, Jude begged Daniel to fuck him. Daniel steadfastly refused, but offered a rare blowjob to the boy instead.

Jude begged him again the next night and Daniel, realizing that Jude would never stop asking until he gave in, gave in. Jude seemed satisfied. He never asked again, and Daniel never offered.

Now that spring had come, they packed up their supplies and all the food they could carry that would travel well, and set off on the road. Jude hoped they would find a group of slavers soon. Daniel planned to do everything in his power to keep that from happening.

This time, Daniel succeeded. For a while.

18

Their first year together, Daniel managed to keep them from crossing paths with any slavers without Jude noticing that he was doing it. If they heard reports of raids, or children going missing, they'd start out in that direction, but Daniel would push them off course a little more each day. Jude was disappointed at their bad luck, but stayed in good spirits.

The next year, Jude started to get suspicious. They'd managed to find a 9mm hand gun with plenty of ammunition, and Jude had absorbed all the training Daniel could give him. He was eager to put it to use.

The boy had also learned some orienteering skills and would correct Daniel's bearings if he tried to push them off course when they were following reports of raiders or slavers. So when they heard about a missing girl from the nearby farming community, Daniel decided not to fight it anymore.

They found the group late that evening. They hadn't killed anyone, and Daniel was reluctant to attack them. But then he heard them discussing who would fuck the teen first, so he gave in to Jude's insistence that they save her right away. No waiting for a chance to rescue her without killing anybody.

The American took the hand gun and crept closer to their camp, leaving the boy at a distance with the rifle. At Daniel's signal, Jude opened fire, dropping two. Daniel then emerged from his hiding spot and gunned down four more while Jude killed the last one.

Daniel guessed that Jude was expecting more gratitude from the girl, but she was terrified of them. When she ran off in the direction of her home, Daniel held Jude back from following, trying to remind the young man of how terrified he and the children had been of the mad American who'd slaughtered their captors.

In the end, Jude discovered that he was perfectly capable of killing, but he didn't really have a taste for it.

19

They settled in a small village outside of Oxford. Daniel found a woman who was as taken with him as he was with her. Jude found a girl who was willing to take his cherry, and he learned that he really was bent. That was fine. He found a boy soon after who was much nicer.

Epilogue

Father

1

Crack!

Oh no… thought Daniel. He went to the window to look out at their little target range. Sure enough, Jude was out there with his boyfriend. The young man, Tom, was the one shooting the rifle.

Crack crack crack!

Donna, Tom's mother, dropped her knitting onto the floor in front of her rocker and pressed her hands to her ears. She looked over at the American with mild panic.

Crack crack!

"It's fine," he said to the woman, sighing. "The damned boys—"

Crack crack crack!

Albert, Tom's father, burst through the door, shouting, "why are they shooting…" He trailed off and relaxed when he saw the annoyed, yet calm look on the American's face.

Daniel tried to speak again. "The boys are in—"

Crack!

"…trouble." He finished as the sounds of adolescent cheering filtered into the house. Well, it sounds like Tom at least managed to hit most of the targets. Ten rounds, he couldn't help thinking. Fifteen left.

Karen walked in with Yuna in her arms. She crossed to the window and handed Daniel their baby daughter, who seemed entirely unbothered by the noise. "I assume the boys are in trouble?" she asked as she peered out at the celebrating teens.

"Yup." Daniel said. Albert sighed. Donna, lowering her hands, muttered as she picked up her knitting again.

"…boys and guns…" Daniel heard her say.

2

To everyone's mutual dissatisfaction, the only thing the parents could do to effectively ground the youths while at their 'holiday house' was split them up at night. So Tom was in with Albert and Donna; Karen and Yuna would sleep in their usual bed, but without Daniel; and Daniel was in with Jude in the boys' bed, to make sure Tom didn't try to sneak in after his parents were sleeping.

As Daniel neared unconsciousness, he felt a hand feeling at his crotch. He slapped the sixteen-year-old's hand away. "Not a chance, Jude."

"Come on, mate! It's been ages!" the teen's rich voice purred.

"This is a punishment, Jude, not a key party. Go to sleep."

"What's a key party?"

Daniel sighed.

Not getting an answer, Jude rolled over and settled in. After a second he whispered, "good night, Dad."

The American smiled. "Good night, son."

After all the editorial, language and geographical help Bard Boy gave me, he also sent the following scenes—his Official Response to my story—to be included here. Thank you!

Shell Shock

by Bard Boy

"He tried to grab us, Jake," James sobbed into Jake's side, letting Jake's left arm cradle him close into the man's body. His body shuddered and shivered from the cold and his emotion with every tremulous breath. Jake's tears flowed freely too, though silently, Manny equally cradled to the right, the second boy's sniffles and sobs vibrating at discordance with the first as Jake walked the two tightly through the narrow hallway, hardly noticing as stray contact with the wooden struts of the stair banister and the radiator took the skin from his knuckles.

