Message-ID: <28572asstr$980518204@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Message-ID: <200101251610.JAA34569@skuz.net> From: "Al Steiner" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 12 (FF, MF, nc) 2/2 Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:10:04 -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: newsman, RuiJorge AFTERMATH By Al Steiner CHAPTER 12 PART 2 OF 2 Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net It was a little over three hours since Brett had safely and uneventfully landed the helicopter safely back in the community center parking lot. A debriefing meeting had been held almost immediately afterward, with Chrissie, Michelle, Matt, and Paul attending while Jason ran the video player and Brett narrated the events. Copious notes and observations had been made both about the layout of Auburn and about the newly discovered town of El Dorado Hills. Overall, Paul thought as he walked wearily home, the mission had been a success, well worth the fuel that had been burned to run it. They now had some good, solid information about the town down the hill. They knew that only the men carried the guns and staffed the guard positions and that the women seemed to carry garbage and clean things up. They knew that their headquarters was a high school atop a hill and that they powered their headquarters with a diesel generator that was fueled from a tanker trailer parked behind it, a trailer that had probably been scavenged from the Interstate. None of this information was particularly enlightening as to the intentions of the Auburnites, but at least it gave them an idea of their make-up and armament. And then there was El Dorado Hills. It was quite exciting to discover that there was another group of people out there, people that were adept at hiding themselves at the approach of enemies. Paul had given Brett a stern talking-to about the unauthorized side-trip and asked him not to operate outside of his mission orders any more, but he was, in retrospect, glad that he had done it. The El Doradans seemed, at least from the blurry infrared images, a lot more like the Garden Hillians than those in Auburn were. In EDH they used women on guard detail! That one little discovery spoke volumes about the type of society they were operating under. There had been some talk about possibly trying to make contact with them in the future. As he walked up his driveway, slogging through the ever-present puddles, he was mulling over just how they could go about making that contact if the time came. Certainly just having Brett land his helicopter in the middle of their town was far too dangerous. What other options were there? The house was darkened as he entered it. He hung up his rain jacket in the entryway and then, operating by feel, lit a candle that had been sitting just inside the formal living room. Using it's meager light, he navigated his way through the damp clothing hanging from the drying line and into the hallway. He went first to the guestroom, where Sherrie would be sleeping, so he could check up on her. Of course he had no reason to believe that she was in any sort of peril, but he checked anyway. He took any excuse he could to look in on his beautiful patient. He was sometimes concerned with how attracted he had become to her over the past few weeks but the attraction was undeniable. Though he loved Janet deeply, he lusted strongly after Sherrie, that lust growing every time he caught a glimpse of her vaginal area or saw her bra-less breasts bouncing beneath her nightgown or put his hands upon her soft legs. He wanted her badly and had taken to imagining it was she that he was making love to whenever he made love to Janet (which he did frequently these days). It wasn't that he didn't desire Janet any more it was just that Sherrie was different and variety was what men craved. The first thing he noticed when he stuck his head into the guest bedroom was the smell. In the poorly ventilated room the odor of musk was almost overwhelming. Paul had no trouble identifying what that odor was - he had smelled it often enough in his life - and his penis began to stiffen at the first whiff. What the hell? Had Sherrie been playing with herself in there? That very thought was enough to stiffen him up completely. As the light from the candle penetrated the darkness he saw an amazing sight. On the bed, sleeping soundly, was not just Sherrie but Janet as well. They were in bed together! Though the covers were pulled up to their necks, hiding their bodies from his sight, it was quite obvious that they were cuddled together, Janet's head nestled into the crook of Sherrie's neck. Lying on the floor beside the bed was a dildo! A dildo! What had happened in here? Had the two women had sex together? "Holy shit," he whispered, trembling a little as he envisioned the two of them, naked and sweaty and using that dildo on each other. That had to have been what had happened! It had to! Why else would it smell so strongly of sex in the room? Why else would they be cuddled up together? Janet, a light sleeper even under the influence of wine, opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. She blinked a few times and then looked up at him, giving him a smile. He opened his mouth to say something to her but she put her finger to her lips, hushing him. Slowly she extricated herself from Sherrie's grasp, sliding out from beneath the covers and standing naked. She walked towards him, continuing to hold her fingers to her lips, and then kissed him lightly on the mouth. The strong taste of musk was upon her lips. "Janet..." he stammered softly, "what have... I mean..." "Shhh," she said, giving him one more kiss. "Let's go the bedroom. We need to talk." +++++ The next day was very busy for the residents of Garden Hill. The operation to recover the freight train supplies began in earnest. A group of eight people - Paul in command of them - were flown out to the sight of the train and lowered down on the ropes to the tracks. Utilizing empty hot water heaters that had been stripped from the houses and modified with latched lids on the top, more than two tons of rice was moved from the grain carriers and placed into storage in the community center. The water heaters were used both to airlift the commodity and to store it, eliminating the step of moving it from one container to another once back in town. Nearly everyone in town participated in the operation in one way or another, even the children. And as they worked a variety of new rumors and stories circulated among the