Message-ID: <28302asstr$978887402@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Path: not-for-mail From: "Al Steiner" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 X-Original-Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2001 01:46:30 EST Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 10 (FF, FFm) 2/2 Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 12:10:02 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: kelly, RuiJorge AFTERMATH By Al Steiner CHAPTER 10, Part 2/2 Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net Corporal Tim Hansen was leaning back against one of the sandbags that made up the defensive bunker on the east side of Auburn. He was smoking a cigarette from the dwindling supply and mulling over the idea of trading Cindy, his third wife, for Sally, Private Horn's first wife. The cigarette was somewhat stale with age but the little blasts of nicotine upon his brain that it provided helped him think. Granted, Sally was not as attractive as Cindy was, but she was different. A man got tired of tearing one off the same four pieces. Maybe he could arrange for a temporary swap for a while. That was an idea that was gaining quiet popularity in town these days; a kind of try before you buy policy. He would have to talk to Horn about... "Aircraft approaching!" Private Rimms, the young recruit from Grass Valley on his first assignment suddenly yelled, interrupting his musings. "What?" Hansen said, his eyes searching high in the sky in the direction he was looking. "Did you say aircraft?" "A helicopter," Rimms said, pointing. "One o'clock low. It has something underneath it!" Finally Hansen saw it. It was still very small with distance and there was no detectable sound as of yet, but it was unmistakably a helicopter. Slung beneath it by a rope or cable was a square device of some sort. "Holy shit," he said, picking up his radio. He turned to his men. "Weapons ready in case its hostile but hold your fire." The men all picked up their weapons and pointed them in the direction of the approaching aircraft even though it was still too far away for there to be a hope of hitting it. "Command central," Hansen said into his radio, "this is perimeter station 3. Level one alert! I repeat, level one alert!" Barnes himself, hearing the highest level of alert, came immediately on the radio. "What do you have Perimeter 3?" he asked, his voice anxious. "Sir," Hansen said, "this is Corporal Hansen speaking from perimeter 3. I have a helicopter approaching my position from the east. It is a small, civilian type chopper with a square box of some sort hanging from the bottom of it by a rope or a cable. It's probably two miles out at this point, flying about 2000 feet." "Confirm a helicopter?" Barnes said, his voice registering shock. "That is affirmative sir, a helicopter. It's heading right towards us." +++++ "Okay, we got something here," Brett said as they approached Auburn. From their height they were well above the two protective hills and able to see into what remained of the town. To the north was nothing but a floodplain with a few buildings sticking up out of it. To the south of the interstate however, was a good portion of town with the tiny figures of people clearly visible walking back and forth on the streets. As of yet they were still too far out to tell sex or age "I can see people walking around out there." Jason, peering through the camera lens, zoomed in as close as the optical setting would allow. "There's a bunch of them," he said. "They don't seem to know we're here yet." It was then that Brett, whose view was not magnified but who did enjoy the advantage of taking in everything at once, spotted the defensive emplacements along the Interstate. He slowed up and veered the chopper slightly to the left. "I've got defenses on top of those hills in front of us," he told Jason. "Zoom in on them and tell me what you see. Be sure to record." "Got you," Jason said, swiveling his head that way. He looked them over, verbalizing what he was seeing. "Looks like a sandbagged emplacement on top of each of those hills. I got three people in one, two in the other, and they're all pointing guns at us. Looks like assault rifles." "Are they shooting?" Brett asked, bleeding off a little more speed and angling further to the south. "Negative, no muzzle flashes. They're just pointing them." +++++ Barnes ran outside as fast as he could, accompanied by his staff sergeant and two of his officers who had been in for a briefing. Barnes carried a portable radio set to the command channel and all of them carried automatic weapons. The moment they were out in the open they began scanning the sky, looking for the mysterious helicopter. They spotted it almost immediately, at a near hover off to the southeast. "Listen up everyone," he said to his guards through the radio, all of who would now, because of the level one alert, be sighting in on the aircraft. "Hold your fire unless they do something hostile. I repeat, hold your fire unless they provoke us. That helicopter is something we could really use around here." No one acknowledged but all the same he knew they had heard him and would follow his directions. "Hansen," Barnes said into the radio, "do you have an ID on it yet?" "I'm looking at it through the binoculars sir," came his voice a moment later. "It's a highway patrol helicopter, the same one that used to patrol around here I think. It's one of those quiet ones that they came out with a few years ago. It's less than six hundred yards from us and I can't hear it at all. No external weapons visible. The thing hanging from the hook appears to be a steel container of some sort, probably empty based on the way its swinging back and forth in the wind." "Copy that," Barnes said. "Continue to hold your fire and keep an eye on it. If they approach I want you to try to wave them down. Try to get them to land here." +++++ "I got people with guns now," Brett said, his eyes tracking tiny figures running from several of the buildings and taking up defensive positions. "It looks like they know we're here." "I'm filming 'em," Jason said, panning and zooming madly. Brett let the chopper drift a little closer, still staying well clear of the defensive emplacements but wanting to get better shots of the town. As soon as he began to move that way the guards in the bunkers stood up and started waving at them, making gestures that they should land. "They're waving us down," Jason said, zooming in on that. "I see it," Brett said. "Should we do it?" Jason asked. "Maybe they've got food we can trade or something." "Maybe. Or maybe they're dangerous. You can see better than I can, are those cammies they're wearing?" "Yes." "Cammies and assault weapons make me a little nervous," Brett said. "I'm gonna skirt this town for now and we'll talk about it with Paul and the others when we get back. Keep filming as I go around. Get as much as you can, particularly any weapons or other emplacements." "Okay," Jason said. +++++ "They're moving off to the south sir," Hansen's voice said a moment later, unnecessarily since Barnes could clearly see that. "They ignored our attempts to wave them in." "Continue to hold your fire," Barnes said, watching as the tiny helicopter moved silently away over the canyon. "They may be back at some point. Maybe they'll land the next time." "Continuing to hold fire," was the reply. +++++ Brett flew