"I would never've let him take you," Jake reassured the boys, squeezing them tight. "If you'd shouted, I'd have come straight after you. He'd never have got you far."

"How come y—" Manny was interrupted as a huge sob racked through his body, causing him a hollow cough reminiscent of a very little boy with a bug. "You didn't use the little gun?"

"Because the little gun kills people," Jake said, manoeuvring the two boys in front of him to take the stairs, up which they definitely wouldn't fit three abreast.

"Does your grandad's gun not?" James asked, searching out Jake's eyes through the blur of his tears.

"It might put a nasty cut or bruise in their bum cheek," Jake smiled, drawing watery giggles from the boys, "but it wouldn't be able to kill them. But they didn't know that so they were still scared."

"Can we keep it upstairs?" Manny asked, wiping at his nose with the back of his fist. "We can scare them if they try to come back when we're asleep."

"I don't think they'll ever come back, boys," Jake reassured them. "Now come on, up the stairs to the bathroom."

"But can we, Jake?" James insisted as he clambered up the stairs, reaching down to push his spindly fingertips against the edges of the steps, almost taking them on all-fours.

"Don't you worry about that now," Jake replied. "Come on, in you go."

The boys bundled into the bathroom, standing in the small square space next to the bath, in front of the toilet and sink. Jake entered behind them and squatted before them, James and Manny immediately clinging to him for a three-way hug like their lives depended on his touch. Their tears flowed freely again as Jake was pressed into their slender chests, inhaling the scent of their winter coats.

"That's it boys, let it out," he whispered, stroking their backs with full palms. "You've had a big, big shock, but everything is going to be okay now."

He lifted Manny's chin first with the crook of his index finger, rubbed noses with the cold, wet boy as he giggled softly at the contact, and went about wiping the tears clear from his puffy cheeks with his thumbs. Manny's nose was still snotting, sticky and transparent in the pits directly beneath his nostrils. Jake repeated the action on James, purging the boy's cheeks of their sadness, one of James' nostrils equally clogged with transparent goop, and felt James mimicking the same motion on his own face, where salty tears still sat on his prickly upper cheeks.

"You're soaking wet," said Jake, looking between his two twelve-year-olds and rubbing at the fabric over their bottoms. "Let's get you stripped off and warmed up in the bath."

The boys stood still and allowed Jake to begin unzipping their coats. James was in Jake's old bottle green winter school coat from when he had been roughly the same age or a little older, the jacket still oversized on James' slight frame. Manny wore a similar puffy, waterproof black number that they had scavenged from an old children's clothes shop.

"Hang those on the stair post," Jake instructed after unzipping both motionless, occasionally shivering boys, allowing himself to break from them to start up the water for the bath. He turned on the shower too, thinking its electric heating element should ably supplement the tepid efforts of the solar heating system in the roof, and confident the solar panels would have stored enough energy to handle it. He would heat four pans of water on the stove, too, but only after the boys were out of their wet clothes and ready to take their bath.

He knelt before the two again, returned from their task, and they silently and placidly allowed him to undress them, something which in this circumstance they would ordinarily angrily resist in order to do it themselves, seeing it as an affront to their maturity and dignity. Instead, he could freely untie the laces of their cute little tween-sized walking boots, feeling the sodden strings spew dirty water all over his fingers, and pop free their feet clad in thick thermal socks.

"You're both absolutely soaked all the way through your socks, too," Jake observed sympathetically.

"We had to peg it in through the snow," Manny explained, softly and sadly in a high voice, as Jake nodded along. As he pulled the soaked socks off the boys' feet and let them slap on the laminate bathroom floor, he could see the wrinkling of their flesh, pale and drawn from the cold, in the stark, sterile afternoon light flooding through the bathroom window.

"I don't know," Jake sighed rhetorically, smiling supportively with his eyes at each of his wards. "You get into some adventures, you two, don't you?"

"That adventure was scary," James peeped simply, his voice drained. Manny nodded solemnly, screwing his eyes.

"Come closer," Jake directed, positioning the boys more where he wanted them by means of a guiding hand on their buttocks. "Lean on my shoulder."

Jake pulled down James' tracksuit bottoms, their rear and his underpants beneath them so sodden from their encounter with the snowball and his trip into the nettles and the snow covering the garden that they lurched down around his ankles in one heavy go, James steadying himself on Jake as he stepped his bare feet out of them. Beneath the hang of his jumper and tee-shirt, his willy was barely visible as a soft little icicle, his sac shrivelled into his body to escape being frozen by the cold and wet of his boxers.

"More comfy already?" Jake asked. James nodded three times.

