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Dan and the Bottle

By: disableddan



It had been a long day and Dan was limping home from his evening walk; a part of his self imposed therapy. He went for a two block walk every night, in a vain attempt to shed some of the extra pounds he'd gained during numerous hospital stays and while sitting for long hours at his computer, which was, basically, his last friend in the world. 

Years of smoking, coupled with the wrong diet and not enough exercize, had reduced him to this.... he'd had a stroke over ten years ago, followed by back to back heart attacks, four months apart. To make matters worse, although he got a disability pension, it wasn't nearly enough to live on his own, and living with his family was sheer torture at times.... his younger sister was the ultimate packrat, and had stuffed both the basement and the garage with so much useless crap and nonsense that he was unable to use the numerous power tools he'd spent so much time and care acquiring, nor the multi channel home theater system that he'd built up over a twenty year span.

He sighed as he shuffled along, thinking, once again, about why he was bothering to go on living. He had thought, more than once, about sticking the .45 pistol under his bed in his mouth and pulling the trigger, just to see what came next. It wasn't like he had all that much to live for.... his strength and energy had vanished like a fart in a stiff breeze after the stroke, and his sex life, such as it had been, hadn't been far behind. Not that he'd had much of a sex life to begin with.... he'd been cursed with a small dick, and most of his sex partners, once they'd experienced his five and a half inch penis, only stuck around for the one night. 

Less than half a block from his house, he spotted another bottle.... another ten cent deposit to add to the seven already in the bag he carried with him on his late night walks... it was the only way he could supplement his meager Social Security Disability income. He grabbed it.... glass, and heavy.... it wasn't a pop bottle, then, most of them were plastic these days. Looking it over, he saw that it wasn't any kind of beer bottle, either, or, at least, not any type he'd seen before. There was a cork stuck in the mouth of the heavy, rather ornate old brown bottle, and he tugged at it, trying to get a smell of what was in it. Finally freeing it, he was a bit surprised to see a small cloud of greenish smoke puff out. The cloud didn't dissipate, though.... it seemed to have a will of it's own, floating out until it was about four feet away, then expanding until it was a column, about six feet tall, and roughly three feet in diameter. Then it slowly solidified, until he was looking at what appeared to be almost a mirror image of himself. 

"Thank, you, kind sir! I've been stuck in there for ages. What year is it?"

Dan just stood there, stunned speechless for a moment. "It's.... It's.... two thousand thirteen. How.... who.... how.....?" 

"Oh, boy.... okay, first, relax, take a deep breath. Your reaction isn't too unexpected. I'm a Djinn."

"A.... gin?"

"No.... a Djinn... you know, like the old story of Alladin? Well, not exactly like that, but not far from it. Yes, I can grant you some wishes, though there are limits to what I can do.... I can't, for example, cause deliberate harm to another living creature on your behalf, though I can't stop you from doing so on your own. I can make you wealthy, though I can't give you 'all the money in the world'. That would be impractical, to say the least, and there has to be some sort of legitimate source of any money you get. I can modify your body, if you like, and make it so those who know you think the changes are natural. I can't give you a palace, but I can bring you enough wealth that you can buy one of your own, or have one built to your specifications.... or, if you buy the land, I can build what you want in the blink of an eye. Oh, and no, you're not limited to the 'three wishes' of the storybooks, though you are limited to one year of my services."

"How did you get here?" Poor Dan was still a bit in shock from this flood of information.

"Ok, you want the long version, or the short?"

"Uhhh.... short, I think... standing here is a bit taxing on me."

"Oh, my.... I'm sorry. I didn't realize...." The Djinn replied, peering closely at Dan for the first time. "Oh! I didn't realize your physical health was so poor!"

"Yeah, I'm in pretty bad shape.... is there anything you can do about that, by any chance?"

"Well, first, you'll have to tell me what all is wrong, and what needs to be changed."

"Ok.... well, to begin with, I'd like to be in perfect health.... as healthy as I was when I was a baby.... no damage to my lungs from decades of smoking and pollution, no heart trouble, no scars, strong enough to lift seven hundred pounds without too much strain, no numbness from the stroke I had, as a matter of fact, I'd like all damage from that to disappear, like it never happened. I'd like to be about six inches taller, about five foot ten inches, and I'd like to have a larger penis.... about ten and a half inches long, and about three inches wide should do. Not freakishly big, but big enough that women like what I have. Oh, and one more thing.... I want to be totally immune to disease of any kind, from the common cold to cancer. I don't want to be able to contract them or transmit them to anyone else. I also want to be completely free from my addiction to tobacco, while I'm thinking about it. I'd like to be, basically, about twenty five years younger than I am right now. Oh, one more thing... I'd like all of my senses to be more acute..... by, say, a hundred percent. That is my wish." 

The Djinn's eyes flashed a deep shade of purple for a moment, and suddenly, Dan felt better than he had in years. "Will this do, Sir?"

Dan looked around, seeing things in a new perspective from his increased height. He took a deep breath, his senses heightened from where they had been, and took off the dollar store reading glasses he'd been wearing for the past several years, as he no longer needed them. 

"Ok....wow.... walk with me." He said, setting off in the direction of his home. 

Walking up to the garage of his Mother's house, he looked over his poor, dying Ford Ranger, which had sat, unmoving, for more than a year. His next wish came to him that quickly. 

"Ok.... wait, what do I call you? It isn't polite to not speak your name when I address you."

"Well, my real name isn't exactly pronounceable by humans.... but you can call me what ever you like."

"Well, since you look exactly like me, how about I call you DJ?"

"It works for me."

"Ok, DJ, here's the next wish.... I want this little truck to be brand new.... like it just rolled off the assembly line.... with a gas tank that never runs out, lubricants that never have to be changed, and double the stock horsepower and towing capacity. I want it to be able to tow that boat over there as if it weighed a quarter of it's actual weight. Speaking of my boat, I want you to do the same to it... make it new; in fact, make it better than new.... I want it set up as a modern bass boat... livewells, fishfinder gear, bottom mounted cameras that show up on a small video screen on the dashboard, all completely waterproof, of course, and absolutely theft-proof.... I want it so that anyone who thinks of stealing it suddenly remembers urgent business elsewhere. I want the same for the truck, and one more thing... I want both of them to stay that way forever.... I never want to have to do any maintenance or repair on either one, ever again. That is my wish."

"Well thought out, and properly put." DJ replied, and his eyes flashed once again. Suddenly, both the truck and the boat looked new, with matching, gleaming smoky grey-blue paint jobs that reflected the nearby streetlight. 

Dan looked over the two vehicles thoroughly, loving what he was seeing.

Inspiration struck, and he stopped for a moment, thinking carefully about what he had in mind before speaking again. "Ok, one more.... can you see into my mind?"

"Only with your permission, and only for a specific purpose."

"Alright, excellent. I would like two more things... first, a 1970 Chevelle SS 454, four speed Muncie transmission, 4.11 rear differential, triple black, leather interior, no stripes, a good interior with a nice AM/FM/Cassette deck, six speakers built in, and just enough power so I can hear it at what I consider a comfortable level.... same as the truck and the boat.... a gas tank that is always full of premium gasoline, zero maintenance, always insured and with plates and registration that renews itself as needed without me having to do anything. I want it to be brand new, with zero miles on it, and completely theft-proof. The other is a Harley Davidson motorcycle, a 1955 model 74 CID Panhead, again, exactly as I set up the car, the truck, and the boat.... always a full fuel tank, no maintenance required, absolutely theft-proof, always completely legal. Same color as the car."

DJ's eyes flashed again, and with a soft 'Baammpf' of displaced air, the car and the bike were both there, parked in the grass next to the garage in front of the old tri hull boat that was now Dan's pride and joy. "You will find that the keys are already on your keyring in the house, Master."

"Whoa, enough of that.... call me Dan.... if someone hears you calling me 'Master' in public, it could raise questions that I don't want to deal with."

"Yes, Dan. Shall we go inside?"

In the house, Dan found other things that needed upgrading. The ten year old tv was quickly replaced by a fifty inch plasma screen, all of his sister's junk vanished, as did her memories of it, all new furniture appeared in his basement living room, his aging laptop computer became a brand new, state of the art model, complete with all of his old files and passwords, and a six pack of his favorite beer and his favorite type of pizza appeared on the kitchen table. 

"Ok, DJ.... now, about my financial situation.... I want a lawyer to turn up later today, to say that my great grandfather left me some money in a Swiss bank account, set up on the day of my birth, in the amount of seventy five million Swiss francs.... and it's been collecting interest all this time."

"Child's play." His eyes went vague for a brief instant, then flashed again, and he nodded. "The lawyer will be here in five minutes."

"But it's the middle of the night!''

DJ shrugged. "Makes no difference. The attorney won't remember a thing anyway."

"Excellent. The rest can wait until after I finish dealing with him." 

"Actually, Dan, he's a she... and a rather attractive one, at that." DJ informed him, with just a hint of a smile. 

"Even better." Dan replied with a grin. 

After dealing with the attorney, who turned out to be a tall, thin bottle blonde, Dan once again looked over to DJ, who was amusing himself with the tv remote, and raised an eyebrow. 

"Ok.... time for some, err.... feminine companionship. Hold on, let me fire up my computer for a minute, I'll show you the woman I'm interested in."

"Woman, Dan? You know you could have more than one."

Dan jerked around, staring. That happy little thought hadn't occurred to him. He thought it over for a second, but then shook his head. "No, I think I'll stick to just the one.... I could probably handle two at a time, but I'd rather just find one who actually loves me for me. I might be young again, but I've never been a threesome kind of guy. I'll take loyalty over variety any day."

DJ nodded thoughtfully. "Very wise. Most men would want a harem."

Dan chuckled. "Even as I am now, I'm not going to flatter myself that much. I'll settle for a little help getting her attention, then do the rest myself... can you tell, from her image on the computer, whether or not she's asleep?"

"I believe so.... Let me see what she looks like, and I'll check."

Dan fired up his new laptop, went to the social networking site he favored, and pulled up the profile of a mocha skinned beauty in her early thirties who he'd become chatting friends with over the past few weeks. 

DJ concentrated on the picture for a few minutes and nodded. "She is, indeed, fast asleep. Should I summon her to your bed?"

"No.... I want her to come to me willingly. Can you simply allow me to enter her dream?"

DJ gazed at Dan for a few moments, a new respect forming for his new Master. "Sure.... Do you wish to control her thoughts?"

"No.... just a little 'meeting of the minds', as it were. I don't want to influence her, just give her a little nudge."'

DJ grinned again.... his new Master was much kinder than previous ones. 

Dan looked around.... he was at a lakeside, and a single woman's clothing was neatly piled up well away from the water's edge, on a strip of grass that bordered a small, sandy beach. Half a dozen yards offshore, a head with long brown hair streaked with blonde bobbed just above the surface. He stepped down to the water's edge and crouched down, knees almost touching the sand.

"Hi, Barbara!"

She turned and stared, wide eyed, at him. "Dan?! How did you get here?"

"Beats me, hun.... it's your dream. At least, I think it is."

"Oh.... ok, I guess it is. But, why am I dreaming about you? I was just here for a quick dip."

"Haven't a clue, hun.... unless, maybe, you want to meet me, and this is your way of doing it."

"Oh.... well, can you walk away for a minute, so I can get out?"

He smiled a bit at her modesty. "Of course. I'll be over there, by the tree."

He waited, leaning easily against the ancient Walnut tree, while she walked up out of the lake, toweled herself dry, and dressed in the t shirt and blue jeans she'd come to the small lake in.

When she touched his arm, he turned, and she was smiling at him. 

"Thank you."

He looked at her quizzically. "For what?"

"Being a gentleman. Most guys would have tried to sneak a peek."

"I'm not most guys, hun.... besides, I figure if you want me to look, that day will come along. No point in rushing it." 

"Still, it's nice to meet a guy with manners. Unless that's just part of the dream. I kinda figured you were just some white boy, wantin' a taste of brown suga."

"No.... I'm like this in real life. Come to think of it, at first, I thought this was my dream."

"You're asleep?" 

He nodded. "I think so.... the last thing I remember is laying down, watching a poker tournament on tv, then I was suddenly here. Hey.... this place looks a little familiar..... Northville, over by the old hospital?" 

She nodded. "My parents used to bring me here, when I was young. You know this place?"

He pointed off to the west.... "I used to work at a little shop, about two miles down the road.... stopped off here a few times a week with a fishing rod to unwind after a long day. It was the first machine shop I worked in."

"Oh, ok.... " She noticed he hadn't commented on her 'brown suga' remark. Maybe meeting him wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. 

"Well, I need to get going.... can I drop you somewhere?"

She looked up the low hill, realizing, for the first time, that there was a car there.... it looked like an old 'musclecar' she'd seen at a few of the car shows her dad had taken her to over the years. "Oh, wow..... is that yours?"

He nodded... "It's my weekend cruisin' car. I usually drive my truck."

"Ok... well, if it isn't too much trouble..."

"Honey, any excuse to drive my baby there is a good one. Besides, it gives me a chance to spend a little more time with you."

"Are you flirting with me?"

He grinned and nodded. "Hey, as long as we're sharing a dream, I might as well try to make a good impression, right?"

He walked with her to the passenger side, opened the door for her, then walked around to the driver's side and jumped in, securing the seat belts and firing up the engine, the big block settling into a throaty rumble. He slipped the cassette into the player as he slid the shifter into reverse, and the opening strains of an old Rush tune filled the space. Within moments, they were on the freeway, headed towards the city. 

"You'll have to direct me to your place."

She smiled, a bit nervously.... dream or not, did she dare show him where she lived? Oh, what the hell, this wasn't real, was it? "I'm on Cherry Hill, just past Henry Ruff."

"Oh, those apartments by that little strip mall?"

"How did you know?"

"I used to drive a cab for a living.... Had two people I picked up there on a regular basis. One older gentleman, took him to his doctor appointments, and one young woman, took her to her job down at a strip club in Detroit." He grinned. "She always paid me in singles."

"Dark skinned black woman, late twenties, big.... er.... boobs, and a bit of a big booty?"

"That was her.... Her name was Annie. I used to call her Awesome Annie."

She arched an eyebrow at that, replying "Oh? Why did you call her that?"

"She was always nice to me.... she never let that job get to her, she was always a sweetheart... one time, one of the other drivers told her the next day was my birthday. She called in ahead of time that day, told our dispatcher she wanted me, specifically, to pick her up. When I dropped her off, she walked around to my door, leaned in, gave me a big old kiss.... with tongue, mind you, which was something she'd told me she never did with strangers in the club, then gave me a twenty dollar tip and a little film vial full of some very high grade weed, said "Happy Birthday, Honey" and went on into the club."

"Oh, wow!... Did you and her ever.... get together, outside of work?"

"No.... I wasn't her type. She told me, once, if I had been a black man, she might have been giving me a lap dance all the way to work, but I was a short white guy with a beer belly."

"You don't seem that short!"

He chuckled. "Hun, she's, what, 6'4" without the heels? She towered over me. I'm only 5'10" with my shoes on. Besides, I had a girlfriend at the time, and I was loyal to her. I had a few chances, back when I was driving, but I didn't want to cheat on her."

"What happened to her?"

"Well...... let's just say that loyalty has to go both ways. She wasn't quite as loyal to me as I was to her." 

The words seemed to bring a pained expression to his face, and she let the matter drop, although she continued to think about it. 'She must have hurt him pretty bad... he looks pretty torn up by the memory.'

She looked back out of the windshield and saw that he was pulling into the circular driveway of her apartment building. "You DO know the place!"

He nodded. "Like I said.... old cabdriver. I haven't been back here since I quit that job, though."

"Ok, well.... thanks for the ride. I'll talk to you later." She leaned across the seat, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and jumped out, walking to the front door.

He dropped the shifter back into first gear, pulled back into traffic, and.... was back in his body, at his house. 

DJ greeted him with a warm smile; he'd watched the entire episode from a distance, and was impressed. God had chosen well, this time. 

Dan looked around, a bit startled to be back. Looking out through the back doorwall, he saw that the Chevelle was right where he'd left it. 

"Well, Dan, do you think the young lady received enough of a 'nudge'?"

"We'll see.... I'll give her a day or two to think on it. Meanwhile.... you know, you never did answer my question."

DJ lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? Which question was that?"

"How did you get here? I mean.... did you land in my path on purpose?"

DJ got a rather closed, guarded look on his face. He wondered just how much he should disclose. 

"Well.... in a way, yes. My bottle is what you might call a 'fudge factor'. God made it, and me, to fix some of the mistakes he's made, in times when he's been particularly rushed. If I am dropped in your path, odds are you're a good man who just got a shitty deal of the cards, so to speak. He sends me to fix things."


Dan and the Bottle Ch. 02



Thanks for reading, and commenting.... that's always appreciated. I will warn you, I am not politically correct, and have been told that I'm VERY opinionated. This is the second of what will, most likely, be many installments. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, and I welcome any suggestions for further developments 'down the road', so to speak. Enjoy.





DJ came walking up out of the darkness. "How was your trip, Dan?"

Dan smiled at the Djinn; "Not too bad... ran into a bit of a slow down in Illinois, but other than that, it was pretty much smooth sailing." 

As he spoke, he projected his thoughts towards the Djinn. 'Can you do something about this sheriff? Just put the thought in his head that any man wealthy enough to buy this much land might be better left alone.'

DJ mentally nodded. 'No problem.... he won't bother you again... I'll make him wonder what would happen if such a man turned against him during an election.' he thought, into Dan's mind.

'Perfect.'

Tom, meanwhile, was looking at Marlene and Charlene like a starving man at a buffet. He'd been a bit jealous of Dan, when he'd introduced Barb as his fiance. He'd been tempted to ask if there were any more like her at home, but had not wanted the boss thinking he was flirting with his woman.

"So, have you ladies come to live with us?"

Marlene looked around. "Where? I don't see any houses."

Tom shot a look at Dan and Barb. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

Barb smiled and shook her head. "We wanted it to be a surprise."

Dan grinned back at him. "Can you drive the cube van inside? I know that tunnel mouth can be a bit intimidating the first time. I'll lead, Barb can follow me, then Marlene can follow in the pick up, and you can bring up the rear."

"You got it, boss."

They went to their vehicles, Charlene jumping into the passenger seat of the rented cube van, and Dan led them around to the backside of the hill, pushing the recently added button in his dashboard as they came around. The camoflaged outer door rolled up, revealing the tunnel mouth, the lights coming on at the same time. Up ahead, the more substantial blast doors rumbled open to either side, and they progressed another hundred yards before the tunnel opened into the motor pool chamber. Dan drove his Chevy on over to the area where he parked his cars, Barb following suit in her Focus, while Tom edged past Marlene, stopping long enough to tell her to follow him. The two trucks were soon parked over in an area close to the freight elevator.

Marlene looked around as she got out of the truck. "Wow.... is this whole place underground?"

Tom nodded. "You might call us a 'survivor's community'... Dan had the place built, then recruited all of the rest of us to fill the place out. Most of the people here are former military."

"Ain't y'all afraid of being buried in here?"

Dan chuckled as he and Barb walked up. "Hun, the walls here are fifteen feet thick, steel reinforced concrete, with an outer coating of three inches of lead, and the roofs are twenty feet thick, supported by three inch thick steel beams, supporting four inch thick steel sheets, topped off with twenty feet of steel reinforced concrete. Aside from that, the rooftops are under forty feet of rock, gravel, and topsoil. The only weak link is the doors to the outside, and those are blast doors made of three feet of laminate steel, coated inside and out with a lead coating half a foot thick. A nuclear bomb could go off a quarter mile away and we probably wouldn't even notice it. This place is safer than any military bunker."

"But.... why? Why go to all this trouble?"

"Well, consider the world you left behind when you drove through those doors. War all over the world, a crazy man in Iran doing his level best to get nukes, another headcase in North Korea, who may already have them, Muslim terrorists targeting us at every turn, and I haven't even mentioned the shape this country is in.... Nor have I mentioned the minor detail that there are, literally, around a thousand 'suitcase nukes' missing from old Soviet arsenals all over Eastern Europe.... and keep in mind, Middle Eastern oil money can buy quite a bit."

Marlene cut in. "Wait a minute.... what are you talking about, 'suitcase nukes'?"

"Imagine a small nuclear weapon, big enough to take out, say, twenty square city blocks... small enough to fit in a medium-large suitcase."

"And you think they're here?"

"No, hun.... I KNOW they're here. The border patrol has intercepted over a dozen, coming in across the Mexican border with Middle Eastern types, over the past six months or so. If they've stopped that many, how many have gotten through? Once they get past the border, where could they go? More importantly, where could they NOT go? This country is on the brink, and what could follow, I don't even like to contemplate." 

"So what are we supposed to do here? I mean, we've got to do something to keep busy, earn a livin'."

"Anything you like.... there's farmwork, there're kids to teach, we've got a shop where we build wooden furniture, there's an auto shop where we restore old cars, there are animals to take care of, I think a couple of the bars need waitresses, I know for a fact that some of the restaurants do... pick your poison."

The twins moved in to the apartment next door to Dan and Barb, and soon, things settled into a routine. Marlene, after being shown around to the local towns by Tom, took up the task of runner/shopper, going out several times a week to check on the mail at the local package shipper's store, picking up orders at numerous local specialty stores, and doing general pick-up work, filling her time at the food dehydrators, bakeries, and canning rooms. Charlene got hired in at one of the daycare centers, taking care of the kids while their parents were working in the farms and various shops around the complex.

Father Tony D'agastino looked fondly at the couple before him. Dan, he knew, was a good man, and Barb was an excellent match for him. He'd joined the young couple at their apartment for dinner several times and had seen how deeply they loved each other. This marriage would definitely last. They'd exchanged rings, and spoken their vows, and now.... "You may kiss your bride."

They held the small reception in Mama Maria's restaurant, which had, among other things, a live Jazz band and a dance floor, and the couple danced for the first time as man and wife. 

Dan kissed his new bride as they swirled across the dance floor, and she smiled back at him. "My sisters seem to be getting used to this place a lot better than I did."

He nodded. "You know Charlene's already cut Tom out of the herd."

She grinned back at him... "Then she's going to get more than she bargained for... I was talking to Cindy Truman, down at one of the grocery storage rooms the other day. She used to go out with him; said he was packing quite a piece of meat."

He nodded. "You betcha... I saw him, once, down at the bar.... he's probably got me by a couple of inches."

"They're well matched, then... she's always been a bit of a 'size queen'. Her favorite 'toy' looks like something they'd use to inseminate cattle."

Her timing was a bit off.... he almost dropped her, barely recovering at the last second as he tried to keep from bursting out laughing.

"Good Lord, Woman... you could have saved that one."

She gave him an impish grin."I know... but your reaction was priceless." 

He kissed her lightly again, saying "Let's cut out of here a bit early.... I've got something special for you tonight."

"OOOH.... does it involve whipped cream and handcuffs?"

"Nope... just some things I ordered off the internet."

She lifted an eyebrow, wondering what he had up his sleeve this time. She'd done her share of web surfing, and knew that you could get some truly bizarre stuff off the 'net. 

Marlene came into the room, where Barb couldn't see her, but Dan could, and gave him a quick thumbs up. He winked back at her, and as the song ended, took his bride by the hand and said, "Let's go, babe."

In their apartment, the lights were down low, there were half a dozen tall stick candles burning, a bottle of French Champagne was chilling in an ice bucket, on the coffee table there was a small bowl of Beluga Caviar sitting in the middle of a plate full of imported English soda crackers, another plate sat beside it, with a small bowl of Swiss Brie, surrounded by Club crackers, and a small plate of smoked oysters with tiny, two pronged forks set at either side. The plasma screen tv was running a live Beyonce concert, and the couch had been folded out into a bed. Five cigarette sized joints of her favorite Jamaican Marijuana sat ready in the ashtray. 

She turned to face him, grinning... "You've been talking to Marlene."

He nodded. "She helped set it up tonight. I asked her to get the concert DVD's for you.... she knew what you liked better than I do. I also bought two pounds of the Jamaican, two pounds of Thai, five more pounds of the Hawaiian, and two pounds of Phillipino.... and one of the small garden chambers are currently growing about fifty plants of each one, so we're not going to run out, anytime soon. How's that for a wedding gift?"

She gave him a long, slow, intense kiss. "Beats the hell out of a toaster!" she replied with a smile. "But... is this going to be our honeymoon?"

He chuckled... "No, dear.... tomorrow, we're taking the Chevelle out for a little ride. Our first stop will be in Scottsdale, Arizona. There's a classic car auction there, starting the day after tomorrow.... I'm going to buy a few cars, then we'll move on to Vegas for a few weeks of gambling and shows."

"You know that's going to be expensive."

"I know.... I'm going to take about twenty million with us, but I'll take along the number for Banc Suisse, too, just in case." 

Barb was stunned. 'Did he just say twenty million dollars?' she thought.

He grinned at her reaction. "I got a look at the auction catalogue a few days ago.... there's a '68 Ferrari Daytona I want to get, and two Corvettes.... a '53 and a '63. The '53 is the first year they were built.... very rare car. The '63, well, I've always wanted one.... the only year for the split rear glass, and it's a 283 Fuelie, four speed car. All numbers matched and unrestored. If the world goes to hell, I want to be sure that car gets preserved. There are a few others, too... a nice Hemi 'Cuda, and a '70 Shelby Mustang, GT500 KR."

She smiled and replied "You DO realize I have no clue what any of that means?"

"It's okay, hun.... I do.... they're all cars I want to add to my collection. After I'm finished buying, I'll call back here, have Mike assemble a team of drivers to drive them all back here to the cave, and fly them out to Scottsdale in the jet."

"Why don't you just get one of those car carriers to bring them here?"

"I could, but then I have to trust a complete stranger with a few million bucks worth of classic automobiles... I'd rather have people I trust drive them back. Besides, the fewer people who know the location of our home, the better. Why do you think the drivers who bring in all those truckloads of supplies are dropping them off in a rented warehouse in town? I'd rather have thirty pickup loads of toilet paper hauled out here by our own people, rather than have them dropped off here by some trucker who's going to be telling everybody on the CB radio about the crazy underground shelter he just dropped his load at."

"Oh, that reminds me.... there's coffee at the warehouse right now.... four truckloads of it. We'll need to get the pickups and vans busy tomorrow..... it'll probably take a few days to get that all transferred and situated."

"I know.... and I'm having a few fields prepared, too.... I bought a few hundred small coffee plants from Hawaii, Africa, Columbia, and Peru... I figure we can grow some to supplement our stored supplies. Brad Mitchell and Dave Hughes and their wives flew down to Hawaii last week to train with Hawaiian coffee growers to tell when they're perfectly ripe, how to roast them properly, and all of that." 

"My God, Dan! You're really trying to make this place completely self contained, aren't you? Do you really think we're going to need it?" Dan hesitated, thinking long and hard before answering. "Babe, this country has been in a downward spiral for a good thirty years now. We're on the verge of financial collapse, we've got a national debt that we can't even pay the interest on, we've got cities like Chicago and Detroit and LA that are virtual war zones.... We've got new diseases turning up, seems like every few months.... this is a disaster in the making. I want to build a real community, that can look out for it's own, and be completely safe no matter what happens. I want our kids to grow up in a place where they don't have to walk through gang territory to get to a school where they'll be brainwashed with liberal bullshit about the fruits of their labors belonging to everybody but themselves."

He stopped for a moment, dipping a cracker in the caviar and washing it down with a sip of champagne before lighting up a doobie, taking a deep hit and passing it to her. 

"Look at what we've built here.... yes, everyone pays a small sales tax, myself included... it goes into the fund that buys things like truckloads of toilet paper and coffee. Our tax is less than a tenth of what we'd be paying out in the world. Our laws are simple and straight forward; and if any punishment is called for, it will be tailored to fit the crime, and what's more, it'll make sense. We have our own defense forces, as well equipped as any in the world, and everyone who wants to can train with them... and our force is all former US military, everything from Army Special Forces to Navy SEALS to Recon Marines. Don Miller's twins are training with them right now."

"Dan! I know those kids! They're only ten years old!"

"Honey, right now they're just learning to be safe with guns... something I learned by the time I was eight. They're being taught by their dad, who was a Navy SEAL team leader for seven years. He's also teaching them to stalk Deer and small game, and to move silently, and to take care of themselves. Right now, both of then know how to start a campfire with sticks. They both know how to build a shelter that will keep them warm and dry in all but the most violent of storms. Their mom is teaching them to identify plants they can eat or use as medicine. They're both good, responsible kids. We just have to trust Don's judgement.... and so far, I'd say he's doing everything right."

"Ok, but what is it all for? I mean, if the world does wind up in a war, won't it be unsafe to go outside? Won't it be too radioactive for us to come out?"

''For a while, yes... but that's why I'm thinking long term. I mean, look around.... what do we need down here, that we don't have within reach? Not much, that I can think of. What few things we don't have stockpiled we can grow, raise, or make for ourselves. We have doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, gunsmiths, machinists. We could, if we have to, live underground long enough for the earth to heal itself from even the worst nuclear war. I hope to make this a sort of present day 'Noah's ark'. We've got a seed bank that could jump start even the most burned out environment, everything from Berries to grass seed to most every vegetable known in this part of the country. We've got exotic fruit trees, everything from six kinds of apples to bananas, lemons, oranges, and mangos, plus coffee and tea. Hell, we even grow our own sugar cane. We've even got a building, specially built, that grows rice. We've got a series of forest chambers, which all feed into the lake building, with everything from squirrels and rabbits to deer to a small herd of buffalo. If our worst fears are realized, we'll collapse the entry tunnels, close ourselves off from the world, and sit back, living our lives in complete safety until the world starts to heal itself.... then we'll come out, with our seeds and our saplings and our animals, and start over from scratch."

"You really think it'll happen, don't you?"

He thought long and hard for a few moments before answering. "Yes, dear, I do. We live under the constant threat of terrorist attack. Our country is perceived as weak by much of the world, thanks to a bunch of do nothing liberals who preach 'Live and let live' about terrorist nations, yet want to control every aspect of our lives, while taxing us all into the poorhouse in the process."

"You don't think much of democrats, do you?"

"No, babe, I don't. Liberal democrats have done nothing but cost this country for decades. When my dad was in Viet Nam, it was control freak liberal democrats who wouldn't let him and the guys he served with win. They won every battle, and liberal democrats restrained them from winning the war.... and made no effort to find the guys that were left behind."

"Liberal democrats set up a welfare system that rewards failure and mediocrity and locks people into a cycle of poverty. I went out with a woman, once, who had been brought up in a welfare household; her mother, it turned out, was urging her to get pregnant so she could get a check, and foodstamps, and every other subsidy under the sun. When I found out what she was doing, I told her our 'date' was over, and I refused to ever see her again. I will Not contribute to that cycle."

"Quite aside from all of that, if it were up to liberal democrats, I might not be here right now. You know I used to drive a cab.... I had two different crackhead carjackers try to take my cab and my cash. I fought back.... with a handgun. I didn't have any permit; I carried anyway, because I decided my life was worth more to me than obeying some tenth grade dropout chief of police who claimed I didn't 'need' to carry a gun. The second amendment guarantees that I have the right to, but liberal democrats have been ignoring that law for years."

"Well, ok, but.... what about all these school shootings and such? What about that Army base, down in Texas, and that Navy building, in Washington?"

"Honey, do you know the one thing all of those places have in common?"

She thought it over for a moment and shook her head. 

"All of those places had strict rules, forbidding regular people from carrying weapons. Even the Army base... all soldiers were required to keep their guns locked up unless they were at the firing range. Slick Willie Clinton's bright idea. 'Gun free zones', they call them. I call them target ranges for criminals and maniacs. Why do you think Israel never has any school shootings?"

"No idea."

"It's because the teachers are allowed, and, for that matter, encouraged, to be armed."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope.... go into any school in Israel, you'll find teachers with pistols in shoulder holsters and Uzi submachine guns in drawers.... and all of 'em cocked, locked, and ready to rock. The last time a bunch of Palistineans tried anything at an Israeli school, they were dead before they could harm a single child."

"Do you really think that would work here, though?"

He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment, then shook his head. "For the most part, no, I don't. The teachers in this country are, by and large, screaming liberals themselves. Most of them, the closest they've ever been to a pistol is watching cop shows on TV."

She gave him a mischievous grin and started unbuttoning the blouse she'd changed in to when they'd finished the Wedding ceremony, saying, "Is that all we're going to do on our wedding night? Talk about politics?" 

He smiled back at her as she shimmied out of the gym shorts and panties, and replied, "Oh, I've got a few ideas...." as he reached for one of the bowls, scooping a bit of the creamy Brie onto two fingers and smearing it on her right breast.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 02



"Hey! What are you doing!?"

"This!" he replied, as he started licking the cheesy spread from her nipple.

"MMmmm..... I like the way you think, Hubby!" she replied, taking the back of his head in both hands and running her fingers through his hair as he continued to slurp at her chocolate brown nipples.

He pulled away for a moment, slipping out of the polo shirt while she reached for the button of his dress slacks; when he was free of them and as naked as she was, he laid her back on the mattress, then he reached, once again, for the now nearly empty champagne bottle. Grinning down at her, he poured the last few swallows of the bubbly into her navel and began lapping it up, while she shivered from the cold liquid. He sucked the last few drops from her belly button, then reached up to kiss her, giving her a last taste of the fine wine before kissing his way back down her body. 

"You always keep it fresh, hun." she sighed.

He looked up at her and nodded. "Wait until you see what I'm going to do with the caviar, babe."

"Oh! You wouldn't!"

"Oh yes, I would!"

"Well, you'd better get it all back out if you're gonna put it There! I don't want you telling me I smell like fish!"

"Not what I had in mind, dear." he replied, scooping up a small amount of the expensive treat and smearing it on the head of his cock as he kneeled on the bed. 

She gave him a lopsided smile and sat up, leaning forward and taking his hardness in her mouth, slurping and licking the fish eggs from the head before taking him all the way to the back of her throat, licking all over as she went down on him. He mimicked her earlier actions, running his fingers through her hair before laying back on the sofa-bed, and she moved around until her newly shaved quim was lined up with his willing tongue, never once taking her mouth off his stiff dick.

He extended his tongue and began tenderly licking his way along her nether lips, tasting her juices before reaching her swollen clit, circling the little nubbin as he felt her head bobbing up and down on his hardness, feeling her speeding up as he sucked her clit into his lips, pausing in her sucking as she came, moaning with his cock still in her mouth as she squirted a small stream directly into his face, body shaking uncontrollably as her orgasm swept over her. When she was back in some semblance of control, she jumped off of him, re-oriented herself, grabbed his cock, and guided it slowly into her engorged pussy lips as she smiled down at him. 

She rode him slowly, at first, drawing his hands to her full breasts and leaning forward to kiss him eagerly as she lowered herself fully on his hard on. He reached up, pulling her hair back up out of her face and looking into her eyes. "I love you, Missus Archer."

She smiled back at him, never losing her rhythm as she whispered back, "I love you, too, Mister Archer.... now would you shut up and fuck me?"

He reached down, grabbing her ass cheeks, taking control and slamming his cock upward and into her, as she continued to slam her hips down on him, their motions speeding up in a frenzy until neither could hold back anymore, and he emptied his balls into her even as she screamed in a monumental orgasm. He continued to pound into her until he was completely spent, and she collapsed on top of him, breathing hard as she slowly settled down.

He rolled them both over until he was on top, cock still buried in her, and began slowly stroking in and out of her again.

She looked up at him, eyes widening as she realized that he wasn't finished with her. "Oh my God! You're insatiable!"

He grinned and nodded. "We're well matched, then, Lover." He whispered to her, leaning forward to cover her mouth with his own.

Breaking the kiss, she smiled gently and said "Baby, I want you to make me a three-way woman. Nobody's ever had my ass; I want you to be my first. That'll be my wedding gift for you."

He smiled down at her and gave her another long, slow kiss... Pulling out, he reached down, lifting her hips up and spreading her ass cheeks before positioning himself at her asshole and giving a small push, getting just the head inside. She looked up at him, gave a nervous smile, and nodded.

He pushed into her slowly, letting her grow accustomed to the intrusion, using her pussy juice and his own cum as the only lubricant, sliding in until their hips met, kissing her slowly as he pulled back a bit and drove into her impossibly tight back door. She relaxed a bit, and he started going faster, until he was giving her his full length at every thrust as she bit her lip and moaned. Her eyes re-opened, and she stared up at him and murmured "Oh God..... fuck my ass! Harder, baby! Ohhhhh give it to meeee!!"

He sped up until his hips were a blur, fucking her in the ass while facing her, slamming into her again and again as she came, wrapping her legs around his back and crossing her ankles as she shuddered in multiple, nearly non-stop orgasms. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and slammed hard into her, grinding his hips into hers as he sprayed her bowels with his sperm.

They lay together for long moments, kissing, fondling, caressing, as he finally shriveled up and pulled out of her. Rolling on to his back, he slipped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her in until her head rested on his chest and kissing her on the forehead. 

"I love you, Barb. More than I have the words for."

She reached across his chest, pulling herself up to face him, replying "I love you too, Baby.... Oh God.... if I'd known you were this incredible, I wouldn't have made you wait so long!"

He grinned back at her. "I kinda wondered about that. Why DID you make me wait?"

She shrugged. "Guess I just saw too many white boys, just wanted a quick roll in the hay with a black woman, then they'd be gone. I didn't want to be a quick trophy."

He kissed her lightly on the lips, grinning. "Being my trophy wife doesn't bother you, though, huh?" 

"Oh, hell, I ain't no trophy.... My hips are too wide, my booty is too big, I'm too fat...."

"Baby, I'd love you just as much if you were twice as big."

"Now I KNOW you bullshittin' me!"

"No, honey, I'm not. I love you just as you are. You're the image of beauty for me. I don't like bony, skinny women; never did. Besides, we think alike, we act alike, we like a lot of the same things, hell, we even share dreams. You've come to mean everything to me, hun... I couldn't imagine my life without you."

She looked deep into his eyes, but saw no sign of deception; he was gazing into her eyes like a moonstruck calf, and she knew, as she'd known from the first time they'd had coffee, that he meant every word. She reached up and kissed him again, slowly, eyes tearing up as she breathed out the words "I'll always be here, baby... I'm not going anywhere."

They lay together for long moments, then she wriggled around a bit and jumped off the fold-out bed. "Be right back."

She was back in moments, a warm, wet washcloth in hand, and reached down between his thighs to scrub his well-used dick, cleaning it thoroughly, surprised to feel it hardening once again. "Down, boy." She remarked, grinning, as she walked back to the clothes basket, dropping the towel in and returning to the temporary bed. "I want to see the rest of this concert."

He grinned at her and got up himself, walking, naked, to the kitchen, retrieving a second bottle of champagne from the fridge. Popping the cork, he refilled their champagne flutes and handed her one. Taking his up, he clinked it to hers and intoned "To us, babe.... may we have many more nights like this ahead of us."

"Baby, if we have too many nights like this, folks are gonna wonder why I'm always walkin' bow-legged."

He grinned at her lasciviously, then changed the subject. "Babe.... have you thought about kids?"

She jerked around to stare at him, open mouthed. "Are... are you serious?"

" 'Course I am. Do you want kids?"

"Yes.... but not right away. I think we deserve more time alone together before we have little ones underfoot all the time." 

