Chapter 13: Double Tap

"Keep going west, mom...", Eli instructed Julie, twisting around to crawl across the center console, into the back with Vivi, "...get us back on the road, then just drive west, and don't slow down. Oh, and I know you don't need them, but make sure the lights stay off."

"Will do. Vivi, sweetie, are you okay?" Although Julie tried to present a calm atmosphere, the slight tremble of her voice gave away her inner emotional state.

"Yeah, I'm fine, mom." Vivi said, sitting up a little straighter to prove her point, only to feel a sharp pain run through her bruised ribs. "Ugh, okay, maybe I'm not fine, but I will be."

She gave her mother a weak smile in the rearview mirror, causing a small drop of blood to gather under her swollen, split lower lip. Beside her, Eli was leaning over the backrest to reach the car's storage area, digging around in one of their supply cases. After tossing a few emergency medical supply packages onto the seat beside Vivi, he closed the case and sat down, twisting in his seat to face her. He tore open a package containing an antiseptic wipe; well, a soft, clean cloth soaked in distilled grain alcohol, the best antiseptic wipe a wasteland medic could hope for. The potent smell of distilled liquor stung his nostrils, and Vivi turned her nose up at the odor, instinctively turning her face away.

"We need to get your wounds cleaned and bandaged. I won't lie to you, this'll hurt. I'll do it as gently as I can, though." He said, scooting closer to her.

"I know, I've had to use those disinfectant wipes before. Let's just get it over with. And....thanks Eli. Thanks for coming for me. You too mom, thank you... Motherfucker!" Her sentimental moment of gratitude was cut short by Eli pressing an alcohol wipe to the gash across her upper arm.

"Let mom concentrate on driving, we're offroad and she needs to focus. And of course we'd come for you, we're family. Besides, I seem to remember you doing something similar for me a few years ago." Eli winked at her and continued gently patting the cut on her arm with the sterilizing cloth, being careful to not wipe dirt into the wound. 'Dab with the first cloth, wipe with the second', that's what his grandfather taught him during a camping accident, when Eli sliced his palm open while trying to start a campfire using a knife and magnesium striker. He folded the cloth in half, then started dabbing at the wound once more with the unused side. Vivi squirmed and sucked in sharp breaths between her teeth in reaction to the sting of alcohol in the wound. The car's rough movements due to the offroad driving certainly wasn't making things any easier.

"Shit! I don't remember them hurting this much." Vivi muttered. "Hey, Eli, you almost done?"

He tucked the used, bloodied cloth back into it's packaging, then tore open a new one, and finished cleaning her arm. He returned the second wipe to it's packaging and grabbed a third, along with a roll of cloth bandaging, which he placed in Vivi's hand.

"Yup. All done disinfecting your arm, you can start wrapping it while I check your headwound. Pull your hair out of the way and tilt your head so I can see." Eli's tone was clinical, but he showed her a kind, compassionate smile. Vivi grumbled something under her breath, but Eli couldn't quite make out the words, so he chose to not comment on it. She gathered her blonde hair and swooped it all to the right, exposing her thin neck, and the small cut just behind her left ear.

"Well, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, but headwounds always bleed more than you'd think they should." Eli mused, tenderly dabbing the alcohol-soaked cloth against the wound. He dabbed, folded, and dabbed again, until the cloth couldn't fold anymore. Then he used a second antiseptic cloth to wipe the small cut and clean the blood from her hair. Vivi winced and hissed the entire time, but kept her head relatively still for him throughout.

"Hey. I've got my arm wrapped, but I need you to tie it for me." She pouted at him with upturned eyes after he finished with her head. He quickly put away the used antiseptic wipes and took hold of the ends of the bandage, tying it snugly in place. Finished performing first-aid, Eli placed one hand softly against the side of Vivi's face, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

"I'm glad we found you, Vivi. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. I love you, sis." His eyes were locked onto hers as he spoke.

A small smile curled at the edges of Vivi's lips, and her cheeks took on a rosy pink hue. She leaned toward him, wrapped her arms around his back, and pressed her face against his chest. "Mm. I love you too."

"And mama loves you both." Julie added from the driver's seat, a wide grin across her pretty face. "But we need to decide where we're going."

"We need to go west, until we find a safe place to stay while we get our long-term plans figured out." Eli replied, ending the hug and passing a fresh alcohol wipe to Vivi while pointing to her buster lip. She frowned and groaned, then reluctantly took the cloth and started cleaning the small wound, hissing in exaggerated pain as she did so.

"Yeah, okay, I get that, but why do you want to go west?" Julie asked.

"Because I'm pretty sure those assholes, the JSU, are from somewhere in the east."

"Really? Why's that?" Vivi asked while cleaning her injured lip.