slowly over the canyon and its raging waters, staying well clear of the bridge, which he was surprised to find still standing. Utilizing his military mind he examined the terrain and tried to think where HE would put a bridge emplacement if he were in charge of Auburn defense. After a moment's thought he decided on the tall hill on the far side of the bridge, basically the same place he had put it in Garden Hill. With that in mind it took him less than ten seconds to spot their camouflaged lookout bunker. "I have an emplacement on the big hill on the south side of the canyon, just east of the bridge," he told Jason. "Get some shots of it and tell me what's there." "Right," Jason said, swinging that way. It took him a little longer to find it but finally he did and zoomed in. "Looks like two people in there," he said. "Both have assault weapons that they're pointing at us, both in cammies." "Okay," Brett replied, nodding. "Let's give them a wide berth and then swing along the south side of the town as we pass. Keep filming." Brett flew slowly - less than twenty knots - but it still took them only three minutes to pass clear of the town of Auburn. On the way out they were able to spot and film the bunkers that guarded the west side of the town as well. "What do you think?" Jason asked as he lowered the camera and took a few deep breaths to try to clear the nausea that looking through the viewfinder while in flight had caused. "They've got their shit together down there," Brett said, putting on a little more speed. "Maybe a little more together than we do. And they have a hell of a lot more people and guns than we do too." "Is that good or bad?" Brett took his eyes off the view before long enough to look at his companion. "It could be either," he said. "It could be either." +++++ They reached the Sacramento Valley six minutes later. The foothills of the Sierras came to a sudden end and they were looking at brown water stretching off to the west, north, and south as far as they could see. The surface of this water was not smooth by any means. It was cluttered with floating debris of all shapes, forms, and sizes, everything from tree branches to lumber to tin cans. In addition to the debris there were thousands of human and animal corpses bobbing around, most near the end of the decomposition cycle. The stench was so strong that they could smell it even from 2000 feet in the air. "Jesus," Jason mumbled, staring downward in awe through the viewfinder. "Look at all of the bodies." "About a million people lived in Sacramento County," Brett said. "About six hundred thousand in San Joaquin County. All of them died when the water came in." Jason said nothing else, knowing that Brett's wife and daughter were probably among the floating bodies, although much further to the south, and that that was preying on his mind. Brett banked gently to the left, turning them to almost a due south heading. He stayed out over the water about half a mile from the point where the foothills rose up out of it. "How much water is down there?" Jason asked after a few minutes of staring at it. "A lot," Brett said, his eyes looking straight ahead. "The Central Valley is about four hundred miles long from north to south and about sixty miles wide. All of it will be flooded now thanks to the rains draining down out of the mountains." "What about on the other side? Is this the coastline now?" "The coast mountains will still be poking up," Brett said. "But everything on the other side of them will be washed away from the tidal waves I would think. San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Monterey, they're probably nothing but mud flats now." "Christ," Jason said, looking off towards the horizon. "That one little comet really did a number on us, didn't it?" "It really did," he agreed sadly. +++++ Brett spotted the twin black ribbons of Highway 50 rising out of the water and into the hills a few minutes later. He turned back to the east when he was directly above them, carefully avoiding a radio tower that was miraculously still standing just on the edge of the Central Sea. Two miles from the shoreline was the town of El Dorado Hills, a bedroom community for the Sacramento region and the town that Paul had advised him to keep an eye out for. Like most of the other foothill and mountain communities, most of the buildings had been flattened by landslides or flooding but some of the town remained standing. Like Garden Hill, there were several walled subdivisions full of expensive houses dotting the landscape. Unlike Garden Hill, there was absolutely no sign of people. El Dorado Hills appeared to have been abandoned. At the same time, something about the town was telling Brett that it was different than the other dead towns they had come across. He could not put his finger on just what it was, but his instincts were being jigged by something. He kept clear of the actual town but slowed up considerably as they passed. "Get a good record of this place," he told Jason. "Why?" Jason asked. "There's nothing there. It's about as empty as can be." "Just do it," Brett said. With a shrug, Jason did it, filming every inch of what was still standing and then panning out to the surrounding area to get that as well. Five minutes later they were back over familiar ground. The destroyed town of Cameron Park loomed ahead of them and beyond it, its rich airport. Brett circled several times around the airport, Jason and the troops in the back keeping a sharp lookout for anything amiss. They saw nothing but what they expected to see. The airport and the surrounding terrain looked the same as it had two days before. Brett made the decision to take them down. He descended slowly until he was hovering right over the fueling area. Inch by inch he decreased his altitude until the tank was resting on the ground. Though he couldn't see this happening, he was able to feel it when forty pounds of weight was suddenly removed from the aircraft. Jason, looking out through his open door, confirmed the touchdown visually. Brett pulled the release latch that opened the cargo hook and allowed the rope holding the tank to fall free. "It's down and safe," Jason confirmed, bringing his head back in and closing the door. "Okay," Brett said. "Let's take one more pass around and then we'll set it down. Be ready for anything down there." "Ready for anything," Jason repeated. He looked back behind him at the three newbies. "Lock and load guys," he yelled loudly enough for them to hear over the engine noise. And then, by example, he flipped the safety off on his weapon and jacked one into the chamber. +++++ "Where did that chopper come from?" Barnes asked the assembly of officers in the room. "That is the question that we have to address." It was an hour after the flyby had occurred and Barnes had gathered the two remaining platoon commanders that he had left in town - Lieutenants Corban and Smith - for a meeting on the ramifications of what they had seen. "It came from the east," Corban, a dark haired neo-nazi who thought that Timothy McVeigh had been framed, said. "That means Garden Hill, Blue Canyon, or Truckee." "No," said Smith, a former naval officer aboard a fast frigate. "We know that Garden Hill didn't have a chopper from Bracken's recon trip. I hardly think he could have failed to note a helicopter in the town. That chopper was based at Cameron Park before the comet. I bet that's were