"Ok, I'll give ya that.... but sooner or later, I think we're gonna want a few kids."

" 'A few?' Let's not get too carried away.... I don't want to wind up like that idiot on TV."

He chuckled. "No, sweets.... neither do I. But a few sons, to carry on the family name, and maybe a little girl or two.... "

"Well, how 'bout we start with two, see where we're at in a couple of years.... I'd be happy with just a boy and a girl."

"Got it all planned, huh?" he grinned at her.

"Hey, you brought it up.... but yeah, I was kinda thinkin' about it."



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 03



Charlene danced slowly with Tom, leaning her head on his shoulder as they swayed to the slow, mellow jazz. They'd been seeing each other for a week, ever since Tom had come to drop off his three year old son at the daycare before going to work in the auto shop. 

He was a widower, ever since his wife had been broadsided by a delivery van on her way home from work one day, a year ago, in Ocala, Florida.

"Tom.... where are we going with this?"

He looked down at her, into her eyes. "Well.... I'm hoping you'll fall for me completely. I know I like everything about you.... and T.J. thinks you're his mommy reborn."

She smiled back. "He's a great little man. I don't think he really understands what happened to your wife."

"No.... you're probably right. He'd just turned two at the... the time of the accident. The hardest day of my life was leaving him with a sitter so he wouldn't have to go to the funeral."

"Are you sure? I mean, about us?"

"Honey, I need to move on, and so does my boy. I want him to grow up with two parents.... and I can't think of a better lady for the job. And I'll never tell Dan this, but the first time I met your sister, I almost asked her if there were any more like her at home." 

She slapped him, lightly, with the hand she had on his shoulder. "You're lyin' to me!"

"Nope. I thought Barb was the prettiest woman I'd ever seen... until you got here. I was attracted to you from the minute you got out of the truck, that first day." The look he gave her was so sincere, it would have put a Saint to shame.

She laid her head back on his shoulder, unwilling to let him see her eyes tearing up. She knew she WAS falling for him, and it wasn't just because he was such a good lover. He was quiet and reserved, and thoughtful to a fault; he was a great dad, from what she'd seen so far, and he wasn't a half bad cook. 

The first time they'd gone out, he'd brought her back to his place for something he called 'seafood sliders'.... patties of a ground mix of crab and lobster, grilled like hamburgers, topped with a slice of cheese and a small squeeze of tartar sauce in a hamburger bun.

"I see Dan and Barb have already left" he remarked as they swayed to the music.

Charlene nodded. "Marlene told me about it.... Dan had her go into their apartment while they were busy here, set everything up.... she says Dan didn't spare the expense. Barb is in for a special night.... he bought two bottles of Dom Perignon, five ounces of the best caviar, a bunch of other stuff. We've been hiding it at our place until tonight. My sis is one lucky girl... I saw some of the receipts for that stuff. This one night cost him a small fortune."

He walked her back to their table as the music ended. "You're kiddin' me, right?"

She smiled up at him as he pushed her chair in under her.

"No.... those bottles of champagne alone cost over three thousand dollars apiece, and Beluga caviar isn't cheap. He got it all off the internet; a bunch of it was imported." 

He sat back, lost in thought for a moment, wondering how he would top that... until he realized he wouldn't have to. Charlene knew Dan was rich, and he wasn't.

The band finished up the number they'd been playing with a flourish, and Tom looked at his watch. After midnight.... time to call it a night. He had a vintage Mustang to color-sand in the morning. 

"Well, hun, you want to go to my place for a nightcap? I think it's time to let Cathy go home and get some sleep."

Charlene nodded, knowing what that meant. She was actually a little surprised at herself... Barb was usually the one who went for white men; she'd always been just the opposite--the blacker, the better. Tom was different, though; he wasn't prejudiced, and treated her like a queen. He cooked for her, something none of the black boys had ever done for her, and he gave great footrubs. He called her beautiful, not 'fine as fuck', which her last boyfriend, back in Detroit, had. He'd held her hand during Barb and Dan's wedding ceremony, and whenever they parted, he'd give her firm hugs and light kisses, never trying to feed her the tongue unless she initiated it. 

She knew he wanted her tonight, but she knew, too, that if she wasn't in the mood, he'd wait until she was. She was in the mood, though, and feeling Very horny. He was in for a wild night.

It was a good thing he was so well hung.

Marlene, meanwhile, had left with Ronnie and was back at his place; they'd been introduced by Tom, who had informed her that Ron was one of his old SEAL team members. She could well believe it; the man looked about as solid as a brick wall. Six feet tall, a slightly darker shade of brown than she was, and a few years older than her, he'd been a refreshing change from some of the men she'd known, back in the suburb of Detroit that they'd lived in. He didn't subscribe to the 'Gangsta/thug' mentality, and he was articulate to a fault; if she hadn't known his true profession, she'd have sworn he was an English teacher, despite his serious physique.

Ron came back to the couch, set the two drinks down on the coffee table, and settled next to Marlene. 

"What kind of drinks are these? she asked, lifting an eyebrow. 

"One of my own concoctions.... I call it a Royal Screw Up."

He'd timed it perfectly; she was just taking her first sip, and giggled just as she was swallowing it.

"A What?!?" 

"A Royal Screw up. Half an ounce of Vodka, two ounces of fresh orange juice, half an ounce of Crown Royal Black, topped off with two ounces of 7-up."

She took another, experimental, sip. "Oh my God.... this is Great!" The juice and soda blended perfectly and masked the alcohol. She took another sip. "Are you trying to get me drunk?"

He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows, doing his best to convey the image of a black Groucho Marx, nodding. "Is it working?"

"Hell, no.... I'll drink you under the table! Besides," she continued, her voice softening, "You won't have to, you know."

"I should hope not. I don't drink to get drunk, myself."

'Something else that sets you apart from most of the guys I knew, back in Michigan', she thought as she took another small sip of her drink. Most of them used to think a forty of beer and a couple of joints were a requirement before trying to get her into the bed. Most of them never stood a chance, no matter how drunk or stoned she got.

"Where did you disappear to, during your sister's reception?"

"I set their apartment up, something Dan bought over the past few weeks.... he ordered an evening to remember for her off the 'net."

At his arched eyebrow, she continued. "Dom Perignon, Russian Caviar, Swiss Brie, a couple of her favorite concert DVD's. My sister's pretty lucky. He loves her a lot."

He nodded. That much had been obvious from the day he'd met the couple.... and while he usually didn't approve of mixed race couples in general, Dan and Barb were different. Ron had been shocked when he learned that the couple had met on the internet, a mere four months ago, and had met in person less than three months ago. The way they interacted, almost finishing each other's sentences, he had thought they'd known each other all their lives. The sign of a good match.

"I couldn't afford that... I'm afraid you'll have to settle for my twisted brand of cocktails."

She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "I love your bartending. What else are you good at?" she replied, with a saucy grin.

He turned and kissed her slowly, lightly, nibbling a bit at her lower lip. "I'll let you judge that for yourself."

They continued kissing, and Marlene took his hand, raising it to her breast. She wasn't as big as her sisters in the chest, but at 36 C, she still had a nice handful. 

He took the hint and began to slowly massage her full breast through the thin blouse, realizing she had left the bra behind, and felt her nipple harden through the cloth. She opened her lips, tracing his with the tip of her tongue, and he opened his mouth to recieve it, their tongues tangling in the age old dance as she felt the bulge in his pants grow at her touch. He looked into her eyes and saw that she was ready for him, and wondered, idly, just who was seducing who? 

Charlene sat back on Tom's couch, listening intently to the music he'd turned on. It literally defied description... it had started out sounding like a classical piece, but she could swear she heard a couple of guitars in the background, and the vocalist sounded like he had a blues background. "Who is this?"

Tom grinned. "Trans-Siberian Orchestra. They're kind of a.... fusion group, I suppose you'd call them. They take the best parts of all different kinds of music and blend it together. The guy who started it was in a speed metal band, but he wanted to, sorta, extend his range."

"Well, whatever it is, they're definitely making it work."

"Yeah, they do that... they've got one DVD out, I forget the title, it's a Christmas thing, but I can't watch it without breaking out in tears. It's that moving."

She had a hard time imagining this man crying over a movie, no matter how 'moving' it was, but she'd take his word for it. "Well, it's beautiful, whoever it is."

"Beautiful music for a beautiful woman."

"You old charmer.... " she breathed as her lips reached for his. She kissed him lightly, quick meetings of the lips that quickly became meetings of the tongues, him rubbing her back lightly as they locked lips, feeling her sucking on his tongue as his hands moved lower, pulling her onto his lap as their foreplay got more urgent. 

"MMmm... Baby, you DO know how to treat a woman." she murmured as he continued to massage her back, all the way down to the crack of her ass. Her hands were busy, too, running her fingers through his hair as their tongues dueled.

"Only a woman I'm falling for, hun..."

"How do you think T.J. will take us being together?"

He chuckled. "I think he'll be calling you 'Mommy' in a week."

She gave him a wan smile. "It's funny.... I used to think I'd never be ready for that. I wasn't sure I'd ever want kids.... but if he calls me 'Mommy', I think I might start crying."

"I'll let ya in on a little secret... he did, once, already. I asked him how his day was, one day last week, and he said "Momma Char taught me to paint with my fingers!"

She smiled ruefully, nodding. 

"I remember that day.... took three rounds of shampooing to get the paint out of my hair, and my blouse looked like something out of a Hippie commune!"

He grinned back at her, replying "I didn't know you were into body painting.... I guess I'll have to put that on my to-do list."

"Oh, hell, no! I don't get into all that kinky shit!"

He leaned in and kissed her, long and slow, and said "Well, Dear, what about normal, straight up sex? I'm hungry, right now, and you're looking deee-liscious." as he reached for the buttons of her blouse. 

She started unbuttoning the bottom buttons as he worked his way down from the top, and their hands met in the middle; he squeezed her hands gently for a moment before pulling her blouse back and off, revealing the white Demi-bra she'd worn to support her 34D's.

She, meanwhile, took hold of the dark blue T-shirt he'd changed into when they'd gotten here, pulling it up and over his head and flinging it aside. He returned the favor by reaching behind her, blindly, and unhooking her bra, laying it across the back of the couch, burying his face in her cleavage while his right hand sought out the button of her slacks. She lay back against the couch cushions, enjoying his oral ministrations even as her hands found the button of his dress pants and unhooked it, pulling down on his zipper and reaching in to fish out his hard cock. 

He was busy, meanwhile, insinuating his hand into her dress slacks, delighted by the fact that she apparently hadn't bothered with panties, his middle finger finding and gently rubbing her hardening clit, eliciting a long moan and a slightly tighter grip on his cock from her. He continued to lick and nibble at her dark brown nipples, even as his finger found her unfurling pussy lips and found it's way inside of her, rubbing at her G-spot. "Oh, Babe, you DO know how to treat a woman!"

He pulled his face from her mocha-brown tits and smiled at her, reaching up to kiss her urgently, and replied. "You treat me well, too, hun.... but I think maybe we should grab our clothes and move this to my bedroom... I don't want Tommy getting up for a drink of water and catching us." She smiled and nodded. "You're right... we don't want him getting any ideas."

Ron and Marlene moved to his bedroom, where she quickly shucked her party dress, while he got out of the light suit he'd worn to the wedding, carefully laying their clothes across the desk chair where he did his writing, and hitting the small, desk top stereo, filling the room with some old Motown from a CD he'd burned a few weeks ago. Setting the player to randomly shuffle the mix, he walked around the bed to take her now-naked form in his arms, kissing her hungrily as her arms flowed up to join behind his head.

"You know, I usually don't do this." 

"What? Make love with a man you've only known a few weeks?"

"Yeah.... I usually make 'em wait a bit longer."

"Well, Baby, if you wanted to wait a while longer, you know I would have gone along with you."

"I know.... I think that's part of the reason I didn't make you wait for it."

He smiled, kissing her again, slowly, their tongues twirling together as he turned them both, sitting down on the edge of the bed and drawing her down until she was sitting sideways on his lap. She could feel his hard cock against the backs of her thighs, just at the crease of her ass cheeks, and wondered, idly, if he could feel the moisture dripping from her steaming cunt.

She wriggled around until she was straddling his lap, his hardness poking up between them, kissing him long and slow while he kneaded her left tit with one hand, caressing her asscheek with the other, running her fingers through his short hair while she sucked at his tongue. He laid back on the bed, pulling her back with him and pushing against the floor with his considerable leg muscles to bring them both to the middle of the bed. Breaking the long kiss, he looked deep into her eyes.

"Move on up here, hun... I want to taste you."

She looked down at him, mildly startled... not many of the black men she'd been out with had ever eaten her pussy; she'd usually had to find a white man if she wanted that. She didn't hesitate, though, and the two of them moved around on the bed until they were both fully on the mattress, her straddling his face and leaning forward to take his hard eight incher in her hot and willing mouth.

Ron ran his tongue over her open lips slowly, finding her already very wet, and tasted her for the first time. She had a bit of a strong taste, but not unpleasant, and he moved his tongue to her clit, eliciting a small gasp from her. 

"Oh, yeah, honey, that's the spot! Eat my pussy!" She moaned, before taking his cock back into her mouth, licking slowly as she took more of his length in. 

He fluttered his tongue across the little nub of her clit lightly, quickly, feeling her squeeze her thighs against his ears as her first orgasm approached. Moving an arm around, he snuck two fingers into her hole, seeking and finding the spongy tissue of her G-spot as he continued to lap at her now fully-exposed clit, feeling her shudder as she came. She sucked hard at him as she bobbed her head, fucking her own mouth with his hardness as she came into his willing mouth, drilling him into the back of her throat again and again. Finally, she felt his nuts tense, and took him all the way to the back of her throat as the first jets of his hot cum spewed from the head of his dick, hitting the back of her throat. She swallowed as fast as she could, but it was too much, and a small dribble escaped her lips. After the last spurt, she pulled back for a second, licking her lips, then went back to clean anything she'd missed, licking all over his balls in the process.

Once they were in Tom's bedroom with the door closed and locked, Charlene turned to him, once again unbuttoning his pants and pulling them and his boxers down in one smooth motion, his hard on springing free and catching her in the cheek, leaving a light trail of pre-cum in it's wake.

She smiled and pushed him back towards the bed and unbuttoned her own dress slacks, letting them fall to the floor and stepping out of them as she moved toward him. Laying beside him on the bed, she reached her head toward his, kissing him slowly.

"You know, Char, I'd like to make this permanent."

She stopped and drew back a bit, to look into his eyes. "Are you sure, Babe? I mean, are you really sure?" 

He nodded. "Absolutely. You're beautiful, you're good to me, you're wonderful with Tommy.... and I love the way you feel in my arms. We're good together, Honey." Rubbing her back slowly, he gazed into her eyes and continued. "I'd love to have you all to myself. I love what's in your heart."

"Well.... I love you, too, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be married, just yet.... How about if we live together for a while, first? Give it a six month trial run, see what happens?"

He was a little disappointed, but nodded anyway. "Ok... We'll try that first. I'm going to ask you again, though."

She smiled and nodded. "I know you will... I just don't want to rush things."

He grinned back at her and replied "Ok... now, I thought we came in here for something else entirely?" as his mouth reached for a nipple. As his mouth enclosed her brown peak, he fluttered his tongue across her nipple, causing her to shiver a bit in pleasure. She reached down with one hand, stroking his hard cock lightly as the fingers of her other hand ran through his thick hair.

His own hands were busy, too, one massaging her other breast while the other dove between her thighs, his middle finger probing her leaking pussy as his thumb massaged her hardening clit. She moaned in building ecstasy, knowing her first orgasm of the night wasn't far off, and pulled his face from her breast to kiss him eagerly. As their tongues swirled together, she adjusted her position and mounted him, driving her swollen pussy lips down around his hardness, riding him like a stallion, marveling at how deep he filled her, feeling the head of his cock banging against her cervix at every downward thrust. 

Marlene lay back, enjoying the afterglow of the several crushing orgasms Ron had given her. She looked deep in the eyes of her new lover, wondering, idly, if her sisters felt half as good as she did right now. 

Ron rolled to his side for a moment, grinning slightly. "Ready for round two?"

She opened her eyes about half way again, smiling at him and nodding. She started to roll over onto her back, but he grabbed her leg and stopped her. Pulling her left leg over his shoulder, he kissed the inside of her calf as he guided his hardness between her engorged pussylips sideways, slamming into her to the hilt in one hard thrust. 

"OOOhh! Yeah, baby.... that's gooooodd...."

He started thrusting into her slowly, methodically, making each stroke count, slowly gaining speed as her moans grew in volume. 

"Ohhhh.... fuck me, Ronnie! Fuck me HARD!"

He was panting like a freight train now, sliding in and out of her as fast as he could, one hand holding firmly to her ass cheek as the other set at the top of her pussy, diddling her clit with his thumb. She came again, hard, moaning her pleasure as she did her best to squeeze his cock off from the awkward angle he'd locked her into. Finally, he couldn't take anymore, blasting her insides with his cream as she moaned in yet another orgasm, nearly passing out from the intensity of it.

Charlene groaned as he shifted her until she was on the bottom, then began to hammer into her tight, wet pussy with long, fast strokes, battering the mouth of her cervix as he slammed into her. She came again, howling out her pleasure as he piledrived into her, finally slamming into her as deeply as he could and stopping as his cock exploded deep inside her, leaning forward to kiss her hungrily as he spewed his load. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 03



She sucked at his tongue furiously as her heartrate slowed, feeling the final throes of her orgasm fade as he lay atop her, still buried in her to the root. 

DJ sat back, absorbing the sexual energy from Dan, his wife, and both of her sisters. He felt renewed; no, better that that, he felt fully charged from the activities of the entire family.

The Lord had chosen his new master well. Eight more months of this would give him energy to spare for several years to come. He hadn't told his new 'master'; he'd made that mistake before, and his then-'master' had gone off on a sexual spree that had left more than a dozen women pregnant, and him nearly burned out from the overload. He knew that Dan wasn't that sort, but knowing, too, that knowing that your exploits powered a supernatural being could be an extraordinary ego boost.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 04



The next day, in Scottsdale, Dan and Barb made their way through the staging area, closely examining several of the vintage cars. The morning of the first day was always set aside for inspection; giving potential bidders a chance to look over the cars up for auction, talking to the current owners, and checking out the reserve prices. 

He found the cars he'd been interested in, along with a few more, including a fully documented 427 '67 Corvette, a nice '69 Mustang with a big block, and a Hemi powered '69 Charger that was numbers-matched and absolutely pristine. 

He wound up getting all three of the 'Vettes, the Ferrari he'd had his eye on, the '70 Shelby Mustang, and then, on a whim, bought an unrestored '65 Mustang convertible that Barb had gushed over when they'd seen it in the sale line the day before, making a show of presenting her with the keys and paperwork to the baby blue Pony car. 

"Dan, are you serious?!"

"Absolutely, Baby... you gave me the greatest wedding gift you could think of, on our wedding night." He replied, patting her on the ass... and causing her to blush furiously. "This is my wedding gift to you."

He changed his mind, contracting with a car hauler who used enclosed trailers to haul all six of the cars to the warehouse in Wyoming, making sure each one was insured to the maximum amount, and calling ahead and telling Mary Coltrane, who was currently manning the phones in the office there, to expect them and to park them in an out of the way area of the rented space until he and his wife got back. They had dinner at a local surf and turf restaurant, then retired to the motel suite for the evening, though both were too worn out from the day's activities to do much more than cuddle up, kiss a few times, and fall asleep in each other's arms. 

The next morning, though, was a bit of a different story. 

Dan stirred awake to see his wife in the small kitchen, making coffee. Two bags from a local supermarket chain showed that she'd been up for quite a while as he had slept on.

She turned, seeing his eyes open, and said "Mornin' Sleepyhead! I took the Chevy, got us some breakfast." nodding towards the bags on the small table. "Coffee, sugar, milk, and a box of donuts.... plus a few of those microwave breakfast biscuit sandwiches."

"MMMM.... C'mere', babe."

She finished setting up the coffee pot and started it up, then came over and sat on the edge of the bed, where he could wrap her in his arms.... which he did, nuzzling her breasts through her light T-shirt. 

"You're too good to me, Honey."



She stroked the back of his head for a moment. "Alright now, enough of that. Get up and get something to eat first, Dear.... I desperately need a coffee before you start any o' that!"

"Ok.... I just hope you remembered that we didn't bring any coffee mugs with us!"

"Got it covered.... I picked up two nice ones at the Dollar store next to the market, and talked 'em into throwing in a few plastic spoons from the ice cream stand they have inside the store. We're all set, baby."

When she handed him his coffee, he was startled to find that the mug had an inscription on it.... 'Number one Dad'. Looking at hers, he saw that it read 'Cause I'm the Mommy, that's why!'

.

He peered at it skeptically, then shot her a look. "Tryin' to tell me something, sweety?" 

She grinned back at him and replied "Well, honey, we're Preppers, aren't we? Relax, my last shot is still good for another few months. I just saw these and figured we'd need them, sooner or later. Besides, they were the biggest mugs they had, and you know I don't like those little pissant teacups."

They finished eating, threw the trash in the wastebasket, and as Barb was washing the coffee mugs, he stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her neck, just below her ear. Before long, she gave up, whispering "You're incorrigible!"

"Just part of my charm, Dear," he answered, reaching up with one hand to squeeze her breast as his other hand moved lower, caressing her groin, pressing his hardening cock into the crack of her ass. Within moments she was whimpering in lust, and he walked them both over to the side of the bed, tugging at the hem of her T-shirt as they sat down. 

Freeing her substantial breasts, he reached for a nipple with his lips as she stroked her fingers through his hair, moaning in pleasure as he suckled and nipped at her chocolate brown tits, then pushed him away for a moment so she could push her shorts down. 

He, meanwhile, quickly shucked his pants and underwear, and held his arms out to her from the edge of the bed. She took a step forward and pushed him onto his back. He smiled at his wife taking control, wondering, idly, what would come next, as he shifted around until he was lying fully on the mattress. 

He didn't have long to wait, as she got up on top of him, knee-walking until he was staring straight into the winking eye of her already wet pussy. Giving her a short, slow lick, he found her clit and started fluttering his tongue over it, then pulling back a bit to lick up and down her unfurling pussy lips, once again returning to her engorged clit, sucking it lightly between his lips, which brought a deep groan from her. She turned around and leaned forward to take his hard cock in her mouth. Licking and sucking her way down until her nose was being tickled slightly by his pubic hair, then bobbing back up, she proceeded to give him one of her fantastic blowjobs as he tried his best to keep up with her gushing nectar, to the point that his chin and cheeks were covered in her juices. 

She knew he was getting close, but didn't want to end it there, and suddenly jumped off him, moving down until she was straddling his hips, and plunged down on his hardness, taking him, reverse cowgirl, to the hilt in one thrust, riding him hard, until he reached up and grabbed her hips and started thrusting back at her. Soon they were slamming into each other with almost bone-crushing force. She came again, hard, leaving his balls and thighs awash in her juices, and in moments, he unleashed his jets of cum deep inside her, painting the walls of her cervix with his sperm as he held onto her waist for dear life. 

Finally, both of them thoroughly spent, she turned, climbing off of him and laying down beside him, burying her head in the crook of his neck as she sighed deeply. "How did I get so lucky?"

He smiled, kissing her on the forehead. "I could ask you that question, love. I'm just glad we found each other."

After 'breakfast', they decided to go back to the auction, which was in the second day of it's three day run, and see if anything else caught their eyes. 

There was, once again, a wide variety to choose from, but Dan's attention was caught by two in particular, a '69 GTO Ram Air IV 'Judge' convertible, and a '70 Jaguar, XK-E type, both of which had undergone 'rotisserie' restorations. He eventually got both, but the GTO hit him for nearly three quarter of a million dollars... a steal, considering it was fully documented, numbers matching, and one of only five built.

The Jag was much cheaper, 'only' costing him fifty thousand. Once again, he contracted with a shipper who used enclosed trailers, but not before making sure both cars were, again, heavily insured. 

That afternoon, once all of the new cars were on their way to their new home, they bid Scottsdale a fond farewell, packing up and heading to Vegas for the next leg of their honeymoon.

On a few of the long, straight stretches of the deserted highways, he let the big Chevy stretch it's legs, pushing the big engine to it's limit, not surprised that the speedometer pegged at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. If ever there were a time that he could have wished for a digital speedometer, this was it, as he was sure they were topping out at well past a hundred and forty. The three hundred mile trip took them barely four hours. 

Pulling up to the Valet parking area of their hotel, Dan looked on in amusement as three young kids fought over which of them would get to park the classic Chevy, but an older man, obviously a supervisor, overruled them and stepped up.

Handing him the keys, Dan looked closely at him and remarked, "I don't have to tell you not to do any burnouts with her, right?"

The old man gave him a look of mock disappointment, winking at him, and replied, "No sir.... that's why I stepped in. One of these kids clipped a support pillar with a brand new Lamborghini last week. It's costing the hotel nearly a hundred grand to get it fixed."

"I'm surprised he still has a job."

The older man grinned.... "Who do you think is paying the extra insurance premiums? He's on probation now, and he's lost a quarter of his pay. Why do you think he wanted this one? Classic cars usually mean big tips."

Dan grinned, slipped the man a twenty, and followed the porter who was carrying their bags inside, taking his wife's hand as they walked to the registration desk. 

As the Concierge stepped forward, he said "Reservation for Archer."

"Yes Sir... I see you've reserved a suite." he replied as he looked it up on his computer. Shooting a look at the porter, he continued, in clipped tones. "Nine fourteen." handing over two keycards.

Brad Mitchell and his wife, Sally, watched intently as the Native Hawaiian showed them coffee beans, still on the bush, in varying stages of ripeness. They'd been here nearly a week, and had learned a lot. Today was their 'final exam'; they were picking beans that would be roasted overnight and ground in the morning to be the coffee they would drink with their breakfast. They also learned about the art and science of growing coffee; how the coffee bushes were pruned, what they were fertilized with and what were considered suitable alternatives, and the optimal growing conditions. 

When the two week class ended, they moved over to the big island, with school certificates in hand, which stated that they were both now certified coffee growers, and they took up residence in a beachfront hotel, enjoying a week of surf, sun and relaxing on the beach--at least, that was the plan.

The first day there, Brad went to one of the beachfront shops to rent a surfboard, only to find the manager closing up shop. He looked at his watch--it was only 9:30 in the morning.

"Bit early for lunch, isn't it?"

The manager turned to him, a look of mild worry on his face. 

"Sorry, Dude.... I've been shut down by the Beach Patrol. Shark sighting." He nodded out towards the surf. 

Brad turned to look, but saw nothing. He turned back to look quizzically at the store manager.

"Try these." The manager said, handing him a powerful pair of binoculars. 

Putting them to his eyes, he scanned the surf; sure enough, fifty yards or so off shore, he caught sight of a large triangular fin cutting it's way through the waves.... scanning slowly from side to side, he counted three more, widely spaced. They were all big, and they were moving fast.

"What's brought them so close to shore?" 

"They're feeding.... this whole area, there're all kinds of fish. This happens a few times a month. They'll eat their fill, then move on... be gone in a few days.... I hope. They're bad for business."

"Why not just go out, shoot a few of them, warn the others off?"

"Won't do any good.... they'll feed on the ones you shoot, then go back to eating the gamefish. Any human who steps in the water is walking right into their territory. We've had a lot of people get bitten in less than four feet of water. Those are Makos.... very mean, very aggressive.... almost as deadly as a Great White."

"Ok, well, thanks for the heads-up."

"No problem, Brother man... stay safe."

Walking back to where Sally was just laying out their towels, he broke the news to her. She took it well, though. 

"Well, that's ok... we're in Hawaii.... there's lots of things to do. Didn't you say something about going out fishing on one of those charter boats?"

"That's true.... and I want to go to Pearl Harbor, go to the Arizona memorial. How many shots do we have left on the camera?"

"Doesn't matter... I've still got two clean memory cards, so we're good to go."

They spent several hours at the somber memorial, taking numerous pictures, then decided to take a helicopter tour of the island, joining another young couple in the converted 'Huey' military surplus chopper, which had been fitted with plush leather seats, thick carpeting, and extensive sound deadening materials, and seeing the sights from an entirely new perspective. 

The pilot spoke through their headphones as he flew, making a point of flying over the beach area they'd been at a few hours ago, pointing out the sharks that were still cruising the waters just off the beach. He pointed out six, total, some as close as forty yards from shore, estimating them at anywhere from eight to thirteen feet in length. 

"Either Makos or Tigers, folks, and yes, at that size, they're definitely maneaters. Aren't you glad you didn't go swimming today?"

Sally shuddered at the sight of them. "We were at that beach a few hours ago." She said into her mic. "The beach patrol told us it wasn't safe."

The pilot nodded. "Good thing you listened to them.... a guy lost a good chunk of his leg a few months ago, in that same place. Not much more than ten feet from the beach."

They flew back over Pearl Harbor, getting some good shots of the entire length of the Arizona, the stately battleship that was the tomb of many sailors to this day, and the debris fields from other ships that had been sunk, raised, rebuilt, and had gone on to play their parts in hurling the Japanese back to their little island. 

Back on the ground, they learned that the young couple, Jim and Roberta 'Bert' Crenshaw, were staying at their same hotel, and they had lunch together, along with what started out as one drink and turned into several. 

At some point, Roberta admitted that they were swingers, while Jim looked on, grinning.... he knew where this was going. His young wife was obviously interested in the slightly older couple, and it wasn't long before the four of them were headed to Brad and Sally's suite.

The only thing Jim wasn't sure of was which of the Mitchells his wife was more interested in, Brad or Sally. 

He knew which one held his interest.... Sally had a fine ass. 

Once in the suite, Brad mixed up drinks for all of them from the complimentary bar, and they sat for nearly an hour, drinking, listening to the radio, and telling each other their stories. Jim pulled out several joints of some local pot, and everyone was pretty well lubricated by the time Bert came over, settling next to Sally, resting a hand on her thigh while asking if she'd ever 'spent time' with another woman. 

Sally gave her a bit of a goofy grin while replying that, no, she hadn't, but the thought had crossed her mind once or twice, surprising herself almost as much as she surprised her husband. 

Bert leaned over, kissing her lightly, slipping her tongue into Sally's mouth, who returned the kiss energetically. Before long, the two women were undressing each other, while the two men sat and watched, giving the ladies their full attention.

When Bert knelt between Sally's thighs, lifting her legs and kissing Sally's gaping cuntlips, Brad shucked his shorts and moved behind Bert, feeding his now stiff cock into her dripping pussy, while Jim moved around behind the low backed sofa, feeding Sally his own hard dick, groaning as she started deep throating him.

Bert was soon having a hard time keeping her willing tongue in contact with Sally's clit, as Brad fucked into her hard with short, rapid strokes, but she gave it her best.... 

Sally, meanwhile, was close to gagging on Jim's eight inches, which was a bit thicker than her husband's. Jim realized her difficulty and backed off a bit, allowing her to set her own pace. Bert backed away from Sally's clit for a moment, turning her head long enough to tell Brad "Put it in my ass, honey!"

Brad grinned, pulling out of her steamy cunt and sliding slowly into her rectum, going slow at first, until she started bucking her hips back at him, urging him to fuck her harder. He was happy to comply, picking up speed until he was slamming into her as hard as he could, and she gave up on trying to eat Sally's pussy.

Sally moved around on the couch until she was laying on her belly, her ass hanging off the end, and Jim took her up on her invitation, sliding his hardness into her exposed ass, something she hadn't been expecting. She gave a little shriek as he bottomed out in her bowel and started giving it to her in long, fast strokes. Within moments the extra stimulation had her cumming hard and fast. 

He wasn't far behind, and was soon spraying her insides with his cum, before pulling out of her, his shrinking member letting loose one last squirt on her ass cheeks.

Sally lay still for a few moments, them got up, walking to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth to clean them all up with, returning just in time to see her husband slam into the busty young redhead's ass one last time, then holding tight to her generous DD cup tits as he deposited his own load deep in her bowels.

She wiped Jim's cock down slowly, before turning to do the same for Brad, then turning to Jim's young wife... but when she reached down to wipe up the mess leaking down the crack of her own ass, Bert pushed her hand away, burying her face between Sally's ass cheeks and licking up the leaking semen and drilling her tongue in, looking for more. She moaned in renewed pleasure as Bert's tongue invaded her sphincter, spreading her legs a bit and leaning forward, holding on to the edge of the couch and kissing her husband furiously as the younger woman licked her clean.

Brad responded with a renewed hard on, and Bert abandoned Sally's ass to fill her mouth with his hard dick as Jim moved between Sally's legs, licking at her clit with renewed vigor. She responded with a moan, moving around to join him in a long, slow 69, and Bert followed suit with Brad, feeding him her shaved quim as she munched on his hard cock. 

Sally flooded Jim's face with her own orgasm, then jumped up to slide her willing pussy over his hard cock, and Brad, having brought Bert to several moaning blasts, moved over behind Sally, intent on her exposed ass, sliding in her back door, feeling Jim's cock through the thin membrane of tissue that separated her pussy from her rectum.

Bert came over, sitting on Brad's face as Sally rode his hard cock, kissing Sally and fondling her full tits, and soon the four were so entangled that it was hard to tell where one body ended and another began.

Dan and Barb settled in at the hotel/casino, and Barb went in to take a quick shower, while Dan ordered room service. She was more than a bit surprised, then, when the shower door slid aside and her husband stepped in behind her.

"I figured you might want someone to wash your back." he replied to her querying look with a grin. She smiled back.

"Uh huh... and you like it when I'm all slippery."

"There is that, too." he admitted with a sly grin, rubbing a soapy hand between the cheeks of her ass. She thought she knew what was coming next, and he didn't disappoint her, using the slickness to slide his hard cock into her tight ass. She finished rinsing her hair quickly, barely in time to catch her balance by putting both palms to the shower wall as he started putting it to her in earnest.

"Oh, God, honey, give it to me... fuck meeee!" she squealed as he picked up speed. Soon she was bucking her hips back at him with each stroke. He couldn't sustain the pace for long, though, and blasted what felt like a quart of sperm into her impossibly tight ass.

She yelped as her own orgasm overtook her, shuddering in ecstasy as waves of pleasure cascaded through her. He held her tightly, one hand on her breast while another caressed her gaping pussy, his thumb rubbing her clit lightly as they both caught their breath. He kissed her wet shoulder, then her neck, moving slowly up to her earlobe as he murmured "I love you, Babe."




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 04



She pulled back from him a bit, letting his now-softening cock pull out of her anus as she turned in his arms, kissing him softly as she replied. "I love you too, Dear." 

They rubbed each other with soapy hands, washing away the rivulets of their act of love and letting the warm water rinse them clean. Exiting the shower, they rubbed each other dry and dressed in the fluffy robes provided by the hotel, just in time to catch the porter who was delivering their dinner. 

The young man quickly laid out the plates, silverware, and glasses, took a ten dollar tip from Dan, and left them with several covered dishes on the cart. Eyeing the spread of salad, shrimp, filet mignon, hush puppies, cornbread, butter, roasted potatoes, corn, and peas, Barb cocked an eyebrow. 

"Dan, if you keep this up, you're gonna make me fat! I'm not eating for two yet, y'know!"

He grinned back at her as he used the tongs to deliver salad to the small bowl before her. 

"Wait'll you see the dessert cart!"

Her eyes grew big as she thought about what he might have ordered on THAT. 

He didn't disappoint her there, either... there was a small apple pie, a small chocolate cake, and several quarts of various flavors of ice cream in a small freezer built into the cart.

Swallowing the last bite of the cake, washing it down with a spoonful of chocolate-chocolate fudge ice cream followed by a long swig of coffee, Barb pushed herself back from the table with a mild groan. 

"Oh, Lord.... Dan, you spoil me too much. If I eat another bite I'll explode!"

"Now there's a mental image!" he grinned back at her, chewing at his slice of pie.

After the porter came back and cleared away the dishes, Barb went to the bedroom to take a short nap while Dan got on the phone, calling the warehouse. He was told that the GTO and the Jag had gotten there less than an hour ago, and all were lined up at the back of the warehouse, well away from the normal storage areas.

"Geez, Dan, I hope you're done buying for a while... we're runnin' out of room around here!"

He grinned into the phone as he replied. "There's a gun show goin' on here in Vegas.... wait'll ya see what shows up next!"

Hanging up the phone, he went to the bedroom of the large suite, stripping down to his shorts and laying down next to his wife, spooning up to her gently snoring form and dozing off for a few hours.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 05



Mike Jimson shifted the dust mask on his face as he and Tom carefully wet-sanded the '71 Mustang that was the latest project to come out of the paint booth. With the attention to detail they'd put into the Hunter green beast, they fully expected it to bring at least twenty five grand at the next auction, doubling the money invested in it and then some. 

Considering the fact that it was a refugee from a Montana junkyard, the transformation was startling. What had come in as a battered, rusty hulk, with an engine that was barely there and no transmission, rolling on mismatched tires and factory stock steel rims, was now a gleaming, numbers matched shagnasty riding on a nice Centerline rim/Goodyear Eagle tire combo, with an all new light green leather interior, pushing nearly five hundred horses.

It was definitely no cookie-cutter hot rod, and that was what collectors wanted these days.... a car that could be driven, and driven hard. It would be retaped, masked off, and given another coat of the green before being buffed out and given a coat of clear to give the finish some depth. After twelve hours under the heatlamps, it would be given a final inspection and polish and be moved to the 'sale line'. Tom Never cut corners on his paint jobs, and it showed.

In the forest chamber, Mark Miller was putting his current 'class' through their paces, challenging them each to set up a shelter, using only natural materials and whatever tools they had in their small backpacks, that would keep them warm and dry in the rain.

What he didn't tell them was that at the end of an hour, his wife, Abby, who was in the computer control room for this room of the Cave, would use the override to give them a short shower.

The kids impressed him; there were domes and what appeared to be pup tents, and one young boy had used a long line of parachute cord to join four trees into a boxlike configuration, covering the top in light branches before piling on big handfuls of leaves. The half-open sides gave him a full field of view, which he had taken advantage of, shooting a rabbit with the silenced .22 semi-automatic pistol his dad had given him, and had a low fire going, not big enough to threaten the roof over his head, but hot enough to roast his prize, which he was cutting well cooked strips from when Mark walked up to inspect his handiwork. 

"Rabbit, Sir?" he asked as Mark walked up, offering him a slice on his knifepoint. 

Mark grinned, accepting the offering. "If not for the fact that this doesn't do much to hide you, young man, you'd get top marks.... but I've gotta give you points for creativity."

"My Dad taught me, Sir.... said I was better off relying on my camo and being able to see all the way around."

"Your dad is Jimmy Jackson, isn't he?"

"Yes Sir." The young boy replied proudly. 

"Well, you tell him you passed with colors... he'll understand what you mean."

"Thank you, Sir."

The former Delta force warrior chuckled as he went on to the next 'dwelling'. He knew Jackson was a former Recon Marine, and knew all about the ritual 'Calling of the Colors'. 

It was the day young men graduated basic training, and could honestly call themselves Marines.

