The Enemy

Natasha~

"Yes." I said as I came up behind the new guy. "I've been here the longest and I know the ropes." He looked me over.

"Yeah..." He replied.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing." He answered.
"Right. What is it? Look. I build most of the weapons here. You want a pipe bomb, a molotov cocktail, a zip gun? You come to me. I trade with the outside groups as well."
"When you're not raiding them for food." Ali coughed.
"Look, you seem alright." Jack or whatever, started.
"Who are you to decide?"
"Natasha, let's just let this go." Simon told me.

The fact was, most of the littler kids came to me to cry over their mommies, demand their teddy bear back from someone else, or advise on their little pea shooters or sling shots they were trying to build. I treated them nice and everything but somehow, I still managed to get labelled as the one with the concrete heart or something.

(Shelby was pretty much a godsend. She, with 2 other kids basically took care of the kid's 6 and under. Somehow she just took the job when we first moved into the Wal-Mart. She look anorexic. Again... she probably was. This was a messed up world and everybody had disorders...)

*thanks for posting guys*

Jack

I sat with the rest of the group of older Kids. There were only about twenty kids who were 13 or fourteen the rest were all younger with a few elven and twelves. I was glad and I didn't have to look after the little kids, I mean I could put up with them for a while but eventually it was just overwhelming and I would end up shouting at one of them. Simon had to go settle a teddy bear dispute leaving me and blowtorch guy with the two girls. Blowtorch guy was clever, not maths clever more make things clever. Me and him were currently figuring out a trap system to set up on the streets that led to the wall mart. We still had a lot of rotten meat leftover. Are plan was to tie is up on a string and have it connected to one of Natasha's pipe bombs. After all the grown ups would eat anything. Sadly are plan was being holted by Natasha, me and her didn't get along the best and even though I'd asked for five pipe bombs weeks ago but she'd been taking her time making them. Next time Simon let us all go out scavenging I would go to one of the many miltary checkpoints that had been set up to contain the virus. Chances were their would be some grenades in the tanks.

"God" Natasha sihged Simon had got out of his depth in the teddy bear dispute. She walked over to help him. blowtorch guy's eyes followed her.

"ahhhhhhhh" He said when she was out of ear shot.

"I don't know what you see in her" I said scraping the bottom the bean tin with my spoon.

"what?" Ali said not knowing what I was talking about.

"Blowtorch has a crush on Natasha" I said

"ah that sweet have you told her how you feel" Ali asked. Blowtorch shook his head.

"out of my league" Blowtorch said blushing a bit.

"Not true their aren't any leagues any more" Ali said.

"why you'd want to ask her out" I said smiling this was an on going taunt I had with Blowtorch. It was friendly but I could tell that sometimes it got on his nerves. James came over and the moment softened.

"So Ali were you from?" I asked, sucking my soon even though their was nothing on it

Natasha~
"God!" I sighed. Stupid teddy bear. "Simon, let me help with this." He nodded and backed off, this was obviously out of his league.

"Okay honey. Who's teddy bear is this?" I asked one of them.
"It's mine." He replied.
"Well you gave it to me." The other whined.
"Did not. I said you could see it for a while."
"SO!! I ONLY SAW IT FOR A MINUTE!!"

I rolled my eyes. "It's his teddy bear, he does what he wants. If you have something he wants to see, you have control over it okay?"

"Cool!!! Wanna see my nerf blaster?" The boy ran to his yoga mat, the things that doubled as cots around here.

"Natasha, when are you gonna be done with those pipe bombs?" Jack asked as soon as I got back over.
"Look, I have to take apart all of the bathroom displays, the lawnmowers, and take the wire out of all those stupid barbie doll packages okay? It's gonna take two days at the most."
"Isn't there more wire some other place?"
"Not the nice bendy kind."
A glare from Jack.

Simon~

"You know what Natasha? You're right. We are wearing you thin," Simon said, pondering out loud. It was true, a lot had happened in the past month since the virus first became a pandemic. There had been a lot of running, a lot of fighting for their lives and now that things had finally calmed down they were just now tasting the fruits of their labor. Back then their had been just a few them; James,Natasha, his brother and him. At the time Natasha had been enough...but now that the group was expanding. Yea...maybe.

Natasha gave him a confused look "Um...Simon has the pressure finally gotten to you? Are you feeling ok?"