"Because we found about forty of their soldiers turned Feral, or dead, in the area mom and I were Sweeping when they attacked Lancaster. That was just over eighty miles east of town. And there's the missing trader too, the one that delivers the militia's shipments of plastic. She's from a settlement out east, and no one's seen her in about a month. I think the JSU took over her settlement the same way they did ours. All the traders from out west were still making shipments recently, so I think it's safe to head that way, especially if it's the opposite direction of wherever the JSU forces came from."

Vivi finished treating her lip while Eli explained his reasoning, then gathered up all the used first-aid items to stuff them into one of the roller's empty storage compartments behind the seat. Bending over the backrest, her hip repeatedly bumped against Eli's shoulder, even though there was plenty of room for that to not happen.

"Alright. West it is, then. Hurry and sit down Vivi, we're about to get back on the road." Julie warned her daughter.

Vivi sat down seconds before Julie drove diagonally onto the elevated road. The car bucked as if they had driven over a speed-bump while going way too fast, tossing everyone around in their seats and rattling all the luggage cases. They were thrown around once more as Julie cranked the steering wheel to do a hard swerve around a huge pothole that was half-hidden by sand. When the car finally leveled out, all three of them let out small sighs of relief.

"How much charge is left in the car's battery, mom?" Eli asked while crawling into the front passenger seat.

"Umm, forty-four percent. So, maybe one hundred forty miles before the battery's completely dead. Hopefully it's enough to get us to....wherever the hell we're going." Her face became more worried the longer she thought about their precarious situation.

"Hey...", Eli reached out to pull her right hand off the steering wheel, laced their fingers together, and gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "We'll be alright. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it, together." He placed a kiss against the back of her hand before resting their linked hands on the center console. Julie glanced lovingly into his eye for a short moment, then turned her attention back to the hazardous highway.

"Vivi?" Eli turned his head to look back at his sister, still holding his mother's hand. "Think you were able to get any useful info from the raiders?"

Vivi was staring at Eli and Julie's hands, their fingers laced in a lover's hold. Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, or skepticism, Eli couldn't tell which.

"Hey, Vivi? Did you hear me?" Eli's second round of questions snapped her out of the daze she was in, and she raised her attention to his face.

"Uhh, I don't think so. They mostly just bragged about how easily they took control of Lancaster, or talked about which one of the male prisoners they wanted to, um....well, 'rape' would be putting it nicely. They got pissed when they were called bandits though, said they were 'liberators', that they were bringing civilization to Lancaster, and we would eventually be grateful for it, begging to join them. They're fucking crazy."

Vivi frowned in disgust and anger at the insanity of the soldier's words.

"That's good Vivi, that's actually good information. It tells us that they're thoroughly radicalized and intent on expanding their control indefinitely, or until they're confronted by a force large enough to repel them. Shit. We need to get very, very far away from the Wastes. But for now, we should find somewhere to hide for the day. If they have scouts in the area, they'll be on the roads after sunrise."

"Hmm, I know of a place that could be perfect." Julie said, "Sweepers recently cleared an area with a large brick building about two miles north of the highway, up a winding side road, just after the next intersection. They said the building has an entrance big enough to drive a roller through. We can park the roller inside, out of sight." She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Eli, like a puppy waiting to be praised.

"Yeah, alright, that's a good idea, mom." He wasn't really sure if it was a good idea or not, but it wasn't like he had any alternative. Also, he'd gone almost twenty-four hours without sleep, and the stress of the day's events was really catching up with him, and it was beginning to cloud his judgement.

Eli continued holding Julie's hand while she drove, sometimes gently rubbing her hand with his thumb in a loving gesture, which she reciprocated each time. Vivi looked confused by their behavior, cycling her attention between Eli, Julie, and their little display of affection. It took them roughly fifteen minutes to reach the brick building Julie mentioned, and sunrise was maybe half an hour away when they arrived. The brick-and-mortar structure was tall and boxy, with two floors, arched windows, and barn-style sliding metal doors on the left side of the building's face. Big, curvy iron letters were bolted to the top of the side wall. Most of the letters were still in place, though some hung upside down, and one had fallen to the sand below. Even in their pathetic state, Eli managed to piece together what the letters originally spelled.

'Double Tap Brewery', huh? The old man always said microbreweries choose quirky names to trick people into buying their 'piss-flavored swill'. Heh, he talked all that shit, but still drank all my craft beers when he came to visit.

Julie parked the car in front of the sliding doors, switched the motor off, then all three of them grabbed their weapons-of-choice for clearing the brewery, with Vivi opting to take her hatchet and Eli's pistol. Julie had said Sweepers recently cleared the area, but they weren't willing to take any stupid risks, like walking straight into a potential Feral hive.