Marlene drove back from the package delivery shop, several small bags of mail and a number of boxes in the restored minivan's cargo area. She sighed as she thought of the rest of her day... first the mail would have to be sorted, all of the boxes would have to be opened, their contents sorted, and sent off to the places it was going, then she would have maybe an hour before her next trip outside. The bulk of the boxes, she knew, were DVDs and books, most of them destined for the library, though some would go to the school rooms, and a few, mostly repair manuals and catalogs, would go to the auto and woodworking shops. 

Charlene, meanwhile, was in the food dehydrating room, taking dried fruit out of the food dehydrators, vacuum sealing it in plastic, then doing the same with mylar bags, labeling each, and sending them off, by the small wagonload, to the storage rooms. As they were packaged, they would last for a good ten years. Looking around, she realized she still had a good two hour's worth of work ahead of her. With a deep sigh, she opened up the next machine. 

Clark Constantine watched intently as the senior kids fired the M4 carbines at the two hundred yard range, using his binoculars to guage the progress of the trainees. Most of them were making good progress. 

"Johnson! You're aiming too low!"

"I don't think so, Sir!"

"Your shots are hitting in the knee area of your target! You're supposed to be killing, not wounding!"

The fourteen year old girl shook her head. "Something my father taught me, Sir! Shoot their legs out from under them, somebody has to help them off the field.... then I can shoot him, too!"

Constantine chuckled. "Tell your father I approve, Johnson.... but next time, share this bit of knowledge with the rest of the class, 'eh?"

Clarice Johnson nodded, returning her attention to the target. Switching the selector to three-round burst, she fired off the quick burst, obliterating the forehead of the target.

"Is that an acceptable kill shot, Sir?"

The former Green Beret chuckled and nodded, moving on to the next of his students.

All around the complex, life went on; two women gave birth, one elderly gentleman succumbed to a heart attack and passed away peacefully, in his sleep, kids went to school, and all the other day-to-day activities people engaged in went on, as usual. 

Dan and Barb spent some time in the casino, her playing dollar slot machines, him in the poker room, playing Texas Hold 'em. He folded most of his hands, deeming them not worth the risk, but finally came up with wired kings, a decent starting hand. Betting a quick fifty bucks, he was called by three players. 

The flop came out, another king, a four, and an ace. Three kings, he decided, was good enough for a raise; the man across the table had already bet out with a hundred, so he doubled it, and was called.

The turn card was a six... no big help there, so he slow played it with a straight call. One player shook his head and folded. Another player raised again, to a hundred. This was one of the stronger players at the table, and Dan figured him for an ace in his hole cards. He raised right back at him, and was called. 

The final card, the river, was another ace. When the bet came around to him, he raised again, to two hundred. The guy across the table raised back at him, to four hundred. Dan tried to show no emotion as he doubled the bet, to eight hundred... forcing his opponent all-in, which the other man swiftly called.

The guy across the table, being all out of chips, flipped his cards over..... a pair of sixes. "Full boat!" he declared triumphantly.

Dan grinned as he flipped over his kings, replying "Really? Me too!"

He flipped the dealer a ten dollar chip, gathered up his winnings, and headed to the cashier's cage to cash out, then wandered the floor for a while, looking for, and finally locating, his wife. 

Walking up behind her, he leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek, saying "Doing any good, Babe?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "I hit a ten thousand dollar jackpot a little while ago.... but this damned machine seems to be dead set on getting it all back!"

"Well, M'Dear, I think that's our cue to call it a night.... I won, too."

"Really? How much?"

"On the last hand, a couple of grand.... over all, though, I think I'm up about seven or eight thousand, total... I sent four players to the rail."

Mary Coltrane, once again minding the store at the warehouse, called back to the cave, and Tim Carter picked up the line.

"Hi, Mary.... what's up?"

"Get the flatbeds warmed up... I've got three truckloads of metal unloading right now, and four truckloads of lumber right behind them. We need to get it all hauled to the Cave."

"Oh, cool.... must be the quarter inch plate that Tom ordered."

Mike Jennison led the small group of kids out of the concealed tunnel and over the sprawling meadows to the outside lake, gunning the engine of the ATV for a few miles until the lakeshore came into sight. Most of the older kids driving the other ATVs behind him had at least one passenger, and most were towing light trailers with small wooden rowboats, built in their own woodshop. All had five gallon plastic buckets, big deep-cycle batteries, and small electric trolling motors, along with each child's fishing gear.

The big lake was home to numerous panfish, large and small mouth bass, and more than a few big pike and muskies. Dan had considered getting a few truckloads of walleye fingerlings dumped in, but thought better of it. He had, however, gotten a dozen truckloads of small minnows, giving the larger fish a boost.

Dan and Barb came home a few weeks later, quite a bit poorer, but happy and feeling renewed. Dan immediately sent out a mental call, which DJ answered swiftly. 

"I know your time is almost up here..."

"Not quite true; I've only been in your service for seven months."

Dan stopped for a moment, counting back.... had it only been that long? Well, he thought, might as well make the most of it.

"Ok... well, I want to make some additions to the shelter, here."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Well, first... something we don't have.... a saltwater 'lake', of sorts.... filled with small fish, lobster, shrimp, and crab. I want to be able to have those for dinner, from time to time. In it's own seperate chamber, obviously, added on to the area the forest chambers are in. Fully stocked, with an accelerated growth rate for everything in it. Completely self contained, self aerating, enough seaweed and such to sustain the cycle of life. Five, maybe six acres should do. Come to think of it, make three of them, just to make sure we don't run low. Second, I want you to send some of these folks to their hometowns for a few weeks.... just put the idea into their heads to visit some relatives or something. While they're there, give them the idea to buy lottery tickets.... winning lottery tickets. We could use an extra infusion of cash in here, and I don't want it all on me."

He paused a moment in thought. "I also want a few more chambers added on for storage.... Big chambers.... like about ten million square feet, total. Freight elevators for up to five ton loads, connecting corridors big enough to handle full sized pick up trucks, the works.... oh, and we need something added to the motor pool chamber; storage tanks for gas and diesel fuel, twenty thousand gallons each, that refill themselves automatically, set up so that the gas is fresh, no matter how long it sits in them, complete with connected gas pumps, the works. Oh, and living quarters for about another five thousand people. Upgrade the geothermal power and heating systems accordingly, and have the dwellings ready to move in to, all the appliances, lighting that never burns out, the whole bit." 

He stopped for a minute, knowing there was something else that had occurred to him a few days before, but unable to recall it right now.... then it hit him. 

"Is there any gold under my land?"

DJ smiled. "There is, indeed."

"How much?"

"When I built this place for you, I displaced about six hundred pounds of it....including a small crate full of gold coins, buried here, long ago, by a previous owner."

'OmiGod!' went through Dan's head as he thought about the implications.

"OK..... can you retrieve it all, turn it into ingots weighing, oh, about half an ounce each, and store it in a new room, attached to this one? Oh, and alter Barb's memory, make her think this room's been here all along."

The Djinn's eyes flashed a deep purple hue for a moment, and a new door appeared on the wall of the living room. Dan stepped over, opening the door to see rows of heavy shelves, groaning under the weight of hundreds upon hundreds of small golden bars. He grinned as he stared at the treasure. 'Oh yes' he thought.... 'I can do a LOT with this.'

Doc Michaels, the resident surgeon, looked Patty Richards over worriedly.... she was definitely in the final stage of Appendicitis. He called for his nurse, telling her to get the young woman down to the O.R. Now, and page the Anesthesioligist to the O.R. immediately. This operation wasn't going to wait for anyone.

Within three hours, they were finished.... and barely in time.... the Appendix was close to bursting even as they removed it, but it saved the young woman's life. Michaels cursed the fact that he was, basically, the only surgeon in the place. He would have to have a talk with Dan about that.... he knew a few colleagues who were not happy with the new 'National health care' that had been shoved down their throats, and would likely be quite happy to turn their backs on the world to come here and escape the land of bureaucrats and other bumbling idiots.

He wondered, idly, if Dan would object to building a golf course on the land outside.

Dan and Barb set out for an afternoon drive into town, her in her Mustang, him in the Hemi Superbird, to do a little shopping. She, naturally, wanted to pick up some new clothes; he was headed for the local speed shop, to drop off a list of parts for the auto shop. 

After he made arrangements to have the small truckload of parts, mostly cases of oil filters, radiator and heater hoses, spark plugs, belts, and other 'consumables' as Tom called them, delivered to their warehouse, he drove over to the open air cafe where he'd arranged to meet his wife.

Barb pulled into the parking lot of the little cafe ahead of her husband, not seeing his car, and got out to get a table for them. As she was walking through the seating barea, her arm was grabbed by an unkempt, overweight punk in his twenties who had a beer on the table in front of him.

"Hey, sweetheart, why don't you n' me take a little ride in that ol' car o' yers?"

"I've got a better idea.... how about you take your hand off me before things get ugly." she replied, hearing the distinctive rumble of a certain Hemi pulling into the parking lot.

"Bitch, you need to listen to your betters!"

She reversed her hand, catching his and turning his elbow while kicking his legs out from under him.

"Betters? When I find one, I'll let you know." 

The punk jumped to his feet and reached into his back pocket, grabbing out the folding knife he kept there... but before he could fold out the blade, something cold and hard was pressed against his temple. 

"I'd suggest you drop that." Dan growled at him. 

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the husband of the woman you're trying to fool with... and the guy who has a .45 automatic pressed to your head. You've got two choices.... go home and sleep it off, or see how your little brain likes the sunlight. Which is it gonna be?"

The punk almost wet himself, and stumbled in his haste to get away, landing face first on the blacktop of the parking lot. 

"Thanks, Honey.... your timing was perfect." Barb told him. 

He holstered his weapon, nodding, and put his arm around her.

An older gentleman in blue jeans, a western style shirt, and a Stetson got up from a nearby table and walked over to the couple, holding his hand out. 

"Well done, young man... Nice to see someone stand up, in this day an' age... Might I ask your name?'' He said, in a bit of a southern drawl.

Dan accepted the outstretched hand, replying "Dan Archer, and this is my wife, Barb. Pleased to meet you." 

"I'm Mark Lewis.... Deputy sheriff. Do you have a permit for that hand cannon?"

"I was told I didn't need one for open carry in Wyoming, Deputy."

The older man chuckled. "Relax, young man, just checkin'. You're right, you don't. Hell, even if you did, I'd never arrest a man for defending his wife. I'll warn you, though.... watch your back. That idiot was Timmy Cooper.... his daddy owns a lot of properties around here, and holds the notes on a lot more.... he's the local banker."

"Andrew Cooper?"

"That's him... he's a powerful man in this county." 

"I've met him.... I kinda doubt he wants to piss off his biggest single depositor."

"Oh, shit... you're That Archer?"

"I suppose I am.... I'm the guy who bought up that forty miles of land on the county line. If you see him, you let him know.... if I ever see his useless excuse for a son grabbing my woman again, he's going to need to make some arrangements.... with the local funeral home." He finished, in an icy tone. 

The Deputy looked at Dan with a new respect... he hadn't met him, but he knew Dan was the wealthiest land owner in the county, and his property taxes were paid from a savings account, automatically, in an amount that paid off the entire Sheriff's department payroll.

For the entire year. 

He now knew, as well, that Dan was a man who stood up. He didn't back away from a fight... Lewis knew, without a doubt, that Archer would have pulled that trigger, consequences be damned; that alone earned him respect.

He nodded towards the parking lot.... "Nice... that's one of those Superbirds, isn't it?"

"Yup... number six, of a hundred and thirty five built in that particular set up."

"What size engine?"

"That one has the Hemi.... dual Carters and a four speed. Bought it at an auction, down in Scottsdale, about a month ago. All original... she's a runner."

Lewis' eyes almost bugged out of his head. He'd seen that auction on the speed network, and knew he was looking at a million dollar car. 

Ron looked over his class, mildly amused at their antics. Someone, and he had a pretty fair idea who it was, had decorated the chalkboard with a seal, wearing a Navy hat and blouse, and holding a silenced MP-10. The artwork was quite well done, and extensively detailed. He turned to face the classroom full of teen agers.

"Samuels! Is this your handiwork?"

"No sir." The young man in question mumbled.... but he wouldn't meet Ron's eyes.

"Uh huh.... your Dad's been tellin' tales again, hasn't he?"

The boy gave him a sheepish grin and nodded. 

"Well, remind him that much of what he's probably telling you is still classified, will you?"

He turned his attention to the rest of his American history class. "Now.... who can tell me the date of the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord, and the reasons the British were at those two places?"



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 06



Dan sat back, rubbing his chin in thought as he considered Doc Michael's note. It would be a good idea to have a few more Doctors around, and maybe start a small medical education program. He fired up his computer and started looking up medical textbooks on the online bookstore site, but soon gave up in confusion. 

'Maybe it would be better to have the Doc order these.' He thought. He went back to the small pile of mail, mostly junk, before running up on one from a law firm in Detroit. Opening it, he unfolded the enclosed pages, getting angrier as he read. 

His mother was suing him for the money he'd had DJ arrange, thinking it had actually come from her grandfather!

He got up, went to his filing cabinet, and got out the paperwork the attorney had brought him, so many months ago. He looked it over carefully, noting that it had been left to him, specifically, and made no provision for her at all. 'DJ?' he thought, and in an instant, the Djinn was at his side. 

"Yes, Dan?" The Djinn could see that his master was visibly upset. 

Wordlessly, Dan handed him the summons from the attorney's office. 

"Ok.... how would you like to handle this? I can destroy all memory of any of this, in everyone involved."

Dan thought it over for a moment before shaking his head. 

"No, I think a more potent message needs to be sent, here. Can you get me several copies of every one of my bank statements, from back in Michigan, showing how many times she withdrew money from my account while she was at the casino? Oh, and while you're at it, get a DVD, two copies, actually, with the surveillance footage from that casino ATM, showing her making those withdrawals?"

Then another thought occurred, and he added "And just to make sure, I want to add a line to this... in my Great Grandfather's own hand, demanding and requiring that I not give her a penny." he concluded, indicating the original bequest paperwork. "Matter of fact, make sure that attorney's copy has the same stipulation."

He sat down and penned a quick note to his mother.

'Mother... as you can see from the enclosed documentation, if I give you one penny from the money my great grandfather left to ME, I lose everything. Quite aside from that, I still have the bank statements showing withdrawals from a casino I never set foot in.... and the enclosed DVD clearly shows YOU using MY ATM card to withdraw money at that casino. In case you are unaware of this, that is called credit card fraud, and it is a felony. If you pursue this frivolous lawsuit against me for property that is rightfully mine and mine alone, I WILL see to it that this evidence makes it's way to the Wayne county prosecuter's office, and you will go to prison. You've taken too much from me already. You will not see another penny from me. Do not contact me on this or any other matter, ever again.'

He signed the letter, put it in a big manila envelope along with all of the copies of the documentation, put half a dozen stamps on it, and put it in with the rest of the outgoing mail. 

He sat back with a heavy sigh, thinking 'Another bridge burnt.'

He sat back in his living room, Barb at his side, listening intently as Doc Michaels told him about the various physicians he had in mind.... several had been combat medics who had gone on to med school after their military service was up, and a few had gone on to teach medicine as well. Dan grinned back at him, nodding. 

"Ok, Doc, you've sold me.... order whatever teaching aids and books you need, put it on our company accounts, and contact as many of your old friends as you think can be trusted to not reveal our location. Give them the location of the warehouse in town, and we'll have someone meet them there and bring them in. I'm guessing you've already told them a little bit about the set up here?"

Art Michaels nodded. "Most of them think I was referring to paradise.... they are NOT happy with that socialized medicine bullshit.... the bureaucrats telling them who they can provide care to, and who they should just give placebos to, only to watch them die. I agree with them.... the ones who should get the sugar pills are those asshole Washington bureaucrats."

Barb smiled. "It would serve them right.... I had no idea this is what I was voting for."

Michaels shook his head. "None of us did. Hell, Congress passed that mess without reading it. Of course, they don't care... it doesn't apply to them."

Dan nodded, deep in thought. "You know, while you're here, There's something else.... we need to see about getting a few specialists here, too, and the tools of their trades... eye doctors, with all the equipment to make glasses.... a few heart specialists, and surgeons, maybe a few more dentists, maybe a Gynecologist or two," Shooting a look at his wife, who blushed a bit.

"Just make sure we have everything we need... full lab, chemistry equipment, chemicals to make all the medicines we might need, every book on the subjects known to man--multiple copies, mind you... the works. You know better than I do what all we need and what we already have."

"Ok.... but... why the urgency? I mean.... do you know something I don't?"

"No... not really." Dan replied, shaking his head. "It's just a feeling. I've been keeping a close eye on the news, and some of the military guys we have here are, too.... anything that makes Them nervous, makes Me nervous.... and they're mostly walking around like long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. Don Miller won't let his boys go outside the bunker at all, these days... and I know for a fact that he's plugged in to the Pentagon itself." 

Michael's eye's widened at this. If Miller was on edge, there was a damned good reason for it. 

Within two months, the additional people had arrived, and the Cave's population swelled by nearly a thousand people. Thanks to Dan's foresight, and DJ's 'assistance', there was still plenty of room for the population to expand, and plenty of room for whatever they needed.

One empty chamber was converted to a garden, growing plants that had medicinal properties, and a number of labs were set aside for pure research. 

Dan, meanwhile, was spending what some folks might have thought were utterly absurd amounts of money, on all manner of extra supplies, filling up the extra storage space DJ had given him.... mostly true essentials.

Truckloads of toilet paper, coffee filters, spare appliances from stoves to freezers and coffee makers, toasters, TVs and DVD players, stereo gear of all sorts, computers and routing equipment, miles of cables of various sorts... soon, they basically had their own phone company for communicating within the complex. 

Orders on the internet, for books of every description and DVDs of all types skyrocketed, and Marlene soon found herself having to abandon the Minivan and use a full sized pick up to haul them all back to the cave, and to enlist two other drivers and two more trucks to handle the flow. The size of the cave's library tripled in three months.

Barb, of course, got into the act, getting her husband to procure several hundred Cocoa plants, assuring him that they were a necessity, because "There's a bunch of women in here who ain't goin' without chocolate, Man o' mine.... and you're lookin' at one of 'em!"

At one point, Barb was surprised to learn that her husband had forty more truckloads of toilet paper, another ten truckloads of paper towels, ten loads of coffee filters, and twenty loads of assorted boxed and canned groceries coming in at once.

The small trucks, vans, and the crews who loaded and unloaded them and hauled them from the warehouse in town, and those who took it through the complex to the assorted warehouse chambers were running, literally, around the clock, and fresh 'troops' were joining in every few hours.

Over a week's time, they filled up well over twenty million cubic feet, and Dan's bank account was finally starting to run low. Not a moment too soon, as it happened.

Extra supplies were procured by the hundreds of tons, right up until the day that the news reports started trickling in. 

Washington D.C. was first to be hit, of course, with major cities all over the country following suit shortly thereafter. As Dan had predicted, many of the nukes were carried into the cities in suitcases; NORAD, having no clue who was setting them off, was basically paralyzed.

The President and his V.P., along with most of both houses of Congress, were wiped out in the first strike. The ranking officers at the Pentagon suffered a similar fate.

A Commanding General at the main missile command at Omaha kept a close eye on the radar and satellite imagery, for as long as it lasted, and adjusted the missile coordinates under his command accordingly.... but there weren't nearly enough to go around for every country that was targeting the US. He started hitting them in order of importance, and the list was long.

North Korea, Communist China, Cuba, and several Nation-States in the Middle east got the bulk of the few ICBMs left in his command, and the 'Boomer' submarines took out several adversaries in the eastern European area and Russia.

Most surprising were a number of missile launches that came from South America... and he saw to it that they got much the same treatment.

When the reports started coming in, Dan hit the siren button, alerting the entire complex, including those who were outside, that the tunnels would be collapsed in five minutes.

What few people who were outside called in to the command center, asking for an extra fifteen minutes, so they could herd the rest of the cattle in and get them secured. Dan grudgingly relented, figuring they'd need the extra breeding stock and milk production.

Within less than an hour, they had everyone in, the cows were contentedly munching on the long grass in the pasture chambers, and all was as ready as it would ever be. 

Dan sent out the mental call, and DJ appeared as soon as he was alone. 

"Well, my friend, this is what I've been expecting.... I know you still have 'time on the clock' so to speak, but if there's somewhere else you need to be, I will go ahead and release you from my service now." He held out his hand, and the Djinn shook it warmly. 

"I was right. The Lord chose quite well when he set me in your path. Live well, O Kind one. I am going to leave you with one more thing. If ever you find yourself in need of my aid, you've but to think of me, and I will be here. You tell your first born son, and pass it down the line.... I will only show up once, so it had better be important, but I will grant one request."

Dan rubbed his chin in thought for a moment and replied, "Why don't we just do this.... when it's safe, and it comes time for us to dig ourselves out of here, you show up then, lend a hand, without actually revealing your presence. Unearth the entryways for us, so we can feel the sun again-if that day ever comes."

"Fair enough... I will be here."

The Djinn then turned into a column of greenish smoke, dissipated into the same ornate brown bottle that Dan had found, so many months ago, and it, too, vanished. They were on their own.

Dan looked, long and hard, at the spot where the bottle had been, then reached for the console, pushing the button. Distant explosions told him that the charges had done their job.... the tunnel entrances were buried under hundreds of tons of earth and rock. They were sealed in.

Barb lay in his arms that night, sobbing softly.... she knew, in her mind, that they'd been preparing for this moment, but in her heart, she had always hoped it would never come. He did his best to calm her, and they lay together, quiet, each lost in thought. 

They smoked several joints of the Philipino pot as they lay together in the master bedroom of thier suite, then she kissed him on the cheek, murmuring "I'm sorry, Baby.... I'm just not in the mood tonight. I just want you to hold me."

"Honey, you know I can do that.... and, if truth's to be told, I'm in no mood, myself."

It was the same in much of the complex that night; people, just clinging to one another, not knowing what the future might hold.

Life went on in the Cave; Tom Jennings proposed to Barb's sister, Charlene, the week after the sealing; Ron Dupree did the same with Marlene, and the double wedding was set for three weeks hence. 

Barb was Maid of Honor for both of her sisters, as was Sally Mitchell and Roberta Crenshaw, who, with her husband Jim, had moved to the cave when they had all come back from Hawaii. Dan stood as Best Man for Tom, while Brad Mitchell, another of Tom's SEAL team members, stood with Ron. 

Father Tony, as everyone called him, once again officiated over the proceedings, marrying both couples at once, and finally said the words.

"You gentlemen may kiss your brides."

Once again, Dan enlisted a co-conspirator; Barb used duplicate keys to sneak into the apartments of Ron and Tom, leaving silver ice buckets in each containing iced down bottles of Dom Perignon. 

Tom and Charlene returned to what was now, officially, Their apartment, and were surprised by the gleaming silver bucket sitting on the coffee table with the long green neck of the Champagne bottle sticking out of the top, with the pair of crystal Champagne flutes set beside it.

Charlene saw it too, and muttered 'Thanks, sis." under her breath. She had no doubt about who had put it there. 

Tom pulled the bottle out of the bucket, wiping off the clinging bits of ice and reading the label. 'Dom Perignon 1955... wonder if it was a good year?' He wondered, idly, as the words 'Three thousand dollars a bottle' ran through his head. 

Charlene looked to the coffee table, noting the half dozen doobies in the ashtray... wondering, idly if it was Hawaiian, Jamaican, or Thai.

Her new husband popped the cork on the bubbly, rushing to fill the two glasses, trying not to spill too much of this exceptional gift, as his wife turned to him, holding up one of the joints with a raised eyebrow. Smiling, he nodded back at her.

She set it aside for a moment, going off to the bathroom to change into a pair of slacks and a t shirt, hanging her simple white wedding dress up on the back of the door.

Stepping back to the living room, she accepted the glass from her new husband, clinking it to his as he spoke.

"To us, babe... may we have a long and fruitful marriage."

She took a sip, then winked at him and replied. "It's going to be 'fruitful' sooner than you think, dear".

He snorted a bit of the expensive champagne through his nose at her words, and sneezed as the bubbles tickled the inside of his nose. "What.... what do you mean?"

"How do you think T.J. will like having a baby brother?"

"Babe! Are you.... are you serious?" He was now grinning so wide, she thought the ends of his lips might reach his sideburns.

She nodded. "Doctor Willis says I'm about a month along.... and she thinks, from what the lab told her about my amniotic fluid, that it'll be a boy."

He carefully set his glass down, then took hers from her hand, setting it aside as well, and wrapped his new bride in his arms and hugged her close, kissing her neck and ear, whispering "I love you, honey."

She held on to him, tightly. "I love you too, babe."

They kissed slowly, languidly, at first, then began to pick up a little speed as their passion grew, and soon their clothes were flying. Charlene was glad that T.J. was off at a sleepover with some of his friends. This night, she wasn't sure either of them would wait to get to the bedroom.

In moments both were as naked as the day they were born, the champagne and doobies forgotten for the moment as Tom dove face first between her thighs. 

He licked her nether lips lightly, gently, at first, savoring the clean taste of her as the lips began to unfurl, revealing the pink flesh within, even as the little hood shifted aside, revealing her hard clit. He took it between his lips, fluttering his tongue tip across it lightly, quickly, driving her to clamp her thighs hard against his ears. 

She moaned in ultimate pleasure, running her fingers through his close cropped hair as he expertly ate her pussy, feeling the stirring deep in her womb as her first orgasm approached. 

"Oh, yes... OH God, honeeeeyyyy!" she moaned as he added a pair of fingers, finding and massaging her G-spot, triggering her first orgasm of the night. He continued even as the juices gushed from her, slathering his cheeks and chin.

He slid slowly up her body, between her wide spread thighs, his cock sliding into her as if it had eyes of it's own and knew where it belonged.

She moaned deeply as he slid into her, feeling his hardness fill her, sighing as he began to pump into her slowly. He covered her lips with his own, seeking and finding her tongue as she began to buck her hips against his. They made love slowly at first, comfortable with each other, but the slow, gentle pace couldn't last, and soon they were picking up speed.

"Oh, God, baby.... fuck me, honey!' She moaned as he really started going to town on her, pulling almost out of her and plunging back in as fast as he could, feeling her cunt spasm around him as she came again and again, finally unleashing his own jets of cum deep inside her.

Ron and Marlene stepped inside their apartment and saw the silver bucket on the coffee table, the pair of crystal champagne flutes sitting in front of it, and Marlene smiled. She, like Charlene, knew exactly where this had come from. 

"Looks like Dan and Barb have been busy."

Ron looked over the bottle of bubbly, eyebrows raising as he read the label. This was no cheap bottle of wine.

"Dom perignon '57..... wow! This wasn't cheap!"

Marlene shook her head. ''Dan's no tightwad. I'll bet this bottle cost more than I used to make in a couple of months, back in Detroit."

Once again, on the coffee table was an ashtray with a half dozen machine rolled joints, a butane lighter beside it. She held one up. "Baby, do you...?"

He smiled. "I did, back when I was a teen ager, but I quit when I went into the Navy. Didn't want to walk into a combat zone with a headful of clouds."

"Well, honey, you ain't in the Navy now.... and if I know Dan, we're in for a treat!"

She fired up the cigarette sized joint, taking an experimental hit. It tasted a bit like the Thai that he'd brought in a few months ago, but not quite.

They passed the doobie back and forth until it was too short to hold onto, then she dropped it into the ashtray to go out while he carefully opened the bottle of champagne, trying to catch it all in the first of the two glasses. Filling them both, he handed one to his new bride, and they clinked them together as they drank to their new union. 

He got up for a moment, turning on the stereo and selecting a Johnny Mathis CD, setting the player to shuffle and repeat, then rejoined Marlene on the couch, refilling their glasses and drinking the fine champagne, finishing off the bottle and another joint, until both were laughing at the slightest thing the other said. 

Finally, she got up on unsteady feet and gave him a sultry look over her shoulder. 

"I'm gonna go get out of this dress.... wanna help?"

Wild horses couldn't have held him back.

In the bedroom, he stepped up behind her, slowly unzipping the pale blue gown she'd been married in as he nuzzled at her ear

She turned slowly in his arms, her lips seeking and finding his, kissing him long and slow as he took her in his arms, his hands working at the clasps of her lacy demi-bra as their tongues twisted together.

She brought her hands to his tie, loosening the knot and pulling it over his head as she pulled back from his kiss for a moment to look him up and down.

"Husband, you're a bit over dressed!"

He smiled as he began unbuttoning his vest, then his shirt, as she worked at his pants. In moments, he was nude, and he eyed her lacy panties. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 06



"Now who's overdressed?"

She smiled and shoved the lace thong down her hips, then knelt at his feet, taking him in her mouth, talking his entire eight inches in one gulp. Licking and slurping her way back up, she went on to give him a fantastic blowjob, until he pulled back from her.

"Honey, you're leaving my mouth with nothin' to do!"

She smiled, and they both climbed onto the bed, her clambering on top of him as soon as he was on his back. Lowering her furry pussy to his lips, she went back to giving him head as he began licking her already opening lips.

Finding her clit, he fluttered his tongue across it as she moaned around his hardness, her juices gushing from her as she came, and finally, she couldn't stand it anymore, jumping up and fitting the head of his cock to her full pussy lips and plunging down on him in one hard thrust.

She rode him hard and fast, and he couldn't hold back for long, unleashing torrents of his cum deep inside her womb.

Charlene rested her head on Tom's shoulder for a few moments as their heartrates settled, kissing and nuzzling at his jaw line. "Baby?"

He turned to look into her eyes, lifting an eyebrow. 

"Are.... are we doing the right thing? I mean... is this the right world to be bringing a baby into?"

He thought long and hard before answering her. 

"Honey, it isn't much, but it's the only world we've got. I mean, yeah, it's going to be a long time before anyone from this shelter sees the outside world again, but we have to be sure there is someone left TO see the outside world again, to go out there and rebuild. We don't know what kind of world is gonna be left out there, once this war is done, and the radiation dies off."

He rubbed his chin for a moment, and she couldn't help but notice the similarity between her husband and her brother. Dan was prone to that same gesture when he was stalling for time to think about an answer to a question.

"There's a good reason I followed Dan to this place, and moved in here.... my old Commanding Admiral, who went on to work at the Pentagon, told me some things were going to happen. He wasn't expecting war, exactly, but he was more than a bit afraid of where the country was headed. We discussed it a few times, over the years. I figure he was thinking more along the lines of a collapse of society as we knew it."

"What do you mean?"

"Too many people with their hands out, not enough actually producing. Way too many people thinking the world owed them a living. Remember that 'Occupy Wall Street' thing?"

She nodded, with a slight frown. "I was working as a receptionist, in Detroit at an investment firm. Those idiots were camping out in the park across the street from our building... one of them ran up to me, screaming about a 'fair share'."

He nodded. "We had the same thing in Atlanta. Wasn't a one of them I woulda hired to clean toilets. Bunch of damned freeloaders, wanted a free ride on the backs of people who actually worked for a living."

She sat up, picking up their champagne glasses, handing his to him, and grabbing a joint from the ashtray. Lighting up, she passed it to him. They passed it back and forth for a few minutes, until he shook his head. 

"No more, dear.... it's makin' me sleepy."

"Oh, no, you ain't goin' to sleep on me yet, white boy... I ain't finished with you, not by a long shot!"

He grinned back at her, setting his empty glass down. "Why, what do you have in mind, babe?"

She reached for the drawer of the coffee table, pulling out a small white bottle. 



"We gonna need this."

He read the label and lifted an eyebrow. "Anal lube?" As the implications started to sink in, his cock gave a twitch, like a Doberman that has caught a scent of steak.

She nodded as she squirted a few drops on her hand, rubbing all over his swiftly hardening cock, then slipping off the couch, resting her forearms on the cushions with her ass in the air.

"Go slow back there at first, honey... I'm a virgin back there."

He settled to his knees behind her, between her spread legs, and fitted the mushroom shaped head of his hard dick to the rosebud of her anus, giving a slight shove. With a pop, it slid into her, aided by the slickness.

She winced a little, then allowed herself to relax somewhat, wondering, for a minute, if this was such a good idea after all. 'Too late now', she thought, as he gave a hard thrust and got another four inches inside her. 

He stopped for a moment, letting her body adjust to the intrusion, shoving a bit more into her as he reached around her with both hands, one grabbing a full tit while the other started rubbing roughly at her clit. One last shove and all of his eleven inch pole was buried in her ass, her moaning as he slid back out and pushed back into her. Soon he had a slow, steady rhythm going, and she was bucking back against him, moaning almost non stop.

"Oh, yeah, Baby.... that's good!"

He was picking up speed now, his balls slapping against her gaping cunt, and he lost his grip on her nipple, taking her by the hips and fucking her ass as fast and hard as he could, and she was doing a pretty fair imitation of a steam whistle. Finally, they could no longer hold back, and came together in a fury of passion fueled by the love they felt for each other.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 07



Several days later, in the Great hall of the cave, many of the adults had gathered; some didn't seem to know what, exactly, was going on. 

Dan stepped to the podium, and when things had settled down a bit, he began to speak.

"I know you're all uncomfortable; I know some of you are probably frightened. I know I sure as hell am." That brought a few nervous chuckles and nods of agreement. 

"There have been some questions about what's going on outside.... all I can say for sure is that, yes, there has been a war. According to the readings we're getting, the level of radioactivity outside of these walls is high enough that, if we stepped outside, even for a few minutes, we'd be dead in a week."

People looked at each other, utter dread in their eyes. The noise level climbed for a few moments, then tapered off.

"We are completely safe in here.... we will have to stay in our underground home for quite a few years, perhaps as long as a century, but we will survive. The walls and rooftops are covered in a thick coating of lead--impervious to the radiation outside... not to mention the dozens of feet of earth and rock it's buried under. Nobody out there knows the location of this bunker; now you know why I asked that you never talked about it, while we were building, supplying, and populating it."

He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. 

"You now know, too, why I insisted on stockpiling so many tons of supplies. We are stocked for at least a hundred and fifty years, and I hope it's enough... though our great-great-grandchildren may find the stockpile of toilet paper running a bit low." 

This was met, at least, with a bit of nervous laughter. 

"For now, though, all we can do is to go about our day to day lives. We must go on, living and dying, teaching our kids and tending our gardens and our animals, learning and researching, spending our time as we always have. When the day comes that it is safe to once more return to the surface, we will be ready to repopulate this part of the earth."

His final words were met with a smattering of applause and even a few cheers. It was the reassurance everyone needed, and he knew the calming effect would radiate outward to take in the young people and the elderly that had not turned up tonight.

Two hours later, in their apartment, as Barb and Dan lay in bed together, Barb lay her head on his shoulder, contented in the contact.... they were together; that was enough for her. 

"Honey?"

He turned to look at her, gazing into her eyes. He remembered, idly, that when he'd first seen those eyes, he'd thought that it would be all too easy to get lost in them.

"Hmmm?"

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing? I mean, are you really sure bringing kids into this world is the right thing to do?"

He nodded. "When things settle down, we're going to need to be ready to bring the earth-at least, this part of it- back to life, hun. I built this place so that humanity could have a chance to go on... so that the human race wouldn't die out completely. It's why we're here."

"Well, you and I will be doing our part." she replied, with a bit of a grin.

It took a moment for the words to sink in. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just say it's a good thing Doc Michaels recruited a group of Gynecologists and Obstetricians before we sealed the place."

The words sank in; his eyes popped open, wide, and he stuttered out.... "Are... are you... are you sure?!"

She smiled and nodded. "Doctor Willis says I'm about a month along. Matter of fact, I'm not the only one."

Dan was now smiling widely. "Oh, really? Who else?"

"Charlene, for one... at about the same time, as a matter of fact. Sally Mitchell, Willis thinks she got pregnant on that trip they took to Hawaii.... Bert Crenshaw, that woman they met there, in Hawaii, you know, her hubby's a veterinarian? The funny thing is, both of them, Sally and Bert, aren't sure which of their husbands got them pregnant."

He raised an eyebrow at this, and she giggled.

"They kinda.... had themselves a little 'sex party' in Hawaii.... the way Sally was talking, I guess they had a pretty wild afternoon. Both her and Bert got it in two holes at once, from what she was saying... and Sally picked up a taste for pussy, too."

He chuckled at this. "Giving you some ideas, dear?" he asked, with a rogue's grin. 

"I don't think so.... there's only one guy I want sexin' me up!"

He puffed out his chest, grinning, and replied "Well, Hell, I KNEW that! I meant are there any Ladies catchin' your eye?"

"Ooooh, you're gonna pay for that one, white boy!" She shouted, jumping on top of him, slapping him on both shoulders playfully.

He grabbed her hands, rolling her over until their positions were reversed, his hardening cock finding it's way between her full tits. 

"Am I, now? Will that be before or after I titty fuck you, dear?"

"Not until you fuck me, baby.... I need a little lubricatin', Ya know!"

He knee-walked back, until he was between her spread legs. "Thought you'd never ask, Honey.... but first..."

He dove, face first, between her thighs, his tongue aimed squarely at her already unfurling lips, driving his tongue between them and licking upwards, as her hands reached down to tangle in his hair. 

She scratched at the back of his head for a second, her long fingernails reaching through to his scalp, and he stopped to look up at her, his tongue moving in and out of her hole. 

She sighed as he continued, wondering how she had gotten so lucky; her hubby was a Superb pussylicker.

He shifted his tongue to her hard little clit, licking circles around it, and sent her over the top, a flood of juice washing over his chin and cheeks. He kept his tongue moving, between her hole and her clit, and soon, her moans blended together into a nonstop song.

Now her orgasms were coming almost nonstop, and his face was drenched, his mustache soaked through. He gave her clit one last lick, and keeping her legs atop his shoulders, sat up on his knees, keeping her ass almost on the mattress and sliding his hard cock into her to the hilt in one hard thrust.

"OOOOHH! That's it, Baby, right there! Fuck meee honeeee!" 

He picked up a rhythm, fucking her hard and fast, slamming into her again and again, until he couldn't keep it going anymore and washed her insides with his cum. Even then, he kept thrusting, slower now, and to both of their surprise, his hard on didn't wilt... he pulled out of her suddenly, flipping her over on her stomach, spread her cheeks, fitted the head of his dick to the small rosebud of her anus, and drove the first few inches up her ass.

"Oh, God, babe, take it easy!" 

He gave her a few moments, then gave another push, until he was almost all the way in, then pulled back and drove in again, picking up speed as her rectum relaxed to recieve him. Soon she was bucking her hips back at him, crying out as he slammed into her, his balls slapping against her gaping pussy lips and clit at every stroke, until he finally lost control again, releasing another load of cum deep in her bowel. 

"Oh! Dan, I love you.... Oh, God... Baby, you DO know how to take care of me!" She was straining to catch her breath, as was he, and he pulled out of her ass and lay back down beside her.

He lay on his back beside her, sliding an arm around her shoulders, and drew her to him, her head laying on his chest. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.

The next day, he was up early, after a call from Dave Hughes.... it seemed a few of the buildings furthest out weren't getting enough oxygen. They were a bit too far from the forest and farm chambers that supplied much of their oxygen. The simplest solution was to pipe oxygen in from one of the forest chambers, but it would take a few days to get all of the plumbing in place. They had plenty of three inch pipes and various angled connecters to go around, and Brad could set up a fan at the intake end to force fresh air into the pipes and send it through the thousands of feet of pipe to reach this end of the complex. They added a number of potted plants to supplement the oxygen supply and eat up the excess carbon dioxide. 