townspeople. First and foremost was the story about the existence of another operating community in El Dorado Hills. Excitement at the discovery of fellow human beings that had survived the comet was on every lip. But coming up a close second was the story about the newest triple that had been formed in town. By mid-morning the rumor was confirmed. Paul, their leader, and perhaps the most respected man in town, was taking himself a new wife. +++++ Jessica had been in a state of complete disbelief for the past three days. Like any new woman brought to Auburn, she had been housed in the high school under guard and subjected to the "education class" in which the rules and laws of town had been explained in exacting detail to her. Two women had been the one's to give her these so-called lessons and with each word out of their mouths, with each written test that she had been given (yes, there were actual written tests for the women of Auburn), her disbelief had grown. Don't speak to your husband or any other man unless you are first spoken to? Infidelity to your man was punishable by hanging? No leaving the house without first asking permission? No leaving the town at all? No handling of firearms or reading of books under punishment of hanging? What the hell were these ditsy women trying to hand her? Surely they could not be serious? Had she been placed in the care of the mentally deranged? Never once did she consider that these mad ravings could be actual town rules that were enforced. That was simply impossible. Sure, she was living in a male oriented society, that was easy enough to see. But then hadn't society always been male-oriented? Hadn't women like her always found a way to grasp and exert power through those men? Surely this place couldn't be any different. And now, on her third day in town, she had been informed that her training was complete and that she had been assigned to a husband who had been selected by lottery. Assigned? She was certainly going to see about that. Someone named Sergeant Stinson was allegedly to be her new man. As if she was going to allow that. She was already perceptive enough about the workings of Auburn to know that a man's military rank was synonymous with his power within the town. A sergeant? They had assigned her to a mere sergeant? That simply wouldn't do. She would accept no less than that man Bracken who had led the group that she had met up with. He was a captain and was rumored to have the ear of the lead man himself, Barnes. Though it was Barnes who she was ultimately angling for, she figured that she would be pushing it if she tried to get close to him so soon. But if she got close to Bracken first it would only be a matter of time before she... The door to the small room she was being held in opened and a man walked in. He was a small man, dressed in the inevitable camouflage clothing that all the men in town wore. He was a short man, standing about five foot nine, and very skinny with thick, coke-bottle glasses upon his face. He looked like a computer nerd and in fact, though she didn't know it, had been a systems engineer for Placer County prior to the comet. She looked at him with contempt as he looked her over. "Not bad," he said, nodding a little as he took in her form. "I'm Steve Stinson, your new husband. You ready to go home?" "My new husband?" she asked, continuing her look. "That's right bitch," he said, scowling a little at her expression and her tone. "Let's go." "Now wait a minute," she said, standing up and walking over to him. "While I'm sure that you're a very nice man, I hardly think that a lottery is the proper way to pick a mate. I mean, I don't even know you. I'm sure you'll agree that a marriage must be based on mutual respect and goals." Stinson looked at her in complete disbelief. "Mutual respect and goals?" he asked through clenched teeth. "Why yes," she agreed. "I mean what kind of civilization would we be building if we just went around assigning every woman to a man on a random basis? That is certainly not the way that things..." "Listen," Stinson interrupted. "I AM basically a nice guy, just like you said, so for that reason, I'm going to cut you a little bit of slack. They told me that you were a bit mouthy and that you didn't seem to take your lessons very seriously, but let me tell you that you are not in the world that you grew up in. Talking back to me, talking to me at ALL without being addressed first is a beating offense, do you understand? Unless you wish to have the back of my hand across your face, I'd suggest you pick up your stuff and follow me right now." She opened her mouth to reply to this but he stopped her before she could speak. "No words," he warned, raising his hand a little. "I don't enjoy violence but I will use it if needed. Pick up your stuff and let's go." Jessica began to feel a bit uncomfortable. Beating offense? Surely he wasn't serious. Why, if he so much as laid a hand upon her, she would complain directly to Barnes himself about it. Nobody hit her! No man talked to her that way! But still, she thought that maybe the best thing was to go along for now, to accompany this man to his home until this could all be worked out. She would find out what the grievance process was and utilize it. In doing so she would undoubtedly find a way to talk to those who REALLY mattered in the town. And so, keeping her mouth shut, she picked up her bag of clothes and followed him out the door. +++++ They had told her many times in her classroom that the men of Auburn all had multiple wives - at least two but as many as four. Still, despite this knowledge, it came as a shock to her when Stinson led her inside the small house and introduced her to Linda and Cathy. They were both young, mousy looking women, obvious tramps. "Now Linda," Stinson explained to her, "is the senior wife. She will be who conveys my orders to you and she will assign you to any household tasks that need to be done. If you have any requests of me or if you wish to talk to me for some reason, you must go through her first. Do you understand?" "Uh... yeah," she said slowly, looking at her as if she were a bug. "Welcome to the family," Linda said meekly, hardly raising her eyes. Jessica continued to stare, not saying anything. "Cathy," Stinson said next, "is technically the same rank as you are but there is still the issue of seniority. Since she has been in the family longer than you have, she has the privilege of being given the nicer assignments by Linda. Everything is based on seniority around here, especially among the women. Do you