They split up to check the perimeter; Eli went left, Julie and Vivi went right. Eli stopped to look through each of the four arched windows on his side of the brewery, cautiously checking the interior for noticeable threats. Inside were three heavily rusted, broken, fallen-over brewing vats, a mangled and deformed iron staircase that had disconnected from the upper level and now lay useless on the floor, and a lot of empty space. And sand. There was always sand. Everywhere.

Julie and Vivi met up with him behind the brewery, and used quick hand signals to tell him they didn't see any Ferals from outside. Eli gestured the same message back to them, then quietly climbed through the nearby broken, glassless arched window. The ground floor was the actual brewing area, just a wide open room, so it only took Eli a couple seconds to visually confirm the absence of any threats. With no way of getting up to the second floor, he figured that if he couldn't get up there, neither could Ferals. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Julie, who had just finished climbing through the broken window.

"We're good. Will you toss the keys to Vivi so she can bring the car in?" He asked.

"Sure thing, sweetheart." She pulled the keys out of her pocket and leaned her upper body through the window, sticking her shapely, firm ass out for Eli's viewing pleasure in the process. "Vivi? We'll open the doors, can you bring the roller in, please?"

"Yes ma'am." Vivi accepted the keys from her mother and did the same playful, cute little mock-salute she'd been doing since she was a child whenever Julie gave her a task. She still idolized her mother, so much so that she was still wearing the same clothes as Julie and happily following any orders she was given.

While Vivi jogged around the brewery to their car, Eli and Julie tugged on the rusty barn-style doors until the opening was wide enough for Vivi to drive through. Once the car was parked inside, and the steel doors were shut, they began stripping off their weapons and gear, leaving it all in the car as they prepared for a wasteland shower; pre-soaked, wet, soapy towels paired with rough, scratchy dry towels.

Eli grabbed his last set of clean clothes, his WET and DRY towel packages, and moved to the opposite side of the vehicle from his mother and sister, between the car and the brewery wall, mostly to give Vivi some privacy. As he scrubbed the JSU soldier blood from his arms, and the sandy grime from the rest of his body, he stole the occasional glance at Julie's large, swaying breasts, or her thick, curvy ass, or just her amazing nude body in general. Julie caught him looking at her chest, grinned provocatively, and bent forward while massaging her breasts, squeezing them against each other, and giving her nipples a little pinch.

Fuck, she really is too damn sexy sometimes.....and she knows it.

After scrubbing himself clean, Eli pulled on his clean clothes, gathered up his pile of dirty clothes and used towels, and opened the roller's back door to toss everything into the rear storage space. He pulled out the supply cases containing their food and bedding, and then, after making sure Vivi was dressed, carried the luggage around to their side of the vehicle. He started laying out the woolen blankets they would take shifts sleeping on while Julie and Vivi were brushing their hair clean of sand. As he was reaching for the last of the thick blankets, Julie crouched down beside him and grabbed his hand before he could pull the blanket from the supply case. Confused by her interruption, he watched her put a finger over her lips and shake her head 'no'. Eli shrugged and left the blanket where it was, accepted the brush she handed him, then brushed his hair clean as he pulled three packaged meal rations from the other case, and three flimsy spoons.

After a hasty dinner of the terrible, flavorless slop the militia leaders claimed was actually 'lasagna', they finished the rest of their nightly routines, then sat on the blanket pile together, discussing the sleeping order.

"Eli, sweetheart, why don't you take first watch? And Vivi, since you're injured, you should sleep in the back of the roller, it's seats are much more cushioned than this hard, concrete floor. There's a spare blanket you can use, too, just grab it from the case on your way." Julie said, smiling a little too innocently at her daughter.

"Uhh...", Vivi's narrowed eyes moved suspiciously between her mother and brother,"...riiiight. Sure, I'll just, go sleep in the roller, I guess." She pushed herself up from the floor, wincing a bit when her bruised abdominal muscles flexed, and shuffled off to the car, stopping to pick up the leftover blanket along the way. She opened the door to get in, then hesitated, and turned around to look at her mother.

"Good night, honey, or, good morning? Either way, sleep well baby girl, mama loves you." Julie was really going overboard with her innocent act, blowing a kiss to Vivi and waving her fingers.

"Yeah, uh, I love you too?" Still confused and suspicious, Vivi crawled into the roller's backseat and closed the door. Her head disappeared from the window when she laid down across the seat, and her blanket flapped a few times as she spread it over herself. With Vivi settled in, Julie turned to gaze hungrily at Eli with her beautiful gray-blue eyes, sucking her lower lip between her teeth, making that cute, seductive face she knew drove him wild.

Oh, fuck yeah. Hurry and fall asleep Vivi, and for the love of god, please don't wake up too soon.