Within a week, everything was in place, and the air was flowing, and air pumps in the basements of the several buildings were sending the carbon dioxide back to the forest chambers, creating a cycle. 

Tom Jennings came up with the idea of running the small fans from solar panels, which picked up energy from the lights in the forest chambers and lights that were on timers in the basements. They added large 'Gel-Cell' batteries to keep the fans running when the lights were out, and the cycles were complete.

Over the next nine months, Barb, both of her sisters, Sally Mitchell, 'Bert' Crenshaw, and a number of other women around the complex gave birth; Barb got her wish all at once, with a boy and a girl, Dan Junior and Debbie; Charlene had a little boy, who they named James, after her father, Marlene had a little girl, who her and Ron named Barbara Jean, Sally had a son, who was named Brad Jr., and Jim and Bert had twins, named Jimmy junior and Bradley. 

Over the years, they continued as they had begun, living, giving birth and dying; growing their own food and raising their livestock, fishing in the lake chamber and hunting in the forest chambers, learning and teaching their children and keeping the old knowledge alive.

There were both driving and flight simulators, and at least five people, at any given time, were trained to drive the few dozen tanks that were still sitting in one of the garage chambers. The radiation counts were closely monitored, but it would be nearly two hundred years before it would be safe to step outside again.

In the meantime, they practiced strict population control, holding the population to under four thousand people, in order to make their stored supplies go as far as possible, and enacted strict bag limits on the game animals in the forest chambers and in the underground lakes, to ensure that there would continue to be venison, fish, lobster, crab, and other game foods. 

One group of young people started using some live catch traps they found in one of the warehouse chambers to catch rabbits, racoons, and squirrels, putting them in homemade hutches and cages to breed them, which, quite naturally, meant another source of both meat and furs for making clothing. Rabbit stew soon became a staple in many diets in the complex. 

Children spent much of their time reading; it was not an uncommon sight to see fifteen or twenty kids in the library or the great hall with a book in their hands, and the literacy rate in the Cave was always a hundred percent.

The military tradition amongst many of the families was kept alive, as well, and for many of the kids, being taken down to the target range was a treat. At times, competitions were held, with small wooden plaques being handed out to the winners. The descendants of the numerous Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, and Recon Marines kept the traditions alive, practicing their skills at camoflage, moving silently, infiltration, and surviving in the forest with no more than a knife, the clothes on their backs, and a few dozen feet of parachute cord. 

Every half a year or so, the kids would go to the target range for a different purpose, one that not many found so appealing; digging out the lead from the huge berm that provided the backstop for the bullets that they practiced with. This was taken back to the metal shops, where it was melted down and cast into bullets for reloading into the saved brass and fresh brass casings, which Dan had bought by the billions. They had, literally, a warehouse full of various types of ammunition, but they saw no reason to waste it, when they couldn't be certain there would be sources to replenish their supplies once they left the Cave.

By the count of those who kept track of such things, the year was 2175; Jimmy Archer was in the control room when the radiation detectors first dipped down into the green range--the range where it could be deemed safe to go outside. He watched the meter intently, and it ticked back up into the gray area, which meant it was what his great grandfather would have called 'borderline'; then it dropped back into the green again. He decided to hold this information to himself for the time being, for perhaps another month. 

He knew, from the stories passed down from his father, grandfather, and great grandpa Dan, that this entire area had sustained no direct hits; further out, where the bombs had gone off, the radiation counts might well be much higher. As the current leader of the colony, it was his responsibility to keep his people inside until going outside was deemed safe.

He spent the evening going through his great grand dad's notes, looking for anything he could use to tell him a bit more about the surrounding area, knowing that the complex had quite a few features built in that great grandpa hadn't told anyone else about. Finally, he hit upon something that looked promising. 

He was interrupted in his reading by his young wife, Jan.

"Honey, are you coming to dinner, or what?"

"Be right there, dear... "

"C'mon, you can read any time... the kids haven't seen you in three days. I think they're starting to wonder what Daddy looks like."

"I know, hun.... there's just been so much to do, lately... Hell, that waste problem took five of us a week, just to dig out. "

"I know.... I had to smell it when you came in, remember? It's a good thing you wore your old clothes.... I'd have hated to have to throw away new ones."

"Yeah.... but the compost piles got a big boost out of it. It'll pay off in the long run, those piles fertilize the farms that feed us."

At the dinner table, he saw that his youngest son was looking a bit puffy. He shot his wife a look, raising an eyebrow.

"Bee stings... Doc Martin gave him a shot of something, says he should be fine in a few days."

"Stings? More than one? What, did he get too close to a hive?"

Jan shook her head. "He was playing baseball, in that clearing in forest chamber three. The bees were swarming... I guess they had too many in that hive. George Loomis set up another one for them, I think he's going to move it to chamber five when they all settle in, in a few days."

"Good, we can use the extra honey production. Ever since George found out there was a way to make Mead, there's been a bit of a shortage." 

"Yeah, but have you tasted that mead? Oh, my God, it's good!"

He grinned.... "Yeah, I have. Did he drop some off or something?"

"Yes... it's in the liquor cabinet.... we'll have a little, after the kids go to bed."

"Jeanne Chisholm is bottling a fresh batch of whiskey, too... says it's been aging in the barrel for the past ten years."

"I know... God, listen to us! We sound like a couple of drunks!"

He grinned back at her. "Nothin' wrong with appreciating a good drink from time to time, dear.... especially if it makes your panties drop!"

She gave him a small frown, turning her eyes to the kids for a minute to tell him it wasn't appropriate dinner conversation, then started dishing up food onto plates.

He looked over the table before him.... venison roast, from the big buck he'd taken, earlier this year, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked beans, and cornbread. "What's the occasion, Babe?"

"Nothing special.... I just didn't feel like leftover rabbit stew tonight.... the dogs got the last of that."

He looked to his other side; Rex, his Rottweiler/Lab mix, was sitting barely a foot away, drooling, looking up at his master hopefully. 

"Rex, go lay down. If there's anything left, you'll get first crack at it."

The big dog looked at him with an 'I'll hold you to that' look, wagged his tail, and retreated to his usual post by the stove, laying down with his head on his paws, and sighed contentedly. He knew, in the way dogs seem to know, that his master was as good as his word.

Later, over coffee and blueberry pie, his wife asked him a question he hadn't seen coming.

"Babe, have you ever thought about having more kids?"

"Hadn't really thought about it, no... why? Do you want to?"

"Welllll..... It's not really a matter of 'want to', at this point..."

He looked up sharply at this. "You mean..."

"Remember that night the condom broke, about two months ago?"

"You're kidding. It was just that one time!"

"Apparently, once was enough."

His oldest, Jenny, was looking back and forth between them like watching a tennis match. "Mommy's pregnant?"

Jan nodded. "Yup.... you're going to have another little brother, or sister."

Jim was grinning ear to ear by this point.

Jenny wasn't quite so enthused... "Oh, no.... you mean I'm gonna be stuck babysitting?"

Jim grinned at this, deciding to dig the needle in a little.

"Oh, not just babysitting... you forgot about changing diapers, midnight feedings, burping....."

"EEwwww!"

Jan frowned at her husband a little, but couldn't hold it.

Jim took his last bite of pie, washed it down with his last swallow of coffee, and sat back with a contented sigh. Suddenly, a memory popped into his head. 

"Honey, I almost forgot.... Leeanne Bertoni caught up to me earlier this afternoon.... said for me to ask you if you and the kids are up for a bit of berry picking tomorrow. The raspberries are ripe, in forest one, and she wants to get as many as she can before the birds and the animals get them all."

"Oh, lord.... we still have a ton of them in the dehydrated storage."

"I think she's going to make jam out of this batch."

"Well, that's ok, then.... but me and the kids are already going to be busy.... coffee beans and peanuts are both getting ripe, too, and the apples are about to start falling off the trees. We're going to have a bumper crop of those, too."

"If there are too many, drop off a few bushels in the forest chambers.... the deer love 'em."

"Good idea.... the deer are getting a bit on the thin side.... need to fatten 'em up, then send a few guys in to harvest a few. There are a few too many right now, and they're eating the grass down to the roots."

He nodded. "Make a note... tell Rod to drop off a few bags of oats and wheat, and maybe half a dozen bushels of corn, too.... small piles, maybe a dozen or so, spaced out in each of the forest rooms, so all the deer get a shot at them."

He stroked his chin for a moment, and added. "Once a week, for about the next two months or so... then we'll have a lottery for who gets to hunt them."

"I've got a better idea.... there are a few guys who haven't gotten the permits in the past three years... how about giving them first crack at them?"

"Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on it, babe.... go ahead and check the records, see who you think will benefit most, and get back to me with a short list. Anything else I should know about?"

"The rest will wait, for now." She replied, diverting her eyes, once again, to the kids, indicating that whatever the 'rest' was, it wasn't for their ears.

He nodded, yawning a bit. "Well, dear, I'm going to lay down for a bit, it's been a long day. Wake me up in a few hours, huh?"

Jeanne Chisholm sat at the dining table with her husband Rod and their son, Max. 

"Honey, did you find me any more bottles in the storage room?"

"Yes, dear.... they've already been dropped off in the still room. Why, do you have something ready for bottling?"

She nodded. "It's been in the barrel for the past ten years, maturing... and this batch has a bit of a twist to it, too...."

He lifted an eyebrow. "What did you do now?" His wife was well known for 'experimenting'.

"Well..... remember that year when we had that huge crop of the Jamaican?"

His eyes grew wide... he had a feeling he knew where this was going.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 07



"I took about five pounds of dried leaf, and a pound of dried bud, powdered it, and poured it into a twenty five gallon charred oak barrel, then poured the fresh whiskey in with it... it's been aging this whole time like that."

"You've gotta be kidding."

"Nope.... this stuff is going to have a double kick to it."

"Ok.... well, I know we've got about half a dozen fifth and quart bottles down at the recycling plant... I'll grab those.... boiling them clean will be up to you, though."

"No problem.... can you grab me some firewood, though?"

"Ok.... I think I can get some from the woodshop.... Bob's been teaching the kids the Shaker style, so there's probably a pile of cut offs there."

Jim was having the coolest dream.... his wife was giving him one of her fan-fucking-tastic blowjobs. He swum his way up out of the dream and looked towards his feet... to see that it was no dream, Jan's head was bobbing on his hard cock. 

"Babe, if you're gonna do that, how about giving me a little taste?"

She replied by stopping long enough to strip off her panties, shift around on the bed, and bring her already moistening pussy in line with his willing tongue before once more taking his hardness into her mouth, licking all over the head before sucking him to the back of her throat, bobbing her head up and down on his stiff cock.

He extended his tongue to her soft nether lips, running it all over them again and again before turning his attention to her hard little clit, feeling her shudder as he fluttered his tongue across it. She was already juicy as hell, and his face was quickly awash in her essence. 

Every time his tongue fluttered across her clit, she sucked harder at him, and just as he was ready to shoot, she backed off, letting the urgency subside for a moment, and pulled away from him.

Before he could protest, she swung around and straddled his hips, plunging her tight wetness down on his hard dick and beginning to ride him, slowly, rubbing her distended nipples in his face. He obliged her by taking both of her swollen tits in his hands, flicking his tongue over her reddish brown nipple as she rode him, massaging her other breast in his hand, flicking his thumb over her other nipple, extending it another eighth of an inch.

She picked up speed, riding him hard, until she couldn't hold back, cumming all over his hard on as he spurted jets of his own cum deep inside her womb. She continued to rock on him for long moments before collapsing on top of him, panting for breath.

"Oh, Lord, babe, that was good! It's soooo much better without those damned rubbers in the way!"

He grinned, kissing her neck and cheek. "I guess it doesn't matter much now, anyway, huh?"

She rolled off of him, laying her head on his chest, and shook her head. "Not really, no.... what are we gonna tell people, though? We've already got our two."

"Tell 'em the truth... the rubber broke, one of my little swimmers got to you, it was an accident, and we don't believe in abortion. End of discussion. Hell, what's the point of being the leader of this place if it doesn't have the odd perk?"

She slapped his chest playfully. "I'd hardly call a baby a 'perk'!"

"You know what I mean, Dear... the rules are supposed to apply to all of us equally, and the rule is only two kids to a family." 

She kissed him, lightly, and replied "I know... I guess I just want this baby so much."

"Don't worry too much about it, babe... I think it isn't going to matter that much, by this time next year."

She sat up abruptly at this, staring at him intently. "What do you mean?"

"We might not be stuck in here much longer. The Rad counts have been dropping pretty steadily for the past few years. I think it might be safe, pretty soon, to go outside. We'll have to stay close to the shelter, at first, of course, but we may be able to see the sun, sometime soon."

"OhMyGod, are you kidding?"

"Nope.... I want to hold it to a few small groups, heavily armed, at first, of course... no tellin' what we're going to find out there; but yes... I think, in another year, maybe two... we'll see the sun again."

"Well, dear husband, in the meantime, I have a treat for you." she replied, reaching for the drawer of the bedside table and fishing out a small baggie filled with a greenish-gold leafy substance. 

"Mike brought it from one of the garden chambers earlier today... his latest hybrid."

"Oh, my.... well, hell, dear, lets roll one up and try it."

She reached over again and withdrew a fat joint from behind the ashtray. "Already did... I was just waiting for after dinner."

She fired up the doobie and set the silver Zippo aside, grabbing the ashtray and laying it on his stomach as she moved to straddle him again. 

He took a deep hit, tasting bit carefully... 

"Let's see... a strong hawaiian taste, but there's something else to it.... it almost tastes like some of that Hydro that Grandpa Dan got, just before the war."

She smiled. "Good guess... the Hydro is in there, along with a cross breeding of Thai. Mike bred the Hydro to the Thai, then bred the offspring into the Hawaiian. He told me he's been working on this one for the last nine months. The guy's like a mad scientist!"

Jim took another deep hit and was inclined to agree.... but then, that had a lot to do with why he'd assigned Mike to the gardens in the first place. He had a knack for seeing possibilities others wouldn't have dreamed of.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 08



Ok, folks, here's the next part. Sorry about the delays in between chapters, but the muse is taking this into areas I hadn't thought of yet. More will be on the way soon. 

*

Leeanne sat back at the dinner table, looking calmly at her husband of three years.

"You're wrong, Dennis.... the doctor's tests don't lie. I'm as fertile as a field.... it's you that isn't making the grade."

"Well, it damn sure isn't me!"

"How do you know? You refuse to get yourself tested..... afraid of what the doc will say? Hell, half the time, you can't get it up anyway!"

He glowered at her, knowing that she was right, but unwilling to admit it. "Well. you spreading your legs for somebody else isn't going to happen."

"Wanna bet? I've got news for you. I want a baby. You can't give me one, I'll go to someone who can!"

He lost his temper and hit her, an open handed slap that took her breath away. Instantly regretting his actions, he reached for her saying "Baby, I'm sorry.... I didn't mean to do that."

She backed away, out of his reach, rubbing her cheek. "You won't get another chance. I'm leaving. You can go back to humping your fist... I'm done with you."

She picked up the ancient cordless phone, dialling Jim Archer's number. 

Jim picked up the phone, handing his wife the joint, and hit the on button. 

"Hello?"

"Hi, Jim.... it's Leeanne Samuels."

He lifted an eyebrow. Samuels was Leeanne's maiden name.

"Hi, Leeanne.... what's wrong? What's with using your old name?"

"I've had my last fight with Dennis. I'm annulling the marriage and leaving him.... are there any apartments open at the moment?"

"Sure.... there are four or five, ready to go, in building twenty six. Are you sure of this?"

"Very sure.... this bastard doesn't get away with hitting me. I only give a dog one bite."

Jim lifted an eyebrow. "He hit you? Do you need some help there?"

"Anyone you could send would be fine. I don't have much to take with me."

"Ok, hun, hang on, cavalry will be on their way in a few minutes."

Jim Miller and Gar Davidson pulled up in front of the Bertoni apartment a few minutes later, and Leeanne opened the door at their knock. 

Jim looked her over, seeing the red imprint of a male hand on her cheek, and glared at Dennis, who was standing back in the room, still begging Lee to stay.

"Are you ok, Lee?"

"Fine, now. Just get me out of here."

Jim swept his hand out to indicate the electric golf cart they'd run over in, telling her wordlessly to jump aboard; she put her suitcases and boxes in the attached trailer and jumped in the back seat.

He was still staring Dennis down, and growled "If you ever go near her again, punk-boy, I'll make sure you live just long enough to regret it."

Dennis stared back at Jim, knowing he'd make good on that; Jim Miller was one of the biggest men in the bunker, standing nearly six foot ten and weighing well over three hundred pounds.... and not much of it was fat. He was built like a linebacker from the old game of 'football', and while Dennis wasn't small, he knew he was outmatched.

Leeanne settled into the seat behind the two men, lost in her own thoughts for the moment. 

Gar Davidson turned in his seat to gaze at the slightly chunky brunette. He'd had a crush on her when they'd been kids in school, and wondered if he should give her some time. 

"Are you okay, Lee?"

She nodded. "I'll be fine.... I just need to get away from him.... I'm tired of his bullshit." Gar raised an eyebrow at this.

She saw his look and nodded. "I've been trying to get pregnant by him for three years now, but I think he's shooting blanks. The doc says it definitely isn't me."

Gar tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his grin at this. Maybe he had a chance after all. 

She saw his look and smiled inwardly. She knew he had a crush on her... but she wasn't the sort to make the first move, and he'd never asked her out.

'Maybe it's time to get a bit more aggressive.' she thought to herself. First, though, she needed time to get situated, and to get her mind to a better place.

Jim got his great-granddad's journal back out and read it in bed, while his wife slept beside him. He knew he needed to get a look at the area around the outside of the shelter, and this reference to a camera sounded like just the ticket. He'd have to go down to the computer command center and check it out in the morning.

Johnny Corcoran sat in the control room, reading Jim's note, nodding to himself. He knew Jim was right; they needed to be cautious, at first. Having people run out of the Cave willy-nilly was the absolute last thing they wanted... there could be dangers lurking out there that they had no idea about.

He hated to keep the information to himself, and wondered if he should tell his wife. 'Yeah, right' he thought. 'Might as well announce it over the PA system.' He loved the woman dearly, but he knew, from first hand experience, that she could never keep her mouth shut. 

He looked back up, at the two century old map on the ancient bulletin board, seeing again the areas that had been hardest hit, according to what little they'd been able to pick up from the network of satellites, so very long ago. 

Dan Archer, the founder, had somehow managed to tap into the network of military satellites, keeping a rough log of the major cities that had been hit... and if the map was accurate, the number was appalling. 

One was less than two hundred miles away, and was listed as a major military site. Others, which were merely large population centers, showed as huge red clusters on the map. He knew that the more little red dots there were in a specific area meant the heavier the concentration of bombs and missiles that had hit them. They were areas he'd only read about in the old books and had been taught about in history classes. 

Jim sat at the ancient computer desk, tapping in the last of a dozen passwords, and the old machinery far above him went to work. A flat door in the mountain top raised up out of the way, a tall mast extended upwards by perhaps fifty feet, and the digital video cameras at the top started projecting images from four different directions, giving him four views of the surrounding countryside, each on a seperate monitor.

To the east and north, there was nothing but rolling countryside, meadows and forest, mostly, which is what the old maps depicted. To the west was a road, or at least, a path, which looked like it got a fair amount of traffic. This troubled him, since he knew it wasn't on the old maps of the area, which great grandpa Dan had made from aerial photographs, taken so very long ago. 

To the south was what appeared to be a small village, consisting of a number of what appeared to be crude log houses. Surrounding the village were acres of cultivated land, much more than what was needed to feed the occupants of perhaps a dozen homes.

'Probably use some of the goods for trading.' He thought as he continued to observe them. There were perhaps thirty people in the fields, cleaning up weeds and harvesting the odd vegetable from time to time. They appeared to be tomatoes and carrots. 

Using the computer's controls, and a joystick that the kids usually used for the old computer games that were still in use, he panned around, seeing some other crops, including corn, beans of some sort, several types of grain, and what appeared to be pumpkins. 

A small pasture on the eastern edge of the farmland held half a dozen cows and a bull, along with several calves, all of which looked decidedly thin. 

Panning the camera back to the village, he realized what was missing--- there was no sign of any sort of mechanical transportation, not so much as a single car. There were, however, several wagons sitting by a large, barnlike structure.... probably pulled by cattle, since he saw no evidence of horses.

John D'agastino sat back in the Archer apartment, nodding to himself as he listened to Jim. He'd followed in his Great Grandfather's footsteps, and was the spiritual leader of the community.

If what Jim was telling him was true, they would want to tread very carefully. They didn't want to startle the people in the village to the south of them, and would need to observe them for at least a few days before they made contact. The pathway, crude as it was, suggested that the villagers were visited by someone, from time to time, but the question was--who?

Jim waited as Father Johnny sat back, digesting all that he'd told him. He knew the Minister would think long and hard before saying anything, and his responses, when they came, would be insightful and well thought out. 

"You're right, Jim, we have to be cautious, at first... we don't want to startle them too much. Around here, 'stranger' might well mean 'enemy'. How do you want to proceed?"

Jim rubbed his chin for a moment. "Well, first off, I don't want to tip our hand too early.... foot patrols only, and even then, only at night. I don't want our vehicles exposed too soon. We should probably prep a few Humvees and big pickups... pull wheels and tires out of the storage rooms, once the Argon gas has been pumped out of the chambers and bottled up. Get new hoses and belts on the engines, too. Get the engines prepped and running, and maybe a few Armored Personnel Carriers and tanks, too... just in case we need them. I wonder if the old 'duck blinds' are still in place?"

"No idea.... as for the trucks and whatnot, they won't be a problem. I was talking to Gar the other day. He spent a few days looking over the vehicles in the motor pool a few weeks ago. Said he didn't understand it, but every car and truck he looked at appeared to be ready to run. Matter of fact, he got into a few of them, started them... said they started right up."

Jim nodded. His father had once told him that he'd thought Grandpa Dan had made a deal with something they couldn't explain, but he hadn't elaborated on the statement. Still, there were a lot of systems that never seemed to need any kind of maintenence, which made no sense to him. Light bulbs never burned out, and none of the household appliances ever failed, despite the fact that they had a whole warehouse full of replacements.

He didn't know that an old friend of Great Grandpa Dan's, by the name of DJ, had laid down a spell of regeneration upon every mechanical device in the Cave; wear and tear literally healed itself, and the aging process never touched any machine in the place. It was his idea of a 'parting gift' to the inhabitants of the Cave, who were mostly people he'd grown extremely fond of. 

Sarah Mitchell led her small class through the forms of Kung Fu that had been passed down through her family since the Sealing; her Great Grandpa Brad had always stressed to his daughter and two sons the importance of self defense. This was the advanced class, mostly kids in their late teens, along with a sprinkling of older folks who joined in just to keep in shape. 

Martial arts were a popular form of exercise in the Cave, and just about everyone in the place had a good grounding in at least one or two schools. Some, like Sarah, would have been considered 'Black Belts', in the old world. 

In an adjoining gymnasium chamber, Bob Tyler was doing the same, though his own specialty was Judo, and at the end of the two hour session, both classes would jump into the adjoined swimming pool to cool down and horse around for a few hours.

Two days passed, with Jim Archer spending much of the time keeping an eye on the monitors. It was time to talk to his informal council. 

Jim Miller and Sarah Mitchell came in first, and he waved them over to the big coffee makers on the table by the wall, which also held an assortment of donuts, biscuits, muffins, and rolls.

Father John and his wife, Jenny, turned up next, each grabbing a cup of coffee before taking seats at the council table. 

Doc Martin and Gar Davidson soon followed, with John Corcoran right behind them.

Leeanne Samuels and Jim Miller came in last, each carrying large file folders and their favorite coffee cups. 

When everyone was seated, Archer began to speak.... 

"As most of you already know, the rad counts outside our home have been dropping steadily for the past few years. Earlier today, when I checked the meters, they were, in fact, well into the 'green'--meaning it may be safe to go outside."

He had their full attention now. Some were looking at each other, the beginnings of smiles on their faces; not surprising, considering that none of them had ever seen the outside world, save for old movies and pictures in books. 

Archer continued. "Now keep in mind, those counts are fluctuating; unless I miss my guess, this means that there are still areas of radioactivity that the wind brings our way. What is safe today may well be deadly tomorrow. I've taken the liberty of having bottles of Potassium Iodide tablets brought out of storage, which should help a little, should anyone be exposed to radiation. It helps to keep the body from absorbing it. We're also going to need silent weapons; knives, hand crossbows, and silenced pistols, just in case. I don't want anyone going out unprepared. I've got some of the bakeries putting together some compact food bars, too, but they're going to need some time to get those figured out. Doc?" he said, looking in the direction of Martin.

Doctor Martin looked up from his notepad. "I think I know what's coming... I have a young Medic trainee in mind... he's quite good. I'll put together a first aid kit for him to take along."

Archer nodded. "I want to wait, one more month, while we observe that little village through the monitors. The people there don't appear to be too well fed, in spite of the amount of land they're farming, and they're dressed, basically, in rags. We need to know more about them before actually making contact. They appear to be pretty poor, and poor people could be pretty desperate to get their hands on some of the things we have."

John Corcoran caught his eye.

"Johnny? You have something to add?"

The younger man nodded, consulting his notes. "I was on watch in the control room earlier today... saw some of those folks pulling up some carrots and what looked like potatoes, and harvesting a few tomatoes and ears of corn. They would fill up a small cloth bag and run off to one or another of the cabins, looking all around as if they were afraid someone was going to catch them at it.... a few minutes later, they each came back, the empty bags sticking out from their pockets. The other people in the fields.... well, it was almost as if they were making it a point to ignore it."

Sarah Mitchell lifted an eyebrow at this; it triggered an image from an old book she'd read, of people who were plagued by bandits, who demanded tribute from a small village of farmers.

Archer nodded. "I know that yesterday, a small group of young men came into that village around nightfall, with what looked like a bunch of rabbits and squirrels hanging from their belts.... I thought, at the time, that they must have either been trapping them or using some sort of slingshot or some-such, something small enough that I couldn't see them in the monitors. They all went to the big cabin in the middle. They must all be eating together."

Father John nodded. "That makes sense... either that, or they were having some sort of communal celebration.... a birthday, or a wedding, for example."

Corcoran shook his head. "I think they do that every day. At least, they've done the same thing, every time I've watched them."

Sarah Mitchell nodded at this. "It would make sense... they probably keep one or two big pots of stew going, and everyone gets a bowl at the end of the day... probably bake bread in there too, or some kind of biscuits or muffins... something they can take home with them to eat for breakfast. The question is, why? They've got enough land under cultivation to keep twice as many people well fed, year round... so why do they look like a bunch of underfed scarecrows?"

Leeanne spoke up. "Should we send in people with a bunch of trade goods, see if they'll trade some of their produce, just to kinda test the waters?"

"Not yet... we don't know if they're gathering food in the forests nearby. I know there were quite a few apple trees and assorted berries growing there, according to Grandpa Dan's notes."

He thought it over for a second. 

"Let's wait until well after first contact is made. We need to find out what they have, first, to guage what they need." Father John replied.

Corcoran nodded. "I think some new clothes might be a good idea... they're dressed, pretty much, in rags. I think a few dozen pair of sweats might be a good idea."

Jim nodded. There was something else, too... they had a good sized chicken coop, but, from what he'd seen, maybe a dozen chickens. He'd have thought that they'd have at least fifty or sixty to provide eggs and meat for that many people. Hell, the Cave maintained a flock of well over three thousand; in truth, between them, the ducks, and the geese, there were still occasional shortages of eggs.

Of course, the bulk of the eggs gathered every day went to the half dozen bakeries scattered around the Cave, to keep the occupants supplied with fresh bread. More went to the room where the noodles were made, so a breakfast of bacon and eggs was generally considered a treat. More often than not, it was toast with butter and jam, and a cup or two of coffee for the adults, and hot chocolate for the kids.

Jim took the final step, going to the massive blast doors, thinking about how long it would take to dig out from the sealing. He was shocked when he got to the end of the long tunnel, though.

 The tunnel mouth was clear, and the dirt and rock that had sealed them in so long ago was sitting in piles to either side of the entrance; the excavation appeared to be fresh.

 He walked out slowly, warily, the wand from his Geiger counter leading the way, but the readings he got were very low, well within safe limits.

 He went back inside, closing the blast doors behind him, remembering something his dad had said about 'outside aid'. The big question was, who the hell had the kind of resources and equipment to move thirty or forty tons of earth and rock in this day and age? 

It was a mystery he would puzzle over to the end of his days.

Somewhere in the ethereal plane, a djinn, who his great grandfather had called DJ, sat back and smiled.

They continued their observation for a further two weeks; in the end, though, they got their answers. 

Jim was watching the monitors the day the aging Humvee rolled up; the driver and passenger got out, both wearing what appeared to be military uniforms, but not from any branch of the old American military that Jim could recall seeing in the numerous videos he'd seen over the years.

 Zooming in the cameras to their utmost, he studied them closely; they appeared to be some kind of Orientals.... and they were carrying AK-47 rifles.

If ever he wished he could hear what was being said, it was now, but soon enough, their intentions were made clear by their gestures.

The more senior of the two, who had been driving, was apparently shouting at the villagers, pointing at the baskets of vegetables, then at the truck. Three of the villagers picked up the three baskets and took them to the old vehicle, pouring the contents into containers of some sort in the back, then bringing the empty baskets back to the fields.

One old man appeared to say something, and the passenger hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. The driver appeared to find this amusing, nodding his approval even as he looked over the villagers. Jim thought he was watching for resistance, but this was disproven a moment later.

He walked into the field, stopping in front of a young girl, who appeared to be a malnourished nineteen or twenty years old, at best. He grabbed her by the hair, dragged her to the truck, forced her to her knees, and unzipped his trousers, forcing his semi hard little dick into her mouth, while the other soldier stood guard. He thrust his dick into her mouth half a dozen times or so, then pulled out, grabbing her by the hair again and forcing her to bend over the fender, flipping up her crude skirt and shoving his cock into her without the slightest bit of lubrication, aside from her own saliva, brutally raping her right then and there. He slammed into her dry, fucking her quickly, and apparently came, as he pulled out of her after only a few minutes, put his dick away, and said something to the young girl. Then he walked over to his buddy, taking his rifle up and pointing at the sobbing young girl, clearly indicating that it was his turn. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 08



The other soldier walked over to her, unzipped, and drove into her himself, slamming her against the fender of the old truck again and again, then pulling out, appearing to reposition himself, and drove his dick into her ass, eliciting what appeared to be a scream from his young victim.

This apparently didn't sit well with him, as he slapped the back of her head and continued to slam into her. Finally, he pulled out of her, wiped himself off with a piece of cloth, zipped up, and pushed his young victim back towards the field, then the two of them got back in the truck and drove off.

Jim watched all of this in growing horror; when the two men left, one of the older women from the village walked over to the young girl, taking her by the arm and leading her back to one of the cabins, presumably to clean her up and tend to the wounds she'd incurred. Another took up the unconscious older man, carrying him back to another of the dwellings. 

He called the council members together on the spot, and as soon as they were together, he recounted what he'd seen. 

Doc Martin was the first to speak.

"Well, Jim, I think that settles the question of when we're going out. Those two likely require medical attention.... That girl needs a dose of antibiotics at the very least, not to mention a healthy dose of 'morning after' contraceptives, and from the sound of things, the older gentleman probably needs stitches and antibiotics."

Johnny Corcoran nodded.... "And these'soldiers,' " he said, voice dripping with contempt, "It sounds like they need a healthy dose of lead poisoning.... two rounds to the head."

Jim nodded, but he was frowning. "Ok, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. I agree, we need to go see to these folks. Hunting down these so-called 'soldiers' will have to wait, though, until we find out where they're based. We need to send out some scouting teams to track them to their base and gather intelligence, see how they have things set up. At this point, we don't even know where they're from."

Gar Davidson nodded in agreement. "I think I know just the people for that. We've got a group of kids who are as good as any... I know my brother, Tommy, has managed to sneak up to a deer in one of our forests and pat it on the ass before it knew he was there."

Jim arched an eyebrow at this. "How is he at tracking?"

"He's not bad.... of course, there's a bit of a difference between tracking a deer in the forest and following the tracks left by a vehicle the size of a Hummer."

Jim nodded, deep in thought. Finally, he replied. "Ok... tell him to assemble a small team; no more than five or six people. Knives and silenced pistols only, and only as a last resort. No contact unless it's unavoidable. We want to gather as much intel as possible before we take these punks out. Particularly the size of the force we're dealing with, and how well they're trained."

Gar nodded. "I already went into one of the warehouses, got out a few of those old handheld radios and some fresh batteries. The Founders were thorough.... they stored the batteries in a storage container that was airtight, in some sort of inert gas environment. They're still holding a full charge. We can give each scouting team a radio, and station someone just inside the Cave tunnel mouth, so if they need help, we can get someone to them quick." 

"Good idea.... look through the inventories, locate some nightime camo uniforms, issue them to both the scouting parties and the back up troops. Make sure they remember to use something on their faces to break up their outlines. Night vision gear, too, come to think of it.... hell just tell them to draw whatever they think they'll need. They'll know better than we do."

He then shifted his gaze to Doc Martin. "Doc, I want your medic to go in with a full squad.... fully armed, and I want every member carrying a bag of those food bars. Comes to that, have you got another medic for the other team?"

"We come bearing gifts?" the Doctor quipped, a small grin on his face.

"Exactly.... it looks like these folks haven't had more than one decent meal a day for longer than I want to think about. The bars the bakery has come up with, well... two of them are probably equal to a bowl of chicken soup and a good sandwich. Make sure that they know not to eat too many, or too fast. We don't want to make them sick."

"Ok.... and I know just the guy for team two, I'll tell him to get his gear ready. I'm guessing you want full medical kits, the works, right?"

"Yup. You still have some of that triple-antibiotic ointment, right?"

Martin nodded absentmindely. "Just got a fresh batch from the lab. I'll send a couple of jars with each team."

Sarah Mitchell looked up at this. "We have a couple of thousand packs of dehydrated stuff we can give them... it's getting a bit old, but it's still good. Mostly fruit and vegetables.... "

Jim nodded, but then frowned. "Hold off on that. We don't want to tip our hand to these folks either. I'd rather see them get seeds, so they can be more self sufficient, than to make them dependent on us. Remember the words of the founders... 'A hand up, not a handout'."

Bob Gunderson was just walking out to the outhouse when a voice reached him from the darkness.

"Sir, are you OK?"

He spun around, peering into the dark, trying in vain to determine the source of the disembodied voice. 

"Who's there? Who are you?"

Tom Dorn stepped forward, drawing back the veil of black netting that concealed his face. "Don't be alarmed... we're here to help."

"We? Who's we?"

Gunderson's eyes grew wide as seven others stepped forward, moving silently in the darkness. One man stepped forward, looking closely at Gunderson's head wound. 

The old man's eyes grew wider still as he realized the strangers were armed, with a type of rifle he hadn't seen in well over sixty years. 

"Who.... who are you people?"

The man examining his forehead murmured "Friends. Let's go inside.... it'll be easier to treat your wound with some light."

Donny Jordan, the medic, Tom and Bob stepped inside while the other five members of Dorn's team took up guard positions outside the cabin.

  Inside the small cabin were five people, who cringed at the sight of the armed men in the black and grey camo. Bob made a calming gesture, and Tom looked around at them, making eye contact with each one, smiling mildly to show that he and his teammates meant them no harm. 

"Evening, folks. We're here to provide your man here some medical attention, nothing more."

The occupants of the cabin appeared to be related; there was an older woman, probably the old man's wife; a younger couple, who looked to be in their late thirties or early forties, and a young boy and girl, who appeared to be in their early teens. All of them were bone thin, almost to the point of fitting the term 'skeletal'.

Tom reached into his pack, producing half a dozen beeswax candles, and set them around the room to give more light. 

Donny had Tom hold a flashlight on the old man's wound, pulled several jars from his bag, and went to work, first cleaning the wound with a small patch of cloth soaked in grain alcohol, then rubbing a small amount of antibiotic ointment into it, and finally pulling out a small, curved needle and a short length of sterile thread, telling Gunderson "This is going to hurt a bit, but it will help your cut heal faster."

None of the others moved during the entire process, watching intently as Donny stitched up the cut. 

When he was finished, Tom looked around at the occupants of the cabin and said "Are you folks hungry?"

None of the adults said anything, but the young boy nodded.

"Yes, Sir.... there's never enough to eat. The soldiers take most of our food."

Tom smiled and dug into his belt pouch, coming up with a half dozen food bars. Passing them around, he told them "Chew those slowly.... they're heavy on nuts."

The bars, a combination of walnuts, almonds, pecans, peanut butter, and honey and coated in chocolate, were heavy on protein and carbohydrates and would fill their bellies for the evening. Both of the Cavedwellers reached into their belly packs, bringing out small plastic bags of the bars and leaving them on the table. 

"Be careful not to eat these too fast, and don't eat too many at once.... they could make you sick if you eat too much at one time, especially if your body's not used to having too much food in it at once."

The old man nodded. "Ok... why are you folks really here? I know it ain't just to take care of my little cut and give us food."

Tom smiled and nodded. "You're right, it's not. We're.... travelers, and we want to know what's going on here. Who are these 'soldiers'?"

The old man gave him a strange look. "Boy, where you been travelin'? Outer space? They're the Chinese army.... invaded the country about the time I was born."

"Didn't people fight back?"

"Fight back? With what? Hell, after the nuke war was over, the 'provisional government' sent out the soldiers and the National Guard to confiscate everyone's guns.... said it was to 'prevent looters'. More like to prevent the looters gettin' shot, from what my daddy told me. Not long after that, the Chinese invaded. Accordin' to my dad, and some of his friends, they musta emptied out their entire country... he said they sent about two hundred million troops. Plus a small army of Cubans and south Americans coming up through Mexico into Texas and Arizona an' whatnot.... hell, we just didn't have enough people."

Tom and Don shared a look; it sounded like something they'd heard their history teachers talk about, when the subject of the aftermath of the nuclear war of the last century was brought up.... but that had been pure conjecture; this was real.

Tom spoke up. "Ok, do they have a base nearby?"

Bob nodded... "About six miles away, west o' here.... but you don't wanna go there."

"Why not?"

"There's probably a hundred troops there. You folks won't stand a chance."

Tom and Don grinned at each other. They'd see about that.

Bill Dennison and his team crept up to the other cabin, which the young girl had been taken to, and peered in through a window to see a dimly lit interior, with a small firepit in the center of the room providing the only light. The three occupants of the one room dwelling were discussing whether to send the girl away for her own protection.

Ducking down, he moved back away from the window, unseen by the occupants of the cabin, pointed to Denny Crenshaw and Dan Bradley, motioning for them to join him, and stepped aroud to the door.

Unveiling his face, he motioned for the others to do the same and knocked on the heavy log door. The door opened slowly, the older man peering out through the crack, asking "Who are you? What do you want?"

Bill stepped up, replying "We're friends, Sir.... may we come in?"