"No," he said, "Look Natasha you're obviously being stretched too thin. Today lets work on getting you a few people, to help you. I mean the more the merrier right?"

"Yea...maybe." she said, "But we'd have to train them first of course."

Simon clapped, "Wouldn't have it any other way!"

Natasha~

"I don't know...." To be honest, I really preferred doing it myself. That way, I knew what was going on, it was my fault if something went wrong, and it was my success.

"Interesting teddy bear logic." Ali said, changing the subject.
"Yeah, my ownership theory will probably come back to bite me in the ass."
Ali smiled.

"Aw. That's cute." Jack was talking with the blowtorch kid.
"What?" I asked.
"He said you're cute." He answered.
"How am I cute?"
"Ask him."
"Hey, how am I cute?" I asked him.
He just blushed.

"So how about it?" Simon asked again. The avoiding of the subject obviously didn't deter him.
"Fine. I'll take Blowtorch since he already gets the basic idea. If it's too much I'll see about asking for more help." Having been put on the spot, I had to quickly make up my mind.
Simon nodded his approval.

"New York, actually," I replied. This Jack kid seemed nice enough.

"Nice," he replied. Small talk wasn't a big thing for me, so I figured I'd just leave it at that.

Natasha came over then. She seemed nice... albeit... a little trigger-happy. I was still in awe over her ability to make all those weapons and explosives. It made me wonder what her background was like.

"Interesting teddy bear logic," I said. I had overheard what they had said.

"Yeah, my ownership theory will probably come back to bite me in the ass." I smiled. She was a bit crude for my tastes, but she was nice, and she seemed pretty smart. Her theory probably wasn't the best... I figured that, sometime later, I'd see what I could do in regards to the whole childcare issue. I was good with that stuff, and it looked like Natasha would have more fun with rigging all her traps and such.

She then left to go confront the Blowtorch Kid- that seemed to be his running nickname now. I think his real name was Adam or something. He told her she was cute, but got too embarrassed when she started to ask questions.

I turned back to Jack, not having much else to do. "So, what about you? What's your story?"

Natasha~
"C'mere." I indicated to Simon. He nodded and followed me. "Look, you know how I was out late the other day. I found something really... interesting... odd?"
"What?"
"Look, we have a nuclear power plant down-town. You knew that right?"
He nodded.
"Okay, last night, I saw a bird. It was cat sized, it looked like a cat."
"What?"
"He had paws. He had whiskers. He had the eyes. But he had wings and feathers."
"What?"
"Radiation. It causes cell mutations sometimes. The disease with everyone... it could be. Look, I don't know okay. Call me crazy. It looked like a cat. I'm going to get some people together, and we're going to go outside and double check this okay? What if it was radiation?"
"I know," he replied, "Just, mutations to change a whole species... I thought those took millions of years to occur."
"Yes. That's what's odd. It's just-" I trailed off.

James~~

I ran through the door the bag on my back heavy, "Natasha!! I got some presents for you."

She finished talking and walked over while I laid out everything from my pack on the table: two machetes; three boxes of twenty two ammo, 200 shells each; and a note that I wrote saying "I found three pistols, but I didn't bring them, trying not to get people too excited.

"Theres also a whole bunch of fertilizer, and other stuff for Napalm, and Nitroglycerin if we need it."

"Wow... where was all this?"

"Found it in an old grocery store about two miles down the road. Some people holed up there. Guess they didn't make it out. Simon should know. I'm gonna head back out, scan the area around it for any signs of people, but I'll be back soon."

Simon~

"Nitroglycerin?" Natasha nodded without a word, but Simon could see the excitement in her eyes.

"James also found 3 pistols, he didn't bring em' but I assume he's got them somewhere safe."

Simon nodded taking it all in. "Okay, lets get him I want him to take me to where he found this stuff and grab blowtorch kid." Natasha spun around, her cheeks turned red. "He's your type of guy right?" Simon laughed.

She glared at him, "Shut up..."Natasha was so straight forward that people normally got the wrong idea about her. She was really a nice and soft hearted person. She just had a hard shell on the outside-she wasn't a push over. Her face softened. "What about the power plant?

Simon's smile faded "Yea...we'll do that."