it came from." "But it came from the EAST!" Corban insisted. "Cameron Park is to the southwest!" "So they went north and flew along the canyon before they got to us," Smith said. "Just because it flew in from that way doesn't mean that's where it came from. Who the hell do you think was flying it if not for the pilot that flew it before the comet? It had to have come from Cameron Park!" "Either way," Barnes said, silencing both of them just by talking, "we have to find out. That chopper and its pilot are perhaps the most valuable things left in this region, more valuable than food even. We NEED to get our hands upon it, not just so we can utilize it ourselves but so we can keep others from utilizing it against us. We must stop at nothing to get our hands upon it. We must sacrifice men to take it if that is necessary and we must destroy it if we can't take it. "Our mission for the near future has just changed men. Once our battalion returns from Garden Hill we will concentrate all of our efforts upon finding that machine and its pilot. Nothing else will take precedence until that is done." +++++ "Okay," Jason, the videographer, said as the section with the train cars started to play. He was sitting at the front of the conference table next to the television set that Paul had utilized during Jessica's trial the previous night. He held the video camera in his hands and was using the controls to fast forward and rewind sections for Paul, Brett, and Michelle. The camera was wired into the TV so that its images could be seen on the large screen. It was two hours after the mission had ended, an hour before dinnertime. The helicopter was sitting safely back in the parking lot outside and the tank containing 250 gallons of jet fuel - a tank that Brett had neatly landed atop a wheeled pallet that Paul had built - was resting safely in the maintenance shed. After dropping off the tank and refueling from it, Brett had flown back to Cameron Park alone to pick up the four troops that he had been forced to leave behind due to weight concerns. Though absolutely nothing had happened to Jason, Karen, Cindy, and Ron while they had been alone and isolated down there, it had been a long hour and half for everyone concerned. No one liked to leave their people hanging in the wind in an isolated place nor did anyone particularly like to be left there. As a reward for the successful mission Paul had opened up the intoxicant supply room for the benefit of the returning troops. Currently Ron, Cindy, and Karen were utilizing one of the empty storage rooms to play a game of quarters with tequila shots. Brett, though he longed to join them, was abstaining for now so he could give his debriefing and discuss some of the matters at hand. He, like everyone else in the room, including Jason, was sipping from a warm bottle of beer as the video played. In front of him was a small pile of marijuana that he had carefully crunched up with a small pair of scissors. He was trying to roll a joint but was not having a lot of luck since it had been more than sixteen years since he had last attempted such a thing. "Give me that shit," Michelle said to him after the third paper ripped in half while he was twisting it. "Fucking cops don't know how to roll a decent hooter." She pulled the pile over to her and began expertly constructing a fat one. "I didn't know that you knew how to do that," Brett told her, watching her fingers go through the motions. "I'm a writer," she said. "We all smoke dope. It's a law. Where do you think that some of this shit came from? I turned over at least an ounce when we gathered supplies." Paul, watching the exchange, laughed a little and then turned his attention back to the television set just as the view began to pan over the train cars. There was no sound since all they would have heard would have been the engine noise and the picture was a little jerky but the zoom worked admirably. "You were right Brett, those are grain carriers and the lids are still on." "Will the grain still be good though?" Michelle asked after sealing shut her creation with saliva. "That's the real question." "Those containers are relatively airtight," Brett said, "but they're not vacuum sealed or anything. There's probably going to be a little mold in there after all this time. Maybe even weevils or some other vermin." "But we should be able to salvage SOME of it, shouldn't we?" Michelle said, holding out her hand to Paul and miming the act of operating a lighter. "We should," Paul said, fishing out his Bic disposable and handing it across. "And a little mold wouldn't hurt us anyway. If it comes down to starving or getting a few bugs in the food, I'll have to go with the bugs every time." While Michelle lit up the joint and took a tremendous hit of it, Jason slowed the speed of the tape as the first of the cargo carriers came into view. "They're still locked shut," Brett said, taking the joint as it was passed to him. "There could be anything in there, anything at all from canned food to auto parts to boxes of condoms from the latex factory in Oakland. We need to fly some people out there to go down and take a look." He took a large hit and then passed the joint on to Jason. Jason looked at it for a moment, feeling decidedly strange to be offered such a thing by an adult, but finally, figuring it was an honor, he took it and sucked some up. "I agree," Paul said, holding out his hand as the joint came his way. "I could rig up some of the vertical rescue supplies from the fire engine so that people can be lowered down from the helicopter. A pair of bolt cutters and channel locks should be enough to get those doors open." "Do I hear you volunteering for the job?" Brett asked with a smile. Paul sucked up his hit and put an amused grin upon his face. He had been neatly trapped. He passed the joint back to Michelle and then exhaled a plume of smoke. "I guess I walked right into that one, didn't I? Yeah, I guess I can do it. I'm terrified of heights, but I'm the only one who knows how to operate the ropes and pulleys." "You're scared of heights?" Jason asked. "But you're a fireman." Paul shrugged. "Most of the time we stay on the ground. Part of the academy is that we all have to climb to the top of the ladder-truck aerial. That's 110 feet up. They had to threaten to dismiss me before I finally did it. And even then I barfed halfway up." "A fireman who's afraid of heights and a cop who can't roll a joint," Michelle said. "What a strange group we have here." They all had a laugh and Jason, after taking another hit, advanced the film to the part where the tanker cars came into view. Paul had a small orange book in front of him and he opened it as Jason paused on the first HAZMAT number: 1203. He flipped through and found the entry in less than a minute. "Gasoline," he announced. "Just like you thought Brett. What else do we got?" "One-nine-nine-three," Brett read as the next group came into view. "Hang on," Paul said, flipping through a few pages. "I guess jet fuel would be a little too much to ask for, huh?" Brett said. "Apparently so," Paul said, putting his finger on the entry. "It's diesel fuel, probably from the same refinery. That could come in handy if we can find a way to get our hands on a generator of some sort. If nothing else it'll keep the fire engine running. What's next?" The last three cars were marked with the number 2373, which Paul identified as