Herb Dixon knew, immediately, that they weren't Chinese... the accent was wrong, and the soldiers never knocked, or asked so politely. He peered at the outlandishly dressed strangers for a moment, noting the fresh, clean clothing, the packs, the belts that seemed to have numerous tools and weapons hanging from them.

"You're dressed like soldiers."

"We're not soldiers.... at least, not the type of punks that attacked your daughter. We're here to help. Dan, here, is a doctor." He said, pointing at Bradley offhandedly.

Herb eyed the three men suspiciously, but stepped aside and waved the three in. 

The two women were cowering back against the far wall, looking at the three men in the black uniforms cautiously, poised to run if they had to; they'd had too many encounters with strange men in uniforms. 

Dan set down his pack and dug into it, digging out a jar of antibiotic ointment, another jar, filled with grain alcohol and small swatches of cloth, several syringes, two small jars filled with clear liquid, and a roll of bandages.

"Miss, I'd like to examine you, see if you need stitches. Will you allow me to take care of you?"

The young girl shot a nervous look at her mother, who was still eying the strangers suspiciously. Finally, she shrugged and nodded to her daughter.

"Go ahead, Billie Jean.... don't look like you could stop him, no way."

Dan smiled gently at the two women. "Not to worry, Ladies... I'd never use force on a woman. My momma didn't raise me like that. What are your names, by the way? I'd like to be polite about this."

The older woman looked at him like he'd just grown another head, but she answered "I'm Martha, and this here's Billie Jean."

He unscrewed the lid on the alcohol jar, telling the young woman "Ok, Billie Jean, first thing I need is for you to wipe your vagina and anus with several of these wipes.... I need to see if there was any tearing when those losers attacked you."

"What's that they're floatin' in? Water?"

"No, Miss... it's grain alcohol. It'll clean away any blood and leave the area sterile. The best thing would be for you to take that skirt off, so I can get a good look, see if there's been any bleeding."

Billie Jean shot another look at her mother, who nodded.

"Go ahead, child.... he seems like a nice young man, and seems to know what he's doin'."

She nervously peeled off the skirt, leaving her nude from the waist down, and reached into the jar with one hand, grabbed out a patch of the cloth, and spread her legs slightly to wipe herself down. After using two more, she figured she was as clean as she was going to get.

Dan nodded and reached to his belt, grabbing a small flashlight. 

"Ok, Martha, could you hold this for me? " he asked, kneeling between the younger woman's still spread legs, looking intently at her nether parts. He saw no wounds, and stood up.

"Okay.... no serious damage to the outside. The last time you urinated, was there any blood in your urine?"

The young woman shot a quizzical look at her mother.

"Good lord, Girl! Was there any blood in your pee?"

"Oh! No, I don't think so."

Dan nodded. "Alright, that's good. I'm going to give you an injection of antibiotics anyway, just to make sure those bastards didn't give you something we can't see, and another to make sure neither of them made you pregnant. Is that ok with you?"

"What's an... injection?"

Dan rolled his eyes for a moment... They really were starting from scratch here. He reached to the table, picked up one of the syringes and the small jar of antibiotic, and said "Medicine, to keep you healthy. If either of those punks gave you any diseases, this will wipe it out."

Billie Jean shot another nervous look at her mother, who nodded. 

"Go ahead, child.... if it'll make you feel better, it'll be worth it."

The young woman looked back at Dan and gave him a nervous nod.

He swabbed down a patch of her arm with alcohol, then pulled the lid off the first of the two small jars, drawing a fairly large amount of the fluid into the syringe, found a vein, and injected the clear fluid. Setting it aside, he filled the second syringe from the second small vial and repeated the process. 

Bill, meanwhile, was talking in low tones with Herb, getting information on the 'soldiers' who had attacked them.

"Chinese, you say? How long have they been here?"

"Beats me.... longer than I've been alive. They came here back when my granddad was young, took over the country in about a year, if what my dad told me is true. Grandpa didn't have any way to fight 'em off.... the government had already confiscated most of the guns by that time. Now we're stuck with 'em.... nothing we can do about 'em."

"What do they do? I mean, do they patrol regularly, anything like that?"

Herb nodded. "They come around about twice a week, take whatever food they want, that sort of thing, and sometimes drag off some of the younger women, like Billie Jean over there.... we never see them again. There's one, when he comes around, we send the kids running for the woods.... motherfucker likes young kids, if ya know what I mean."

Bill nodded, growing angrier by the minute. He was of the opinion that anyone who would abuse a child in such a fashion deserved to be run through a wood chipper... while he was still alive.

"Ok.... now, tell me... are there any of you men who would be willing to fight, if it came down to it, to drive the Chinese out of our country?"

"I s'pose there are, but to be honest, we ain't fighters, we're just farmers. 'Sides, none of us have got the strength for it. We've been livin' on too little food all our lives. Some of our boys trap, rabbits and whatnot, but it isn't enough to keep the whole village goin'. We lost near to a half dozen people last winter, because we couldn't set aside enough food for the entire winter."

Bill nodded, deep in thought. "Ok. If we could get some food to you folks, do you have any place to hide it, where the soldiers won't find it?"

Herb thought it over for a minute and nodded. "There's a cellar under our common hall... I'm not sure if the Chinese even remember that it's there. They haven't been into it in years. We don't have much in it, just some old broken furniture and whatnot.... I used a bit of that for firewood these past few years. It's pretty dry down there."

Bill nodded again. Depending on how much room was down there, it sounded perfect.

"How much room do you have down there?"

"Probably, oh... half the size of this room. Maybe a bit more."

Bill looked around, mentally gauging the room.... it was perhaps thirty feet long and twenty five feet wide, so the basement was likely three to four hundred square feet.... and that could handle a good bit of their older dehydrated food packs. Five, maybe six storage tubs, plus a few extra tubs of seeds and another one full of bread, which they'd go through in a couple of days. Add in a tub full of butter, eggs, wheat flour, a couple of boxes of yeast packets and maybe a few big jars of home canned stew or chili... enough to fill one of the small trucks, and give him a chance to try his driving skills for the first time. He'd logged a few thousand hours on the simulators, and God only knew how many miles in the old golf carts, but had never actually driven a car.

"What kind of setup do you have, in that 'common hall' of yours, for cooking?"

"We've got a big ol' woodstove.... firebox in the bottom, a fair sized oven above it, and a big cooktop, handles about four big stewpots at once, if we ever had enough food for that many. When the boys come in from a good hunt, we can usually fill about two at a time. The women make corn biscuits in the oven part. Cooked a pretty big turkey in there, once, when one of the kids got lucky with his bow. My granddaddy and a few other men built it, 'bout a hundred years ago, from a bunch o' scrap metal they scrounged up from somewhere or other." This last was said with a bit of pride.

Bill sat back, frowning in thought for a minute.

"Do the soldiers ever come here during the night?"

"Nahhh.... they usually stick to their base after dark. We only see 'em during the day, when we're in the fields."

Joel Martin and Tom Davidson led their teams along the rough 'road'; actually just two ruts left by Hummer tires, until they came within sight of a tall fence with a large gate. There were large wooden towers to either side,each with what appeared to be a good sized searchlight and a heavy machine gun. Pulling an ancient set of night vision goggles from his pack, Tom slipped them on for a better look.

There was a soldier standing in one corner of the tower, some sort of rifle strapped to his back, who appeared to be smoking a cigarette.... not a good idea while on watch. At the outside edge of the platform was a heavy machine gun on what looked like a swivel mount. 

They split back into two teams, and each slowly made their way about halfway around the base, noting the thick undergrowth that was grown up all around it, nearly up to the fence itself.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 08



This told them that whoever the soldiers were, they had grown complacent. Complacency, the soldiers would soon learn, could be deadly.

The base was lit up by several floodlights set up at intervals inside the fence, but Tom saw this as a point in his own favor. He made a few hand signals, gathered his team closely, and told them to spread out around the camp, looking for weaknesses and places to set up observation posts. Everyone had an antique digital camera which were capable of taking photographs in low light conditions, and they would take numerous pictures that night.

The next morning, after all of the scouts had made their reports, and the digital photographs were downloaded into a computer, they had a pretty decent map of the entire base. It appeared to be fairly well supplied, but poorly manned.

There was a relatively small motor pool, comprising four tanks, six vehicles that appeared to be armored personnel carriers, and two helicopters, which looked to be either Russian 'Hinds' or Chinese copies of the flying behemoths. There were also a dozen Hummers and an equal number of large trucks, which resembled the 'deuce and a half' of American army fame.

One building was clearly a communications center, with numerous different antenna and several small satellite dishes aranged on it's roof. 

Several others appeared to be barracks, and there were several more that had to be workshops or warehouses of some sort, with large doors that opened to either side. 

Tom added spots on the map outside the tall fences that would make good spots for observation posts, including one area, just beyond the western edge, where two trees had fallen into each other, forming a sort of arch, to which they could easily attach a few camo tarps, manning it with several people and a few telescopes and sets of binoculars. If they were quiet about it, they could have that set up in a few hours, max.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 09



Within a week, they had observation posts set up all around the enemy camp, and were gathering large amounts of intel about the place. They knew which buildings were barracks, where the motor pool was, which ones were used as storage of one sort or another, and where the mess hall was. The base Commander's quarters was in, roughly, the center of the compound, with his Lieutenant's quarters right next door.

Still, there was one building whose function eluded them, for more than a week; most of the officers seemed to visit it at least once or twice a day, never at the same time, nor for more than thirty or forty minutes, and usually for not more than fifteen. 

Ron Willis was in the camoflaged tent that was facing this building when it revealed it's secret. 

Half a dozen Chinese walked up to the building, two of them carrying a large covered basket of sorts. As they entered, Ron heard muffled, unintelligible shouts coming from inside.

Outside, another pair of soldiers were hooking up a pump of some sort with a firehose attached, connecting an intake hose to what appeared to be a water tower.

He watched in growing anger as a line of women, seventeen in all, were led out of the building. They were chained together with leg shackles and completely nude. They ranged in age, from what Ron could tell, from about twenty to perhaps thirty five years, and all appeared to be American. 

When the women were all lined up in front of the building, the pump was started up and water began jetting from the nozzle, hosing the women down, most of whom began scrubbing at themselves with their bare hands. After about five minutes of this, they were led back inside, and as they turned their backs to him, Ron could see plainly that several of them had bedsores on their backs and buttocks. He surmised that they were likely chained to their beds most of the time and were there for the soldier's 'use'. 

He eyed the silenced .270 sniper's rifle for a moment, but the words of his CO came back to him.... 'No contact'. He growled in frustration while taking careful note of the faces of the officers.

'Oh, yes' he thought, 'There WILL be a reckoning.'

Ron gave his report to the council, seeing all of them growing angrier by the minute. When he mentioned that he'd wanted to shoot the Chinese on the spot, Jim Archer nodded. 

"I'm glad you didn't, but I know what you mean... not sure I'd have been able to control myself that well."

He took a long, slow sip of coffee and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He hadn't been sleeping too well lately, given the reports he'd been reading and hearing. He knew they would have to act soon; it was late summer, and soon the fall rains would be upon them. He didn't want his teams slogging through the mud; that would mean leaving a trail that a blind man could follow. 

"Ok, folks.... We're going to need a full scale assault, here.... the first thing we need to do is take out these guys in the towers and anyone who's out and about inside the compound. Silenced rifles only, and we need to be a good distance away, just in case. A five minute wait, then, to see if anyone is awake to raise an alarm. If there's anyone in that women's building, we need to know about it before we move."

"Good thing these little yellow bastards don't seem to have much stamina." Ron quipped, to chuckles all around.

Jim favored him with a wry grin. "Indeed. After we take out the guards, we want to shoot out the lights... all of them at once, so we're going to need headset radios, I think. How many people do you think we'll need, for each side of the fence?"

Tom Davidson spoke up.

"I'd say, for each length of the fence, maybe fifteen people. Two shooters for each guard tower, two for each light, and the rest to take out foot patrols, if there are any. Two people armed with wirecutters to take down sections of the fence, then we invade the three barracks, silenced pistols and knives, we kill every soldier in the place, go in to the woman's building, at least five sets of bolt cutters there, meanwhile, have a team setting charges on all of their rolling stock and those choppers, another team rigging the comm shack, the mess hall, and the officer's quarters. We lead all of the women out, get to a safe distance, and push the button, sit back and watch the light show."

Sarah Mitchell was nodding but then frowned. "How do we get the women back here, though? I mean, it's obvious we're going to have to bring them back here for treatment---and clothing. The thing is, can we really expect them to walk six miles in the dark, completely nude, in the shape they're likely in?"

Jim nodded. "Good point. we'll have to take at least four of the pick ups.... and we have to keep them back away from that base far enough that the Chinese don't hear them, too. Maybe some of our people could carry backpacks full of clothes?"

Tom grinned at this.... "We can just call the trucks after the fireworks. Leave them about three miles away, walk our people in the last three miles or so, and once the operation's over, call for retrieval." He concluded, though he was stroking his thin beard.

This, more than anything, told Jim that he had something else on his mind. 

"Y'know, we could always double up on the mufflers on the trucks, while we're still planning and getting ready for this op. Anything that makes them quieter will increase our advantage."

Jim nodded, grinning. Leave it to Tom to point out what he himself should have thought of in the first place. Then a thought occurred to him. 

"I'm thinking of something else, too.... There's a ton of supplies there we could use. Rifles and ammunition, explosives, grenades, field rations and other food... why should we blow it all up, when we could use it to equip the locals?"

Tom looked, for a brief moment, as if he were about to slap himself hard on the forehead. 

"You're right, Jim... and we wouldn't need our own trucks.... we can just load up a few of their big trucks and those Hummers and haul everything, including the women, out in those. What the hell, it looks like they stole 'em from our own military bases anyway." He grinned. "We'll just steal 'em back. We should be able to get away with five or six truckloads of stuff, if their quartermaster has been keeping their inventory up to snuff."

They continued, long into the night, hashing out details for hours until they'd planned the entire operation, down to the finest point. 

The next day, Leeanne walked into the communal great hall and got a cup of coffee and a chocolate muffin, then scanned the room, smiling as she spotted Gar Davidson sitting off in a corner by himself, studying what appeared to be copies of the surveillance photos of the enemy base. She headed that way, and he didn't notice until she was standing by his small table.

"Mind if I join you?"

He looked up, startled, and nodded a bit nervously. "Please. I could do with some company."

She nodded towards the pictures as she set down her coffee mug and muffin, taking a seat across from him.

"Anything new?"

"No.... just looking for anything we might have missed. I know there's something here we're missing, just can't quite put my finger on it."

She took a sip of coffee and nodded. "Jim Archer was saying the same thing. Personally, I think it's something They're missing."

"What do you mean?" "Well, what's the one thing you always see in the old movies, when soldiers are patrolling a military base.... particularly at night?"

He stared at her for a minute, eyes going out of focus as he thought it over.

He shrugged, drawing a total blank.

She smiled at him and answered her own question. "Dogs, Silly! They always have a few dogs.... their senses are sharper than ours. They hear better, smell better.... we see better, because they're colorblind, but other than that, dogs have got it all over us!"

He looked back at the photos, realizing she was right. He'd been looking at the human element; guard dogs had never crossed his mind.

"You're right.... I never considered animals."

She gave him a gentle smile. "Most people don't. Hey, there's something I've been meaning to ask you, ever since the day I left my ex husband."

He shot her a look. "That's official, then? You two are through?"

She nodded, sipping at her coffee again.

"Yup.... I annulled the marriage that day. The love was gone long before I walked out, I just didn't want to admit it to myself."

He took a long sip of his coffee to hide his grin, motioning for her to continue. .. but he almost choked on it when she asked "Why haven't you ever asked me out?"

He set his cup down and regarded her for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "Well, I think it's mostly been a relationship conflict... Whenever I've been alone, you've been with someone... when you've been alone, I've been with someone. I guess our timing was just a bit off. When you were alone, I was with Carla... I broke up with her, you were with Paul. You broke up with him, I was seeing Julie; I broke up with her, you were with Dennis. The day you married him, I figured I'd never get another chance."

"Well, who are you seeing now?"

He grinned, seeing where this was going. 

"Hopefully? You."

"Why didn't you ask me the day I left Dennis?"

"I wanted to give you a little time. Make sure it was really over between you two and all."

"Oh, it's over... I've had it with that fool. I want to be a mom.... and the Doctor tells me that I'm as fertile as a broodmare. If I can't get pregnant in three years, when I'm completely fertile, you know it isn't me. He refused to let the doc run any tests, but he kept tryin'. I think he just wanted a fuck-buddy, and someone to wash his dirty shorts."

Again, she'd timed it perfectly.... he was just taking a sip of coffee, and nearly choked on it.

He grinned at her and replied "Well, Momma Maria's just got a fresh load of mozzarella and parmesan from the cheesery a few hours ago... can I interest you in dinner and a movie tonight?"

She smiled and said "Who says we have to wait for tonight? I haven't had any lunch, aside from this." She waved her hand at the half eaten muffin. 

"Ok.... well, you want to take that with you, take it down to the forest buildings, feed it to the birds? We can take a walk in the woods, maybe go down to the lake."

"That sounds perfect. I haven't been down there in quite a while."

Two hours later, they were sitting together on the strip of grass between the far north wall and the sandy beach that led into the lake. 

"I'd forgotten how peaceful it is down here." He was looking past her, over her shoulder, and whispered "Look over your left shoulder.... slowly."

She slowly turned her head to see a small herd of deer, a big buck, looked like a six pointer, followed by half a dozen does, walking cautiously down to the edge of the lake to drink, perhaps two hundred yards away. Two other, smaller, bucks followed them, clearly yearlings.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she turned back to him, moving closer to him in silence until his arm rested against her side. 

"Dennis never brought me down here."

"I'm not him, hun... and this is my favorite place to come to, when I want to just empty my mind and think over a problem or something."

She lifted an eyebrow and grinned at him. "What are you thinking about now?"

"This" he replied as he moved forward, bringing his lips to hers.

They kissed slowly, just a dry, coy meeting of lips at first, but before long, her tongue peeked out, running across his lips, which he gladly opened for her. Soon the deer were forgotten as their kisses deepend and grew longer. 

She lay back on the grass, and he followed, his lips never leaving hers as his hand rested on her side, her hand behind his head. Finally, they broke the kiss, and he moved an arm around her shoulders and laying down beside her, pulled her to her side, so her head laid on his chest.

"You know," he said, quietly, "I've wanted to do that since we were both about eight years old."

She smiled. "I've wanted you to since we were about ten."

He shifted position a bit, so he could look into her eyes. "Are you serious? Why didn't you ever say anything?"

She smiled a little. "I guess I was just waiting for you to make a move. I'm not really aggressive, myself."

She shifted position, coming to her knees and straddling him. "That ends now, though." she grinned down at him, while pulling her T shirt out of her jeans and over her head, her braless 36DDs springing free. She leaned forward, her lips reaching for his as he took her ample tits in both hands, kneading them as his thumbs tweaked her already stiff nipples.

She worked at the buttons of his shirt slowly, going by feel, while he moved one hand behind her, squeezing a firm ass cheek, then sitting up to bury his face in her cleavage, while his hands moved to the button of her jeans. 

She reciprocated, unbuttoning his pants and unzipping him, reaching in to assess the size of his cock. It wasn't as big as some she'd had, over the years; still, it wasn't too small, at about seven inches, if her feeling hands were correct. 

She stood up for a moment, slipping her jeans and panties down and stepping free of them, and he did the same, lifting his ass off the ground to peel off his pants and underwear in one motion.

She started to lower herself to engulf his hard on, but he stopped her, saying "Not yet, dear.... I want to taste you first."

She was happy to oblige him, and took a step forward, lowering her shaved pussy to his willing lips, gasping just a bit as his tongue slipped out and ran lightly over her unfurled labia, tasting her nectar for the first time. She, he found, had a bit of a sweet taste.

'Might have known!' he thought as he began to work his tongue over her nether lips slowly, occasionally licking up to her engorged clit, which was now fully out from behind it's protective hood of flesh. She gasped anew every time he did, squeezing her thighs against his ears, rocking her hips, rubbing her bald lips into his more than willing mouth, caressing the back of his head with both hands as a small orgasm overtook her, followed by another, this one more intense than the first, leaving his face awash in her juices. 

Finally, she couldn't wait anymore; pulling back, she knee walked backwards until his stiff cock was lined up and impaled herself on him, rocking back and forth on his hardness, looking into his eyes as she began to ride him. He thrust back at her, and they soon had a slow, lazy rhythym going, neither of them in a hurry to finish. She leaned forward, crushing her breasts to his chest so she could taste herself on his tongue, still riding him slowly. 

Soon enough, though, her urgency got the better of her and she began thrusting herself down on him faster, until they were slamming their groins together as hard as they could... it didn't last long, though. He finally grabbed her by the hips and rolled them both over, and it was his turn to control the pace. He started to fuck her at almost a rabbit-like speed, her eyes widening as she moaned in joy at the feeling of him hammering into her. He slammed into her a final time and groaned as his balls emptied themselves into her womb, jets of cum streaming into her tightness.

He rolled them back over so she lay on top of him, his softening cock still buried in her now sloppy pussy, and stroked her back as they both struggled to catch their breath.

While Leeanne and Gar were cementing their relationship, Jim Archer sat at the computer console, watching as the villagers went about their daily business of weeding, harvesting a few vegetables, and occasionally relieving themselves at the bases of some of the plants.

'Smart' he thought. 'No point in wasting it when it will fertilize the plants.' 

He thought about what Bill Dennison and Tom Dorn had told him in their reports from the two families they'd visited, deciding that they could afford to drop off a few storage tubs of dried foods, and one or two tubs of seeds. It could mean the difference between starvation and survival through the winter for the entire village, and he needed as many as possible to survive. Dead villagers couldn't aid in the fight against the Chinese, once it became time for open warfare. Then another thought occurred to him, and he had to rethink his entire plan.

Maybe it was time to meet these villagers.

Bob Gunderson and Herb Dixon compared notes the next day, after Herb noticed the fact that Bob had not only been bandaged, but stitched up, as well. 

When he'd awakened, that morning, he was ready to write the whole thing off as a dream.... until he noticed the two plastic bags full of foodbars on the low table. It really had happened, then.

Two men had entered their home, treated his daughter and given her medicine to ward off diseases, then had left them with a bounty of food and taken their leave. Now Bob was telling him that a second group had visited him, treated his cut forehead, and left His family a bunch of food, too.

After a long day in the fields, the villagers came to the common hall to fix their meager supper. The boy's traplines had been generous today; four rabbits, three squirrels, and a baby fox had fallen to the snares, and were quickly skinned, gutted, and sliced up for the stewpots.

There was enough meat there that a few of the people went back to the fields to gather some more potatoes, beans, tomatoes, and carrots, while another young couple went off to a nearby stream for more water, and a second stewpot was readied. Everyone could easily get a full bowl tonight, and possibly another in the morning, an uncommon occasion, to say the least.

The last of the stew had been doled out, and everyone was eating when a terrifying sound reached their ears... an engine! Could the Chinese be showing up this late in the evening?

Their fears were short lived, though.... a man came through the door, wearing strange clothing, with two more men behind him. His two followers were quickly recognized by Herb and Bob as the men who had come to them the previous night to give aid, and they stepped forward to welcome the strangers, greeting them as friends, and meeting their Commander.

Jim looked around the room, nodding. It looked like the entire village was here, down to the youngest child. The room was abuzz for a few minutes, but settled quickly as Gunderson called for quiet. 

Bill talked with both Herb and Bob in low tones, asking if there was anyone in the village that they didn't trust, anyone who might try to warn the Chinese. Both shook their heads.... everyone in the village had suffered at the hands of the invading troops; none would stab their fellows in the back in such a way.

After a brief discussion with the two men, the decision was made quickly.

Jim stepped to one end of the room, where everyone could easily see and hear him, and began to speak. 

"Alright, everybody. First, allow me to introduce myself; my name is James Archer, and I lead a small city not far from here."

"No, Sir, you don't. I've been huntin' these here lands for the past six years.... there ain't no cities anywhere near here."

Jim smiled. "That's because we didn't want anyone to find us, young man. I assure you, it exists. It's in the last place you'd be likely to look."

The young man sat back down, looking very confused. 'Where is the last place I'd look?' he thought, as he nodded at Jim to continue.

Jim looked around the room slowly, making periodic eye contact with everyone there in turn. 

"We were, originally, going to bring you folks food to hold you through the coming winter; but we have plans which could, quite easily, put all of your lives in danger."

Some of the villagers were looking at him, while others looked at each other, alarm imprinted on their features. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 09



When most of them turned back to face him, he picked up where he'd left off. 

"The solution I came up with, if you folks are willing, is to move all of you into our city. We have food that the Chinese can't steal, clean clothing, warm beds, hot showers and absolute safety. The Chinese have never found us, and they never will, in the short time they have left to live. You see, we plan on invading their little base, killing all of them, and freeing the young women they're holding captive."

Nobody said a word for several moments; they merely stared at him, looking at him as if he'd just told them he was going to fly over their heads... and then had actually done it.

"We know we can't accomplish this without putting you folks in danger; there must be other bases near here, and when they come to find out what happened to their buddies, they might take the deaths out on you. We want to make sure that you folks are safe before we move against them."

"Mister Archer, what about the crops we have in the fields? What about our animals?"

Jim nodded. Tom Dorn had pointed this man out to him.... what was the name?

'Gunderson... Bob Gunderson. He's the old man who got hit by that Chinese soldier.' he thought.

"Mr. Gunderson, is it?"

At the old man's nod, he addressed the matter.

"Don't worry about your crops. Trust me, if you want to work in farm fields, we have a bunch of them, and some of our harvests are just about to start. We'd be glad for the extra help. As for your animals, just leave them loose.... they'll survive. They know where home is, and they won't stray far. Once we free enough territory, you can come back, and take up your homes once again, if that is your wish. I just don't want you folks in harm's way while we're chasing the Chinese out of this part of our country. Oh, and, of course, if any of you want to join up, fight alongside of us, we're always willing to train up volunteers." he concluded with a mild grin.

"Well, Sir, I'm a bit too old, too skinny, and too damned weak to do any fightin'... but I know farmin'. Count me in."

With his words, the floodgates opened, and everyone in the little hall was nodding at once. 

'Food the Chinese couldn't steal? Warm beds? Hot showers? Clean clothing?' Some of the villagers thought he was talking about Paradise.

In the end, it took a bit of debate, and a lot of discussion, but they all decided that relocating to a place where the Chinese soldiers didn't exist and could no longer harm them was the best way to go. Jim and his two lieutenants impressed upon them the need for secrecy, which explained why they would travel to their new homes in covered trucks, and could not be allowed to see the route they would travel to their new home.

Some of them were a bit alarmed at this, but when he explained his reasoning, concluding with 'It's not that we don't trust you, but we don't know you folks well enough yet to trust you completely.', they gave their grudging assent, knowing that, were the situation reversed, they would do everything to cover their own backs.

In the end, the villagers climbed into the backs of the old surplus military deuce and a half trucks, filling all five of them to capacity, looking curiously at the drag chains attached to the rear bumpers that obscured their tire tracks, and they were off.

Once inside, they took in their new surroundings in utter shock. The motor pool was filled with cars, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, humvees, tanks, and towed artillery pieces, most of which the people had never seen before. 

Cars, to them, were rusted hulks of metal that sat alongside of old concrete pathways, which were slowly being taken over by underbrush; tanks, armored personnel carriers, and howitzers were something only the Chinese had, and the planes and helicopters over in the corner of the massive chamber, well.... they had no idea what to make of most of those.

Jim and the rest of the Cavedwellers who had gone along with him guided the newcomers to the great hall, and once everybody was settled in, Jim began to speak once more.

"Ok, folks... before we begin, there are beverages over on the tables to my left, here. The pitchers of purple liquid are grape juice, the orange is, oddly enough, orange juice, the yellow stuff is lemonade, and we also have apple juice, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. there are plastic cups and coffee mugs for them, at either end and in the middle. There is also milk and sugar. On the next table are sandwiches, muffins, biscuits, and sweet rolls. There are also bowls of fresh fruit. Please, help yourselves."

The villagers looked long at the tables and then at each other in utter shock... few of them had ever seen such bounty. They got up from their seats en masse to rush over to the tables, then stopped, taking it all in. Most weren't sure what to try first, much to the amusement of the Cavedweller servers, who had volunteered to help out here tonight. 

Most of the fruit was unfamiliar to the people from the village; there hadn't been a banana or an orange in Wyoming in well over a hundred years. Apples, grapes, and most of the berries they had found growing wild in the nearby forests, from time to time, but they'd never heard of most of the others on the table. 

Leeanne smiled as a little boy asked her what 'that stuff' was, indicating a big pitcher of fruit punch. She selected a small plastic cup, suited to his small hands, and poured a few inches of the fruity concoction into the bottom and said "Here, sweety... try a little bit; if you like it, I'll pour you a full cup."

It warmed her heart when he took a small sip, seeing his face light up with a wide grin as he passed the cup back to her and asked for more.

She smiled sadly, thinking of her own desire for a child of her own. He thanked her and moved down to the table with the food.

She was kept busy for a while, as well as the others who were explaining to the villagers what the strange food and drink were. Few of them had ever even heard of much of it; only the oldest among them, like Bob Gunderson, had ever known the taste of coffee, or iced tea. The hot chocolate was popular, particularly amongst the younger children. They actually ran out of several of the fruit juices, and had to call down to the kitchens for more. This alone amazed the newcomers... to think, these people had so very much, and they lived a mere twenty minutes away from their own village!

Jim smiled when he heard one of the village women saying this to another.... what the poor woman didn't know was that they had circled around a few times on the drive here, to confuse anyone who might get any funny ideas; the actual drive to the village from here was less than seven minutes.

He walked over to the tables, getting a large cup of his personal favorite- a mix of orange juice, strawberries, and banana, and settled into a chair at one of the tables. 

Bob Gunderson walked up. "May I join you?"

Jim nodded. "Of course. How do you like our little home so far?"

Gunderson grinned. "I love it.... how long have you folks lived underground?"

Jim raised an eyebrow at this. "My great grandfather built the place, back before the war. How did you guess we were underground?"

"No windows, plus the sound of the trucks when we came in.... it changed when we came in. I'm guessing it was some kind of tunnel?"

Jim nodded. "This is what was known as a 'Fallout shelter', back in the day... Great grandpa Dan built it, back in the early part of the twenty first century, although I have no idea how. Back then, he owned every bit of land within twenty miles of this place in every direction."

"Oh, geez.... our little place was on your land!"

Jim grinned. "Don't worry about it... I'm not. It's not like we were actually using it, now is it?"

Bob smiled at this. "I guess not... just hope you ain't expectin' any rent!"

Jim rolled his eyes upwards, looking towards the ceiling as if considering it, then grinned and said "Of course not. Don't worry about it... We have all we need down here, and then some. Hell, if I shut down our farms tomorrow, we'd be able to get by on the food we have stored away for the next five, six years. Matter of fact, we've got half a dozen fields sitting unused right now, absorbing a bunch of compost. Don't want to wear out the soil, y'know?"

Bob's eyes grew wide at this. 'To have so much food stored away that they could just sit back and do nothing for five years? Five fields sitting, not producing anything? This man is wealthy beyond belief!' he thought.

Jim nodded, almost reading the older man's thoughts. "We have about a dozen good sized apartments that are empty, scattered around the complex... most are in building twenty seven - C. I think it'd be best if some of us take your group around, show you the place, how to get around in the complex, where the food storage is, where the farms are, the schoolrooms for the kids, the forest and lake chambers, that sort of thing. I know you'll probably need guides for the first few months; anyone in here will be happy to help out, just ask. How many family groups do you have, total?"

Bob rubbed his chin in thought for a minute, finally answering "Seven.... and we've got some teenagers, probably wouldn't mind havin' a place o' their own. You know how kids are, I'd guess." 

Jim grinned..... he did, indeed. He remembered when he'd been young, hot to get out from under his parent's watchful eyes. The first time he'd brought a girlfriend home, his mother had insisted he leave his bedroom door open. NOT conducive to what he--and she-- had their minds on. 

"There are written directories and maps on the walls, too, scattered about the complex, so if you get into trouble, just consult one of them."

"That'll be a problem for us... none of us can read. One o' the ways the Chinese tried to keep us down... stupid peasants have a hard time with learnin' how to fight, an' all that, ya know?"

"Literacy.... knowing how to read, that is... doesn't have much to do with how smart you are. Anyone of average intelligence can learn. I'd be willing to bet that there are some of your folks who could teach us a thing or two about surviving outside this shelter. Don't worry, once we get everyone settled, we'll set up a schedule to get you folks taught up on reading... and anything else you want to learn. We have some excellent teachers here."

"Well, that'll be fine, in the long run... but what about the short term? I'll bet it'll be real easy to get lost in this place."

Jim remembered, then, one of the family stories, about Great Grandma Barb getting lost in the complex, the first time she had come to Wyoming from someplace called Detroit. He thought it over quickly, and snagged one of the servers.

"Jenn, honey, could you go and find me one of the better computer techs?"

Five minutes later his wife turned up at his elbow. "You asked for a computer tech, Sir?" she asked, with a bemused grin. She had what she jokingly called her 'bag of tricks' slung over her shoulder. 

"I might have known. Ok, we need to teach these folks to use a telephone... and keep in mind, most of them are illiterate.... they have no idea what numbers look like, let alone letters. We want to assign guides to them for their first few weeks here, and we need to give them a simple way to contact them. Any ideas?"

She looked around the room... it already had most of what she needed; multiple video monitors studded the walls, and there was a computer hook up at the podium that had camera and audio- video capabilities built in. She smiled and nodded.

"No sweat... just watch me work." She pulled a laptop computer from her bag, tapped it into the monitor network, then attached a small webcam and a headset microphone and pulled a telephone from her bag. She handed the headset to her husband, tapped in a string of commands on the keyboard, and set the webcam to pick up his image, which appeared on all of the video screens.

The cave dwellers looked up at the large video screens with some amusement. The villagers, who had never seen such a thing, were a bit startled.

"May I have your attention, please?" Boomed out from every speaker in the place, which did little to allay the fear some of the villagers were feeling at this display.

Jim frowned a bit at his wife, and she reached for the keyboard to lower the volume. She nodded to him, and he turned back to the camera.

"Ok, that's better." he said, his voice now low enough to not sound like an angry god.

"Alright... don't worry, folks.... it isn't magic, just an old bit of technology that we've kept going in this city. Now.... first thing, I want to welcome you all here, and I hope you'll all enjoy your stay with us. In fact, I hope you'll eventually feel comfortable enough to join us as permanent residents."

There was a smattering of nods and even a light sprinkling of applause.

"That being said, we need to see you folks assigned quarters.... for that, I need each of your heads of household to raise your hands right now."

Seven hands went up.

"Ok.... we need seven guides, one for each of these families. Are there any volunteers?"

Seven of the cave dwellers stepped forward, and, knowing what was coming next, each stepped over to one of the villagers whose hands were up, "Excellent. Guides, I want each of you to take your head of household with you, go to the housing office, and find an apartment for each of these families. Then the two of you decide on a time to get together and show that family around in the morning. When you take them to the apartment, please show them how everything works, keeping in mind that these folks are unfamiliar with all of the technology you take for granted. They know nothing about electricity, coffee makers, stoves, refridgerators, indoor plumbing, or even something as simple as a light switch. Teach them the basics tonight, and be ready for a lot of questions to come. Show them where the clean clothes are, the soap, the shampoo, the mouthwash, the whole bit. I've already seen to it that these apartments are fully stocked with the essentials, you fill in the details. Thank you for your support."

He changed his mind about the phone that quick, figuring it would be better to take things slowly for the first week or so. He'd pass the word to his 'guides' to teach the families they were working with, if he had to. His people were sharp; he figured they'd know what they needed to do.

Dan Bradley stepped over to Herb Dixon's family, smiling warmly. "Sir, if you'll come with me?"

Dixon recognized him immediately. "I remember you....You're that Doctor fella."

"Yes, Sir.... I'll see to it that you folks get settled in."

"Alright.... I can work with you.... by the way, if I didn't say it the other night, I want to tell you again... thank you for takin' care of Billie Jean. She's feelin' a whole lot better, since you give her that there 'medicine'. She says she ain't had the cough, or the sniffles, since you saw to her."

Dan grinned. "Glad to help. I'm just glad she's ok. You know, we have... people here she can talk to, help her get over what those little bastards did to her."

"That ain't gonna happen here, is it?"

"Oh, hell no! In this city, what was done to her would be considered a serious crime... anyone who tried it would likely be horse whipped!"

Herb smiled widely.... these people thought like he did.

At their new apartment, Herb, Martha, and Billie Jean looked around in amazement. There were so many things they'd never seen before. Dan led them through each room, showing them the features of each, explaing the faucets and showing them the symbols for 'hot' and 'cold' water, explaining how the drain in the bath tub worked, how to use the toilet, showing them where the soap and shampoo were, the stacks of clean towels and washcloths and the drawers and closets full of clean clothing.

In the kitchen, he explained the refridgerator, the stove, the oven, and showed them the upper cabinets full of home canned food and the lower cabinets full of pots, pans, dishes, and drinking glasses. He opened a drawer, showing them where the silverware and cooking utensils were kept, and explained to Martha that a tutor would be around in the morning to teach her to use these things. 

She thanked him with a glowing smile; this was a type of kitchen that was so far over her head, it might as well have been a flock of migrating birds. Her idea of cooking generally meant the communal woodstove, a few vegetables, and meat on a good day from whatever the boys had managed to snare. 

Herb Dixon looked around, bewildered. This place was so far beyond their little log home it was unreal. Opening the fridge, he saw a stack of wrapped sandwiches, took one out, and tried to bite into it.

Dan smiled and said "Hang on a minute, Herb... you need to unwrap it first. Here, let me show you."

He took a small knife from a drawer, cut through the plastic wrapping, tore it off the sandwich, and handed it to the older man, then reached into the cupboard, pulled out a plastic cup, and filled it with orange juice from a pitcher in the fridge before handing it to him.

Within a few days, the villagers were settled in, and were continuing to learn the ins and outs of the massive bunker. The adults as well as the kids were quickly enrolled in a school and were learning to read, albeit reluctantly.

Jim watched the monitors, smiling to himself as the same humvee showed up at the edge of the cultivated fields, then heading towards the small village of empty log houses. He could almost see the frustration on their faces as they realized their former victims were nowhere to be found.

"Yeah, fuckhead, just keep lookin'.... you're not going to find them." he muttered under his breath with a grin.

Three nights later, seventy five of the Cavedwellers suited up, armed themselves, and loaded into six big trucks to drive to within a mile and a half of the Chinese base, figuring that was far enough out that the Chinese sentries wouldn't hear them approaching. 

Walking in the rest of the way, they split into teams and surrounded the base and got within shooting distance, and when the last of them had confirmed that they had eyes on target, they settled in to wait. 

After giving the Chinese twenty minutes to ensure none were visiting the latrine or the 'women's building', the order was given to fire. 

Seventy five silenced .270 caliber sniper rifles 'chuffed' at once; seventy five one hundred and fifty grain hollow point bullets found their marks, and eight guards died and thirty two floodlights were extinguished in a matter of seconds. The camp went completely dark and silent in the blink of an eye. The Cavedwellers flipped down their night vision goggles and sat back to wait, to see if their actions had awakened anyone in the camp.