understand?" "Sure," Jessica said mechanically, thinking that it would be a cold day in hell before she took an order or lifted a finger to help either one of these women. "Now the way we work things around here," Stinson continued, "is that I sleep with one woman a night. Who that is depends upon what my fancy happens to be on that particular night. The other two sleep in the guest bedrooms. Of course, once we start to have children around here we'll have to come up with other arrangements. And that'll be in about seven months, won't it Linda?" "Yes," Linda said quietly, patting her stomach. Jessica looked at Stinson, hardly having heard the allusion to Linda's pregnancy. Sleep with one woman a night? The little nerd didn't think he was going to sleep with HER did he? She gave her body to no one who couldn't help her in some way. And this man was surely a low-level flunky if she'd ever seen one. He finished showing her around the house - which was pitifully small in Jessica's opinion - while the two "wives" trailed along behind. She asked nothing, said nothing during the tour, simply going along with it, listening as he explained about household duties and work assignments and dinner schedules, but not really hearing him. When could she get away from him and meet someone who MATTERED, she kept wondering? How long until she had a chance to talk to Bracken or Barnes? Finally the tour came to an end at a closed door near the back of the house. "And this is the master bedroom," Stinson said, "or... the pleasure palace as I like to call it. Isn't that right bitches?" "Yes," they both dutifully replied in unison. Jessica could barely keep her tongue in check as she heard this. "And so now," Stinson said, a certain amount of eagerness on his face, "I think it's time for the breaking in. Linda, Cathy, you're dismissed to your duties." "Yes sir," they both replied. They immediately turned and walked away. "Jessica," Stinson said, opening the door to the room and waving her inside, "shall we get to it?" "Get to it?" she said icily, giving him her most contemptuous stare. It was a stare that could usually be counted on to cower just about anyone. In this case if did nothing but produce a dangerous look on Stinson. She didn't let that bother her however. She had more than her share of experience dealing with peons like this. "We're married now," Stinson told her. "It's time for us to consummate that marriage. Get in the bedroom." "Consummate?" she asked with a sharp laugh. "Oh I really don't think so." "You... don't think so?" he asked, seemingly in disbelief. "Listen Stinson," she said. "You seem to be under the impression that I am some sort of... bimbo like the rest of the women in this town. Well let me tell you right now that I am not. I am a woman of breeding and education. I have a bachelor's degree in history and I was married to a lawyer before the comet. I was the president of the homeowner's association back in Garden Hill and I was a key member of the ruling council." Stinson's mouth dropped open in sheer surprise at what he was hearing. His face started to turn red. "You... you... how dare you..." "And furthermore," Jessica went on, figuring that she was well on her way to gaining the upper hand, "I do not respond to assignments for housework. I don't DO housework, I have it done for me. I do not take orders from little white trash hussies just because you've got them convinced that you ARE somebody. And most important of all, I will NOT be consummating anything with YOU. Now why don't you take me to someone important in this town so I can explain this to them and get assigned to a household that is a little more fitting of my background." She saw the fist coming but did nothing to stop it. It was his right hand and it swung upward from his waist with lightening speed, moving directly for her face. She could have ducked, could have raised her hand in defense, but so disbelieving was she that someone - especially a nerdy geek like this - would dare strike HER, that she only stood there. It crashed into the side of her face like a sledgehammer and pain exploded in her head. Bright stars fired off before her eyes as she was slammed into the wall next to her. She stumbled a few steps, dazed and confused, trying to regain her balance, but before she could, the left hand swung up and struck her on the other side of her face. She spun around with the sheer force of it, dropping to her knees on the carpet of the doorway. Blood was running slowly down her cheek and pattering to the floor from a cut below her eye. Stinson grabbed her by her blonde hair and lifted up on her, pulling her painfully to her feet. Another blow landed on her back, right in the left kidney, driving the wind from her lungs. She tried to fall down again but the hand in her hair prevented this. She was dragged forcefully over to the bed and thrown bodily upon it. Her head was still ringing and she was still in a state of complete shock as he began talking to her. "Roll over and look at me bitch," he said, his voice low and dangerous. When she didn't do this right away he stepped forward and grabbed her roughly by the hair again, jerking her face upward and turning to him. "Did you hear what the fuck I said?" he demanded. "Roll your ass over." Slowly, trembling with fear, anger, and pain, she did what she was told. "Now you listen," he told her, staring into her eyes, "and you listen good. You are my property now. My PROPERTY. I will do with you as I please, when I please, and you will obey my every fucking command. I could have you hanged for what you just said to me. Hanged! But I'm going to give you another chance because you're new here and because you're a pretty hot piece that I really want to fuck. Know this though. If you EVER talk back to me again, if you ever pull any shit like that again, I'll beat you to within an inch of your life and then have Barnes hang you the next morning. Is that clear?" She brought her hand up and rubbed at the cut on her face. He had hit her! He had beaten her! Where the hell did he get off thinking that he could do that to her? Why she was going to... He backhanded her sharply, sending a spray of blood flying across the room to patter on the headboard of the bed. "I asked if that was clear?" he demanded. "Do you have a fucking hearing problem? Answer me!" In an instant it came home to her that she was in danger. This man was crazy! She needed to get help, to get out of here! She eyed the doorway, trying to gauge whether or not she could get past him. Stinson took a step forward, raising his