diethoxymethane. "What the hell is that?" Michelle wanted to know. "Beats me," Paul said. "Let me look up what the book has on it." He flipped through the pages for a few minutes, referencing a different section. "It just says it's a flammable liquid with a low flash-point. It doesn't say what it's for. We'll have to do some more research on this one." By the time they looked at the last of the cargo carriers and speculated on just what might be inside of them, the joint was nothing more than a roach and they were all feeling quite pleasant. Jason then fast-forwarded the tape until the footage from Auburn began to come into view. Of course by that point every person in town knew that a large community of people had been found in the neighboring township, but it was quite different to hear about such a thing and to actually see photographic evidence of it. Paul and Michelle watched with rapt attention as the first set of bunkers came into view. "You can see," Brett narrated, "that they are fairly well set up in the defense department. Those are sandbagged emplacements that are constructed considerably better than the ones we have. They could withstand a prolonged artillery barrage with those. You'll also note that they all have assault rifles. My guess is that there was a gun store in town that they raided after the impact." "There was a gun store," Paul said. "Auburn Bait and Guns. It was where a lot of the Garden Hill men used to get their shit." Brett nodded. "There was also a sheriff's station in town, was there not?" "Yes," Paul agreed. "Auburn is the county seat. The main office was there." "That means that there's a good chance they have some fully automatic weapons as well if they were able to get to that building before it got washed away or whatever." While everyone considered that, the tape rolled on, showing closer views of the emplacements and then shots from inside the town itself. "Look there," Paul said, peering at the tiny figures of people moving here and there through the streets. "Those are all women walking back and forth. At least it looks like they are. You can just make out the long hair and the uh..." He looked uncomfortably at Michelle. "The tits?" she said, smiling. "Uh... yeah," he said, laughing a little at his own embarrassment. "The tits. And do you notice something about them?" "None of them are carrying guns," Jason said. "They're all carrying firewood or water buckets or other things, but none of them are armed." "Right," Paul said. "It looks like only the men have the firearms." They continued to watch the video, rewinding it and fast forwarding it again and again as they approached and then skirted the town. They watched as the troops, reacting to an alarm raised probably by the emplacement crews, came rushing out into the street to take cover. All of the troops seemed to be male. There was a small margin for error of course, not every figure was in focus enough to tell, but it certainly appeared that what they suspected was true. "So what does that tell us about this place?" Brett asked as Jason halted the tape again. "It seems, based on what we see here, that they have a woman to man ratio that is similar ours. But there, they are not utilizing their women as soldiers. Why not?" "They don't trust them to do that," Michelle said. "I don't want to draw any hard conclusions based on this few minutes of video taken from a mile away, but it seems to me that, at the very least, we are talking about a society that is vastly different then what we have. Are they doing this just because they have enough men to spare that they don't need to arm up the women, or are all of those women captives there? We have no way of knowing." "So the question we have to answer about this place," Paul said, "is whether or not we should attempt to make contact with them. By initiating contact we put ourselves at risk of being attacked or captured. We risk losing Brett and the helicopter if he should land there like they were inviting him to do. Offsetting this risk is the chance that they may have trade goods that we can swap." "I don't think that I should land that chopper within reach of them under any circumstances," Brett said. "It's too valuable of a commodity to risk like that. Someone in that town has a military mind. Only someone with training would have been able to set up defenses like we saw. Someone with a military mind will realize the potential of a helicopter and will do anything to get his hands on it. If we do decide to make contact with them, and I'm inclined to suggest that we don't, then we should do it in some other manner besides just landing there." "I can see your point," Paul said, lighting a cigarette. "We don't risk Brett or the chopper no matter what. But should we establish ties with Auburn? They are a relative rarity in these days - a functioning society that is managing to keep itself fed - so should we reveal our existence to them?" "I don't think we should," Michelle said. "I see more danger signs by looking at this video than I do encouraging ones. They have more population than we do and they're better armed. We have some evidence that women are not treated the same as men. I think that for the time being we should just leave well enough alone." "My feelings exactly," Brett echoed. "That place gave me the creeps. I think we should avoid contact with them until such time as it becomes absolutely necessary. And in the meantime, we should do more recon of them to try and get a better feel for the threat they represent." "How would you do more recon?" Paul wanted to know. "If they keep seeing the chopper fly over them every day, they're going to start getting suspicious. If they are a threat and they start perceiving us as one, then it won't be long before they start trying to set a trap for you. How easy would it be to shoot you down?" "Quite easy with automatic weapons as long as I got into range," Brett said. "But I would suggest that Auburn never see that helicopter again if we can help it. I can do recon after dark." "After dark?" Michelle said. "You can't fly that thing at night! How would you see where you're going?" "With the FLIR pod," he said. "It's not a very effective tool for navigation but if I know the direction to Auburn and keep the aircraft above the altitude of any hills or peaks between here and there, I can get close enough to get us some good shots in infrared. They won't be photographic quality of course, but if I can hover just outside of detection range, they'll be detailed enough to tell the difference between males and females, to tell what sorts of guns they have and to identify occupied buildings versus unoccupied ones. And if they don't know I'm there we'll get a much better picture of what their normal routines are." "That sounds awfully dangerous," Paul said. Michelle nodded enthusiastically. "Well, it's not quite as safe as flying on a commercial airliner, I'll give you that, but I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think I could pull it off. There are old pilots and bold pilots but no old bold pilots. That's what I was taught when I learned this business and that's the motto I've always followed. This is a little bold but it's not stupid. It's necessary." "I suppose," Paul said doubtfully. "You're the expert, not me." "I can do it," he said. "I'll plan on doing that first thing after we solve the fuel storage problem." Michelle