Two people moved silently up to each side of the fence, armed with wirecutters, and cut large holes in the fence, then the entire force streamed through, laying their rifles down alongside the holes and drawing silenced pistols.

They surrounded the barracks, the officer's quarters, and the small houses of the base commander and his lieutenant, looking cautiously through the windows, then entered each building; once everyone was in position, once again, the order was given to fire. 

The entire operation had taken thirty minutes.

All of the buildings were searched thoroughly; nobody was found alive, aside from seventeen naked women in the building who were, indeed, chained to severely stained beds, who were cut loose by women who wore the dark uniforms of what would soon become known as the 'Wyoming State Constitutional Militia'. They were given clean sweatsuits and a dozen of the women from the Cave stayed with them until the truck backed up to the door to take them away.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 09



The entire team worked with chilling efficiency; one group split into four teams, going back to retrieve the sniper rifles from outside the holes in the fence, while another went to the comm shack to set explosive charges inside and gather up any written materials they found.

Others went to the motor pool, to procure a dozen of the big trucks, moving all but one to the warehouse. 

Another team loaded these up with rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, case upon case of ammunition, RPG loads, field rations, hand grenades, and other deadly toys, before charges were set to destroy the rest. 

Yet another team set blocks of plastic explosive inside the tank turrets and inside the engine compartments, in the breeches of the howitzers, on the gas tanks of the remaining trucks, humvees, and helicopters, and the last few they had on the fuel storage tanks for the base. In just under an hour and a half, the trucks were rolling, and Jim waited until they were two hundred yards down the road before pressing the button.

The fireworks were, indeed, spectacular. The initial explosions destroyed much of the base, but the secondary blasts, from the ammunition and fuel, looked like the devil's own nightmare. 

Jim and Tom Dorn watched them in the rearview mirrors of the humvee they were driving away from the base in, then looked at each other and grinned. It had been a productive night. 

Once back at the Cave, the women they had freed were immediately taken to the hospital wing, the munitions and field rations were unloaded and transferred to their own storage facilities, and the intelligence they had gathered was turned over to the computer geeks for translation and interpretation.

They soon learned that there were four other bases around the state, and roughly two hundred, nationwide. It looked like they had their work cut out for them. They would have to do some major recruiting and training, and that quickly.

Jim looked over the reports, gleaned from the material taken from the communications shed at the former Chinese base, and from the offices of the base commander and his lieutenant, and felt his stomach sink. They were all over the country, and the base he and his people had just destroyed was actually one of the smaller ones.

On the bright side, there were also reports from all over the country that told of armed resistance groups, many of which the Chinese had trouble finding. This was something he could work with. 

They had gotten away easy with this first assault; he knew that wouldn't last either. Sooner or later, there were going to be some folks coming home in body bags... and he dreaded that day.

Still, three days later, when a team of scouts came back from that base with dozens of digital images of the destruction, he was quick to post some of the more vivid photographs on various bulletin boards around the complex; it was good for morale, especially for the former villagers, and requests from them to join the training schedules doubled.

Jim, however, insisted that they continue with their schooling first. He wanted to be sure they could read the training manuals they'd put together, over the years; what's more, they would need at least another six months of decent meals and physical conditioning to be able to keep up with the training regimen. 

Phil Huett, leader of one of the scouting teams, was chomping at the bit to go and check out the enemy base to the north of them, which was nearly two hundred miles away, but Jim overruled him for the time being. 

The days were getting colder, and this time of year in Wyoming was no time to be taking on a two hundred mile trek to scout an enemy base. If they got caught in a snowstorm, they could easily freeze to death, even with the specialized cold weather camping gear that great grandpa Dan had stocked in one of the warehouses... or they could simply become snowbound, which would be bad enough.

Besides, he reasoned, waiting until late spring would give them plenty of time to train up the two dozen villagers who were even now preparing to undergo basic training. Having people who knew the outdoor terrain along would greatly increase their chances of success. And of course, he'd already heard of two other villages nearby, that had also been treated abominably by the Chinese.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 10



Old Bob Gunderson had asked if they could be brought in, and had, in fact, offered to go with the scout teams to talk with these other villagers. He was the one who'd told Jim about them in the first place, and had already volunteered to guide them to the other villages.

It would have to wait for a while, though.... the old man didn't have the strength for even a half mile hike, and they'd have to leave their vehicles at least that far away in order to keep from frightening the people in these other villages. After all, vehicles, as far as they knew, meant soldiers.

During the ensuing months, Jim kept everyone busy; putting a new roll up door on the mouth of the outside tunnel and camouflaging it to blend in with the hillside, getting the former villagers fed to the point that they no longer appeared as walking skeletons and getting them into training regimens that included physical conditioning, reading and writing, and learning to use all of the technology that they would be exposed to in the Cave, and basic military training, including martial arts and shooting skills.

He also lowered the camera mast back into its hidey-hole in the ground for the time being, figuring that it was better to be blind to the outside world for the moment while they figured out a way to screen it from view, so it wouldn't give away their position. He considered digging up a few tall pine trees to plant around it, and there were suitable trees to be had, to the north of the complex, but it would take more than a week, and the teams doing the work would be exposed the entire time... plus the equipment required to do the work would tear up the landscape something awful. Then, too, there was the possibility that in digging holes for the trees, they might accidentally hit the equipment that raised and lowered the mast itself, or rip up the cables that powered it and ran the video feeds. 

In the end, five people with metal detectors spent the better part of a week, scanning the area thirty feet out from the mast in every direction, while five teams spent time in the woods looking for suitable pine trees for replanting in the area, effectively camouflaging the camera mast from casual view. Jim also had a team carefully digging around the mast itself, seeking, and finding, the plastic conduit that the wiring ran through, running several extra power and coaxial cables through it, and installing a small satellite dish on top of the mast. The mast, the dish, and the cases of the cameras were then given a thin coat of a forest green paint, to blend in with the surrounding trees. 

The effect was perfect... it was difficult to spot the mast, or the dish, even by someone who knew what he was looking for.

More importantly, they could now not only tap into the communications of the Chinese; they could also use the dish to search the skies above for still functioning satellites.

During the same time, the former villagers managed to get settled in fairly well, and, after a few weeks of solid meals and getting healthier, they were assigned jobs within the complex. Most of the men went to the farms and working at the compost piles, turning the huge heaps of organic fertilizer daily and loading up great piles of it into manure spreaders for dumping in the idle fields. 

Many of the women helped out in the communal kitchens, helping to devise new 'ration bars' for the troops who would be taking the fields in the coming conflict and baking bread, 'juicing' fruit, and doing prep work for canning many of the foods that would be moved to the 'grocery store' warehouse. 

Most of the younger children would be allowed to just be kids for the next few years, taking in the forest chambers and the lake, taught to fish, and, as part of the school curriculum, were taught to play softball, football, and soccer.

Later they would be taught to hunt small game, to shoot, track, and some of the outdoor survival skills that they would need when they, too, joined the Cave's fighting forces. They, too, had jobs, though... they helped the Cavedweller kids to take care of the many animals the Cavedwellers raised for meat and furs. 

Jan Archer called her husband and kids to dinner and asked her kids how the village kids were doing, blending in. Jenny and Jimmy nodded. "They're ok, I guess." Jimmy replied. "They didn't understand why we keep so many rabbits, at first, until I explained it to a couple of them.... I think they get it now, though. They're REALLY good at skinning them, though.... and they already knew which parts of the insides were good to keep for soup, too."

Jenny nodded. "They didn't like going to school, at first. One girl called it 'pointless'... but her dad set her straight... he said if she could read, she could learn a lot more about life."

Jim smiled and shot a look at his wife. "Nice to see the parents are engaged. How are you doing, setting up their accounts?"

"No problem... most of them are already racking up credits. That old man, Bob Gunderson-- he's working circles around some of the younger guys in the farms. Not afraid of hard work, that one. If we were charging him for the groceries and clothes his family's apartment was initially stocked with, he would have that paid off and still have credits left over."

"Good.... are they learning to use the appliances well enough?"

"Oh, yes.... although it took some doing to convince his wife that the oven didn't need any firewood!"

He grinned at that. "I wonder what they think of the TVs and the DVD players?"

"Leeanne's been steering them towards the educational materials for the time being. They're actually learning pretty quickly, considering... she says some of the adults are already up to about a second grade reading level. They absolutely love the music videos, too."

"Music hath charms..."

"Yup. Oh.... we need to be careful about giving them too much of the beer and whiskey, though.... some of them like it a bit TOO much, if you know what I mean."

"Have any of them been introduced to pot yet?"

She nodded. "Dan Bradley smoked a joint with that guy who's daughter was attacked, what was his name?"

Jim nodded. "Herb Dixon."

"Yeah, him.... he asked where he could get some more of it right away. I think he likes that better than alcohol... Dan gave him a small baggy and an old waterpipe, taught him how to use it, keep it clean, all that. If he didn't have to work to earn credits to pay for more of it, I don't think he'd ever leave that apartment again."

Jim looked up sharply at this. "Make sure Dan explains to him that it's a luxury, not something he wants to spend all of his credits on."

"He already did. Told him, we all have to work together to keep this place running. I think he understands it well enough."

"Good... the last thing we need is someone who thinks he can just lay around all day, living off the rest of us. We don't want to start up another welfare state, if any of what grandpa Dan said is true. He didn't have much to say about that that sounded good."

"I know... my great grandpa Brad said the same thing. So did my dad, for that matter.... he learned it from his dad."

Over the next six months, the Cavedwellers continued to teach the newcomers necessary skills for living in the bunker, and started training quite a few of them in basic military skills. A good number of them already knew how to build a reasonably weatherproof shelter, how to get a small fire going, and basic food gathering. Hunting animals wasn't so very different from hunting and killing soldiers, so many of them had a head start on that.

In the early spring, just after the thaw, Jim decided it was time to see what was going on outside. He led a team out, looking over the old enemy base and the old village. As he'd predicted, the village's livestock had wintered fairly well, and the chickens had quite a few young chicks running around, pecking around for worms and loose grain. There were several new calves, and it looked like the lone bull was already getting busy this spring. 

At the old Chinese base, they got a bit of a shock.... someone had been cleaning up the place; there were orderly piles of wood and concrete blocks everywhere, appearing to have been neatly stacked for re-use. Jim took careful note of this, and decided that maybe it was time to institute semi-regular patrols in this area, find out who was doing this and why.

In the meantime, scouting teams went out to check up on the other villages Bob Gunderson had told them about; They found them, with some difficulty.

The first one was in what remained of a small pre-war town. They spent several days observing this place; these people appeared to be in a bit better shape than the people from the village that they'd taken in had been. They found this a bit puzzling, at first. 

This group, it turned out, had a good sized farming operation just outside of the town, plus numerous gardens in vacant lots around the town.

Old garages had been converted into barns, and the fences between the backyards had been torn down and cast aside, so the few cows could have plenty of land to graze on, but were still confined by the backyard gates. A few of the backyards had apple and plum trees, grape vines, and strawberry plants growing wild, and the trees that lined the streets showed evidence of being regularly trimmed, probably for extra firewood. 

A large building sat in the middle of this little neighborhood; when they got close enough, the scouts realized it was an old school building. A few more days of observation revealed that these folks all took their meals together in the school gymnasium, where they apparently had set up several woodstoves. Again, the scouts took numerous digital photographs and took their leave, without the townsfolk knowing they were ever there. Jim would want to know about this place before they made contact. 

The second team didn't find quite so rosy a picture. 

The second village was, again, built in the wreckage of a small town, but there the similarity ended. The people here, who numbered perhaps one or two more than Gunderson's village, were in sad shape... their foodstocks must have run dangerously low during the winter; they were digging up potatoes and carrots that were barely half formed, and hunting parties were coming back with any meat they could find, including rats, small dogs, cats, and even mice. They had a mere three cows and no bull to breed any more, and perhaps a dozen chickens, although the team couldn't get close enough to see if they even had a rooster. Most of the houses showed some sort of damage; probably from the war- they'd patched them up as well as they could, taking whatever materials they could find, apparently from some of the more severely damaged homes. 

Again, these villagers took their meals together, in the ruins of what had been, according to the sign, an old thrift shop. A closer look through binoculars revealed that they, too, had set up what looked like an old woodstove in the main room, having moved all of the old furniture and clothing racks back against the walls. The smoke from the stove eventually found it's way out of the building through a hole in the roof. The best thing that could be said about this little town was that the people were warmly dressed; the thrift shop they ate in had piles and piles of old clothing, among other things. 

The scouting team spent several days observing the townfolk through binoculars, taking numerous photos, and finally withdrew without revealing their presence. 

Back at the Cave, the two teams put the digital cameras into two separate boxes, labeled 'schoolhouse' and 'thrift shop', and Jan Archer took them one at a time, downloading the numerous photographs into separate laptop computers. 

The scouts, meanwhile, sat down to write up their reports and personal observations about the two towns.

Jim puzzled over the reports on the first of the two towns--why did they appear to be so well fed?

It wasn't until dinner that night that he got his answer; it came from his son, of all people.

"Geez, Dad, get a clue! You wiped out the people who were stealing all of their food! They got to keep what they grew last summer!"

Jim looked at his wife and grinned. "Out of the mouths of babes, huh?"

Then something else occurred to him. "Okay, smarty... then why isn't the second village in just as good of shape?"

The boy shrugged. 'I don't know.... maybe they didn't have as many seeds to start with?"

"You may be right about that." He rubbed his chin in thought. 

Billie Jean Dixon sat at the desk in the school room, looking over the small book in front of her... It was an alphabet primer, with pictures depicting items for each letter. She followed along with the rest of the class, which included most of the people from her village, as the woman in front of her, the 'teacher', led them through the alphabet, one letter at a time. She wasn't real sure why learning to read was such a big deal, but both of her parents had assured her that it would help her in the years to come. Her new friends, Mickey Miller, Cassie Smith, and Doris Delacroix, had told her much the same thing, and assured her that they would wait for her to get out of school before they all went down to the lake building.

Cassie and Mickey were in forest chamber three, sitting back, watching a pair of squirrels chase each other around a tree. They'd just finished smoking a joint that Cassie had snagged from her mother's stash while visiting her, and Mickey had a small bottle of wine that his dad had forgotten about long ago, in the very back of the liquor cabinet. Both of them were nineteen, so they were technically old enough to drink and smoke, but sneaking it was part of the fun.

"What do you think of her?" Cassie asked. 

"Who?" Mickey asked, his words a bit slurred.

She slapped him playfully on the back of the head. "Who? Billie Jean, dummy.... You know, redhead, big boobs, nice ass, now that she's had a chance to fill out a bit?"

"Hmmmm.... sounds like you've got a bit of a crush on her... Wanting a bit of that, are you?"

He knew that Cassie liked to swing both ways.

"No!" she replied... but she blushed a bit. In truth, she had had a few daydreams about the busty young woman.... but she knew, also, that Billie Jean had had a pretty rough life. From what she'd let slip, the few times she'd talked about it at all, she'd been raped by those soldiers more than once.

Mickey grinned at her, sure she wasn't telling the whole truth. 

"I don't know... I've tried to talk to her, but she seems to be a bit afraid of me."

"Well, can you blame her, after the way those soldiers treated her? I'll be surprised if she doesn't go the other way, never has sex with another man again."

"That would be a waste."

"For you, maybe."

"I was right... you're already stakin' a claim." He said, as he lay back on the grass, putting his hands behind the back of his head.

She grinned down at him, swinging a leg over his middle and reaching up to pin his arms down. "No, THIS is stakin' a claim." she replied as she leaned forward to kiss him.

"Honey, I don't have any protection along."

"Don't worry, I do.... I brought the little birdie with me."

"Huh?

"You know, the little birdie that prevents pregnancies?"

He waited for a chance to get a word in between her light kisses. "What the hell are you talking about?" He asked, his fogged mind struggling to comprehend.

She nibbled at his earlobe and whispered in his ear. "What kind of bird stops a girl from getting pregnant? Swallows, baby."

His eyes grew wide as the implications hit him, even as she drew her light blouse over her head and cast it aside, revealing her 32C's. He massaged her firm tits as she reached for the button of his shorts, while they stayed joined at the lips. She was beginning to moan as he moved one hand to her skirt and under it, running his middle finger up and down her opening pussy lips, finding and gently rubbing her hard little clit with his fingertip. Slipping his finger inside her, he found her G spot and massaged it, changing her moans to outright panting as he slid his finger in and out of her already sopping pussy.

"MMmmm, baby.... I want your tongue there."

He kissed her again, smiling and nodding.

She got up off him, shedding her skirt, leaving her nude except for socks and sneakers, which she kicked off before reaching for his shorts and dragging them off his hips, revealing his seven inches. He shed his T shirt at the same time. He didn't have the biggest dick, but he knew how to use what he had. She stepped around and knelt down, bringing her leaking cunt down on his waiting mouth and leaning forward, taking his hard cock in her lips, licking all over the head before sucking at him hard and taking him all the way in, his head just reaching the opening of her throat, then bobbing back up, getting into a rhythm.

His lips and tongue were busy as well, licking and sucking at her unfurled lips, fluttering over her exposed clit, feeling her thighs clamp down on his ears as her orgasm approached. She shuddered as her juices flooded out to engulf his chin and cheeks.

She jumped off him, moving down to take him into her pussy, thrusting down hard, and rode him unmercifully, hard and fast, for long minutes. He thrust back at her, flexing his cock to hit the sensitive spots, pushing up even as she came down, holding back with some difficulty before grunting out "Gonna cum, Babe!"

She jumped back off, taking his cock back in her mouth just in time to catch his spurts of seed. She savored the taste of her and him together, the saltiness of his cum mixing with her own semi-sweet juices, and swallowed as fast as she could.

"MMmm... yummy!" She reached for the forgotten wine bottle, taking a small swig and swirling it around in her mouth before leaning down to kiss him. 

"C'mon, lazy.... it's almost time to go pick up Billie Jean. Doris is probably already there."

He reached up for her, missing the mark as she backed away out of his reach. "No, no more.... get your hairy butt up and get dressed."

"Oh, alright.... but we're gonna have a round two.... after I stop off at my place and grab some rubbers."

" 'Some' rubbers? Got a rather high opinion of yourself, don't ya?"

He pulled up his shorts and fastened them, then reached for his T shirt and shoes. He faked a stumble in her direction, catching her unawares and slapped her on the ass firmly, bringing her up on her toes with a squeal.

"Keep it up, woman.... next time I might just miss and shove it in that other little hole back here!"

"Oh no you won't! You'll never get any off me again if you try it!"

They both knew she was lying through her teeth, of course.... he was the one who had introduced her to anal, and she demanded it from him at least a few times a week.

He grinned at her and said "Don't worry about it, hun.... I'll pick up my little pipe, while I'm at my place.... I've got plenty of credits built up. We can swing by the dispensery and I'll get a quarter of that new hybrid Mike's been raving about."

"Oh, that'd be perfect! Do you think Billy Jean smokes? "

"No idea.... but she's old enough. Hey, do you have your phone on you?"

Cassie reached into her pocket, revealing her little flip phone. 

"Perfect... call Doris, tell her to collect Billie Jean, then stop by the kitchens and grab some juice. What do you think? Apple?"

"I like that orange-strawberry-banana mix better."

"Ok, that's cool.... what the hell, have her get both."

Jim spent most of the day, reading the reports of the scouts, trying to figure out how to approach the two small towns without appearing too pushy. Taking Bob along might help; he had been to these villages in the past, and they might remember him. That would give them a big advantage.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 10



He considered for a few minutes, and decided to go to the 'thrift shop' town first. They appeared to be the most in need. He'd send the team in with packs loaded with packets of the older dehydrated foods, and a few dozen bags of assorted seeds. He knew he could, if necessary, absorb both of these small towns into the shelter, but he wanted to have his people observe them for a while first. Then a thought occurred to him, and he reached for the phone.

Down in the ordinance warehouse, Frank Bergen picked up the phone.

"Hardware."

"Frank, this is Jim Archer.... listen, do you have any of those little cameras with transmitters attached, that we could use to pick up imagery from here?"

"What kinda distance are we talkin'?"

"About six miles. I want to know who's been cleaning up that Chinese base we hit last year."

"Hmmm... no, not at that range... but we've got some of those old hunter's spy cams, record onto a USB memory stick.... they'll record up to, oh, maybe 72 hours at a time. Just send out a team every three days to change out the sticks, bring 'em back here and download 'em onto a laptop."

"I guess that'll have to do, then. How many have we got?"

Frank chuckled. "I think there are four or five cases of them.... about fifty to a case."

"Perfect. Could you dig out, oh.... what kind of range do they have? How wide is the view?"

"Each one can 'see' outwards, about a hundred and fifty yards... and the wide angle setting is good for a picture about sixty, maybe seventy yards wide."

"Ok.... dig out about ten, no, make that twenty of them.... you think that'll cover the perimeter of that base?"

"That should be plenty, yeah."

"Ok... how do those mount? Are they on some sort of belt, wraps around the tree, or do they have to be nailed up?"

"It's a belt mount. Only takes a couple of minutes to mount 'em. Gotta be careful not to mount 'em too high, though, unless you mount them on an angle, looking down on the targeted area."

"Ok.... do they use some kind of time-stamp?"

"Yeah.... I'll set the day, date, and time on all of them before I send them out; then, once they're mounted, just push the start button and they're good to go... take about twenty frames a minute, or they can be set lower than that, I think."

"Ok.... if you can, set them to take one frame every five minutes or so, that should be plenty. If more Chinese are moving into this area, I want to know about it."

"Ok, no problem.... anything else?"

"Not that I can think of, no.... but you might want to check with the scouting teams. They might think of something you or I wouldn't have considered."

"Alright. If you can track them down, let them know to drop in here."

Doris stood outside of the classroom as the new students, mostly villagers of every age, slipped past her. Billie Jean was one of the last ones out. 

"Billie! Over here!"

Billie Jean walked over to her, glad to see a friendly face. Everyone in the shelter seemed to be so serious.... little did she know that many of the adults were on what might have been called a 'war footing'. She knew that the base that the soldiers had come from, the ones who had raped her so many times, was a pile of wood splinters and dead bodies, but she didn't know that there were other Chinese bases, elsewhere in the state.

Had she known, it might have given her nightmares.

Herb Dixon looked around the field, seeing how far he was from the end of this row. He was weeding in between the corn stalks, not too strenuous, since the cave dwellers usually kept it pretty clean. This field was already pretty ripe, and he mused about the size of these ears of corn; back home, this field would already have been picked clean. Here, he'd been told, this field was still a few weeks from harvest.

Once he finished up here, he'd go to the schoolroom for two hours. He was already making good progress there; the teacher said he'd be up to a third grade reading level in less than a year. He wasn't sure just how good that was, but he took it to be a good thing. 

Bob Gunderson, meanwhile, was busy in one of the tomato fields, picking the ripe fruit and filling baskets as fast as he could. Mark Pitt, the crew foreman, caught up to him as he finished the row. "Geez, Bob, slow down! You're makin' the rest of us look bad!" He joked as he approached the older man. 

"Oh, Hell, This here's my normal pace. I don't feel right, slackin' off."

Mark nodded. The old man wasn't afraid of hard work, that was for damned sure.

"Well, bloody hell, you've done your share.... and my share, and his share, and her share...." he replied, pointing out two other people with a grin.

Bob smiled at the younger man, sure he was joking.

"No point in doin' somethin' if you're not gonna do it right. 'Sides, you folks have done a lot for me an' mine.... this is my way of payin' it back. If'n I told you how long it's been since I had a steak like I had the other night, you'd think I was bullshittin' ya."

Mark smiled at this... he'd heard the same thing from a few of the other villagers, and it did his heart good, seeing them pack on muscle mass... they no longer looked like they were one meal away from starving to death. If they wanted to work a little extra hard, he'd be happy to let them... within limits.... he just didn't want anyone dropping dead from a heart attack.

Josh Albright and his wife, Sherry, were hard at work in one of the main kitchens, running fresh tomatoes through food processors before adding garlic and a number of herbs and chopped, roasted sausage and onions in to large stewpots, canning gallons of spaghetti sauce for later sale from the grocery warehouse rooms. 

As she walked into the storeroom for another jar of bay leaves, he walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her just beneath her ample chest and whispered in her ear "Hey sweet thing.... wanna get raped in a storeroom?"

She smiled at his antics. "My husband might kill you if he found out."

"Lucky thing I know him, isn't it?"

She turned in his arms. "C'mon, honey.... that can wait for a while. We've still got stewpots on four stoves cooking. "

He bumped his hips into her groin. "Oh, c'mon... just a quickie? Feel how much he misses you?" he asked as he rubbed his hard on into her groin.

"And what if someone comes in? What then, smart ass?"

He grinned back as he tried to kiss her, which she turned away from, catching his lips on her cheek.

"They could always join us."

"Oh, no! Not again.... my ass is still sore from the last time!"

"Funny.... I don't recall you objecting, the last time! Or were you just moaning out 'Fuck my ass!' for our benefit?"

She blushed a bright red at his words, knowing he was right. The last time they'd had another couple, she'd loved having both her holes stuffed at once... Especially when Candy Fredricks had fed her her freshly fucked pussy at the same time. Eating her own husband's cum out of the younger woman's cunt had been a tasty thrill, and she hadn't cum so hard in months.

He decided to twist the needle a bit further. 

"Besides, who knows? It might be another woman, and she could sit on your face."

"You're that sure that I'll be on the bottom, are you?" She smiled at him.

"Let's go... the sauce is burning. Maybe, if you're a good boy, I'll let you invite the Frederick's over for dinner again."

"Oh, hell! What are we waitin' on, then? We've got five more gallons of sauce to make!"

Mickey carried the small cooler with the bottles of juice and a small bottle of well aged whiskey into the lake chamber, accompanied by Cassie, Doris, and a slightly reluctant Billie Jean; they were headed for a semi-secluded stretch of beach that people used when they didn't want to be interrupted by fishermen. Reaching the small cove, they laid out blankets in a square around a well used firepit and sat down, talking and partying while the small CD player Doris had brought along played softly in the background.

Cassie broke out the plastic cups, pouring small amounts of the liquor into the bottom of each, followed by a generous helping of juice, while Mickey pulled out his pipe and a baggie of Hawaiian/Hydro marijuana and filled the little pipe to capacity. Lighting up, he took a deep hit and passed it to Doris, who repeated his actions before passing it to Cassie. Cassie took her own hit in turn before offering it to Billie Jean.

"Want to try a little, hun?" 

"What is it?"

Doris smiled gently at her. "It's Marijuana, dear... it gives you a nice buzz.... very relaxing. Hang on, it looks like this bowl is pretty much gone."

She handed it back to Mickey, who tried to relight it, confirming that it was burnt out, and refilling it from the quarter ounce he'd brought along. He passed it and his Zippo back to Doris, who showed the young woman how to hold it.

Billie Jean took a small hit, trying to hold it in her lungs as the others had, but soon gave way to a fit of coughing.

Doris took the pipe from her, gently holding her shoulder as the young woman hacked for a few seconds.

"Relax, hun... that's normal, the first time. Here, take a sip of this, then try another small hit. Trust me, it'll feel a lot better in a few minutes."

Billie Jean sipped at her drink, not tasting the small amount of alcohol that Cassie had added to it, and sat back as the orange-strawberry-banana concoction soothed her throat. Doris gave her shoulder a little squeeze.

"Better?"

The young girl nodded. 

Mickey got up abruptly and walked into the small patch of woods that shielded the tiny cove from the rest of the chamber, coming back a few minutes later with a handful of small sticks and a few more substantial branches. Setting them to the side of the small ring of stones their blankets were arranged around, he stepped away again, coming back with a handful of dry leaves and four much larger sticks, and went to work, laying down the leaves, arranging the smaller twigs in a conical arrangement above them, then breaking up the small branches and laying those along the smaller twigs. Pulling out the whiskey bottle, he let a few drops dribble on to the branches on the top, soaking in and through the pile, and held his lighter to the leaves in the bottom. Within moments, they had a small, cheery campfire going. 

Doris reached into the cooler, digging out a small package of Cave-made hot dogs, another package of buns, and a package of sliced cheese.

Reaching a bit deeper, she pulled out a trio of folding campfire forks, specifically made for such cookouts, and showed Billie Jean how to spear the hotdog and hold it just far enough over the flames so it would cook without burning.

Mickey and Cassie followed suit, while Doris prepped the buns with slices of cheese. 

Thirty minutes later, after they'd eaten, Mickey pulled the small pipe out and re-packed it. Eyeing Billie Jean, he lifted an eyebrow and asked "Ready to try again?"

She eyed the pipe doubtfully, but gave a nervous nod. He held the pipe to his lips and lit it up, passing it to her, saying "Don't try to take a real big hit, honey.... just a little bit, then draw it deeper into your lungs. It does take some getting used to."

She did as he told her, taking a small hit and then taking a deep breath, and holding it for a long moment before releasing it with a small cough, passing it to Doris. She took a deep hit, then passed it on.

They emptied and refilled the pipe twice more, and soon Billie Jean was feeling the effects just as they had told her she would.... it was a wonderful feeling. She leaned back, feeling like she was dreaming, a bit light headed, then looked on, bemused, as Doris started kissing Mickey. She shot a look at Cassie.

"I thought he was your boyfriend?"

"He is.... and he's Doris's boyfriend too."

"Huh?"

"Yeah... and Doris is my girlfriend, too."

"What?!?"

"Yeah... honey, we, all three of us, love each other."

"Does he.... I mean, does he... rape you?"

"No, dear... you have to understand... sex can be an act of love.... it doesn't have to be 'rape'. Rape is an act of violence. We all love each other, so yes, we have sex, but it isn't violent." 'Except when he slaps my ass when he butt fucks me.' she added, in her own mind. She didn't tell Billie Jean that, though.

Doris disengaged from Mickey, and Cassie crawled into his lap, meeting his lips with her own. 

Doris moved over next to Billie Jean, slipping an arm around the redhead's shoulders. "Babe, the three of us have a healthy, loving relationship. We all love each other. Sometimes, Mickey and I will make love, when Cassie isn't in the mood. Other times, I don't feel like it, so he and Cassie will share a bed. Sometimes, usually when he's off at work in the fields, Cassie and I will make love to each other. I think that's part of the reason we wanted you in our little group... so you could see that sex, whether it's between a man and a woman, or two women, or all three of us, for that matter, isn't necessarily rape. It isn't always a bad thing. It can be an act of love."

In her pot fogged frame of mind, it almost made a weird kind of sense to Billie Jean; she looked over at Mickey and Cassie, who were still kissing lightly, while Mickey was massaging her small breasts through her light T shirt. 

"Is he going to.... I mean... is he going to get his.... thing out?"

"Only if she wants him, to, hun.... he doesn't do anything with us that we don't want to do."

"Do you...." 

Doris smiled back at her. "Sometimes. Sometimes, when I'm feeling horny, I want Cassie. Sometimes, I want Mickey... we've all been friends, like, forever, so becoming lovers seemed like the next step, between us."

"But.... how do two women...?"

Doris leaned a bit closer, kissing Billie Jean just below the ear before whispering "I can show you, baby."

She reached up to cup one of Billie Jean's full breasts at the same time, her thumb gently rubbing the nipple through the thin blouse, feeling it harden at her touch.

Billie Jean wasn't sure how to react; her momma had told her that what the soldiers had done to her was wrong, that a man who loved her would make her feel good with sex, but she'd never said a woman could do the same thing. The things Doris was doing with her, though... she could feel her body responding to the other woman's caresses, and it felt good. Miss Samuels, who had talked to her about what those men had done to her, had never mentioned this, either. 

She turned her head a little towards Doris, and the young woman kissed her lightly on the lips, once, twice, moving her lips lightly against the young woman's, and Billie Jean started responding, purely on instinct. Soon enough, Doris's tongue snaked out, licking Billie Jean's lips, and the young woman opened her mouth in a gasp. Doris took the opportunity to slide her tongue inside, gently sliding it across Billie Jean's, who began to respond a bit more, reaching across to rest her hand on Doris's side, and the other young woman took her hand, pulling it under her loose T-shirt, raising it gently to her own full breast. 

Their kisses became more vigorous, and Doris began to squeeze her breast a bit more firmly, moving her other hand around to rub her back as their kisses intensified. Finally, she pulled back a bit, looking deeply into the young girl's eyes, smiling, as her hands kept caressing the girl.

Mickey and Cassie, meanwhile, had both taken off their upper garments; Cassie was sitting back a bit as he licked and nuzzled at her breast. She pushed him away and down on his back, standing up to pull off her shorts, and settling her freshly shaven slit on his face, and he began licking at her lips, running his tongue up and down her nether lips, occasionally fluttering it across her hard little clit.

Billie Jean glanced past Doris, eyes going wide as she took in the sight of Mickey enthusiastically licking at Cassie's pussy, feeling a stirring in her own private parts, gasping as Doris insinuated a hand into the elastic waistband of her shorts and began to gently rub her clit. Her lips sought out Doris's, and she let slip a small moan as Doris ran a finger lightly up and down her unfurling pussy lips. 

Doris gently pushed the young girl down on her back, easing her shorts off and then her top before kissing her way down Billie Jean's body, stopping briefly at each of her soft breasts, kissing and sucking at her nipples for long moments before kissng her way down until her head was between the young woman's thighs. She pulled Billie Jean's legs up over her shoulders, burying her face in the young woman's pussy, kissing her all over and fluttering her tongue over her clit.

Cassie, meanwhile, got up off of Mickey, pulling his shorts down and massaging his hard cock for long moments before sitting down on him, taking him to the hilt all at once, eliciting long groans from them both... Billie Jean opened her eyes to see her riding him slowly, easily, his hard cock held upright by her clinging pussylips. For some reason, the sight of Cassie riding him like that, and apparently enjoying it, excited her even more; for the first time in her life, she experienced an orgasm, grabbing Doris's head with her thighs, trembling as the tremors shook her to her core. Doris smiled inwardly, guessing, correctly, that this was the first time Billie Jean had actually enjoyed sex; she licked furiously at the young woman's open cunt, trying to extend her orgasmic bliss as long as she could, feeling the young girl shudder under her knowledgable tongue.

Finally, she withdrew, shooting a look at Mickey, giving him a 'come here' gesture. Cassie caught the look and nodded, swinging off of him, and he crawled over to the other two young women on all fours, taking Doris's place between the young woman's thighs. 

Billie Jean opened her eyes to see Mickey's head between her legs, and she flinched a bit; Cassie and Doris saw this, one on either side of her, and each put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Cassie bent her head, bringing her lips to her ear, and whispered, "Relax, Sweetheart... He's going to be very gentle. We all just want to show you how good it can be, with a man who cares about you."

Mickey tore open the condom package and sheathed his hardness, then brought his rubber encased cock to her nether lips and gave a slow, steady push, and Billie Jean flinched a little... but he brought his face to hers, kissing her lightly, and looking her in the eyes.

"If it starts to hurt, honey, let me know. I don't want to cause you any pain.... just make you feel good. Ok?"

She looked up at him and saw nothing but a tender concern, realizing that he meant every word. This was his way of helping her to heal from what had been done to her. She nodded, a bit nervously, and he pushed in a bit further. She gasped, feeling more full than any of the times the soldiers had done this to her, realizing that he must be bigger than any of them, but it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. With all of the foreplay that they had done with her, she was well lubricated, and he slid in easily, until he was buried in her to the hilt.

He paused for a long moment, letting her get used to the feel of him inside her, kissing her lightly on her neck, bringing one hand up to lightly massage her breast, and whispered in her ear. "Ready, babe?"

"Y..yes..."

He pulled back a few inches and thrust back into her, getting into a slow, steady rhythm, building speed as she became more accustomed to the sensations. She raised her legs, locking them together behind his back and holding him inside her as she came again, trembling as the renewed orgasm washed over her, moaning deep in her throat as she clung to him. 

He kissed her again, sliding his tongue into her mouth and caressing her tongue with his own, feeling her incredibly tight pussy squeezing him to the point that he almost thought she was going to keep his dick as a souvenir. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 10



"OH God that's good!" she moaned, surprising herself even more than the others.

She was moaning almost non stop now, and suddenly realized she wasn't the only one. Cassie had her head between Doris's thighs, and was sawing two fingers in and out of her hole while fluttering her tongue over her clit, and Doris was obviously in the throes of a huge orgasm of her own, chanting "Eat my pussy!" over and over.

Doris reached over, taking Billie Jean's hand in her own, and the two of them shared their orgasms as they each came again, squeezing each other's hands almost to the point of pain. Billie was bucking her hips up against Mickey's thrusts now, instinctively, and he smiled down at her, knowing that while she was still far from being ok, she wouldn't think of normal sex as rape anymore.

He gave a final deep thrust, dick pulsing as he shot jet after jet of his cum into the rubber. He kissed her furiously as he came, slowing down only when he was fully spent.

He rolled off her and to the side, sliding an arm around her shoulder and bringing her head to rest on his broad chest. She cuddled up to him, not trusting her voice for a moment, trying to get her ragged breathing under control, and brought her lips to his ear.

"Thank you, Mickey. I never knew it could be like that."

"That's what we wanted to show you, dear. It can be awful, or it can be awfully good. We knew you'd had the awful, and you needed the good to balance it out."

The four of them spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and playing in the lake, not bothering to get dressed until it was time to go home. Mickey emptied the cooler out for a few minutes, using it as a bucket to douse the fire with lake water twice, then put the juice bottles, whiskey, and the plastic bags the hotdogs, buns, and cheese had been in back in and they walked back out of the massive chamber, getting in the golf cart they had driven here in, and headed out.

At Billie Jean's door, all three of them kissed her goodbye, they made arrangements to see each other again the next day, and she went to the door while they backed away, turned around, and drove off to the apartment they shared.

Herb Dixon was sitting at the kitchen table when she came in. "Where've you been, girl? You got out of school hours ago!"

"Doris an' Cassie an' Mickey took me down to the lake building, showed me how to get there... we went swimmin', then Mickey built a little fire, an' they showed me how to roast hot dogs."

"Did you get up to anythin' with them three? I've been hearin' tales 'bout them."

"Daddy! They're good people! They're tryin' to help me get over... well, you know..."

"That's what scares, me, honey... I think they got more on their minds than just helpin'!"

"Daddy! They're my friends!"

"You just make sure they're just friends, girl! I don't want you comin' home in the family way!"

"They ain't like that! They're nice to me... a lot nicer than them damned soldiers was!"

"Watch your mouth, girl! You ain't too old for a spankin'!"

"It's the truth, Daddy! Them soldiers is Damned, an' I hope they're all burnin' in hell right now!"

Herb looked sadly at his daughter, knowing, deep down, that she was right, and justified in every word she'd said, but still, he and Martha hadn't raised her to be the vengeful sort. It was a good thing the Cave dwellers had killed all of the soldiers; otherwise, she might have been tempted to get one of the many guns in the cave and hunt them down herself.

And he wasn't sure that he would have stopped her. Come to think of it, he might have helped.

Phil Huett climbed back down out of the tree slowly, looking back to see if he'd positioned the camera correctly. He knew he had, but he was nothing if not a perfectionist. He thought, for a moment, that he heard the growl of a truck engine. He keyed the throat mic and murmured "Ok, guys, that's the last of them. Let's head home."