*Ray 122 in your post before your last post you said after a month it's been a year. If you already knew that and it was a typo sorry for being annoying*

Jack

When Natasha and Simon talked it normally meant we were gonna head out. Natasha when and talked to Blowtorch guy who nodded. Not that it meant anything she could ask him to jump off a cliff and he'd nod his head like that. I walked over to Simon who was packing a bag with emergency supplies. It was almost night, night was a bad time to go out. without any electricty the city was pitch black and on a cludy day like today visbility would be near zero if we didn't get back in time.

"so we going?" I asked. Simon looked at me.

"Jack" He said in a meaningful way.

"what?, oh come on the grown up jumped out at me and I screamed oh fuck before killing it, okay it surprised me big deal" I said folding my arms.

"and you scream attracted like 80 grown ups which we just got away from" Simon said zipping up the bag and slinging it over his back.

"bad luck" I said pleadingly.

"I don't know man I don't really want to have to listen to your arguments with Natasha" Simon said searching through the weapons until he found his own.

"I'll be good man no bitching with Natasha, I'll let her talk to Blowtorch kid instead" I said and Simon smiled.

"Was that for real man or did you just put him on the spot" Simon asked.

"Nah ever since I came five months ago he's had a crush on her, don't no what he see's her" I said pulling on my finger less gloves and putting my short spear on my back.

" She pretty and you know just cause she's got a temper dosen't mean she isn't nice deep inside," Simon said and I looked at him scepticly.

"very deep inside, or may Blowtorch just like the dominate female" I laughed at Simon's joke.

"a bit flat chested though" I said and we both laughed. The funny side quickly dissapered with a sharp crack to the back of our heads made us cry out in pain.

" Don't talk about girls like that" Ali said Simon shrugged

"I didn't say anything" Simon lied Ali hit him him on the head again I laughed at him and got a surprisingly painful flick to the nose.

" Sorry Ali" I said bowing my head so she couldn't flick me in my face again.

"fine but stop thinking your so tough when your to afraid to insult Natasha face to face" Ali said she started to walk off when I grabbed her wrist.

"you wanna come, I don't think you've seen are ingenious way out yet" I said Ali nodded and I let go of her wrist. Once James and Natasha got back we told Afro when we would probably be back. Afro was one of the oldest kids here apart from the group that was leaving, he's done crack before the virus and even now a year later he maneged to keep a dozy atmosphere around himself. Then we walked up to the top floor and onto the roof. We walked right up to the edge at the bottom of the drop was a big mat the kind that stuntmen jumped onto from ridicules height and survives it was six meters each way.

"that's the way down how do we get up?" Ali asked.

"oh we have a bunch of trolleys with the insides cut out so we could thread a ladder down it, then we have a gate on it so the grown ups don't get up that way." James said.

"why don't we just go down that way then" Ali said.

"cause this is faster" I said And rugby tackled Blow torch guy off the roof we both landed safely at the bottom.

Natasha~

"Okay. We're heading to the power plant downtown. You all know where that is? It's going to be really dangerous... so here." I handed each of them a zip gun I made with the stuff James got. "I know it's small, but your ammo is a dissolving capsule with some rat poison which is deadly... or these lead sinkers. And we've got a smoke bomb each. Don't waste them."

"Yes Queen Tasha." Jack said saluting. I just rolled my eyes.

"You said we're watching for wildlife?" Ali asked.

"Yep, Natasha says we've got some weird mutations going on..."

"Why are we going to the power plant. If this is radiation we could be killed." Jack looked at me suspiciously.

"We're just scouting. You can handle that can't you?"

*Yea Jok my bad.*
Simon~

"Come on you two. You sound like an old married couple," Simon said, he put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Natasha, care to lead the way?"

"Of course," she said. She pulled out a map and unrolled it for the whole group to see. She pointed at a spot she had marked. "OK that's the power plant," She slid her finger over to another spot "and that's where I saw the mutated bird." Jack whistled.

"Wow, You have it marked and everything..." Jack said, he looked at Natasha "Somebody's an over achiever."

"And somebody doesn't have brains."

Jack followed Natasha saying "What? I have brains!" Simon only shook his head and followed a long. He looked back at the confused Ali and Adam (Blowtorch guy). Oh yea, they had never been on a mission with these two. He smiled. "Get used to it."

Natasha~

"No you don't have brains. Where were you anyway when they passed them out?" Jack always managed to put me in a pissy mood.
"Probably the same place you were when they passed out feelings."
"Fuck you." I said glaring at him.
"Oh, I didn't know you wanted to. What are you doing Friday night?" He replied grinning. Ouch. I walked into that one. One point for Jack.