obviously had her own thoughts about this but she kept them to herself for the moment. Jason had some thoughts as well - he wanted to go along on that mission - but he did the same. With the Auburn discussion run into the ground they turned the video back on and watched the view of the Sacramento Valley for a few minutes. Jason had done an admirable job of capturing the essence of what they had seen. First he had filmed a long-range shot showing the water stretching off into the distance. Then he had filmed close-ups of the debris and the bodies bobbing in the water. Everyone was strangely silent as they saw what had become of some of the most fertile land on earth. The last shots on the video were the views of the abandoned town of El Dorado Hills. Jason moved to turn the camera off but Brett told him to let it run. "It's just an abandoned town," Jason said. "What's the big deal?" "There's something not right there," Brett said. "I don't know what it is, but El Dorado Hills is different than Colfax and Meadow Vista." "Different how?" Paul asked as the picture showed the walled subdivisions with the neat, geometric rows of houses. Brett shook his head, trying to lock in on the fleeting sensation at the tip of his brain. There were winding, paved streets, dying lawns, the occasional flooded swimming pool. A few parks dotted the landscape here and there and there were a few vehicles sitting in some of the driveways. Aside from that, there was nothing. "I don't know," he repeated. "But there's something." It was Michelle who figured it out. She had been staring at the screen as intently as everyone else had when suddenly it came to her. "There's no bodies," she said. "That's what's different. In Meadow Vista and Colfax there were bodies lying around. There aren't any down there!" "That's it," Brett said, the light bulb going on. "There aren't any dead there! Why not?" Now that it had been pointed out, everyone wondered why they hadn't seen it before. Not everyone seemed to feel that this was significant however. "So there's no bodies?" Jason asked. "What's the big deal about that?" "I must say," Paul said, "that I don't really see the significance." "It means that the fate of El Dorado Hills, whatever that might be, is different than that of the other towns," Michelle said. "What happened to the people there? Did they all die inside their houses? That's not what happened in the other towns." "We don't know what happened in the other towns," Paul pointed out. "Why did the people in Meadow Vista and Colfax die outside. If you were starving to death and about to succumb, why would you leave your house? Why wouldn't you just stay inside? You can't make some kind of inference about El Dorado Hills just because you don't see dead bodies there." The discussion went on for quite some time, until they heard people starting to fill the gym downstairs for dinner. They reached no firm conclusions on the matter. It was only later, as he was walking home for the evening with Chrissie and Michelle, his mind starting to come out of the marijuana haze, that Brett realized what it was about the town that was really jigging him. Except for the lack of people on the streets, El Dorado Hills looked eerily the same as Garden Hill. It looked like a town that was occupied and being cared for to some degree. +++++ Sherrie Philo, the woman who had been shot in the leg during the battle, was still staying in the same room that she had been originally brought to, the room that Dale had died in. The reasoning behind this was simple. Sherrie couldn't walk or get out of bed. Paul had installed a traction splint - a bulky, metal device designed to keep the broken ends of the femur from slipping or grating together - on her shattered leg. Since Sherrie required around the clock care in order to urinate or take care of other bodily functions, the community center was the logical place for her to stay since there was someone there twenty-four hours of every day. Paul took care of most of the medical matters for Sherrie. He checked the status of her leg every few days and saw to it that she took her blood thinner pills. He gave her codeine tablets or Tylenol when she was in pain and Valium or Prozac tablets when she was in the midst of a severe depression (as she was prone to these days). The other aspects of her care, bathing, dressing, and of course giving and retrieving bedpans, fell mostly upon Janet, Paul's wife. She would often come up to check on her during her shifts in the day care center downstairs and would arrange to have one of the female community center guards take care of this during the night. Both Paul and Janet were gratified to see that Sherrie had finished her dinner this night, something that she had never done during the first few weeks of her convalescence but that was becoming more frequent as time went on. "Good girl," Paul told her, grabbing a seat next to her and sitting down. "I'm glad you're finally listening to me about maintaining your nourishment." "I'm finally getting my appetite back," she said softly. She looked up at Paul. "Why are your eyes so red?" she asked him. "Never mind," Paul said with a chuckle. "It's time for your calcium pill." "He was helping the helicopter crew celebrate their mission," Janet said, giving him a wifely look. "It seems they thought a little herbal stimulation would help them debrief." Sherrie giggled a little, something else that she was starting to do with increasing frequency. "I guess your appetite's been pretty good today too, huh?" "He DID seem to enjoy his dinner quite a bit," Janet said. "All right, all right," Paul said, opening the vitamin bottle he carried and fishing one out. "Enough nagging. Let's get the pill down, shall we?" "I guess we shall," Sherrie said, taking it and washing it down with the warm, powdered lemonade that she had with dinner. "So how's the leg today?" Paul asked her, turning serious. "You think those bone ends are coming together yet?" "God, I hope so," she said. Paul had promised her that the moment he was confident the bone was knitting together he would remove the traction splint and replace it with a rigid thigh cast of some sort so that she could walk with the aid of crutches. "You can't imagine how anxious I am to go out and see the rain again. You can't imagine how much of a luxury it is to pee in a toilet." "Ahh, the little things in life," Paul said, making her grin. "Let's take a look at it." Sherrie pulled back the sheet that covered her, revealing one of the plain cotton nightgowns that she was perpetually dressed in. Janet helped her change them whenever she bathed her. The hem of it was just above her knees but Paul, without hesitation or embarrassment, grabbed hold of it and hiked it up to her upper thighs. Sherrie's right leg, the uninjured one, was very nicely shaped and toned. Before the comet she had been the stereotypical trophy wife to a gynecologist and had worked out obsessively in order to maintain the shape that had allowed her to snag such a catch in the first place. Since her injury she had been exercising that leg three times a day by wrapping a bunjie cord around her foot and pushing against the resistance to keep it from atrophying from disuse. The skin was pale of course, as was everyone's these days in the absence of both sunlight and tanning salons, but it was clean shaven and smooth, the work of Janet and her razor. The left