fist towards her. "If you know what's good for you," he told her, "you'd better answer me in the next second." "It's clear," she said carefully, her entire head throbbing with pain. "Good," he said, stepping back to the doorway and shutting the door. "Now get those clothes off." "Look," she started, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation. She needed to get help. The blow struck her on the jaw this time, loosening two of her teeth and momentarily dislocating it from its socket. She fell to the bed, feeling the muscles and tendons on the side of her mouth cramping in protest. His hand pulled her hair again, forcefully raising her up. "Get those clothes off," he said, carefully annunciating each word. "I'm not going to tell you again." "You won't get away with this," she said fearfully, her hands reaching for the button on her shirt. "Get away with what?" he asked her. "With raping me. I'll report it." He started laughing. "Raping you? Report it? Lady, you're not in Garden Hill anymore, you're in Auburn. You are my bitch now and I can do whatever I want to you. If I wouldn't have beaten you for what you said and for disobeying me, I would've been the one breaking our law, do you understand that? Now I don't like having to hit people - as I said, I'm basically non-violent - but you are way out of line. There's nothing for you to report to anyone. After they beat you for talking without permission, they would tell me I was doing my husbandly duties well. Now get those fucking clothes off before I give you a goddam concussion. It's time this marriage was consummated." Slowly, her fuzzy mind trying to sort through what was happening, she began to remove her shirt. Could it be true? Could it be that she was nothing but PROPERTY here? Could it be that this man could beat her whenever he wanted? That he could rape her whenever he wanted? What kind of place was this? "Come on," Stinson said impatiently, "I ain't got all fuckin night. I have to pull a watch in an hour." Feeling as trapped, as helpless as she ever had in her life, she took off her shirt and her bra, baring her surgery enhanced breasts to his greedy eyes. "Very nice," he said, reaching out and giving one a squeeze. She winced at the touch but did not pull away from him. "Now the rest," he told her, pulling off his own shirt and revealing his skinny chest. "I wanna see that pussy as well." Soon she was completely naked and trembling on the edge of the bed. Stinson dropped his pants and underwear, revealing a five-inch cock that was sticking out erectly. "How about we start with a little blowjob?" he suggested, stepping up and sticking it in her face. "That'll get the old juices flowing properly." Jessica had never put a penis in her mouth in her life. She had never been laid in anything other than the missionary position. She started to cry as he pushed himself towards her. "No," she told him. "I don't... Another backhand across the face convinced her that she did. She opened her mouth and took him into it. He grabbed her by the hair and guided her motions roughly. Several times she gagged as it was forced to the back of her throat. "Goddammit, do it right," he demanded. "Suck on it! Use your mouth, use your tongue, use your hands! I want it to feel good, do you understand?" For the next five humiliating minutes, she listened to his instruction and did what he told, slurping and sucking on him, bathing him with her saliva. "Now you're getting the hang of it," he told her with a sigh. "A little more hand action, and watch those teeth. If I feel them scraping me again you're gonna get another shot." She gave him more hand action. She watched the teeth. "You have such a pretty little face," he said. "It's a shame you made me mess it up like that." He pumped a few times, forcing himself all the way in again. And then, abruptly, he pulled out. "Now lay down on the bed," he told her. "It's time to fuck." Numbly, knowing that resistance was beyond futile, she fell back on the bed, awaiting her fate. "I'm not on any birth control," she said weakly, her last ditch effort to dissuade him. "Good," he said, grabbing her legs and throwing them wide open. "We have to repopulate the earth you know." He gazed at the center of her, nodding appreciably. "Not a real blonde huh?" he asked. "You did a good job of covering it up. First thing in the morning, I want you to shave off all of that hair. And keep it clean from now on too. I like my bitches smooth. Any stubble gets a beating." She said nothing, only nodded her understanding. A second later he was atop of her, his cock, still wet with her saliva, forcing its way into her dry folds. She grunted in pain at the entry. He rutted atop her for nearly fifteen minutes, his hips rising and falling, his breath panting on her neck. A few times he crammed his tongue down her throat, forcing her to kiss him. His breath was sour, as if he hadn't brushed his teeth in a few weeks. She fought back a gag whenever he did this. Eventually her body acted in a biological nature and produced lubrication to help ease his passage within her. The pain went away but was not replaced by pleasure. Finally, at long last, his pace became erratic and, with a grunt, he came. She felt his seed shooting within her, felt it pattering against her cervix. When he was done he got up and began putting his clothes back on. "You need to work a little more the next time," he told her. "I'm not gonna have a bitch of mine just lying there while I fuck her. You need to learn to move." She said nothing, could not even look at him. "Tell you what," he said, "I'm gonna have you sleep in here tonight. I get off shift at midnight and I'll be home by 12:30. We'll go again with you on top. It'll be your job to make me come. If you need some tips on how to do that, just ask Linda and Cathy. They used to be dead fucks too, now they're the sweetest pieces in town." Again she didn't answer. He stepped over to her, pulling her head up by the hair again. "Did you hear me?" he asked, glaring at her. "Yes," she said quietly, her voice defeated. "Then you answer me, you understand? Now get yourself dressed and get this room picked up. Linda will give you some chores to do when you're done." +++++ Like all of the Auburn women before her, it didn't take her very long to learn the rules. She perhaps had a few more lapses than some of the others did - she was given a black eye on one occasion, a cracked rib on another for speaking without being spoken too or for speaking disrespectfully - but she did learn. Every night for the next three days she