Jake repeated the action on Manny's bottoms, not quite so completely soaked as James' but still wet and cold. Manny was soon naked from the waist down too, his genitals similarly shrunken away from their cold environment, protecting themselves closer to the heat of his body. Next, Jake pulled the boys' woolly hats from their heads, slinging them to the floor and running his fingers through their damp hair, drawing their smiles against the shimmer of the old towel-rack-radiator and the thudding of the filling bath. Their scarves and gloves had already been dumped on entry to the house.

"Lift your arms up," Jake said, watching the boys comply. He lovingly ran a hand underneath their jumpers and tee-shirts, reassured at the warmth of their smooth, tight little bellies, as they too were soothed by his touch. He was glad the boys were calmed, as he read from their soft, regular breathing and less frantic movements, though there was still noticeable tension in how they held their arms straight above their heads. He released their tummies and set about pulling up each of their woolly jumpers one-handed, the boys' faces scrunched as they were popped roughly from their head holes. Jake made light work of following suit with the tee-shirts they were wearing beneath, leaving both James and Manny now completely bare, shivering anew together in the middle of the bathroom, arms wrapped around themselves and dancing on their toes.

"The bath will be ready for you in a second," Jake cooed, drawing both compliant boys into another big, squeezing hug, wanting to wring the hurt from them until they both only felt safety again. "I'm going to put some pans to boil downstairs so we have more warm water for you to stay in as long as you want. Why don't you both hop in now and you can use the shower to get the tops of your bodies warm until it fills up."

* *

Jake sat on the floor surrounded by his pans of boiling water and the strewn items of the boys' wet clothing. James lay in the bath with his head at its foot, Manny sat cross-legged washing himself, side-on to the taps. James showed no real interest in anything other than relaxing in the water, but, Jake supposed, that was no problem as they were there to warm up, not because they were in dire need of a wash.

Jake moved to kneel next to the tub. He dumped the first of the pans of fresh hot water into the space between the boys, then reached into the water to pull up James' right leg. He held it tenderly, stroking up and down the inside of the calf with his thumb, as James smiled at him with plaintive blue eyes. The graze picked up during his escape from the man in the park was swollen and bloodied, with dark bruising already beginning to show right over the bone. Manny read Jake's intention and passed him the shower gel, sliding along to watch more closely himself, his bum cheeks making squeaky sounds on the floor of the bath as he moved.

"Oww-wowwww!" James whined, as Jake applied a soapy hand to James' cuts, causing the wound to sting. He let out a whine under his breath but held still, letting Jake clean the graze up.

"Poor Jamey," Jake sang, cleaning the spindly, suffering leg thoroughly.

"Rather be hurt than kidnapped," he moaned in response.

"It'll be better in a week or two," Jake nodded. "You'll never know it had happened."

"It's kind of my fault, anyway," Manny said, squeezing James' left knee apologetically.

"No, it isn't," Jake cut in quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong at all, Manny."

"Yeah," James agreed, wincing and grimacing as Jake cleaned a particularly sore spot. "He'd've got me if it wasn't for you pulling me over, Manny."

"That's okay," Manny smiled. "We both escaped together."

"There you are," Jake said, gently dropping James' leg back into the bath. "Keep it clean and don't bang it again, and it'll be all good."

James took a deep breath and relaxed back into the water again. Manny followed suit, resting his head against James' belly and left hip, not seeming to mind at all that James' penis -- which had now returned to its more usual size and shape -- sat against his neck and jaw. Jake collected up the clothes from the floor into two piles, one for each boy, and retook station on the toilet. The three remained in silence for a long while.

"More hot water?" Jake asked.

"Yeah," Manny nodded. James agreed.

"You'll be all shrivelled up, like prunes."

Manny shrugged and began to yawn as Jake dumped another pan of hot water between his legs. James lolled down in the water, its level occasionally submerging his ears.

"I love you two," Jake said, simply and sincerely, looking down over them both.

"Love you, too," they both murmured in unison, two slightly different boyish voices.

Jake collected up the clothes under his arms and opened the bathroom door.

"Don't go!" Manny pleaded, brown eyes beseeching.

"I'm only going to put your clothes in the washing basket," Jake said. "I thought I might get us a book to read as well."

"We want you to stay with us," James proclaimed. He had sat up just enough to meet Jake's eye, to show he was serious and meant it.

"Baby boys," Jake said, taking a deep breath and feeling very wobbly inside, "I'll always be with you, forever. I promise."

James nodded his head back and forth, tears twinkling in his eyes. Manny blinked quickly and repeatedly as he nodded in acknowledgement too.

"Lie yourselves back down," Jake instructed, gently but firmly. "I'll be back in a second to pick up where we left off with His Dark Materials."