leg was a sharp contrast. It was surrounded by the stainless steel braces of the splint which held it in place and the muscle tone was slack and soft. A large circular scar marred the top of the thigh marking the spot where the .30 caliber bullet she had been shot with had exited. Paul had sewn the wound shut the first day using thread and a needle that he had sterilized with boiling water. Though it had kept her from bleeding or getting a staph infection, it had not healed up very prettily. Paul placed his hand on the scar, feeling the warmth of her flesh. He probed gently with his fingers, trying to palpate the femur beneath. As he concentrated on the sensations beneath his hand, his eyes could not help but notice that Sherrie's legs were slightly apart and that she was not wearing any panties. The dark shadow of her black pubic hair was plainly visible beneath the hem of her robe. He looked away uncomfortably, trying to concentrate his vision on her leg. Though he had seen her several times in all of her glory during the first few days of her injury, it was different somehow now that she was healing and fully awake. "What do you think?" Sherrie asked him, pretending not to notice where his eyes had just been. "It seems like you got one continuous bone under there," he said. "The question is whether its knitted together enough that it won't just snap again once I take off the splint. I think that another three or four days here should do it." "Three or four days?" she whined. "My god, I'm going crazy in here." "If I let you go too early and you re-break that femur, you're going to end up right back in here for another month," he told her. "And there's no telling whether or not it will grow back together as well the next time." "Better safe than sorry," Janet said. "I suppose," Sherrie sighed. She reached up to pull her nightgown back down now that the exam was over. Paul, unable to help himself, cast one more look at her pubic hair before she hid it. Again Sherrie noticed but pretended not to. The three of them talked for a few minutes, mostly about the helicopter mission and the discovery of other survivors in Auburn, things that Sherrie had heard rumor of but had not had confirmed as of yet. She asked if Brett or anyone in the helicopter had seen Jessica during the mission. "No," Paul said, looking at her a little suspiciously. Sherrie had once been a member of Jessica's inner circle, both before and after the comet. "By the time he took off she was off the Interstate. We don't know where she is now. All we know is that she hasn't tried to come back into town." Sherrie nodded slowly. "She was insane towards the end," she told them. "Absolutely insane. When I heard those gunshots yesterday morning I knew it was her doing it, I just KNEW. Thank god she didn't hurt anyone." "She hurt plenty of people," Paul said. "She's a big part of the reason that you got shot." "No," Sherrie said, shaking her head strenuously. "She didn't get me shot. I got me shot. Don't try to push my stupidity off on her. I'm the one that jumped up and tried to run, I'm the one who is to blame for me laying here." Paul and Janet both looked at her for a moment, both surprised by the ferocity of her tone. "I'm sorry," Sherrie said, seeing their looks. "I've had plenty of time to do soul searching since I've been laying in here, more time than I ever wanted. At first I blamed everyone for what happened to me. I blamed Brett, I blamed Chrissie, I blamed Jessica, I blamed the comet, I blamed God, I blamed everyone and everything but myself." She sighed. "But none of that is true. I made a decision out there. I chose to get up and run while people were shooting at us. I panicked and now I'm paying the consequences. I'm not the same person that did that. I was a shallow bitch before, looking down my nose on everyone because it made me feel better. I used to look down on both of you, did you know that? I used to think I was better than you because I had been married to a doctor and you Janet were nothing but a teacher who had to work for a living and you Paul were nothing but a civil servant living off tax dollars." "Sherrie," Janet said, "you don't have to..." "I do," she interrupted. "Just let me say this." "Okay," she said softly. "I was wrong about both of you. You two thought me a snob, and I was one. You two had no reason to care about me or like me and I'm sure that you didn't. But you two have taken care of me from the moment I was dragged in here. Paul, you've fought to keep me alive, Janet, you've helped me pee and helped me wipe my butt. You two did this even though I was a bitch to you both, even though I sided with Jessica against you at every turn, even though I've given you no reason whatsoever to give a damn about me." "It's what we do Sherrie," Paul said, patting her leg gently. "Despite how we felt about you, you're still a human being. Did you think we were going to let you die if we could prevent it?" "You don't understand," she said, a tear running down her face. "I wouldn't have done the same for you. I wouldn't have come in here and emptied bedpans if you had been the one shot Janet. I wouldn't have come up here every hour and made sure you were still breathing if it had been you Paul. My way was to let someone else handle it. Your way is to do it. I was sadly wrong about who was better than whom." "Nobody's better than anyone around here," Paul told her. "We're all just people and that's how everyone should treat each other." "I'm learning that now," she said. "I'm learning it. And I want to thank both of you for everything you've done for me. You two have literally saved my life." Paul leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. "It seems like it was a life worth saving, wasn't it?" +++++ Jason, not used to imbibing in alcohol and marijuana, particularly not after a stressful mission into potentially hostile territory, was dozing on the couch early that evening. He was bundled up in a blanket, sleeping peacefully four feet from the blazing fireplace when the sound of the front door opening awoke him. He yawned and looked at his watch, seeing that it was 6:30. Stacy was home right at her usual time. He smiled as he sat up, feeling his penis stiffen up in anticipation of a later sexual escapade. Since their first night together nearly a month before, he had learned much about the ways of pleasing a woman and had come to crave that pregnant body like a drug. Fortunately the raging hormones in Stacy made her just as horny and allowed her to keep up with the considerable demand. There was hardly a night that went by that they didn't make love at least once. "Jase," she called from the formal living room, "are you here?" "I'm here," he answered, putting his feet on the floor and standing up. He headed towards the front door, intending to meet her halfway to give her his customary hug and kiss of greeting. When he got there however, he discovered that she was not alone. Tina, her working companion from the cafeteria, was standing next to her, hanging her rain slicker on one of the hooks. "Hi Jase," Stacy said, walking over and giving him a kiss on the mouth. The tip of her tongue slid out and touched his for just an instant. "Tina wanted to stop by and visit for a bit. I hope you don't mind." "No, not at all," Jason said politely, although he really wanted to be alone with his woman right now. "How are you doing Tina?" "I'm