was forced to pleasure him in bed but she no longer fought it or tried to control it in any way; not even when he lubed himself up with Crisco shortening and put himself in her ass. And after he pulled himself out, his cock coated with her blood, her rectum feeling like a blow-torch had been lit in it, she wordlessly got dressed and went about her assigned chores. The two senior wives, particularly Linda, did not like her. It was obvious they considered her a snooty bitch who thought she was better than they and they seemed to take a perverse delight in ordering her to do the most unpleasant chores in the most unpleasant manners. She found herself cleaning the toilet with her bare hands; washing Stinson's fecal stained underwear in the sink with cold water, a little bit of laundry soap, and a toothbrush. She found herself crawling around on her hands and knees on the carpet picking up pieces of lint one by one. She did these chores without protest. She knew that there were only beatings to be gained from protesting. Aside from her household tasks, she also had a community job that she did for seven hours each day. As the most junior of the women in town, she was assigned to the most unpleasant, labor intensive duty. Her job was the community laundry detail. Each day, starting after breakfast, she walked up to the high school and spent her time washing towels and washrags in a cold tub. It was amazing how much community linen a town of 2000 people went through in the course of a single day. Like everything else, she did this without protest, to the best of her abilities. Her hands dried, cracked, and bled from the constant exposure to industrial soap but she carried on. She had hoped at first that Stinson was merely an anomaly in the town and that some of the other men would be more like... well like the men she was used to dealing with. Unfortunately she found out that she was right - that he WAS an anomaly, only not in the way that she had figured. According to Anna and Jean, two of the other women that she saw frequently in the course of her workday, Stinson was actually considered to be on of the NICER husbands among the Auburn men. "Nicer?" she said incredulously that first day she had talked to them, her face swollen and sore from the beatings she'd received the night before. "You MUST be kidding." "Oh no," Anna said sympathetically. "You must've really pushed his buttons to get him to do that to you. From talking to Linda and Cathy they say he almost never hits, not even when they step over the line a little bit. He's got kind of a reputation of a wimp in fact." "A wimp?" she'd asked. "Yep," Jean, standing there with her mop bucket confirmed. "And they say he's not really into the kinky sex like some of the other ones are." "Kinky sex?" she asked. "He put Crisco on his dick and shoved it up my ass. You don't call that kinky?" "Not in Auburn these days where they can do whatever they want," Anna said. "Some of the girls say their men are into water sports." "Water sports?" she asked, not quite sure what that even was. "They like to piss on you," Jean clarified for her. "Or IN you," Anna added. "I've even heard that some of Stu's guys are into... you know... scat." "I don't think I even WANT to know what that is," she'd said. "Trust me," Anna told her, "you don't." It seemed that the greatest fear of any Auburn woman was to be traded to one of the former convicts that had come to town with Stu. So far, of the twenty some-odd women who had been hanged for some offense, sixteen of them had been the wives of one of the convicts. And it was rare to see a wife of one of them who didn't have bruises on her face and arms. "They're just bad, bad men," Jean advised her. "If I was you, I'd straighten up and fly right around Stinson or he just might trade you to one of them. Trust me on this, you're much better off where you are." Jessica, all of her life, had made it her prime directive to put herself into the most coveted places possible. The idea that she was already in such a place here in Auburn, that she was "married" to a man that other Auburn women dreamed of being traded to, was a blackly depressing thought. And then there was the fact that she could not even imbibe in the most common fantasy that the other Auburn women had; that of escaping to Garden Hill. She had been exiled from there at gunpoint. Even if she could somehow get out of here, there was nowhere for her to go, there was no other place. At night, after Stinson had had his way with her, as she lay sore and sometimes bleeding on the bed, listening to his snores, she couldn't help but feel that maybe she had been wrong back in Garden Hill. After seeing life in Auburn, after experiencing what else was out there, she longed to go back home, she longed to take back the actions that had brought her to this place. Had she really thought that Brett, that Paul, that Stacy were evil back then? Had she really thought that? It seemed a joke now. Here, in this town, was true evil. "I was a bad person," she whispered to herself on her fourth night, tears streaming down her face. "I was a bad person and I deserved to be exiled." And god help her, she could never go back. This was now her lot in life. ++++ For the past week Jean and Anna had been making slow, careful preparations for their escape. There were several obstacles that they had to overcome in order to have a hope of both getting away and getting to Garden Hill. The food problem they had handled. Or so they were hoping. As cleaning staff for the high school buildings, the guards and personnel within there were used to seeing them moving from room to room in the building at all hours of the day - in fact, hardly seemed to notice their presence anymore. One such area that they regularly visited was the food storage area. As they were in there each day, mopping and dusting, they made a point to pilfer a few cans of food, usually making the effort to get high calorie and fat items like ravioli or beef stew. They would then put these cans in the plastic garbage bags that they emptied from the wastebaskets throughout the facility, tying each bag shut a zip-tie which they would then mark by cutting off the excess length of tie that stuck out. It was just a little difference - something that the men who emptied the garbage from the truck into the landfill would likely not even notice, that they wouldn't investigate if they did - but it would make those bags distinguishable from thousands of others in the garbage dump when the time came to recover them. So far they had managed to steal