"No can do, Boss... hold your position. There are soldiers pulling in."

'Damn.... well, that's inconvenient' he thought as he settled by the tree trunk to wait, looking around, finally spotting the truck. It was a deuce and a half with a canvas cover, just like the ones they'd taken from the base the day they'd trashed the place.

Two Chinese climbed out of the cab, and went around to the back, untying the cover flaps and revealing the occupants.... two more soldiers and about a dozen civilians, all dressed in very old clothes. The two soldiers jumped out first, took up guard positions, then the one who appeared to be in charge started shouting at the civilians to get out and start stacking up the boards.

Phil was surprised to hear the officer shouting in passable English; perhaps they could use this. He clicked his throat mic... 

"Jackson, do you have any bean bag rounds for your shotgun?"

"Yes Sir! What are you thinking?"

"What's the effective range for those things?"

"A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty feet. What are you thinking, Sir?"

"I'm thinking that officer would make a good prisoner.... If we can take out those other three, can you get close enough to knock that guy down, so we can take him alive?"

"Sir, our orders are no contact, remember?"

"I know... but we can use what's in that guy's head.... and I think I recognize some of those civilians. Remember that village with the thrift shop?"

The other four people with him looked at the civilians and Jim Partlin nodded to himself before answering. Clicking his mic, he confirmed it. "You're right, Sir.... they're from that village to the north of us... which means these soldiers are likely from that base north of there."

"Exactly.... we can kill two birds with one stone, here... take him for intel on that base, plus take these villagers back with us to the Cave, get information on their place, who to talk to and so forth, and as a bonus, we won't have to walk home... they brought us a truck. Partlin, you take the one furthest out, Miller, you take the next one, I'll take the third, Jackson, you know which one is yours.... let's move in as close as we can, in the next minute, then open fire."

Over the next sixty seconds, they all belly crawled into shooting positions, intent on their respective targets. 

"Everyone in position?"

A quartet of "Yes Sir's!" followed, and he quietly breathed out the words "Take aim... Fire!" Four silenced rifles spoke, and one shotgun gave a muted roar, and three soldiers dropped to the pavement, while the officer collapsed, writhing in pain. 

The civilians looked around in confusion, having heard the shotgun blast, thinking it had been one of the soldiers, shooting at one of them. Realizing they were all still healthy, they looked around at the dead soldiers, wondering what had just happened. 

Huett and his team stood slowly, stepping forward and taking control. Jim Partlin stepped over to the officer, drawing out a pair of zip ties and tying the enemy officer's hands behind his back before searching him thoroughly.

The others searched the dead bodies, taking their rifles, sidearms, ammunition belts, and tossing the corpses into the back of the truck. Huett stepped over to the civilians, looking them over thoroughly. They were decently dressed, but the clothing seemed to hang on them.

"I'm guessing you folks are from that village northeast of here, with the Thrift shop?"

Most of them just stared at him, but one older man, who looked to be in his late forties, nodded. 

"You seem to know a bit about us, stranger.... who are you?"

"We're friend's of Bob Gunderson."

This startled several of the people, and the older man looked sharply at him.

"Are you, now? Then maybe you can tell us what happened to him and his folk? We drove past his place on our way here, and I didn't see no one in his fields, nor his village, neither. The soldiers weren't none too tidy with the cover flaps on that there truck, Y'see."

"He's living with us, now, in our city. If you folks would like to go see him, we can take you with us. We're headed back there now.... If not, well, we won't force you, but we'll ask you not to talk about us to the rest of these punks." he concluded, pointing at the back of the truck, where the dead bodies and the tied up officer were piled up.

"Why are you takin' the bodies with you?"

"We don't want the Chinese knowing about us, just yet. We'll get rid of the bodies where they'll never be found, and take that officer in for questioning. We'd like to take you folks with us, so we can find out more about your folks, how we can help them and all... We're gearing up to start driving these bastards out of the country."

The older man looked at him as if he'd just grown a second head.... and an ugly one, at that.

"Are you serious, young man?"

"Yes Sir. This is America. We don't take to invaders too much. If it takes us the next fifty years, we WILL have our country back."

Art Perry looked long and hard at the young man before him. He wasn't loud, nor brash; but he spoke with conviction. He meant every word of what he said, of that Art had no doubt.

He nodded as he looked from the young man to the truck they'd been brought here in, that now held three dead Chinese and one prisoner. "Where are you from, young man?"

"We have a small city, not far from here. It's safe; the Chinese don't know about it. We've got food, warm beds, hot showers, and clean clothes. We could use whatever information you folks can give us, and if you want, you can stay there with us as long as you want. All we ask is that you find a way to help out, whether it be helping out on the farms, taking care of the animals, whatever needs doing. We'll get you back to your homes afterward, if you want, but if you want to stay on, you can do that, too... we've got plenty of room."

Just under an hour later, the big truck pulled in to the motor pool, and Archer was there to meet them. He was mildly pissed, at first, but when Huett explained his reasoning, he nodded and accepted it.

"Ok, good call. Get those bodies down to the composting area, tell Mickey to run them through the big chipper. Take their uniforms down to the boiler room, have 'em burned, and get their weapons and whatnot down to the arsenal. Take that 'officer' down to one of the detention cells--no light. Oh... strip him, too... we'll let him stew, naked, in pitch black, for twenty four hours. Nothing more vulnerable than a blind, naked man who realizes that he's completely powerless to do anything."

Turning to the civilians, he addressed them directly.

"Greetings, folks. I'm James Archer, and if you'll follow me, we'll see about getting you something to eat."

He and Jim Partlin led them through the complex to the Great Hall, and he called ahead to have food and beverages brought for them.

When they got there, there were several trays of sandwiches, a large coffee pot, and several pitchers of assorted juices along with cups, plates, and pastries on one of the side tables.

Selecting a turkey sandwich and a cup of coffee, he sat down to wait, watching them each eat several sandwiches apiece, as if they hadn't seen food in a month, trying the different juices and sweet rolls and turnovers, while he chewed on his sandwich, deep in thought.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 11



Bob Gunderson walked into the Hall, looking more fit and well fed than he had a few weeks ago when he'd brought his village into the shelter. He walked over to the table, grabbing a cup of coffee, and then came over to talk to Jim.

"Art, what the hell are you doin' here?" he asked, seeing his friend from the village north of his.

Art looked up, stunned. It was his old friend, surely... but looking healthier than he had in years. 

"Bob! They told me you were here, but I wasn't sure I believed 'em! How are you?"

"I'm fine, old friend. Hell, better'n fine, now that I'm here. Are your people comin' to live here?"

"Well, there ain't but eleven of us here, now... it was all that fit in that truck. There's still twenty eight, back in town." He shot a look at Archer, wondering if he'd said too much.

Gunderson caught the look and smiled. 

"You don't need to worry about Mister Archer. He's a good man. He's the one who brought us here, gave us homes, food, clothes, jobs to do. You can trust him."

Art shot a look at Jim, nodding. If Bob Gunderson trusted him, that was good enough.

Jim smiled. "We had to, Bob.... hell, I can't stand seeing Americans mistreated, like those punks did you." 

He paused in thought for a moment.

"Mister Perry, do you think the rest of the people in your village would come here to live, given the chance?"

"If they don't, I'd have to guess they had something wrong up here." he replied, tapping his temple.

"Ok... will you go with a few of my people, up to your village? You can tell them they can relocate here, and my people can drive the trucks and offer some protection from the Chinese. I'll see to getting the apartments ready for you folks."

"Alright, but... what about our animals? We've got cows and chickens, and a few pigs. We can't just leave them to starve to death."

"Just leave the gates open... they'll go out and find places to graze, and they know where their home is. They'll come back."

He called his wife, asking her to come down. 

Jan Archer listened as her husband explained what he wanted, then got on her phone with the housing office, learning that there were more apartments open than she'd originally thought... more than enough to take in an additional forty people.

She instructed them to see to it that they were all properly stocked with the essentials, and the keys for each of them brought down to the Hall.

Jim, Bob, and Art made plans to head up to the village that night, while the Chinese would, hopefully, be ensconced in their base. If they worked it right, they could have the entire village relocated to the Cave and the families set up in apartments by dawn. 

He wondered, for a moment, what the soldiers would think of the population of the village disappearing overnight.... until he realized that he didn't much care what they thought.

Six trucks rolled out of the Cave, thirty minutes later; by sunrise, the last of them were rolling back in, and a clean up crew was at work, obliterating the tire tracks that led from the pathway to their door.

Within another two hours, everyone was situated in apartments and bedded down for the morning. By the midafternoon, the newcomers were awake and assembled in the Hall, and Jim, Art, and Bob were addressing them.

Jim looked them over for a moment before speaking. 

"Welcome, folks. We're glad you're here. As some of you already know, I'm Jim Archer, and I kinda lead this city. We're a free society; the Chinese don't know we exist, though some of 'em have found out... just before they died."

The villagers were now looking back and forth at each other, the looks on their faces reflecting everything from amusement to alarm to fear and worry. People who killed soldiers were generally hunted down and killed.

"Now... you might have guessed this, but I'll tell you anyway-everybody, and I mean everybody, save for the very young and the very old- has some sort of job in here. You can work with the kitchen staff, you can help out the elderly, doing their grocery shopping, cooking, and whatnot, you can help out on the farms, taking care of the animals and the fields, whatever you're best at. We work on a basis of accounts here... what you do to help out earns you credits that can be spent on foods in the grocery warehouses, sporting goods and other things in the general store warehouse, at the bars and restaurants, of which we have several, and the dispensary. The apartments you moved into when you got here were stocked with about three months of food; when that runs out, you'll have to buy more with the credits you build up."

He paused a moment to let that sink in, taking the chance to take a sip of his coffee. 

"For your first few months or so, you will have guides, to show you where things are at, what's what in the way of groceries--those things you haven't seen before, at any rate-- and to teach you how to use the things in those apartments that you don't understand right now."

He took another sip of coffee before continuing.

"We will also teach you how to read and write, and work with numbers, so you can manage how many credits you've built up and keep yourselves within your budgets."

A younger man, towards the back of the crowd, stood up and asked "Will you teach us to fight?"

Archer nodded. "If that's what you want, sure... but keep in mind--we're playing for keeps. These Chinese punks have taken our country, so they tell me. We're going to take it back, no matter how long it takes... and I expect it to take quite some time. I don't care. This is America, not Communist China part 2. If you join us in this, you'd best be prepared to live up to that. We will not give up, ever. We will fight until we're wiped out to the last man, or our country is ours again."

"Ok... count me in."

Archer peered closely at the kid. "Son, how old are you?"

"I'm 17, Sir."

"Well, you're a little old to start the training, but we'll take whoever we can get." he replied with a grin.

The session with the Chinese officer turned out to be a bit more fruitful than they had hoped for; morale at the Chinese bases was uniformly lousy, with soldiers constantly trying to either fake an illness of their own or claiming a relative was direly ill, anything to get sent home. Even with the fresh food taken from the numerous villages, the women in what the soldiers referred to as their 'private brothel', and the minimal resistance they faced, many were still dissatisfied; most were simply homesick. They had all left friends and family behind, and many had wives and children in China. 

Much of their equipment was old and poorly maintained. The two "Hind" Helicopters at their base were barely flyable, and three of their five heavy tanks had not run in at least three years. The AK-47 rifles his soldiers carried were well over fifty years old, and he himself had discarded his Chinese made nine millimeter pistol in favor of an American made Colt .45 ACP as soon as he'd found one in the arsenal of an old police station. 

Leeanne lay back in the bed, her head on Gar's shoulder, and sighed deeply in post-orgasmic bliss. He kissed her on the forehead, lightly and said "You ok, babe? 

She looked up at him and grinned. "I am now."

He smiled and rubbed her slightly bulging tummy. "I guess this has something to do with it."

She grinned back at him. "A bit, yeah.... but I think it has something to do with work, too."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? What's going on?"

"You know that girl I've been counseling?"

"That one from the village? What was her name? Billie Jean?"

"That's her... the one who was raped by the soldiers, just before we brought them in to the Cave."

"Ok, what about her?"

"She isn't afraid of men, so much, anymore. Jim Archer came into the office earlier today, during a session, and she didn't cringe away from him. Matter of fact, she almost seemed happy to see him."

"You must be doing some good for her, then."

"Maybe.... but I think there's something else going on.... I know she spent the day down at the lake with Mickey Miller, Cassie, and Doris the other day. I think maybe they did something with her. She doesn't seem too afraid anymore."

He grinned at her. "You think maybe she got laid properly?"

"I don't know... but I know those three are a threesome. Maybe they seduced her."

"Well, if it helps, and she starts getting comfortable around men again, it's a good thing, right?"

"I suppose.... I just don't want her getting hurt again."

"Honey, how old is she?"

"She's eighteen, and yes, I know, that's old enough that she should be dating. You've gotta remember, though... until she came here, she had a pretty rough time of it. From what she's said, during our sessions, she's been raped more than once by those soldier bastards. The only guy who's ever really been good to her is her dad. She needs more interaction with young men her own age. I'm just afraid she's too naive to handle too much at once."

"Well... you know, the kids haven't had a dance, or anything like that, in quite a while. Maybe it's about time they did. Let the villagers and the Cave kids get to know one another."

"You think that would help? Really?"

"Honey, the newcomers haven't had much of a chance to mix with our kids. They need to meet each other, get acquainted. It'll do both groups some good. Besides, it'll add some fresh blood to the gene pool. Never a bad thing, that... and where else do they get a chance to meet, really? Most of the new kids, no matter their age, are still basically in first or second grade. Most of our kids, of the same age, are doing college level studying, or working full time. Let's put them in one room, a little music, a little food, a little drink, a bit of pot, and let them mix for a night."

"You might have something there... but no pot, just yet. I want them to get a good grounding in the basics before they start killing brain cells. "

"Ok, but you know what I mean... get them together and see what happens."

"You really think she'll find someone?"

"A natural redhead, with tits like hers? She'll be beatin' 'em off with a stick!"

"Hey! You're supposed to be looking at my tits!"

He grinned at her. "Babe, if I wasn't lookin', you'd think there was something wrong with me.... besides, I prefer women over girls. Well, one woman, anyway."

He kissed her on the forehead.

"That, and you know that if you cheat on me, I'll cut this off." She replied, grabbing his semi hard cock.

"Now, now.... no need to threaten like that... besides, if you cut me off, you'd be 'cut off', too.... "

"Oh, I'm sure I could find someone, eventually."

He leaned over and kissed her lightly. "Maybe... but what would you do tonight?"

She slapped him lightly on his bare chest. "Ok, you win that one..."

"And? What do I win?"

"Well.... You haven't given me any backdoor lovin', lately."

"Hmmm... is that an invitation, dear?"

She gave his cock a firm squeeze, stroking it lightly, and whispered in his ear "What do you think, lover?"

"Have we got any lube left?" he asked, reaching down and insinuating his middle finger into her tight anus, wiggling it around and opening up her little rosebud a little.

"It's on your side, babe."

He turned a bit, reaching to his nightstand and grabbing the small bottle. Squeezing a little out on his fingertip and sliding it into her ass, he spread it around a little, then spooned up to her, sliding his hardness into her tight rectum slowly as she gasped at the intrusion. Bottoming out in her ass, he reached around and massaged her tits as he started stroking into her ass slowly, letting her grow accustomed to the intrusion before picking up speed. It was an awkward position, but allowed him to nuzzle her neck below her ear and fondle her tits.

"Oh, God, babe! Harder!" she moaned as he picked up speed, and soon they were slamming against each other, him grunting on every stroke, while she moaned nonstop. She reached down, fingering her clit, triggering an orgasm, turning her head and kissing him hard before whispering "Doggie, dear?"

He smiled at her and replied "Arf arf." with a grin, and pulled out of her for a moment so she could crawl up to her knees, grabbing the headboard with both hands.

He got to his knees behind her, fitting the head of his cock once more to her tight little hole, and slammed it all the way home in one stroke, eliciting a small squeal from her as he began pounding into her in earnest.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh ,OH! Give me that cock, babeeeeeee! Oh, yeah! Harder, honey I'm cummmming! Unnnghhhhhh!!" She screamed as another orgasm hit her hard, sending pussy juice streaming down the insides of her thighs. "MMMmmmmm..... Ohhhh.... give it to me honeeeeeeee!"

He couldn't hold the pace for long, and she was squeezing him hard, inside her ass; soon, he was blasting ropes of his cum deep into her bowels. He slammed into her hard, a final time, and fondled a full tit as he kissed the back of her neck. 

"God, I wish we'd gotten together sooner." He breathed out, resting his cheek against her back for a long moment before pulling out his now shrinking dick.

He finally collapsed onto his back, and she laid down beside him, fitting herself to his side and laying her head on his shoulder, throwing an arm and a leg possessively across his body. 

"We're together now, baby... and I'm never letting you go." she replied, kissing him on the jaw. 

He turned his head to kiss her more thoroughly, replying "I know, honey.... you know I feel the same.... God, I love you."

Phil Huett, Mark Miller, Tom Davidson, and Jim Archer drove the four big trucks straight into the next village, with Art Perry and Bob Gunderson riding along.

Art and Bob jumped out first, stepping inside to find the nervous villagers trying desperately to hide the big stewpots.

Art stepped into the lead, saying, "It's ok, Riley.... we didn't come to take food from you."

"Art? What the hell are you doing here? And what are you doin', ridin' around with the soldiers?"

"They're not soldiers, folks.... they're friends. Would you care to meet them?"

A few people nodded, somewhat cautiously, Bob stepped back to the door and motioned them inside.

Jim and Phil walked into the gym building of the old school, looking around the room and nodding to the people there.

Stepping up beside Art and Bob, he turned to look over the villagers, certain that he had their full attention.

They, in turn, looked back at him, assessing the burly stranger within their midst. He was wearing an odd form of camouflage, as was his friend, and he was carrying what appeared to be several guns; a rifle strapped to his back and a pistol at his belt. He wore a cap that anyone more than a hundred and fifty years old would have recognized as a Marine Corps. cover, and what had once been known as Special Forces tiger stripe camo. 

"Good evening, folks. My name is James Archer, and I'm from a small city, about a hundred miles south of here. We're here to ask you if you'd like to move to a place where the Chinese can't get to you, while we clean out that base to the north of you."

This caused quite a stir, with people darting looks at each other all over room. Finally, the man Art had addressed as Riley stepped forward.

"What do you mean, Sir, 'Clean out that base'?"

"We're going to observe it for a week or so, assess the weaknesses, and then kill everyone on it, and destroy it."

"Why? What did they do to you?"

"Mr. ... Riley, is it?"

At the other man's nod, he continued "Do they come here and take food away from you? Do they take your young women to use as sex slaves? Have they killed your young men without reason?"

The other man stroked his chin as he nodded. "There's nothing we can do about it. That is the way of things here."

Archer stared at him, stunned by his defeatist attitude.

"No, Sir, it isn't. This is America. It is Not a colony of Communist China. It Is a country that was founded on a basis of free markets and a Constitutionally Limited Republic. It was founded on the idea that a man was free to make his own way in the world, and wasn't considered a slave to some foreign invader punks."

He paused for long moments, taking a canteen from his belt and taking a long swallow from it before continuing. 

"The city we live in was founded upon the same basis. I've served as leader for the past ten years, but I'm elected... as a matter of fact, this is my last term in office, under our laws. I have an informal council, who meets with me on a semi regular basis, and I listen to them, as long as they make sense. Some decisions I make myself, others I discuss with the council for days or weeks at a time. When my term is up, I'll turn the office over to whoever gets elected to replace me... and that gladly. We don't follow any particular ideology; we don't allow our elections to devolve into 'popularity contests'..... we pick people based on what they do, not on what they say."

"Everybody in our city, with the exception of the very young and the very old, works to earn their keep. We have teachers, farmers, mechanics, cooks and canners, bakers and gunsmiths, distillers and wine makers, people who care for the kids and do running for the elderly. Our children learn to read almost as soon as they can talk, and learn to hunt and take care of themselves before they become teen agers. Our city is well hidden, heavily armed, and we're always training new people to fight by our sides. Nobody goes hungry, and everyone is cared for. We would like to ask you to join us. Discuss it amongst yourselves, decide what you wish to do, and let me know. I can only give you half an hour to decide; we want to be well away from here, before the sunrise."

Looking around the room, seeing people already nodding in agreement, hearing the low buzz of their conversations, he knew they wouldn't need a full half hour to decide... most of them had made their minds up before he'd finished speaking.

Within twenty minutes, the villagers had retrieved those things they wanted to take along, finished their evening meal, and were organized into equal sized groups to load into the four trucks.

A little over an hour later, they were back at the Cave, being led to the Great Hall.

Once again, there were tables set off to one side with food and drink. Art and Bob took the villagers to them, nodding to the servers and greeting a few of them by name, pointing out a few of their personal favorites to the newcomers and grabbing sandwiches and cups of juice for themselves.

Jim went through the usual welcome speech, had them split up into family groups, had volunteer guides join them, and sent them off to their new quarters. By daybreak, all were settled in for the time being, and life settled back into a routine for the next week.

Phil Huett led his small scouting party around the base, noting the fact that this one was much bigger than the last; most significant was the addition of a small airstrip, roughly a mile long, with a large attached hanger, from which protuded the nose of what appeared to be a fair sized cargo plane.

They split up into four, two man teams and went to four sides of the fenced-in base, taking digital photos of all the points of interest, including the control tower, the numerous guard towers, and the many buildings that made up the place. They also took note of the fact that this place was a bit more security conscious; there were regular guard patrols, complete with canines and their handlers.

They met up in the woods well to the north of the base and set up three small camoflage tents, using cut pine boughs and handfuls of twigs, branches, and leaves to break up the outlines further, and bedded down for part of the day. 

In the late afternoon, they suited up and headed back to the enemy base, intent on filling up the fresh memory cards in their cameras with as many pictures as they could get. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 11



They were in luck; the Chinese were all outside for some sort of assembly. They were being addressed by an officer who was walking up and down the rows of men, noting an unbuttoned collar here, an open holster there, making remarks to a subordinate who was following behind him, taking notes.

Phil counted two hundred and twenty men, including the two officers and the twenty men in the guard towers. This one would be a tougher nut to crack, obviously.

They spent an additional three days, talking numerous photos and notes, keeping track of guard patrols and when patrols left the compound to patrol the countryside, which direction they went in, which direction they came back from and how long they were gone, and what, if anything, they brought back with them.

The outside patrols were generally Humvee Pickups; mostly, they came back with bushels of fresh fruit and vegetables; two came back with freshly killed cows, and one came back with fresh deer; a doe and her fawn. Apparently, they didn't turn their nose up at any kind of meat.

One came back with another form of 'cargo' entirely; two young women, perhaps twenty five years old. The two women were stripped right there in the middle of the camp, inspected by the base Commander, who then sent them, under guard, to one of the buildings off the open square where they'd held assembly, the day after the scouting team had arrived.

Phil shot a look at Billy Jackson, whose face was set in a mask of outrage; he caught the volatile man's attention and shook his head. 

"Not today, Brother."

"But Sir..."

"I SAID, NOT TODAY, CORPORAL!" he replied, in what he thought of as his Command Voice. "I feel the same way, but there's too damned many of them and not enough of us. We don't carry enough ammo for eight of us to take on two hundred. Let's get back to the truck, get this intel back to base. The Commander will want to do this right."

Jackson nodded, knowing his team Seargent was right.... still, it galled him, knowing those young women would undoubtedly be raped multiple times by those bastards while the coming operation was being planned out. He took solace in the fact that his sharpshooting skills were among the best at the base.... he would be among those firing the first shots at the enemy.... and if he got an open shot at that 'Commander', he'd peel the little yellow bastard's skull like a grape.

They made their way back to the small town, where they'd hidden their armored Humvee in an old warehouse building, and Phil mentally cursed.

There was a Chinese patrol there, standing before the now-open door of the building, looking over their transportation. From this distance, he also saw what had caught the enemy soldier's attention. They had left fresh tire tracks in the dirt leading up to the building. A rookie mistake.

"Well, Jackson, it looks like you'll get to kill someone, after all. Spread out, guys, north to south, and let's get a bit closer. If anyone tries to get in our truck, he's the first target. Low but quick, boys.... Go!"

Within two minutes, they were in position, and had chosen their targets. Within another thirty seconds, four Chinese soldiers dropped to the ground, bleeding from two rounds to the chest each. 

Phil and Billy moved in, cutting each one's throat for good measure. They swiftly pulled the corpses deeper into the old building, piling boxes and crates on top of them, and leaving them for the local wildlife to feed on after stripping them of their rifles, ammunition, and other equipment. 

Jim Morris left them with the final insult, whipping out his dick and pissing on the pile of corpses before tossing the ancient wooden crate on top.

Huett checked the fuel gauge of the Humvee pick up the soldiers had been driving; it was almost full, and they had two full five gallon 'jerry' cans, besides.

"Jackson, you and Willis take this one, we'll take the other two. We can always use an extra truck back at the base."

Almost two hours later, they pulled into the motor pool, turned the enemy Humvee over to the mechanics for inspection, and headed to the control center to report in, turning over the cameras for downloading, and sat down with Jim for a long debriefing. Explaining each photo as it came up on the big video monitor, the scouting team was kept busy for quite a while, consulting their notes as they went.

When they came to the pictures of the two young women, Jim became visibly angry, his knuckles going white as he gripped the edge of the table. Huett noticed it, nodding.

"I know.... I had to almost physically restrain Jackson from shooting the little bastard right then and there."

"Why did you?"

"Eight of us, two hundred of them... not good odds. Besides, that so-called 'officer' was standing right in front of one of the girls. I didn't want to get her killed."

Jim calmed a bit, nodding. "Ok, it was a good call.... although I wish I'd been there. You were right, though... it might have given away your position and gotten you all killed."

He rubbed his chin in thought for long moments and said "Ok, guys, go get some proper chow and some decent sleep. We'll have a council meeting in six hours, and I'll want all of you there to answer questions about anything I might have missed. Thank you, gentlemen."

Three hours later, his wife and four other computer techs had turned the numerous photos into a workable map of the base, and they had a fair idea of what they were up against. This one wasn't going to be easy. He guessed they would need at least twice as many troops as they'd used in their first operation, and even then, considering the dogs, with their keen hearing and sense of smell, it would be pretty dicey. They'd have to encircle the base from a much wider distance, and then move in from all four sides, simultaneously and quickly.

John Tyler picked up the phone at the training range. "Tyler."

"John, it's Jim Archer... How goes it?"

"It goes, Sir.... something on your mind?"

"Yup.... how many competent snipers do we have, currently? People who know how to factor in wind drift, figure their ballistics perfectly, that sort of thing?"

"Oh.... probably a thousand, Sir, maybe a bit more.... how many do you need?"

"Pick out your top eight hundred, people who can shoot in low light, tell them to give their rifles a good cleaning, and get their magazines loaded up. Make sure they each have at least.... oh, two, maybe three hundred rounds ready to go. Silenced rifles, of course, and silenced sidearms. Tell them to draw ration bars for at least a five day operation, bladder canteens, dark tiger stripe camo, veiled covers or boonie hats, the works. I want them booted and suited by tomorrow afternoon. I'll have further instructions within ten hours."

"Yes Sir.... anything else?"

"I can't think of it, but I know there's something I'm missing....."

"Are there any hostages on this one, Sir?"

"Yes, that's what I was trying to remember! Thanks! Make sure there are at least a dozen women, with bolt cutters, extra clothing in their packs, and a few extra food bars. Oh, yeah.... I want you to sit in on the council meeting and the planning session, in the council room. The scouting party will be there, too, so we won't have to wait for answers. That's going to be.... three and a half hours from now."

Huett and his team were the last ones to show up at the meeting, and the next two hours were lively, to say the least.... especially when John Morris' final 'contribution' was idly mentioned.

Johnny Corcoran shot a look at Morris. "Couldn't help it, huh?"

Morris grinned. "Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. Besides, I was marking my territory.... which should bring in the feral dogs. Nature can take it's course."

Several of the women turned decidedly green as the implications of his remark sunk in.

Jim let the gallows humor continue for a moment, smiling a bit himself at this, then cleared his throat. 

"Ok, people, the question remains, how are we going to do this? A one nighter, or do we do something a bit more.... frightening?"

Huett spoke up. "What do you mean, Sir?"

"Well, I like the idea of a quick, all encompassing strike. But.... what about this? Kill all of the guards in the towers and the foot patrols, including the dogs, then fall back about thirty, forty miles... let 'em stew for a week or so, then hit them the same way. We know they're already demoralized... we could build on that. Scare the hell out of them, a bunch of ghosts that take out their guards and vanish. A week later, it happens again. Maybe rig a few trip wire mines to their gates, Claymores or something similar. A few dozen 'Bouncing Betties', set fifty, sixty yards down the road from the main gates. More tripwired Claymores across every deer path heading into those forests... inside of three months, we could have them running in circles."

Huett nodded, an evil grin on his face.

"I like it, but.... you know, they could call for reinforcements."

Archer nodded. "That's the fly in the ointment. I'm leaning more towards the 'take 'em all out in one night' thing, but I wanted to float the other possibility too, just to get some opinions."

Corcoran nodded. "I like the idea, but let's stick to the original for this one. This is a much bigger base, and the idea of our people having to hike in from that far out doesn't really do it for me, Y'know?"

Archer nodded again, then shot a look at Tyler. 

"Johnny, what about the village civilian troops? Where are they at, at the moment?"

"They're enthusiastic, I'll give them that, but I want to keep them in Basic for a few more months. They're farmers.... it's going to be a while before we'll really be able to count on them as anything but cannon fodder. Sending them into combat now.... hell, it would be kinder to just shoot them ourselves."

Corcoran looked up at this. "We can always use them as back up guards here, free up more of our people for this op. We've got three more bases in this state; they'll see combat, eventually, there's no doubt of that. We could probably keep them in training until next spring. We can do a bit more recruiting, too, from the group we just brought in. Hell, we still need to finish teaching that first group how to read, to say nothing of the driving and flight simulators."

Archer frowned at this. "How many pilots could we field, right now, if we had to?"

Jim Miller looked up at this, after consulting his notes. "Maybe a hundred, for the prop planes... another hundred on jets, which, by the way, is about twice what we actually have planes for. Same thing goes for chopper pilots, for that matter. We've got more tank and APC crews than we have equipment for, especially for the Shermans and Pattons. We've also got some new stuff that R&D have been working on."

Archer raised an eyebrow at this, and Corcoran nodded. "I sent them a challenge a few months ago, to build something bigger, patterned after the Browning M2... What they came up with, well.... let's just say it's what the founder would have called 'Not quite ready for prime time'. Friggin' thing's a monster".

Archer grinned. "How big?"

"The base of the bullet is an inch and three quarters across, and the bullet, without the shell casing, is a bit over four and a half inches long. The primer itself is three quarters of an inch wide, and the nose of the bullet has another primer, about three-eighths of an inch wide. That faces into an ounce of black powder inside the bullet itself, which in turn triggers a sixteenth of an ounce of plastic explosives.... a test fire, ten rounds, turned a six ton boulder into gravel. We've got an APC with two of 'em mounted, one on either side, armored feed belt going in the top and a discharge chute for the spent cartridges feeding back to a bin inside the APC so they can be reloaded... it has a low rate of fire, about twenty rounds a minute, but a ten second burst will turn a Humvee into a pile of scrap metal. One of the machine shops is turning out ammo for them around the clock. It's a good thing the founder stocked so much brass stock. They're turned from brass cylinders two inches wide and five inches long. The foundry melts down the scrap and recasts it into more cylinders."

Archer grinned and replied "And you were going to tell me about this When?"

"Well, your birthday is coming up...." Corcoran replied with a big smile.

Archer shook his head, grinning. "Friggin' smart ass!"

"Ok, folks, I guess we're going for a total clean out. Same plan as last time... get close, take out the guards, wait a bit, see if we woke anyone up, then go in and kill the bastards in their beds. Scorched earth, people. We leave nobody alive, aside from American hostages, and we bring them back here for medical treatment and counseling."

Phil Huett caught his eye. 

"What about their supplies?"

Archer rubbed his chin in thought for a minute. 

"Leave the rifles, we've got more than we know what to do with now. Take ammunition, explosives, grenades, RPG loads.... hold it to ten truckloads or so... leave their field rations... damned things are kinda nasty anyway. If there's any fresh food in the kitchens, take that, but leave the rest."

"While I'm thinking about it.... we need to take along at least one or two detonators per building.... I want to leave behind a pile of toothpicks and ground beef, nothing else. We're sending a message, people.... there's a new wolf amongst the sheep... if you're Chinese, you'll be chewed up and spat out." He favored them with his best evil grin.

"We leave at twilight tomorrow evening; I want our trucks under cover in that small town west of that base no later than midnight, and our people taking shooting positions all the way around the place no later than two thirty in the morning... just about the time the guards change shifts. We'll give 'em just enough time to get bored, then strike. Night vision gear for all of the advance scouts, of course, and everyone warned to watch for trip wires and mines the closer we get to the fences."

Huett spoke up. "One more thing... and I take full responsibility for this one, by the way... the Chinese found our Humvees because we didn't do anything about the tire tracks we made as we pulled them into that warehouse... we need to take along half a dozen brooms and rakes, so we don't repeat that mistake. Matter of fact, it might not be a bad idea to outfit every scouting party like that, from now on, as a precaution."

Archer nodded. "Good idea... leave no sign we were there, and no clue as to what direction we came from." He shot a look at Johnny Corcoran, who nodded. He'd see to it.

It was ten o'clock and they were still fifty miles from the small town where they would be hiding their vehicles when it happened-- they came around a curve in the road and ran right into a Humvee, being driven by two Chinese soldiers. 

The Chinese, seeing the Humvees and the short line of trucks, naturally thought they were a resupply convoy, headed to the base. That was their last mistake. By the time they realized that these troops were wearing American uniforms, five men with sniper rifles were leaning out of the passenger sides of the trucks and had already drawn a bead on them, and the drivers of the trucks had pistols out; the two soldiers were dead before they could pick up a radio to request confirmation of their purpose. 

Larry Willis pushed the two corpses into the back seat of the aging truck and jumped into the driver's seat, putting on a pair of driving goggles to protect his eyes from the dust, and kicked out the bullet-riddled windshield so he could drive the enemy vehicle into the small town, to hide it until the operation was over.

By eleven thirty, the vehicles were under cover, everyone had eaten something, guards had been set, and most of their force was getting a few hours of sleep. This time, the tire tracks were swept over, lightly, to make it seem, to casual inspection, that they were from quite some time in the past.

Billy Jackson eased his way in, to within sixty yards of the guard tower, and sat back to wait.

When the headset earpiece whispered 'Prepare to fire' in his right ear, he flipped up the lens covers of the night vision scope on his favorite Sniper's rifle, taking a bead on the furthest guard from him in the tower, and slowly worked the bolt, chambering a round in the silenced .270 Winchester as quietly as he could.

His first round connected perfectly, entering the Chinese guard's skull just below the ear and showering his buddy with blood and shards of bone and bits of grey matter... the other guard stupidly looked out of the side of the tower platform, and his next round took that guard right below his left eye socket. Two rounds, two kills... his instructor would have been proud.

Around the base, fifty guards and ten German Shepherds dropped dead in their tracks. 

All around the enemy base, snipers sat back to wait; they would soon see if anyone else was awake in the enemy camp.

Within fifteen minutes, it was obvious that all was quiet, and two men ran up to places by the fence on all four sides; starting at the bottom of the fence, five feet apart, then cut lines straight up in the chain link fence to a height of five feet or so, before turned their cutting towards each other, creating holes wide and tall enough for their troops to duck through...

Once again, the operation went off with almost clockwork efficiency... almost.

In two of the barracks buildings, sleeping soldiers awoke before the Americans were fully in position, but it didn't matter... they just got shot first. Within ten minutes, all of the sleeping soldiers had been killed in their bunks, one man was killed as he walked in from an extended visit to the latrine, and Billy Jackson got his wish; he was the one who crept into the Commanding Officer's quarters, tapping him on the forehead to wake the little bastard up just before double tapping him between the eyes with the silenced .45 Colt Combat Commander in his right hand.

"Serves you right, you son of a bitch." He murmured at the corpse before turning to search the desk for whatever paperwork was there.

Sarah Jennison was the first one into the women's barracks, and was appalled at what she found. There were twenty three young women inside, all handcuffed to bunks that were incredibly filthy, none of them wearing a stitch of clothing, with buckets sitting alongside of the beds that were clearly used as toilets, and piles of rags within reach for use as toilet paper.

One by one, Sarah and her all-female squad used their bolt cutters to free the young women, none of which appeared to be any too healthy. They handed out ration bars and clean clothing, assuring them that they were here to help, and waited as the other teams finished up, getting the women loaded into a big truck as soon as it backed up to the door.

Elsewhere, a team was busily loading up five truckloads of munitions and supplies from one of the warehouses when they made a startling discovery; Wooden crates full of US Army M16 rifles. Further digging revealed other American equipment... cases of spare magazines, ammunition, and spare parts kits, M203 grenade launchers and dozens of cases of loads for them, 9mm and .45ACP pistols and ammunition for them, fragmention and incendiary grenades, LAW rocket launchers, and even case upon case of C-4 plastic explosives and detonaters, both timed and remote triggers. 

When he learned of this, Jim Archer didn't hesitate, he nodded and replied through the headset to load up as much as they had trucks for and wire up the rest for demolition.

Mike Nelson spent twenty minutes looking over the equipment in the hanger, pronouncing it mostly unflyable and recommending it's destruction; the plane and several choppers were quickly wired up with charges of Semtex and left. This gave him another idea, and he spoke quietly into his mic to the men who were searching the ordnance warehouses; he was told that yes, in fact, there were numerous land mines in the inventory.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 11



Within thirty minutes, a team of men were burying dozens of mines in the dirt runway. Any Chinese who flew in to inspect the damage were in for a rude awakening.

An hour later, twenty five truckloads of equipment and munitions rolled out of the front gates of the now silent base, along with the truckload of young women and Cavedwellers.... two of these would head to the warehouse to grab the trucks they had come here in, and the rest headed straight for the Cave. 

Two hundred yards out, Archer thumbed the button, and within moments, the enemy base looked like it had been carpet bombed from the air.

They were halfway home when the rain started, and Jim cursed for a moment, knowing they'd be leaving a clear path in the mud. As they progressed, though, the rain started really coming down, and between that and the drag chains on the last two trucks in the column, their tracks should be pretty well obscured.

A bit over an hour later, they had all of the trucks inside and a small team was outside with rakes and brooms, cleaning up the tracks from the rough path to the tunnel entrance while another tossed out grass seed at random, hiding their tracks further. Within a few days, it would look like there'd never been a truck through there at all.

The young women they had brought back were taken immediately to the hospital building, given multiple injections of antibiotics, cleaned up, and fed several small meals a day for the next few weeks, heavy on carbohydrates and protein, eventually getting some weight back on them.

Several of them, oddly enough, developed serious crushes on the orderlies who delivered the meals and took them for walks in the corridors to ensure that the extra weight built muscle mass and not fat. 

Physical therapists stepped in as they grew stronger, with small hand weights, and soon the young women were joking that they were beginning to look human again.