fine," she said with a slight giggle. She seemed to be nervous for some reason although Jason could not think of a reason why this should be. Stacy waddled her way into the living room, Jason and Tina following behind her. He lit up a few lamps and candles, brightening the room up while the two women sat on either end of the small couch. Jason, after arranging the candles for best effect, started to sit down in the easy chair across from them. "No, no," Stacy said, patting the cushion next to her. "Come sit with me. I've missed you today. The only time I got to see you was at dinner." He hesitated for a minute, looking doubtfully at the cramped space between the two women. What was going on here? Finally, after another prompting from Stacy, he walked over and sat down where he was told. He pushed himself as closely to Stacy as he could but still his leg was touching Tina's. She looked at him a little nervously but otherwise didn't seem to mind. They conversed lightly for a little bit, Jason rehashing the tale of his trip that day in greater detail than he had shared with Stacy at dinner that night. He rested his hand gently upon Stacy's bulging stomach as he talked, occasionally feeling the strange sensation of the baby kicking at him. Both women seemed fascinated by the story and they often interrupted him to ask questions. "You see what he's doing out there while we're stuck in here making dinner and washing dishes?" Stacy asked. Her breasts rubbed softly against his shoulder as she said this, seemingly accidentally. "I should have signed up for guard detail," Tina said. "Maybe I still will. I'm taking your sister's gun class tomorrow. Maybe I'll do well enough to get a recommendation. I heard that Maggie got one from her. If Maggie can do it, so can I." "I'm sure you can," Jason said politely, wondering for the tenth or eleventh time just what Tina was doing here. Though the two women were close to each other, as coworkers in unpleasant assignments tended to get, she had never visited during the evening hours before. The former elementary school cafeteria worker was somewhat of a loner in town, rarely seen outside of the kitchen. "Do you think Tina's pretty?" Stacy asked a few minutes later. "Pretty?" Jason said slowly, doubtfully. His hesitation was not because she wasn't pretty. A light haired blonde in her mid-twenties, she was slightly chubby in a big-boned way but far from fat. Her face was very pretty with smooth, well-defined cheeks and eyes that were even bluer than Chrissie's. And she had enormous breasts, a double D cup at least. His hesitation was instead because it seemed a loaded question, full of potential pitfalls. Why would Stacy ask him something like that? Was it just a casual comment or was it something more? "Yes," Stacy said, rubbing her breast against him again. "She seems to think that men don't like her. I keep trying to tell her that she's wrong." "Stace," Tina said, blushing, obviously embarrassed. "You don't have to bring that up." "I'm just asking a man's opinion Tina," Stacy said. "I think you've got a cute figure. And I'd kill for those boobs. I mean, look at the size of them. Mine are only half that size and I'm pregnant. Aren't those a nice rack Jase?" Now Jason was the one embarrassed. "They're uh... very uh... nice," he stammered. "Isn't he cute when he blushes?" Stacy asked her friend. "That's why I love him so much." She shifted her gaze to Jason again. "Do you know that Tina hasn't been laid in more than five years?" Jason almost choked that time. "Uh... no... I didn't know that," he replied. "It's true," Stacy said sadly. "How could you stand it Tina? It must be maddening." "It's not easy," Tina said softly. "She hasn't dated since she broke up with her husband five years ago," Stacy explained. "She told me all of this the other day and I was just shocked. I mean, I can't stand it if I have to go eight days without you. When you went to go get that chopper, I almost went insane." "You get used to doing without it after awhile," Tina told her. "But you always yearn for it, don't you?" Stacy asked. "Oh yes," Tina agreed. "That never goes away." Jason was now very confused. Why were these two women talking like this? Why were they sitting here telling him how long Tina had been without sex and asking him to rate her breasts? "Tina and I have been talking a lot over the last few days," Stacy said, leaning in a little closer to him, close enough for him to smell her skin. "And while we were talking, I had kind of... well... an idea." "An idea?" Jason asked, trembling a little. "Stace," Tina cut in. "Maybe this is a bad..." "Hush," Stacy told her, offering a wink. She turned back to Jason. "I thought that maybe you would be able to help her out a little bit with her... problem." "Help her out?" he croaked. "She needs some dick," Stacy said, dropping her hand down into Jason's lap. "And you just happen to have one. I don't mind sharing it with her." "Sh... sh... share?" he asked. Though his mind was having a difficult time processing what he was being told, the object they were discussing understood loud and clear. It began to stiffen up under Stacy's hand. "Only if you want to," she said. She smiled, giving him a squeeze. "I can feel that you're giving some serious thought to it." "But Stacy..." he started. "I really don't mind Jason," she told him, kissing his ear. "And if everyone likes it, maybe Tina can move in here with us. We can be like your sister and Brett and Michelle. That's the wave of the future in this town I think so we might as well accept it." "It's okay if you don't want to," Tina told him. She seemed to be upset. "I can't believe I let myself get talked into this." "He wants to," Stacy said, giving his cock a few more squeezes through his pants. "I can tell. Don't you baby?" "Well... uh..." he stuttered, his mind reeling. Was he really being offered the oppurtunity to sleep with Tina? Was Stacy the one offering it to him? Was this a dream? "Well... uh... what?" Stacy asked. "Uh sure," he finally spit out. "I mean, if everyone's really down with it, that is." Stacy smiled, kissing him softly on the lips. "We're down with it," she told him. "Aren't we Tina?" Her eyes nervously took in the bulge in Jason's jeans. She licked her lips a few times. "I'm down with it," she finally said. "If you're sure you don't mind Stace. I mean, this is so... weird." "It's a weird life these days," Stacy said. "Let me show you his cock Tina. You'll like it." Jason felt her hands popping open the buttons on his pants one by one. Though like any fourteen-year-old he was very bashful about his private parts, he allowed her to open him up and push his pants and underwear down. He lifted his hips to facilitate this process. His erection popped out into the light, sticking upward, the head swollen and ready for action. Tina gasped a little as she saw it. "Isn't it beautiful?" Stacy asked, stroking it softly a few times with her fingers. "Yes," Tina breathed, her eyes shining. "Touch it," Stacy told her. "Go ahead. Play with it a little." Hesitantly, she reached out her hand and moved it towards him. She stopped for a second just inches away and then, after a few moments of thought, grasped him in her fingers. Jason moaned at the unfamiliar touch upon him. He could not believe he was actually sitting on his couch letting another woman touch him while Stacy encouraged it. "Jack him up and