and send out more than thirty cans of food. All they were waiting for now was for the truck they dropped it in to get full so someone would make the dumping run. The biggest obstacle to their escape was how to go about getting away from the town in the first place. How could they get past the defenses, especially since the loopholes that the previous escapees used had all been discovered - or at least suspected - and closed? Both of the women spent every waking hour trying to think their way through this and still they had come up with nothing concrete. They played around with and discussed several wild possibilities but ultimately rejected every one of them as impractical or too dangerous. "If we make the break," Anna said on the occasions they could talk in privacy, "it has to be with a plan that has a decent chance of succeeding. Granted, it's not pleasant here but we don't want to be stupid and get ourselves killed by taking a wild shot. If we can't get away clean, there's no sense in trying." "But HOW?" Jean, not as good at problem solving, would always ask. "How do we walk out past guards stationed on the hill above us without being seen? How do we get two miles down the Interstate and out of their sight before they see us even if we can get past?" "I don't know," Anna would say. "We'll keep working on it." Interestingly enough, it was Jean who finally happened across a workable solution to the problem. One of her daily chores was cleaning out Barnes' office. As she was in there one afternoon, dusting the cabinets, emptying the trash, and sweeping the floor, Barnes was having an informal meeting with Bracken and two of the platoon leaders. They were drinking beers and smoking cigarettes and/or cigars and they completely ignored her presence as they talked about the attack plans they were formulating for Garden Hill. "Now as I've said before," Barnes told the men as Jean sprayed Windex on his large screen television set and wiped it down, "don't underestimate these people, even if we do outnumber them, even if they are using a bunch of bitches for soldiers. The minds behind those bitch soldiers are clever ones indeed. This Brett Adams that that bitch we picked up on the road told us about used to be a member of the 3rd ACR. They were second in to Saudi Arabia back in 1990, right behind the 7th. I fought with them there and they were a bad ass group of soldiers. This man knows what he's doing and he knows how to lead troops. And then there's this Paul character. He was never in the military apparently but he's not an idiot either. Without any formal training of any kind he was able to lead and set up a halfway decent defense plan for that town. He was smart enough to come up with that little night vision camera trick, so keep that in mind." "Night vision camera trick?" one of the platoon leaders asked. "He mounted a standard top-end video camera equipped with a crude night vision setting on the end of their bridge approach," Bracken explained. "They ran wires from it all the way to the other end of the bridge and monitored it from a television set at night." "That IS pretty smart," the platoon leader agreed. "It's so smart," Barnes said, "that we're going to begin doing that ourselves on our close approaches as soon as we scrounge up enough power and coaxial cable. But anyway, my point is..." None of them happened to be looking at Jean at that moment or they would have seen that she had stopped in mid-wipe, her eyes growing bigger in their sockets. Night vision camera system? NIGHT vision? Ten minutes later she was talking to Anna, who had been cleaning in the hallway downstairs. "I have an idea," she said quietly. "An idea?" "Yes. Do you think that we could get our hands on a camcorder?" +++++ Three nights later, everything came together perfectly for the two women. The garbage truck next to the high school had been driven to the landfill and dumped the day before - apparently without anyone discovering that there was a little more than garbage in there. Bracken was sleeping with Kelly that night, which meant that the informer of the family was safely tucked away with Asshole. Sharon was no longer in the picture. After one last rape of her shapely body three nights before, Bracken had had her "put out of her misery" by means of a bullet to the back of the head. Her body had then been dumped unceremoniously over the bridge and into the canyon. "Are you ready for this?" Anna asked Jean at 1:00 AM. She had just crept into the other woman's bedroom after putting on her warmest, thickest clothing. "We could still back out you know." "No," Jean said, touching her hand in the darkness. She was dressed in two layers of her warmest clothes as well. "Let's get the hell out of this place. It's time." Slowly they eased out of the room and out into the hallway. It was pitch black in the house and they moved slowly, operating primarily by feel, until they got to the linen closet. Slowly they removed four of the thickest blankets in there and rolled them up into two tight bundles. They moved to the kitchen next and removed two of the large, plastic garbage bags from a drawer. As quietly as possible, they stuffed the blanket rolls into the garbage bags and secured them into bundles by using twine that they had stolen from the supply room and hidden in the back of the drawer. They now had watertight packs for their blankets and their food when and if they recovered it. Holding hands they walked slowly out of the kitchen, down a hallway, and into the living room. As in Garden Hill the daily laundry was hung and drying in this room and they had to duck under it in order to get to the front door. They both pulled their rain jackets down from the hooks by the door and put them on, buttoning them up and then pulling the hoods tightly over their heads. Two more steps brought them to the front door. "This is it," Anna said softly. "Open that door and there's no turning back." "Open it," Jean said without hesitation. Just as her hand reached out to grasp the handle, there was a click next to them and suddenly, shockingly, they were being illuminated by the beam of a flashlight from less than five feet away. "Going somewhere girls?" Kelly, the holder of the light, asked them. Jean was paralyzed with fear, unable to talk, unable to move. Anna jumped in fright but quickly recovered, willing herself not to panic. "Kelly," she said slowly, her mind whizzing as she weighed their options. "You scared me half to death." "I thought I heard someone creeping around out here," Kelly said with feigned sweetness. "It looks