* *

The boys again stood far more passively than was usual, allowing Jake to rub them up and down vigorously with their fluffiest towel, pushing the two of them together and pulling them apart as necessary to get them both dry at once. It was James' turn to let out a big yawn, blowing his warm breath into Jake's face as his arms were trapped by the towelling he was receiving, unable to cover his mouth. Jake regarded both twelve-year-olds' faces. They looked pale and exhausted.

"Straight into bed for both of you, I think," Jake said. "You've had a big shock, and a nice nap to relax is the best thing for anyone after that."

Neither boy reacted, least of all to protest. He finished drying them, lifting their arms to do their pits, their legs to do all sides and in between, and even going between their cheeks to dry their cracks as if he was wiping their bums, all without so much as a murmur from either boy, let alone a complaint. He dropped the towel to the floor and gently ushered them towards the door. Without a word, the two naked tweens plodded their way out onto the landing and immediately right into the bedroom. Jake leant forward and spread back the covers.

"Come on, bumswizzlers," he said, channelling the warmth and silliness of his mother again, as he often felt himself doing in those most tender moments with his boys. "In you both get. Get yourselves snuggled up and warm and comfy ready to have a nice long rest."

The boys took deep breaths as they bounced onto the beds, working and burrowing themselves into comfortable positions with their shoulders as Jake pulled the quilt back into place to tuck them in, James on the far side, Manny in the middle. It seemed they'd left a man-sized space for him nearest the bedroom door.

"Aren't you getting in?" Manny asked, cuddled up to James on the far side of the bed.

"I'm not sleepy right now," Jake replied. "You two can spread out and enjoy your nap by yourselves."

Jake immediately cringed at his choice of phrasing as he watched the boys' eyes go wide in tandem.

"We want to be with you!" James exclaimed.

"Don't worry; I'm not going anywhere," Jake reassured them, raising and opening his palms for them to trust him and be calm. "I'll stay and watch over you, and enjoy your pretty sleeping faces. As long as you don't snore, that is."

He smiled at them, and was glad to receive begrudging grins from both James and Manny at his final disarming comment. He could almost hear them grumbling in their heads to themselves, I don't snore! Jake waited to see if the two boys separated and took opposite sides of the bed, but they remained obstinately squashed up together on one side, far more than they would have been on a normal night with the three of them together, which usually involved the two boys spreading to drape their limbs at full stretch all over him, while his gravity struggled to clear an adult-sized space in the middle of the bed.

James eyed the bedside table, empty but for a half-full pint glass of water.

"You said you'd bring the gun upstairs," he reminded Jake, though Jake had agreed nothing of the sort.

"I will," Jake conceded. "I'll get it now, as well as filling up a glass of water for you each."

"And your grandad's one?" Manny implored. "We need them both, cos… well, what if they find it in the shed if they come back?"

"Manny, mate…" Jake sighed. "It's locked in the drawers. And they're not coming back. Ever. I promise."

"You can't promise that," Manny shot back. "You don't tell them what to do. They could come back."

"Well, I don't think they will," Jake replied with a wan smile. "And if they do, we'll scare them off so bad they won't ever want to even think about us again. Is that alright?"

Manny went to reply in the affirmative but ended up simply nodding as he couldn't stifle yet another big yawn. His body evidently wanted to shut off for a while now all his adrenaline had cleared.

"I'll bring your bow upstairs as well, James," Jake said, opening the bedroom door. "Then we can all have one each, whatever happens."

"Don't leave us," Manny said sleepily. "Come straight back up when you've got everything."

"Of course I will," Jake replied. Manny simply nodded into the pillow, eyes already closed. Jake made to leave the room again.

"Jake?" James asked squeakily, putting his fist to his mouth as he tried and failed to stifle another great yawn.

"What is it, mate?"

"Do you think that bad man tries to get other boys, like he did with us? What do you think he wanted us for? Does he hurt boys for fun or something?"

Jake shrugged, then immediately shook his head to show that he considered the matter fully closed.

"Get your head down," he said. "You and Manny will be asleep before you know it, and the first thing you'll see when you open your eyes again is all three of us together."

"Promise?" James asked, though his voice faded to barely a whisper as his eyes closed and his mouth sat against Manny's bare, clean shoulder.

"Promise," Jake replied, and finally slipped out the bedroom door. His chest wobbled again, and his nostrils stung. He almost missed his step on the stairs his feet had known since they were seven years old, and he stopped and steadied himself against the ledge of the landing window, hearing cracks of gunfire and shouts and familiar childish cries ring out in his head. Ten deep breaths and he shook it all clear, though his jowls slapped, his heart thudded, and his knuckles were white from his grip on the wood. It could wait; it was fine; he would deal with this later. For now, he had work to do and promises to keep. They were the two most important things of all.