down a little," Stacy said, her own breathing starting to get heavy. Jason could see that her nipples were hard beneath her shirt. Tina did as she was told, sliding her hand up and down across his tender flesh, feeling him and stroking him. Soon he began to lift and lower his hips in response to her. "Suck him Tina," Stacy said. "Put him in your mouth. You know you want to." Tina moaned a little, her eyes completely glazed over with lust now. She lowered her blonde head into his lap and he felt her wet lips and tongue surrounding his cock. She sucked softly at first, her hand continuing to move up and down upon him. "Ohhh," Jason said, looking at her head as it bobbed up and down. Stacy began to kiss his neck as Tina sucked. The sensation of two mouths upon him at once was almost more than he could bear. "Feel her titties," Stacy whispered into his ear. "Squeeze them." He reached out his hands and did as he was told, grabbing those massive mammaries through her shirt. They were soft and pliable and very heavy. Even through her clothing he could tell that her nipples were enormous. She twisted her chest into him, pushing them harder into his hands. Her mouth began to move faster upon his cock. Now that the line had been crossed, things moved a little quicker. Tina raised her head from his lap a few minutes later and whipped off her shirt, tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were contained in a large white bra with thick shoulder straps. She reached behind her and undid the clasp, setting them free. They sagged a little with the sheer weight but this did not detract from the aesthetic value of them in the least. Her nipples were indeed huge, the diameter of dimes and protruding nearly three-quarters of an inch from the areola. "Suck them," Tina told Jason, pushing them towards his face. "It's been so long since they've been sucked." He leaned forward, breaking free of Stacy, who had still been kissing his neck, and put his mouth upon the nearest one. He slurped at the nipple hungrily, tonguing it and sucking it. Tina groaned out her approval, her hand finding the back of his neck to encourage him to suck on. Stacy stroked his back with her hands as he did this. "Show her what I taught you," Stacy suggested excitedly. "Show her how you really make her feel good." Jason switched to the other breast for a bit and then, heading Stacy's advice, began to kiss his way downward across the pale flesh of her stomach. Her skin there was unlined - Tina had never given birth - and soft and smooth as silk. He licked and nibbled at her in various spots, raising goosebumps on her. When he got to her navel he ran his tongue all around it while his hands began working the buttons on her pants. Soon they were open and he tugged on them. She raised up and he pulled them from her, sliding them down her legs and off, leaving her only in panties that were soaked at the crotch. He pulled these down a moment later and found himself staring at her blonde bush. It was very thick, much thicker than Stacy's, and the odor was much stronger and deeper. He pushed her legs apart and then buried his face right in the middle of that hairy wetness, his tongue stabbing up inside of her. She moaned loudly and pushed her crotch harder into him. He licked her up and down, tasting her tart juices and then slid two fingers inside of her slit, just as Stacy had taught him. Soon, when she was bucking up and down, he was tonguing her large clit, making her cry out even more. It took a long time before she came. His tongue was starting to cramp and his lips were going numb before he was able to pull that first orgasm from her. But when it did release, it came with explosive force. Her legs closed around his head, squeezing him almost painfully and nearly cutting off his respiration. Her pelvis jerked up and down with such force that he had to struggle to keep his mouth upon her clit. When she finally came down from it, he was dizzy and out of breath, his mouth struggling with several stray hairs that had dislodged. Before he had a chance to do anything about this Tina's hands were in his armpits, pulling him upward atop her nakedness. Those massive tits pushed into his chest and his bare thighs pushed against her larger ones. "Fuck me," she panted at him, kissing him and shoving her tongue in his mouth. She seemed to get off on tasting her own juices, just like Stacy did. "Come on," she said, breaking the kiss and squirming beneath him. "I NEED it. Fuck me." "Yeah," Stacy said next to them. "Fuck her. Fuck her good." Jason grasped his cock in his hands and put it against her dripping slit. He pushed forward and sank into her in one stroke. All three of them gasped in pleasure at the penetration. As he began to thrust in and out of her, as her legs wrapped around him, he looked over for a moment and saw that Stacy had pushed her maternity pants down and was rubbing her red-haired pussy furiously as she watched them. "Fuck her baby," she told Jason breathlessly. "Fuck her good. Fill her up." Thanks to his frequent couplings with Stacy he had learned a certain degree of control over his orgasm. That was fortunate because it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep thrusting long enough for Tina to come again. Watching his woman masturbate next to him while he fucked someone else was the kinkiest, most erotic thing that he had ever imagined. As soon as Tina's body began to jerk and shudder beneath him, that control slipped and he came explosively within her. When he rolled off of her a minute later, leaving her sweaty and dripping on the couch, Stacy grabbed him and pulled him over to her. She had taken off all of her clothes and her swollen, pregnant body was on complete display for both of them to see. "Now its my turn," Stacy said, pushing him back into the couch. While Tina and Jason both watched in astonishment, she dropped her head into his lap and sucked his cock, which was half erect and still wet with Tina's juices, into her mouth. It took less than three minutes of her sucking and licking him clean before he was back up to a complete erection. She then assumed one of her favorite positions. She sat on his lap, her back to his chest, as if he were an easy chair. This kept her large stomach from intruding upon the act. She reached between her legs and put him against her pussy, sinking down upon him. He began to push and pull within her, using strokes that he knew she liked, pushing her quickly towards her own orgasm. Tina watched them as they copulated less than two feet from her, still amazed that she had participated in such a perversion, still amazed that her friend Stacy had actually sucked on Jason's cock just seconds after it had plopped free of her own pussy. She had never been so turned on in her life. She opened her legs widely, putting one on the back of the couch, the other on the floor, displaying her sex for them. Continuing to fuck each other, they both looked at her, watching as her hands went to her slit and began to rub. Jason would come two more times that night, once in Stacy's pussy, once in Tina's sucking mouth. Though the two women both tasted each other on Jason's cock, neither one touched the other in any way. But before they fell into bed exhausted and sore, Jason snoring between them, both had thought about it. Al Steiner 1-6-01 Chapter 11 to follow -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+