GALLANT HAD BEEN WRONG A YEAR AND A HALF AGO BUT EVE KNEW IT WAS DUE TO COME SOON SEVERAL NIGHTS AGO WHEN she had a vision of him arriving outside the Outpost and ordered Mead to take care of his pus-ridden horses. In the fog of her dream state she admired who he'd become: he was more man than before. Alluring icy eyes enhanced with red pigmented shadow, tailored suit, and long, honey hair.
She woke up that morning and knew today he'd return to her the moment she heard hisses and slithering coming from under her bed. When the first of many snakes came out from under her bed, she picked it up and let it curls itself around her shoulders. She cooed at the reptile, spoke to it. Oh how I missed my children, she had said, it's been too long.
-
They sat at the dining room table, waiting for breakfast. Venable opened the doors and walked in and automatically began to speak.
"I have an announcement." she said. "This will be our last breakfast. We'll be cutting back to one meal a day."
"You can't be serious." Coco spoke, eyes wide.
"An effective dieting technique." Evie commented.
Hell, Eve hated the old bat.
"Yeah, so is starving to death!" Coco shot back.
"How are we supposed to survive on half a cube?" Gallant asked, growing angry.
"It's not optimal," Venable admitted, "but also not impossible. Either way we have no choice, not if we want to keep eating at all."
"I fucking can't do this anymore!" Gallant shook his head.
"We don't know how strong we are until we have to face adversity. This can be an opportunity for us to grow." Dinah reasoned.
"You finish that bumper sticker shit you used to say on your show and I'm strong enough to shove this fork in your neck!" Gallant raged.
I'll gladly help, Eve thought to herself.
"What is the point to all of this?" Coco started, "Starving, killing each other, getting shot? All we're doing is waiting around to find out how we die."
"I say we take our chances outside." Mallory urged.
Eve snorted and began cutting her half-cube into thin slices. She wouldn't stop them, she'd much rather them rot on the outside of the bunker anyway.
"She's right!" Gallant yelled, standing up. "We have to get out of here!"
"Nobody's going anywhere." Mead said from her place.
Gallant picked up his plate and threw it at the wall. The porcelain broke and fell to the floor. "What are you gonna do?! Shoot us all?!What are you going to do?!"
A Grey was about to restrain him when red lights suddenly flashed and an alarm went off. Eve smirked. It was time. Michael was here. She could feel him.
-
"I have a rule against eating things with no legs or too many legs." Coco spoke upon seeing their dinner.
Dinner that evening consisted of snake soup. Eve was enraged. How dare they murder her familiars, her children?!
"Oh, right," Andre scoffed, "but you're fine with eating something with two legs."
"For the last time," Gallant rolled his eyes, "we didn't eat your boyfriend."
"Eat it or don't," Mead spoke up from her place at the table, "no one's gonna force it down you."
"Adversity makes strange bedfellows and worse dinner companions." Dinah said, directing her sight to Andre. "It's food and we're starving. We should be grateful for the fruits of the earth."
Eve clenched her fists and glared at the woman next to her. Those snakes were her friends.
"Well, steamed snake soup is actually quite delicious." Evie added. "It was the centerpiece of a dinner that I attended at the Royal Court in Kuala Lumpur with Gina Lolabrigida."
Gallant and Eve's eyes met. While he let out a sigh and covered his tires eyes, Eve clenched her fists even harder, drawing blood.
Brief laughter commenced before Emily spoke up, directing her question to Miss Venable. "So who's in your office?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The alarms went off before. Someone came inside." Emily reminded the woman.
"Who else is here?" Timothy added.
"All questions will be answered in due time. Eat."
Everyone lifted the lids off their dishes. Live snakes slithered out. Eve looked on in shock, eyes wide. There was no way she could've done that, she'd never even attempted Vitum Vitalis.
-
Venable ordered everyone to meet in the library. She didn't have to tell Eve a thing. She already knew. Michael was coming.
With the sound of oncoming footsteps, Eve knew. Michael Langdon in all his suited glory was back.
He stood at the doorway for a moment and subtly gazed in Eve's direction before walking over to where Venable stood, looking at each occupant.
Everyone felt the atmosphere change. His presence was electrifying.
He stood by Venable's side, staring at her. Waiting for her to move. When she finally turned to him, Eve could sense the woman's nervousness. She finally stepped away, leaving all attention on him and only him.
"My name is Langdon," he spoke confidently, "and I represent the Cooperative." He looked around the room at each occupant while he spoke. "I won't sugarcoat the situation; humanity is on the brink of failure..."
The half-demon took a moment to focus on how his voice sounded, ignoring the meaning behind his words. He sounded much more confident – he carried himself much more confidently. She studied him, taking in his long, wavy honey hair, his glacier eyes accented with red shadow. His fingers adorned with rings.
"... The three other compounds in Syracuse, New York, Beckley, West Virginia, and San Angelo, Texas have been overrun and destroyed." He announced. "We've had no contact from the six international outposts, but we are assuming that they, too, have been eliminated."
"What happened to the people inside?" Timothy questioned.
"Massacred;" he said simply with an air of drama, "The same fate that will befall almost all of you." The slightest of smiles befell upon his lips.
"Almost all?" Mallory repeated, horrified. Tears lined her eyes.
"In the knowledge that this very moment might occur, we built a failsafe: The Sanctuary."
"The Sanctuary?" Coco questioned, expression cross.