"Shut it you two." Simon said, glancing back. Ali looked somewhat shocked. "We're on a mission and if you don't cut this crap out I'll plug you with a sinker."

"Whatever. Tell Natasha to cut it out. She provoked me."
"Tell King Jack to shut up."
"King?"
"Yeah, you're a royal pain in the ass." Speechless. Point for me.

"Ali, separate them." Simon said. He gave his 'glance.' Ali nodded.

"Okay, as I was saying," Simon began again, "We're getting close. We need to be careful."
"Watch the doors and windows of the buildings, watch the cars, and keep you gun loaded. We're entering forsaken territory." He added solemnly.

Jack

I tucked the zip gun into my pocket. Like most zip guns it was single shot. Honestly against a horde of grown ups I'd rather use my spear. Still it felt nice to have something so dangerous with me. We all walked down the middle of the streets avoiding the abandoned cars and rubbish from the last few desperate days. It was way safer to walk down the middle of the road. If you walked down the side roads and kept to the shadows like in the movies a grown up would just grab you as you walked by.

"I don't like it here man" I said after we'd been walking a while, their had been some tence moments when something crashed inside a building. It happened frequently when we came out at this time it was the grown ups going to sleep.

"why? you scared?" James said he was taking point with a three shot zip gun. It was clear he's rather be using his knives since with every crash he flinched towards them.

"no I just don't feel good about walking towards the weird mutated stuff, it's like in the horror movies when they know their something in the house but they risk it for some stupid reason like a magic book or a phone" I said and James laughed one dry laugh.

"you won't die mate, That would benifit Natasha too much" James said.

"I know what you mean but one day she's just going to pop and bang I'm de... Holy shit" I said the last bit in a hushed shout grabbing James collar and yanking him back behind an abbaddoned taxi. Natasha grabbed Blowtorch and Simon grabbed Ali. The all quickly ducked behind cover.

"what the fuck Jack" Natasha said in hushed voice.

"what do you see?" James asked trying to peek around but I was blocking his view.

"down at the crossing" I said and they all peered through the low light.

"shit" Simon said as he spotted what I had seen. They were like dogs but not dogs not the normal strays that we saw running around killing each other. They looked like german shepords but were as big as bears and short tails. Their were four of them feasting on one of Natashas cat meet's bird creatures.

"Jack" Simon said opening the backpack and taking out the m40 sniper. I was a good shot with a sniper and when I had first arrived at the wal mart had exclusive rights to use it. Sadly as the year stretched on and ammo wound down to four clips of ten. I began to only use it when it was realy neccisary.

"Their big it will probably take two shots " I said as we turned to each other to discuss the battle plan.

"I'll go down that alley way and use my zip gun to take down the one on the far right one when you take your shot" James said loading his zip gun. Natasha took out he trusty revolver.

" I'll get that one" Natasha said pointing to the one on the left.

"And I'll sword the last one" she continued and I nodded.

"what do I do" Simon said he had his make shift shotgun looked and loaded.

"Make sure Ali and Blowtorch don't die" Natasha said like it was obvious before her and James sprinted off.

"tough brake" I said to Simon before moving slowly forward for a better shot.

Natasha~
"Ali, you're the smartest person I know. If I bring you back one of the bear dogs can you study it... see what's it's all about?" She nodded. "Okay, let's go Jack." It seemed like the only time we could actually cooperate with each other was in battle. Which was kind of a paradox... kind of sad.

As we got closer, the bear-dog looked up at us and made a sort of guttural bark. It sniffed the air and then charged. Just like that. "Jack... what did you..." and it was just like the nature films of old. Two little dog-bear babies were sitting a few paces from Jack. Across from me stood momma bear.

"She's not gonna be easy... look at that fur, the bullets bounce right off." Jack called to me.

The bear jumped towards my neck... it hadn't forgotten the canine tactics. Did I have a knife?

From the corner of my eye I saw the other bear advance towards Jack.

No I did not have a knife. I tried kicking off the bear, and then poking it's eyes.
"Natasha!!" I turned to look, Blowtorch had slid me a knife. I took it and stabbed at it's throat. It was enough to get it off me.

Minutes later both were dead.

"Aw... you killed their parents." Ali said quietly. She had scooped up the two bear-dog cub-pups. They were nuzzling her cheek.