like my little co-wives were thinking about trying a little escape." "Escape," Anna said, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Don't be silly. We were just... uh..." She could think of nothing else to say. After all, it was perfectly obvious what they were doing. "Come with me," Kelly told them. "Let's go wake up husband dear and see what he thinks about all of this. I don't imagine he'll be very happy with you two." "Listen Kelly," Anna said pleadingly. "Can't you just..." "No, I don't think he'll be happy at all," Kelly went on. "In fact, it might just be that the two of you will be hanging from a rope by breakfast tomorrow. And then I'll have him ALL to myself." "Kelly," Anna said. "If we get away from here, you'll still have him all to yourself." "Yes," she said, "but then he'll blame me for letting you get away. He may even suspect that I helped you. Oh no, I'm not playing that game. Now shall we go upstairs peacefully or shall I start screaming for him now? It doesn't really matter to me." Anna started to tense up. They were trapped. What was there to do? Her mind screamed at her just to run out the door, dragging Jean by the hand, and to hide out in the town somewhere until they had a chance to slip out later. It was a ridiculous plan - one that almost surely would fail - but what else was there to do? Jean kept her from implementing it. Her initial panic had subsided, allowing a cooler, more calculating part of her mind to take over. In a low, quiet voice, she said: "All right, we're caught. Let's go face the music." Anna looked at her in disbelief. "Maybe he'll be lenient with us," Jean said softly. "Maybe he'll give us another chance. Let's throw ourselves on his mercy." "Oh I doubt he'll be lenient," Kelly said with delight. "But anything's possible, isn't it? Let's go." She gestured with the flashlight, waving it towards the stairs. "Jean," Anna said fearfully, knowing that if they went up those stairs they were dead women. Escape attempts by women, by anyone, was not tolerated. "We'll be okay Anna," Jean said carefully, looking steadily at her lover. "Let's just follow Kelly upstairs and confess. Okay?" Something in Jean's tone convinced her. As Kelly turned towards the staircase and as Jean stepped towards her, Anna followed. It happened with shocking speed. Kelly made it three paces back towards the hallway before Jean, moving faster than Anna would have thought possible, was upon her. She grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head viciously backward, and then, before she had a chance to cry out, threw her arm around her neck and tightened it. The flashlight dropped from her hand with a small clatter and rolled a few feet. Jean, though not fat, was not small either. She was a solidly built woman of farm-girl proportions. Kelly, on the other hand, was a petite whisp of a girl, built more like a model than anything else. She kicked and twisted in Jean's grasp, she grabbed at her arms, she stomped on her feet, but she was unable to get free. Jean pushed on the choking arm with her free hand, tightening it even further, and, within a second or two, Kelly began to jerk spastically against her, her eyes rolling back in her head, her limbs flailing as if in seizure. And still Jean held onto her. Anna watched opened-mouthed as Kelly's struggles suddenly ceased, her body going limp in Jean's grasp. And still Jean held onto her, keeping the tension tight around her neck. "Jean," she whispered in horror, "what are you doing?" "I'm killing her," Jean said with surprising calmness. "If I let go of her now, she'll just wake up again in ten minutes or so." "Oh my god," Anna cried, starting to tremble. The reality of what was going on hitting her. "Killing her?" "She was going to have us killed," Jean replied. "I couldn't let that happen Anna." "Oh my god," she said again. She held her for almost five minutes, maintaining the chokehold upon her. Finally she lowered her to the ground and let go. She leaned down and put her mouth near Kelly's ear, listening for respiration. "Nothing," she said blankly. She picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. "Nothing," she repeated. "She's dead." "Jesus Jean," Anna said, still standing in the same place. "How did you... I mean, why did you... I mean... oh god." Jean stood up, walking over to the flashlight and picking it up. "I grew up with an older brother," she said quietly. "I learned how to wrestle by the time I was four years old. I accidentally choked him out one time by grabbing him like that. My dad told me I should never grab anyone around the neck that way because it makes them pass out in a few seconds and if you do it long enough, you'll kill them." She took a few deep breaths, starting to feel the aftereffects of her actions now. "I guess Dad was right, huh?" "I guess he was," Anna agreed. "Now we really can't turn back," Jean said, starting to tremble. "No," Anna said. "I guess we can't. Let's get out of here." They listened for a moment, reasonably sure that Bracken had slept through the entire incident since he hadn't stormed down the stairway, but wanting to be sure. The reassuring rumble of his snores continued to drift downward towards them. He would have quite a surprise when he finally did wake up. Anna opened the door and stuck her head out, her eyes searching the rainy darkness outside. All of the surrounding houses were occupied, mostly by other high-ranking members of the militia and their wives, and she wanted to make sure that no one else just happened to be out and about. This was an unlikely possibility at this ungodly hour of the morning, but a possibility nevertheless. She saw nothing - no lights on, no faces in the windows (not that she could SEE the windows very well). "It looks clear," she whispered to Jean. Slowly, holding hands once again, they slipped out onto the porch and closed the door behind them. Stepping out into the rain, they walked down to the sidewalk and turned left, easing down the street. Three doors down was a metal box sticking up from a lawn. This used to be a communal mailbox back in civilized days, the place where the 12 houses on this end of the street had sent and received their correspondence. Anna, the night before, had pried it open from the back with a screwdriver and placed a very special package inside for hiding. "Is it still there?" Jean asked nervously, knowing that without it, all hope was lost. "It's here," Anna said with relief as she pulled out the small Sony Camcorder and three spare batteries. They were wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain and all were fully charged thanks to the power supply at the high school where she had stolen them from a locked supply room. Anna opened the package and turned on the camera, switching it to the night vision setting. "Let's get out of the open now." "Right." With Anna looking through the viewfinder, she was able to see a black and white view of the area directly in front of her. The range on the night vision was only about twenty feet but it was enough. Jean held onto the back of her rain jacket, staying as close as possible to her, allowing herself to be led blindly along. They started moving. They made their way out of the populated part of the town as quickly as possible, moving silently but speedily along the sidewalks. It was not the most direct way to the east side of the town, where they planned to make their egress, but they figured it was best to get away from the occupied dwellings. They passed through a derelict industrial section and a small commercial strip mall before making their way into a lower class residential neighborhood that no one had bothered taking up housekeeping in yet. Once, just near the end of this section, they had to hide behind an old dumpster when they saw the bobbing flashlights of the interior patrol making their rounds. The two-man team passed within thirty feet of them and continued down the street. "That was close," Jean whispered fearfully. "Too close," Anna agreed. They were forced to skirt the edge of a more populated area in order to access the freeway at the Foresthill onramp. They moved on the far side of the street during this stretch, noting in alarm that one of the houses was still lit from the inside. Why were they still awake in there? Would they step outside and spot the escapees? They did not, at least not as far as either woman could tell and five minutes later they were walking up the onramp to Interstate 80, Anna following along the white line in her viewfinder. At the top of the onramp, as they stood on the surface of the freeway itself, they paused, each taking a few uncomfortable breaths. They were now within sight line of the two guardposts that watched over that side of town, protected from view only by the darkness. "Here comes the hard part," Anna said. "Yeah," Jean agreed. "Let's get it over with." They walked slowly along the freeway, drawing ever closer to the guard positions with each step that they took. Anna kept her eye glued to the viewfinder tightly, both to see where she was going and to keep the minute amount of light that leached out of the rubber gasket from giving them away. Jean, still holding tight to her friend's rain jacket, still completely blind in the darkness, followed along behind her, concentrating on each step that she made to keep from making any noise. Anna could not see the two guard hills through the night vision as they came up to the Bell Road offramp - they were well out of the range of her meager camera - but she could feel them, could sense them rising up directly in front of her. She felt so horribly exposed. Were they really going to walk directly below those four guards? Were they really going to try to navigate through the maze of sandbags and barbed wire that lay in front of those hills? Did they really think that this crazy plan had a chance in hell of succeeding? Had it not been for the fact that Kelly's dead body was lying in the living room back at Bracken's home, she would have aborted the escape attempt as too dangerous. But there was no choice now, was there? They had to give it a shot. With sweating palms, with a hammering heart, she pushed onward, Jean behind her. Soon they were passing into the chasm that the Interstate had created between the hills. The four guards were less than three hundred feet above them now. Both women slowed their pace to a near-crawl, knowing that it kept them in the danger zone longer but also knowing that gingerly, careful steps would help keep them from stumbling and making unintended noise. The guards up there were equipped with powerful spotlights hooked up to automotive batteries. Though they did not routinely sweep the area below them, they would surely light up the area if they heard a noise. At last they came out the other side of the hills and came to the entrance of the sandbag maze. The opening was four feet wide, a small gap between six foot walls of sandbags, with rolls of razor wire stretching off in both directions to the side. Anna looked at it carefully, examining the ground for any sort of trip wires or other noise-making booby traps. She had never heard Bracken mention that such things were part of the defenses but she certainly was not going to rule it out. She saw nothing of the sort. "We're at the maze Jean," she whispered as softly as she could, barely loud enough for Jean herself to hear. "Tighten up on me a little. Hold onto my shoulders with both hands and turn when I turn." "Okay," Jean whispered back. "And don't trip over my feet." "Okay." Anna eased forward, Jean holding onto her like a shadow. Slowly, moving at the speed of a snail, she entered the maze, staying as close to the center between the rows of sandbags as she could. The view through the camera was two-dimensional and it was a little difficult judging distance for this reason but by the time she reached the second turn, she was used to it. Step by step she walked forward, always cognizant of the guards directly above and behind her and what would become of them if they were discovered. She turned to the right, to the left, back to the right again, doubled back towards town for a few feet and then doubled back towards the east. In all there were more than twenty separate corners to navigate. At last, after what seemed an eternity but which was actually only twenty minutes, they came to the final turn. In the viewfinder Anna saw a stretch of Interstate stretching off into the darkness beyond her range. It was one of the finest things she'd ever seen before. She stopped for a moment in the last four feet, again looking carefully on the ground for any trip wires or other devices. Seeing nothing she started slowly forward. Six steps brought her through the barrier of the sandbags and razor wire and they were out. Though they were still within easy view of the guards above, and though they would still need to step quietly for quite some time, they were actually out of Auburn and on their way to freedom. Al Steiner 1-23-01 Chapter 13 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. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+