Apocalypse Queen: My Space, My Rules Chapter 119: Black Bear

The sun hadn't shown its face once since the flooding began. People were starting to forget what the blue sky looked like.

A heavy gray haze hung over everything, neither cloud nor fog nor smog but something of all three, sealing out the light entirely.

Starving survivors swarmed out in search of anything salvageable. Neither the alligators lurking in the murk nor the escaped convicts roaming the streets could stop them.

When you have absolutely nothing, even the most dangerous men will walk right past you. There's no point robbing someone who's already been picked clean.

They lashed together rafts, grabbed whatever they could find for weapons, and went after the alligators with sticks and cleavers and rope, trading their lives for a meal.

The convict gangs, having picked the refugees clean, turned their attention toward the wealthy districts.

The rich had supplies worth taking, but they also had firepower and trained guards, and every wealthy household kept security on staff. To rob them meant going through those men first.

That kind of work was nothing new for men who'd already been sentenced to die. But the gang's leader was smarter than most.

Instead of fighting his way through, he started making offers.

"You're selling your life for a paycheck. Come with us and you'll make more. Help us from the inside, 50-50 split on everything we take. And first pick of the lady of the house. Don't you want to know what that's like?"

The escapees were easy to spot. They'd broken out just over two weeks ago, and their shaved heads had grown in barely a stubble, not even enough for a crew cut.

In the summer heat they couldn't cover up with hats, and no matter how decent the clothes they'd scavenged, those close-cropped heads gave them away every time.

The leader went by Black Bear, and the name fit. He was dark-skinned and massive, with a face full of hard muscle and a thick beard, the kind of man who looked like violence as a default.

His inner circle called each other by nicknames only—Big Boy, Carp, Big Nose, Goldilocks, and a few others, ranked in order of brutality and collectively known as the Five Brothers.

Between them, they commanded over a hundred men, and they'd recruited desperate survivors into their ranks as well. Wherever they moved, they left nothing standing.

They robbed, killed, assaulted women, and burned through communities without hesitation. When the authorities finally sent police units to contain them, Black Bear proved as cunning as he was vicious, drawing units out with feints and hitting them where they weren't.

The social order had collapsed enough that the city couldn't spare the resources to crush them outright, and the gang only grew bolder.

Once they'd built up their supplies, grown their numbers, and gotten their hands on some firearms, their eyes turned toward the wealthy districts.

One villa was worth more than an entire apartment block. And the women there, Black Bear reasoned, were better kept and better looking than anything they'd find in the regular neighborhoods.

Black Bear looked every bit the brute he was, but there was nothing slow about his mind. A stupid man couldn't have built a crew that fast.

He tested his approach on a mid-tier gated community called Elmgrove Estates first. Security was the first obstacle, and the main difference between a wealthy enclave and an ordinary block was exactly that.

Money bought real guards, trained ones, not the aging watchmen who dozed at the gates of ordinary buildings.

Black Bear had one of the security captains taken. A combination of threats and incentives did the rest. The captain folded and brought his whole team with him. The guards didn't just stand down. They opened the gates themselves.

With access to the security system, the gang pulled up the footage and got the door codes. When bodyguards blocked their path deeper in, Black Bear ran the same play.

"We're all just here to get paid. What does it matter who you're working for? You really want to keep watching your boss eat well, sleep next to his beautiful wife, while you scrape by on leftovers and take care of your own needs alone at night?

"Join us and everything we take gets split down the middle. You get first pick of the lady of the house. Don't tell me you've never wondered what that's like."

A few of the bodyguards hesitated. Something in their expressions shifted.

That was when the homeowner came charging through with a gun, firing toward the entrance and screaming at his own men.

"Useless trash, every one of you! Standing there chatting with criminals!"

One of the bodyguards went still. The muscle in his jaw twitched. Then he moved.

He knocked the gun from his employer's hands before the man could react, and put him on the ground.

"You don't own me." He drove a kick in to make the point. "I'm not your dog."

The other two bodyguards stood frozen, caught between what they'd been paid to do and the reality unfolding before their eyes.