"The Sanctuary is unique. It has certain security measures that will prevent overrun."
"Excuse me, Sir?" Mead spoke, "What measures? Why weren't we given them?"
"That's classified." He held a hand up to quiet her. "All that matters is the Sanctuary will survive, so the people populating it will survive, so humanity will survive."
"Who are the people populating it?" Andre asked.
Eve rolled her eyes at him. She already knew he wouldn't be one of them.
"Also classified. However, I have been sent to determine if any of you are worthy and fit to join us."
Murmuring began amongst the survivors of Outpost 3. Eve sat silently, not joining in, only staring at her long lost love.
"The Cooperative has a particular and rigorous questioning technique we like to call Cooperating." he continued to explain. "I will then use the information gained to determine if you belong."
"What is this, The Hunger Games?" Coco sassed, "This is bullshit. I paid my way in here and that is the only cooperating I plan on doing."
"You don't have to sit for questioning."
"What happens if we chose not to?" Andre asked.
Eve rolled her eyes. You die, stupid.
"Then you stay here and die." Michael said, merciless.
Everyone looked at each other for a moment.
Gallant's hand shot up and he spoke with glee, "I volunteer to go first!"
"And so you shall." he confirmed. "The process should only take me a couple of days, so you won't be kept in suspense forever. For those of you who don't make the cut," he pulled a glass vial filled with pills out of his pocket, "all is not lost. If the worst should happen and feral cannibals come knocking, down one of these. One minute later, you fall asleep and never wake up.... I look forward to meeting each and every one of you."
-
Oh, this is gonna be so fun, Eve thought to herself as she hid in the shadows of what was now Michael's office.
"So how's this work?" was the first thing Gallant said.
Michael sat across from him. "I'm not going to tell you what criteria I'm using to grade you." he relented. "Things you may feel are helpful may be hurtful. Things you may feel compel rejection may be exactly what I'm looking for."
Gallant shifted uncomfortably. "So I can't game the system?"
"If you hedge, I will know. If you lie, I will know. And if you try to trick me, I will know, and this interview will be over, and you will die here painfully. Are we clear?" Gallant nodded. "What is your sexual orientation?"
"I'm gay, but I fucked a girl before in high school,"
Eve held back a snicker.
"And I finished and everything. She did, too. ...I think. It's harder to tell with girls."
Oh, honey, she so didn't.
"Um, but I'm just saying that I can do that, you know, for - for procreation if I have to."
"We have techniques for harvesting genetic material. We still need a woman's womb to incubate the fetus, for now, but your ability to impregnate some poor girl isn't needed." Michael informed him. "Tell me about your anger. Tell me about your grandmother."
"Why would you put those two things together?" Michael waited for his answer. Gallant took a deep breath. "Okay. I hate her fucking guts."
We all do! Eve sing-songed in her head.
"Good. Why?"
"Because she wants me to be the perfect gay: married, with a pair of Yorkies, and a collection of Wedgwood dishes." he said in disgust.
"A eunuch."
"A eunuch," he confirmed, "that's not me at all. I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember when sucking dick was both a way to get off and an act of political rebellion."
"She's shamed you." Michael realized. "In the past."
"What do you know?"
"Maybe I have a file that tells me all your secrets, or maybe I'm sensing something, or maybe I'm just fishing." He sat on his desk, still establishing himself as the dominating figure in the room. "Tell me who you really are."
"Are you looking for some kind of confession?"
"I'm not a priest. I dont even know if I believe in God." He leaned back. "I mean, if there was a God, why would he allow the Armageddon?" he questioned. "The concept of sin does seem a bit antiquated. Rules for keeping the chaos at bay. No need for rules anymore; Chaos has won."
"Uh, uh - Nana, she used to throw these bullshit suburban gay lunches." He inhaled harshly, "God it was like the homo version of the bachelor." And so he launched into some story about one of his grandmother's parties. "...And that was the last time she ever tried to tame me." he finished.
"So you like leather?"
"I like a lot of things." Gallant responded, hinting at his obvious infatuation to the man in front of him. "Can I ask you something?" He took the silence between them as his signal to go ahead. "Are you gay? Cus I'm getting a real major hit off of you."
"Does the idea excite you?"
"Yes." Gallant confessed softly. "What are you going to do about it?" Michael turned around and walked to the doors and opened them. "Let's continue this conversation another time."
"What? That's it?" he stood up from his seat. "How did I do? Did I get in?"
-
Having used the shadows to leave, Eve made her way back to her quarters..... right across from Gallant's. She conjured a... gift for him. And she could hear everything with her superior hearing.
"Oh, you pack that thing in your luggage?"
Eve smirked. There was a time when Michael was clothed in rubber, but this wasn't Michael. This was a demon she'd conjured, an illusion.
"Is this phase two of the interview, or are you here on your own time?" His attempts at being seductive made her laugh silently. "I am yours, body and fucking soul."
Moans and panting and grunts commenced. The halfling tuned them out with a smile upon her face. The energy his lust gave off was thrilling. It was delicious, delectable. She fed off the energy their sex created, feeling more alive than she had in years.
It didn't bother her all too much that he'd be punished later. Sure, he's gay and the illusion she provided him with was clearly male, so there's obviously no real risk, but hell, he got on her nerves. This was her game, and her rules were never fair. Not when the Demon of Lust is her father.
I wouldn't even fuck you if you were the last man on Earth... and you almost are.