Counselors also stopped in every day, talking to them individually and as a group, and soon, the young women were healing from the inside as well. 

Sherice Donaldson took the tray from the somewhat older orderly, inhaling the aroma of the chicken stew and fresh cheese bread, almost thinking she'd died and gone to heaven. She looked up at the man who was busily ladling the stew into bowls, tempted to blow him a kiss as she selected a bottle of fresh orange juice to drink with her meal. She noted the mild look on his careworn features, and wondered, idly, if he would go for someone like her. 'Naahh...' she thought. 'I'm damaged goods. Besides, he probably has a wife at home close to his own age.'

George Klein, the orderly who was the object of her attention, was, in fact, wondering if the chocolate brown skinned woman would want to be bothered with an aging overweight white man like himself. He knew he had her attention now, mostly because he was the guy with the food.... but would he continue to hold her attention once she was released from the hospital and living among the general population of the Cave?

The Village/Cave kid 'mixer' that Leeanne had suggested went off without a hitch. Over the course of the five hour long party, the kids ate, drank, danced to the music of old rock bands that had been dead nearly two hundred years, and spent hours sitting on the old couches in the great hall, just talking and getting the chance to really get acquainted, learning about their respective lives and forming new friendships. Leeanne looked on from the music booth and smiled; from what she saw, several new romances were blooming as well.

Billie Jean, Doris, Mickey, and Cassie were back at the cove, once again taking advantage of the seclusion to cook out, smoke a little herb, go swimming, and enjoy each other's company... and bodies. 

This time, they'd brought along a young man from Billie Jean's village, Jeff O'Neil. 

Mickey gathered firewood and got the small campfire going, feeding it small twigs and broken branches until they had enough coals to cook over, then produced a small folding grill from his backpack to place over them, while Cassie reached into one of the small coolers they'd brought, bringing up a plastic freezer bag of ground venison patties.

After they'd eaten, Mickey pulled a small baggie of joints from his shirt pocket.

Jeff had no experience with pot, but learned quickly. Within half an hour, they were all sitting back, enjoying the mellow buzz, and Jeff was looking on, wide eyed, as Cassie leaned over, kissing Billie Jean vigorously, as she returned the favor. Doris moved to his side, leaning her body into his, murmuring "What's wrong, hun?"

"Are they, are they gonna....?"

"Maybe.... we're all friends."

"Do you, I mean, do you... "

"Sometimes, sure. Today, though... " she replied, reaching over to kiss him. "I'm in the mood for a guy... or maybe two."

"Two?!?"

"Sure.... I love havin' two guys at once!" she breathed in his ear, which was a bit more than his sheltered nineteen year old mind could comprehend.

Mickey smiled at her, but stepped over to where Cassie was just starting to fondle Billie Jean's ample tits and tapped her on the shoulder. 

"Mind if I cut in, babe?"

"Well... you could join us... you haven't eaten my pussy lately."

Over the next few moments, they had all stripped, and Billie Jean was laying back; Cassie was languidly licking her pussy, Mickey was laying on his back with Cassie's pussy positioned just over his face, his tongue vigorously working at her clit, and Doris was busy kissing Jeff and fondling his cock through his shorts, while he was clumsily fondling her bare, pendulous breasts.

"Easy, baby... we have all day. Not so rough."

she told him, working at the button of his shorts, pulling down his zipper and fishing out his cock.

"I've never...."

She arched an eyebrow. "You haven't been with a woman before?"

He shook his head.

"Ok.... let me show you, then." she replied, nodding towards the other three.

"I want you to eat my pussy, first. Just like Mickey's doing to Cassie, over there.... and Cassie's doing to Billie Jean." she added, as she looked over at her three lovers. 

"He's lickin' her down there?!

"

Doris kissed him again, smiling into his face and nodding. "He's making her feel real good, honey. I want you to do the same for me. Let me show you."

Laying back a bit, she reached down with one hand to spread her pussy lips, showing him the light pink flesh within and her hard little clit.

"I want you to lick all around here, lightly; you don't have to be rough about it, just take it nice and easy... and pay a lot of attention to this spot here." she said, while rubbing at her hard little clit, her face lighting up at the sensation.

She leaned back, legs spread, as he moved up between them, moving his head to her open pussy. 

He extended his tongue tentatively, tasting hot womanflesh for the first time... it wasn't really unpleasant, and he began to lick all around her lips, not quite hearing her sharp intake of breath as his tongue reached the top and brushed across the tip of her little nubbin. He felt it, though, in her trembling thighs, which were, by now, pressing hard against his ears. He began licking up and down her open pussy lips slowly, trying to get every part of them, circling around them again and again, as she reached down to run her fingers through his hair

.

'OhmiGod the boy's a natural!' she thought, as his oral ministrations drove her over the edge. She was moaning almost nonstop now, cumming hard and fast, washing his face in her juices, and she lay back for long moments just enjoying the sensations.

Mickey, meanwhile, was busy probing his tongue as deep as he could get it into Cassie's pussy, as Billie Jean clamped her thighs against the petite brunette's head, feeling Cassie cum hard against his mouth. 

Finally he couldn't stand it anymore, and after giving her hard clit a final nibble with his lips, he slid out from beneath her, turned, and slid his cock into her shaven cunt from behind, eliciting a long moan from her, the vibrations in her lips driving Billie Jean over the edge, leaving Cassie's face covered in her sweet juices.

He began to fuck her slowly, sliding out of her until just the head was still inside, then plunging back in to the hilt, but Cassie knew his slow strokes couldn't last; soon he was picking up speed and Cassie was forced to give up trying to eat Billie Jean's sopping cunt. Billie just sat up, reaching for Cassie's lips with her own, kissing her furiously while fondling her tits, thumbing her nipples lightly.

Doris pushed Jeff over on to his back, then hovered over his face while she leaned over to take his cock in her mouth, providing him with a sensation he'd never had before. She alternated between bobbing down until her nose was in his thick pubic hair and sucking hard at the head of his hard cock, licking it slowly before plunging back down to take him all the way to the back of her throat... it didn't take long. Soon he was cumming in her mouth, amazed at the feelings he was having as she struggled to swallow all of his seed. She kept licking away at him and soon, he was hard as a rock again. She jumped up, moving down his body to plunge her sopping pussy down on his still hard cock, riding him hard and fast, knowing he'd last much longer this time. 

Billie Jean looked over Cassie's shoulder at Mickey as he plowed into her friend from behind.

"Can I have you next?" she asked him, with a wide grin.

He nodded, not quite trusting his voice as he hammered into Cassie's grasping cunt. 

Cassie took the opportunity to get her arms under her, pushing back at him hard as he slammed into her, practically begging him to fuck her hard, and he was more than happy to go along. 

Cassie was moaning nonstop now, and her groans and small cries gave way to a scream as she came hard, squirting a small amount of her cum out and soaking his balls as he gave a final hard thrust and pumped his own jets of cum deep inside her.

Doris rode Jeff hard and fast, moving her hips as fast as she could, while he, reacting on instinct, fucked back at her with almost rabbit-like speed, and it wasn't long before she had to pause for a moment, as a crushing orgasm swept over her; he barely noticed, and kept right on going, his hands on her hips as he slammed up into her as hard as he could. She was near to collapse when the young man under her felt the tingling in his nuts again, blasting her insides with another dose of cum, finally driving into her a final time and just holding there as he pumped out the final few drops, Doris collapsing completely into his arms. Her lips sought out his, kissing him hard as her orgasm peaked and she settled into the mellow afterglow.

Cassie, meanwhile, was busily licking and sucking at Mickey's cock, cleaning him up and getting him hard again, savoring the taste of their combined juices as he kissed and nuzzled at Billie Jean's ample tits, driving her towards another moaning mini-orgasm as Cassie prepared him for the young redhead.

Knowing what little they did of Billie Jean's recent past, they weren't ready to push her into sucking cock just yet, or anal sex, for that matter. Her father had told her that the redheaded villager had been forced to take one of her attackers in her mouth, and Billie Jean herself had hinted at it as well, saying she never wanted to be forced into that again... the soldier who had done it to her hadn't been any too clean, apparently.

Mickey lay back, eyes closed as Cassie sucked hard at his limp cock, slowly teasing him back to hardness, eyes opening as she pulled away. Before he knew what was happening, he looked down to see Billie Jean taking the brunette's place, her strawberry red locks contrasting against his pale skin. He shot a look at Cassie, who merely shrugged as the young redhead started to lick and nibble at him, careful to keep her teeth in check. She plunged down on him, taking him to the back of her throat, then bobbing back up until her lips were wrapped around the head.

He reached down with one hand, palming her check, and she rubbed into his hand as she continued, finding that, when she wasn't being forced into it, she enjoyed having his dick in her mouth. 

It didn't last long, though, because she was definitely feeling an itch, deep in her dripping pussy, and she jumped up, pushing him onto his back as she mounted him, barely giving him time to put on a rubber; she'd been watching Doris with Jeff, and liked the idea of being in control, herself, for a change.

She began to ride him slowly, just a few inches at a time, and Mickey held somewhat still, letting her set the pace, knowing she was still working her way through things. Soon enough, though, she sped up, until she was slamming down on him, crying out her pleasure as she came, dripping onto his thighs in her haste.

Long moments later, as she leaned forward in the throes of her third orgasm.... or was it her fourth? He drew her shoulders down, bringing his lips to hers and holding her steady as he pumped his cum into the condom that she'd barely given him time to slip on before jumping on him.

Jim was meeting with the council again, and it wasn't going well... Bob Sharpe was calling on them for a vote to go after another of the bases in the state, or, better yet, one of those in Montana or Nebraska or Colorado.

"We need to liberate an area with a lot of farmland; we can't take too many more of these refugees, much as I'd like to. We just don't have the room. Jim, I'm telling you, we need to get some of the villagers we have now out on their own. What about repopulating some of our old American Military bases?"

Johnny Corcoran piped in. "You mean the ones that the Chinese were very thorough in destroying?"

"C'Mon, Johnny, they couldn't have destroyed all of them!" 

Archer nodded. "Actually, Bob, they were pretty diligent about it. Satellite surveillance shows the few we know about as being completely trashed. Most of them look like parking lots. Quite a few of the rest have been taken over by the Chinese, and taking those back is going to be a fuckin' nightmare. Besides, I told these folks they could live here, completely safe.... I won't go back on that. I couldn't look myself in the mirror each morning if I betrayed them like that."

Sharpe backed down after these words; he knew Archer was right. If they kicked the villagers out now, word would spread that they couldn't be trusted. Not a good reputation to have if you're hoping to recruit allies for an extended guerrilla war.

"Maybe we could wait until they're well and properly trained, then ask them, as a group, for volunteers to look after the next bunch we approach.... give them seeds, five or six tons of supplies, find a small town to set them up in... Set 'em up with a couple of those big diesel generators for power, make sure the town has plenty of power to run heat, lights, appliances, that sort of thing. Someplace close by, where we could keep an eye on them, but far enough away that they don't jeapordize us, maybe send along a few of our people to help run things, continue their training, and stay in contact with us here."

"You know that eventually the Chinese would find them and come calling." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, I do.... but you know that's going to happen, regardless."

Archer nodded. He knew Sharpe was right, of course; space in the bunker was limited, and they were quickly running out of it. Even with the space left, which was far more than his wife had thought, they could only handle another twenty five or thirty families, at best, and they had more people inside, currently, than they had jobs for. 

He had, in fact, been considering having Bob Gunderson round up a bunch of the villagers and trucking them out to harvest the vegetables from their old fields, which would both give them something to do and give a small boost to the fresh food market inside the bunker.

It wouldn't solve all their problems, but it was better than having all of those fresh vegetables go to waste.... and what they didn't use could go to the forest chambers to be fed to the deer and other wild game. While they were at it, they could take along hand scythes and machetes to cut down some of the waist high grass in a few of the local meadows to feed both their own few cattle and the herds inside the bunker. He'd have to talk to the old man about it when he got a chance.

Then, of course, there were the other Chinese bases in the state; located to their south west and further north of them, if the Chinese maps were accurate. The one ancient KH-12 surveillance satellite the computer techs had been able to access, the only one they'd found still in flight, so far, had been poorly positioned to get a good look at them, so they were pretty much going in blind. One was down near an area called Green River, according to the old maps, about a hundred and seventy five miles away, a good five hour's drive, even with good roads.... and these days, good roads were few and far between.

It was decided that they would send out four Humvees, with long range radios, a full complement of all manner of weaponry, and three scouts in each vehicle, using up the rest of the empty space for survival gear and dried food packs, reserving one to haul plenty of five gallon fuel cans. 

One of the trucks would tow a small tank trailer, hauling an extra two hundred and fifty gallons, so they should have enough for the trip back, as well. Each vehicle would also carry a geiger counter, with plenty of spare batteries, along with several sets of night vision gear, and a long range parabolic microphone as well, to listen in on an area before walking into it.

They were still a good fifty miles from the southwestern base when they ran up on a small village, a small, pre war town that was only given away by the thin tendrils of smoke drifting up from one of the chimneys of a house and lights from poorly sealed curtains. Seeing this, they backed off, seeking and finding an old warehouse they could drive into to hide the trucks until morning. 

Karl Mitchell sat up abruptly... he could have sworn he'd heard an engine. Engines generally meant Chinese, and he and his small group of rebels could ill afford an encounter with a Chinese patrol at this point-low on ammo, and with wounded to care for. 

He reached up to the small tabletop and lifted the globe on the small oil lamp they'd found in the basement, blowing out the weak flame and plunging the room into darkness. Crawling over to the window, he peeked out through a gap in the curtain but saw nothing. He crawled across the floor to Frank Simpson, but wasn't surprised to see that the man had died in his sleep; just as well, since he wouldn't have made it back to the main group anyway--he'd taken three in the gut from a Chinese machine gun two days ago, and they had damn-all medical supplies, let alone a competent medic. 

Huett took the first watch, after they'd finished piling boxes and other detritus in front of the Hummvees. The other eleven scouts climbed up to the catwalks and platform office above to get a few hour's sleep. He sat down behind a screen of old boxes, ate a ration bar, and sat back to wait.

Three hours later, he nudged Billy Jackson with his foot, telling him it was his turn at watch, and to wake him at sunrise. Pulling his pack over, he laid his pistol beside him and laid down to catch a few hours of sleep.

At dawn, they settled around several small camp stoves, enjoying the welcome heat in the cool morning air, cooking up dehydrated breakfasts in their military surplus mess kits, while some went up the catwalks to keep watch out of the second story windows.

Gene Dickinson was the first to catch the movement from the house where they'd seen the lights last night. One man came out of the side door, looking around as he picked a few ripe apples off of the tree in the backyatrd. He didn't appear to be Chinese; his clothing was all old and poorly matched, and wasn't anywhere near the Chinese military uniforms. His rifle, too, was wrong; if Gene's memory was correct, it appeared to be an old M1 Carbine, of either World War II or Korean war vintage. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 12



Ok, folks, as promised, here's the next part. I know, each part is taking a bit longer, but it's getting tougher to write, too.... I promise, though, there are still a fair few installments to go, and I'm starting to see how this will eventually end up. I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to any comments you may leave, good or bad. 

Oh, by the way.... as previously noted, I am not politically correct, and I am a strict Constitutional libertarian. If that offends you, to be honest, I don't care. 

Part 12

Karl Mitchell rubbed at his eyes, wondering if he could believe what he was seeing. This wasn't some Chinese soldier, that much was clear. The uniform was all wrong, for one thing, and the load bearing suspenders appeared to be old US military....Very old. He kept his hands away from his weapons as he and the stranger approached each other.

"Who the hell are you, mister?"

Gene grinned and replied "A friend, if you're an American.... but if you're workin' for the Chinese, I'm your worst fuckin' nightmare!"

"Uh huh.... I've heard that there song before. Can you prove that?"

"Not really... but I can't really think of a way to disprove it, either."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Beats me... I guess we can either shake hands and get acquainted, or throw down. I'll leave the choice to you."

They closed the distance between them and studied each other as they came face to face. Gene held his hand out, empty, and introduced himself.

"Gene Dickinson... Wyoming State Militia."

"Karl Mitchell.... Jackson Hole rebels."

"Well, then.... sounds like we're on the same side."

Mitchell eyed the other scouts coming out of the warehouse behind Gene warily, seeing the men were heavily armed and apparently were no strangers to a fight, and nodded, more as a survival instinct than an agreement.

Gene smiled... "You look like you've been through a bit. Anything your boys need help with?"

"We ran up on a base, about fifteen miles from here; lost quite a few good men... if you've got a decent medic around, we have a few guys who could use a bit of patchin' up."

Gene looked over his shoulder at his men, nodding, and Mark Dennison stepped forward.

"Lead me to 'em, guy."

Gene and three more of the scouts went along with them, ensuring Mark's safety, and they walked over to the abandoned house to see what was what. Karl walked in first, and the five men already inside were reaching for weapons as they filed inside; he gave a hand gesture, telling his boys to stand down. This was a fight he knew for a fact they couldn't win.

Mark looked over the five wounded men carefully, over the next hour, removing a bullet from one man's arm, setting the broken bone and putting on a splint before bandaging it, using up nearly a full jar of antibiotic ointment, and giving several injections of antibiotics and painkillers, besides, bandaging up the rebels as best he could. 

Gene and his team handed the men a few of their ration bars, each, while asking questions about the Chinese base. They soon learned that this base was on a state of high alert; possibly because of their own actions against the last few bases the Cavedwellers had seen to. The rebels had walked into an ambush, and had lost their CO and eleven other men in the fight. They hadn't even gotten a chance to retrieve the bodies, or their weapons.



This group was carrying a hodgepodge; one had an old bolt-action hunting rifle, two others had AK's, one had a shotgun with most of the stock cut off and the barrel cut down a few inches, the fourth had three different pistols, and the last guy had what appeared to be an old Ruger .22 and a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol. He was the one who spoke up.

"You guys got any ammo to spare?"

Gene looked over their weapons. "Not for most of those, no... we've got some extra .45 ACP, but our rifles are all .223 and .270. "

The man with the three pistols looked up at this. "Could you spare a few of the .45 rounds? I'm down to half a magazine for mine." 

Gene pulled the pack off his back, rummaging around in the bottom, and came up with three boxes; fifty rounds apeice. "No problem, guy. Will these do you?"

The other man looked at the three boxes in amazement... factory made, and hollow points, to boot! "Holy shit! Where the hell did you find these!?!"

Gene grinned and lied through his teeth, not wanting to give these men any ideas. "Found 'em in an old hardware store, a ways northwest of here.... hiding under a stack of old newspapers in a stockroom." 

"Wow! I haven't seen any factory loads in.... forever!"

"They're out there... hard to find, but not impossible. I kinda found 'em by accident.... I was looking for old newspapers to, uh, take care of some--- other-- 'business', if you know what I mean. Found an old case of them under the papers, with seven of those boxes inside."

The man with the pistols grinned. "I've got a good idea of it, yeah.... old phonebook pages are good for that too."

Gene suddenly put his hand to his ear for a moment. He frowned as he caught the words coming in over his headset. 

"Sir, we've got a Chinese patrol coming down the street... a Humvee with two inside, runnin' real slow, and five walkers, checking every building." It was Bill Jackson, who'd stayed behind in the warehouse to keep an eye on the vehicles with the other seven scouts. "Do you want us to take them down?"

"Hold off a minute.... I'm sending Huett out the back, now... I want to know if there are any on the next block." he replied, shooting a look at Phill, who nodded in acknowledgement, turning to the back door with his silenced .45 in his hand.

He was back in less than a minute, nodding to his CO... "Two more Humvees on the next block, with half a dozen walking troops behind them.... I think they're looking for our new friends here. They've got tracking dogs with them, but they're inside of the vehicles."

Gene didn't even have to think about this one. Clicking the throat mic, he told Jackson "Ok... standard op. Hit 'em last to first, silenced rifles. Take out the guys in the Humvees and the mutts last." He shot a look at Huett again, knowing that he'd follow the same orders, and the snipers with his team ran up to the second story of the house, taking up position at the windows facing the street.

They waited until all of the Chinese were within range, firing on the last man in the walking columns first, so as to not tip their hands too soon, but one soldier realized what was happening too soon and managed to get undercover in an old garden shed. 

Dickinson grinned at this, reaching back for the M203 grenade launcher that hung from his left shoulder, chambering an incendiary frag round and taking a few dozen steps forward. Taking careful aim, he locked on to the side window of the wooden shed and squeezed the trigger.

His aim was a little off, the projectile just barely sneaking in through the far edge of the window before exploding, eliciting a dying scream from the small building's lone occupant; there must have been some sort of solvent stored inside, because the entire building went up like a torch. He grinned as the screaming reached his ears.

The other half of the enemy patrol came running, and the snipers went back to work. The second Humvee turned the corner, almost coming up on two wheels, and Dickinson helped it along with a high explosive round under the front wheels.... the vehicle flipped over on it's back. Two of the snipers took advantage of this, zeroing in on the vehicle's fuel tanks with tracer rounds, turning it into an inferno as it came to a stop. 

The other Humvee rolled along slowly, as the driver and passenger had both been hit with multiple armor piercing rounds, until one of the ground level troopers from Gene's team ran up and tore the door open, pulling the corpse from the driver's seat and reaching for the ignition switch. He got the engine shut off just in time to be grabbed by the teeth of one of the german shepherds, the only living occupant of the vehicle. He jumped backwards and the dog was left with a patch of his sleeve.

He barely got his pistol out as the dog cleared the door, and shot the mutt in the face before it could get a better bite at him.

The third Humvee rolled around the corner, at speed, but barely got past the second house before the snipers took it out, as well, their .270 armor piercing rounds turning the windshield into something resembling swiss cheese.

Karl Mitchell watched the men, stunned at their efficiency; in less than four minutes, they'd taken out a Chinese patrol without losing a single man, and now had a spare Humvee to boot!

Dickinson saw the look on the man's face and grinned. "I believe you gentlemen were saying something about being low on ammo?"

Mitchell grinned back at him, shooting looks at two of his men who weren't wounded, and the three of them ran outside to strip the dead Chinese of weapons, ammunition, field rations, and other equipment.

Within twenty minutes, they were staggering under their loads. Both of the Humvees had been carrying full containers of extra ammunition as well as numerous Chinese grenades and RPG's.

Dickinson clicked his throat mic, telling his team to do a quick clean up behind them, moving the bodies to the basement of one of the abandoned houses, piling up boxes of junk on top of them and leaving them to rot.

Within another hour, they had the enemy Humvees hidden in empty garages, the fire had burned itself out, and the men from both the militia and the rebels had moved to another section of the small suburban town, to the stockroom of a small clothing store. They propped the back door open to vent the small building, got out several camp stoves, and the two teams shared a meal while Gene Dickinson and Karl Mitchell talked off to one side.

Mitchell looked over the men as he thought through his words.

"Ok, Gene, we've got to send some men back to report to our CO; the thing is, what do we tell him? That we got our asses hauled outta the fire by a State Militia group? He'd think we were all eatin' some of them funny mushrooms!"

Gene grinned at this.

"Well, how about we do this.... you guys stay here for a few days; we have to scout that base that you boys got shot up at. We'll be back in two, three days, tops, and we'll trade a few men... one or two of yours can come back to our base, talk to our CO, and one or two of ours can go back with you guys, talk to your CO. Maybe we could team up, share intel and resources. I've got a few satellite phones in the trucks; our commander sent 'em along in case we got into trouble we couldn't handle. I can give one to the guys who go back with you, and our CO's can hash it out between them after this op is over and done with."

Mitchell nodded, hand on his chin as he thought it over.



"You realize that's one big fuckin' base, right?"

"How big?"

Mitchell reached over to a pile of old wire coat hangers, straightened one out, and used it to draw a big L-shaped box in the dust on the floor.

"Guard towers at every corner, with lights and machine guns... three men on each of two levels of each one; two of 'em have rifles with scopes. Roving patrols with dogs, looked like Dobies, Shepherds, and Rottweillers, and they use radios to keep in constant contact. From the number of barracks, I'd guess there are probably a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred men on that base. It's going to be a rough one for your people, make no mistake. They've got three of those bigass helicopters, and they use 'em.... patrol at least a few times a day, rain or shine. Rifle rounds won't touch 'em, either."

He sat back in thought for a minute, then added "I think they've got something out around the outside of the fences, too... we were still fifty feet from them when the soldiers picked up on us.... they knew we were there, in the middle of the night. They opened up on us without warning.... we went runnin', but not before they tagged a few of us, as you saw."

Gene sat back, digesting this before asking "Did you see any sign they had prisoners?"

Mitchell nodded, pointing to one area of the drawing. 

"Prisoner barracks here.... south western corner. They've got about fifty women in there, use 'em for sex. Local girls, mostly.... they raid the surrounding towns for them.... and anything else they want--food, building materials, slaves, you name it. I think some of 'em are perverts... they also take a few small kids."

Mitchell looked up from the drawing and cringed.... the look on Gene's face would have frightened a demon. He had absolutely no use for child molesters.

They talked for two more hours, Gene taking out a note pad and writing down several pages of notes, including copying the crude drawing in the dirt to the last detail. A plan was already beginning to form in his mind, but he didn't want to say too much, too soon.

Maybe it was time for the Wyoming State Militia to show off a bit of it's air power.

He and three men from his team left that night, long after nightfall, with one of the rebels along as a guide. It was a bit cramped in the Humvee, even without the supplies that they'd unloaded from the cargo area, but it cut the time traversing the distance to the enemy base to a matter of a twenty minute drive, even with the headlights off, slowing to a crawl in some spots to get around the old wrecked cars and trucks in the roads.

Half a mile from the base, they found a quiet suburb to hide the big truck in, taking the last bit of distance on foot, staying well back from the place but well within the range of their cameras.



The base was well lit, and these guards appeared to be much more attentive than any they'd encountered up to this point; the searchlights were sweeping the area outside the fences regularly, and walking patrols inside the camp were both numerous and frequent. Gene counted a full ten guard towers, and the men occupying them were attentive and alert.

They took several hundred photos of the base, working their way around it slowly, taking their time and making sure to get overlapping shots of the entire perimeter, taking particular note of the hanger and motor pool, and a smaller building that all of the power cables ran to, with a big above ground fuel tank beside it... obviously a big, heavy duty diesel generator, possibly more than one. 

Even as he took dozens of pictures and several pages of notes, Gene was already formulating a plan to destroy this base.

The only part that worried him was the possibility that they wouldn't have any way to save the prisoners; he had never liked the idea of collateral damage, if there was any way to avoid it. 

On the plus side, the barracks where the female prisoners were kept was close to the fence; the downside was that it was in clear view of not one but two guard towers, and foot patrols passed by it frequently. They could, conceivably, take out the guards in those two towers with snipers, cut a big hole in the fence, and have the women cut loose and running out of the building relatively quickly; but there were still the foot patrols and whatever had tipped off the Chinese to the rebel's presence the other day.

Quite aside from all of that, the women were unlikely to be in much shape to run; at the last base they'd hit, the women had barely been able to walk. 

Karl Mitchell sat alongside of Gene, barely inside of the treeline, answering questions as best he could and marveling at how his Militia counterpart's mind worked. Gene asked questions he himself might never have thought of. 

He also noticed things Karl hadn't; like the small building all of the heavy wires ran from, that had the twin chimneys coming up out of the roof. He'd never have guessed that building provided the base with it's electricity; but to be fair, his experience with electrical power was limited, at best.

After two full days of taking pictures, observing, timing the Chinese patrols, and gathering as much intel as they could, they all pulled back, again relocating to another small town, further back from the base and outside of the patrol range of the enemy. 

This small suburban town had a sporting goods store, and they searched it thoroughly, coming up pretty much empty, until one of the rebels found a concealed trapdoor in the floor under the counter leading into a hidden basement room. There, they hit a jackpot.

It had, apparently, been the owner's private stash, and the owner of this little shop had clearly been a bit of a rebel himself; there were numerous rifles and pistols, and some of the AR-15s had been converted to select fire weapons.

There were well over fifty cases of ammunition of every description, as well as all manner of survival supplies, everything from camouflage clothing to tents to small 'pellet' fueled camp stoves with boxes of fuel and cases of military rations... MREs, mostly, along with dozens of cases of dehydrated foods. These, of course, were suspect, being nearly two centuries old; still, Karl peeled back the foil cover on one of the cans, marked as 'Beef stroganoff' (though he couldn't read it), opened the foil bag inside, took a small amount out on his fingertip, and let it expand on his tongue. It tasted wonderful.

Gene saw the look on his face and asked "May I?"

Karl handed over the big can reluctantly; then watched as Gene poured a small amount into his canteen cup, added a bit of water, and watched as the food reconstituted itself. Setting it on top of one of the pellet stoves, he lit up one of the pellets and allowed it to heat up for a few minutes, gave it a couple of quick stirs with his knifepoint, then handed the cup to Gene by the handle and said "Careful, it's hot." while handing him a fork from one of the mess kits from another shelf.

Karl took a small bite of the beef and noodle concoction and smiled.... his lads would eat well tonight!

They fired up two more of the small stoves, and pulled a mess kit from the shelves for every man there, emptying the big can and two more just like it, and every man there ate his fill before they posted guards for the night and bedded down, closing the trapdoor leading to the shop above and settled in.

In the morning, they saw to it that all of the rebels were outfitted with new weapons and plenty of ammunition, stout military boots and clean camo clothing, packs, mess kits, canteens, web gear, proper holsters for their sidearms, backpacks for their mess kits, rations, and extra boxes of ammunition, and pellets for the small pellet stoves that several of them would take along, along with numerous fighting knives, magnesium firestarters, and all manner of other survival gear.

Gene sent Phil Huett and Mark Tanner back with the rebels; they would drive one of their Humvees and the one they'd taken from the Chinese patrol back, along with one of the satellite phones. 

Jim sat in his living room with Bob Gunderson and Art Perry, explaining what he had in mind, and both of them agreed that letting the produce go to waste was a bad idea... they would get some of the adults from their respective villages together and have the fields harvested in a few days, max. Art was all in favor of doing the same with their fields and gardens to the north, of course; he and his people had put a lot of work into them, and they weren't any too happy about letting those months of work go to waste.

On the subject of some of them moving out to help the next village they 'liberated', they were a bit more reticent. Even with the prospect of some of the Cavedwellers coming along, bringing with them a small arsenal of both light and heavy weapons, and truckloads of other supplies, they still feared the possibility of Chinese attacks.

They would both have to have long talks with their people about any sort of arrangement like this. Of course, there was always the possibility of relocating all of them to another suburban setting, closer to the Cave, which sounded like a better idea.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 12



Bob Sharpe and his team of scouts were patrolling to the west of the Cave when they made a startling discovery... it appeared to be a small, old US military base, and was being patrolled by people in uniform.

Americans.

In very old US Air Force uniforms.... and carrying M16 rifles.

He spread out his twelve man team to both sides, moving around the fenced in area of the field to get better looks at all sides of the small base, noting huge areas of gardens, an airstrip a bit over a mile and a half long, numerous hangers and barracks, multiple guard towers, and not one but two control towers. On one side of the long runway were more than forty solar panels, set to catch the morning sunlight; along the other side was what appeared to be a cornfield.

Outside of the fence, the ground had been kept clear for at least two hundred yards out, giving them a good view of anyone approaching from all sides.... but the space wasn't going to waste; a small herd of cows and another, of sheep, were busily grazing in pastures separated by chain link fences about six feet tall. 

Other areas outside the fences were cultivated, growing dozens of types of vegetables. They even had a small orchard of apple trees.

Sharpe left his rifle with one of his team members, walking up to the main gate of the base alone. He got to within fifty yards of the gate before yelling out "Hello, the base!"

A man came to the front gate, which opened just wide enough for him to slip through.

"Just hold it right there, mister! Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Lieutenant Bob Sharpe, Wyoming State Constitutional Militia.... I'd like to speak to someone in charge. I mean no harm."

Within two minutes, an older man came to the gate, and looked Bob over carefully, noting the old camo pattern and the absence of insignia denoting rank.

"Young man. Jones tells me you're a soldier?"

"A scout, actually. A member of the Wyoming militia, Sir."

"I see... are you the ones stirring up the Chinese?"

"I suppose you could call it that... if you mean wiping out some of the bases of those scumbags."

The older man nodded, extending his right hand. "Rick Jamison... I suppose you could call us the last remnants of the US Air Force in this area, although we don't have any fuel left for our planes."

Bob arched an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you have planes left."

"They were in bunkers, pretty deep underground. Not many.... this wasn't that big of a base... more helicopters than anything else. From what my grand dad told me, they did more training and search and rescue from here than anything."

Bob nodded... he'd read about such small bases. Only the best pilots were trained at such bases.

"Anyhow.... what can we do for you, Lieutenant?"

"Not much, really, at the moment.... my team and I are scouting the countryside, getting an idea of who's still out in this area.... we're from a city about forty miles from here. We're.... working on restoring the country, Y'see."

The old man arched an eyebrow at this. "You know that there's a pretty tall order?"

"Yes Sir, it is... but it has to be done. The civilians in the villages we've liberated so far have been mistreated horribly by the Communist Chinese... and we ain't havin' it. This here is Our country, Not Theirs. We're going to take it back, and we don't give a shit if we have to kill every Chinaman on American soil to do it. We're recruiting and looking for allies. We don't ask for handouts; we have, pretty much, everything we need... except for enough people."

"What, exactly, are you proposing, young man?"

"Well, Sir, we need places to train, places for our excess population, people to trade with, help training the villagers we're rescuing.... we have our own base, a small city, actually, but we're running out of room. We have weapons, and we just got a bunch more, took 'em off a Chinese base, so we can trade some of them, too. If you folks would be interested, we can put you in communication with our commander, let you guys figure it out. In the meanwhile, me and my men need a place to lay our heads for the night. We have our own food, tents, bedrolls, that sort of thing.... we're a foot patrol, and we've done forty miles or so today, so we're about tuckered out. It would be nice to set up camp someplace where we only have to post one or two guards."

It was at that moment that the satellite phone at his hip started to vibrate.  He pulled it from the waterproof pouch at his belt and pushed the button.

"Yes Sir?"

It was Jim Archer. "Lieutenant, how's the patrol going?"

"Quite well, Sir... we've located half a dozen villages, so far, most of which seemed to be in half decent shape. We haven't found much in the way of Chinese out here, just a few roving patrols which didn't put up much of a fight. We also found, well, hold on a second... I just met a man I think you should speak to." He handed off the phone to Jamison, saying "My Commander, Sir... James Archer."

Jamison took the phone tentatively and held it to his ear. "Hello, Mister Archer, is it?"

"Yes, it is, but you can call me Jim... to whom am I speaking, please?"

"Rick Jamison, Sir...survivor at Juniper Training base."

"Juniper? I haven't heard of that one... it isn't on any of the old maps."

Jamison chuckled at this. "Not surprising.... I don't think this place was what you'd call a high priority base, back before the war. We're, basically, the descendants of the staff of this base, from back before the war... plus a few civilians who've trickled in, over the years."

"I see.... well, good, you're the kind of folks we're looking for, Sir. Tell me... is there anything you'd want to trade for?"



Within a week, a relatively secure trade route was established; the base known as Juniper field had a vast store of old, but still good, electronic parts, a small warehouse full of .50 cal. machine gun rounds in belts, and better than fifty tons of castable lead. They also had a good sized fleet of aircraft in the underground hangers.

The Cave, on the other hand, had an enormous storage tank of aircraft grade fuel that could be useful in getting their choppers and a few of their old F-16 trainers back in the air, and had kept the art of airframe and powerplant mechanics alive. 



Pete Coswell climbed down from the wing of the aging F-16 fighter jet, shaking his head. Taking careful note of the tail numbers, he added this one to his list of planes which were in desparate need of repairs and rebuilding before walking to the office of their host, where Jamison and Jim Archer were sharing coffee while figuring out a 'trade agreement' of sorts. Luckily, this one hadn't ended up on the 'scrap for parts' list, which was already entirely too long.

Reporting to his commander and their host, he grabbed a cup of coffee, from the brewer they'd brought with them, and settled at the table with the two men.

"Well, Gentlemen, I have bad news, and I have good news."

Jim nodded.... "Ok, let's get the bad news out of the way first."

Pete nodded. "None of these planes are really in any kind of shape to fly again... there's just too much corrosion in the frames, the seals in the engines leak like a seive, the instruments are way out of date..."

"Ok... what's the good news?"

"Give me both of my teams, a few good mechanical draftsmen who can work from laptops, and all of the machine shops back at the base, I think I could salvage.... maybe five or six of the twenty planes in their fleet. It'll take, oh... maybe five months per plane, cannibalizing the other planes for some of the parts I'll need, and having the rest made at the shops back at the base and trucked over here."

"As for the choppers, another six, maybe seven months per bird, and we could salvage maybe half of the fleet-twelve of the twenty six birds they have here."

Jamison gave the young man a long, appraising, but skeptical look.

"Are you sure about this, young man?"

Archer smiled at this, waiting for Pete's answer, which, when it came, would be a bit amusing.

"Yes, Sir, I am."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Sir, I've been studying airframe and powerplant mechanical work since I was twelve years old. I've been maintaining our planes for the past ten years. I've been an airplane nerd all of my life. If you have anyone here that can match my record, please, by all means, point him out.... I'll be happy to consult with him."

Jamison just sat and stared for a few minutes, then gave a rueful grin. "Ok, young man... I'll defer to your judgment." 

Pete nodded. "On the bright side, we have quite a few of the necessary engine seals and whatnot at our base... and they've been stored in Argon gas atmospheres, so they haven't really aged, as yours have here. That's a huge plus; the factory that made them, well, it was in Ohio.... I kinda doubt it survived the war."

Bob Gunderson and the rest of the adults from his former village sat back in the great hall of the Cave, content with their day's work.... they'd managed to get the old field outside of their village harvested and nearly twenty five bushels of assorted vegetables back here without incident, and everyone had earned a double credit day... a full day's pay for their labors, plus credit for the food they'd contributed to the Cave economy. They had also gathered up the village's chickens and gotten them into cages and added them in to the Cave's flocks.

The few cows, on the other hand, were a different story. Nobody had thought to bring along a cattle trailer, so it was decided to just leave them for another day. The barn doors were left open, though, and there was plenty of grassy pastureland surrounding the small village, not to mention a small spring fed pond at one end with clean water.





Herb Dixon and his villagers did the same, bringing in their crops, a dozen pigs, several litters of piglets, and several dozen more chickens. Over the course of two days, they also managed to get the Cave's three cattle trailers loaded up, with the full load of cows, several calves, and their lone bull. 

Their kids, meanwhile, spent the days gathering up several pickup loads of fresh cut grass, most of which had grown waist high. It would be spread in the fields they had laying fallow at the moment, and the Cave's herd of cattle would be turned loose in there to feed upon it and make their own 'deposits'.



Jim and his council were meeting in the offices again, looking over the reports and surveillance photos from the several enemy bases again.... the big one to the south west worried him the most; Gene's thoughts, of taking out the guard towers and barracks from the air with a few of the choppers, then moving in foot troops to mop up, was looking a lot better, in fact. 

He was worried about the slave barracks, though... he, too, didn't like the thought of killing innocent women if it could be avoided, and no matter how many hours they'd logged on simulators, the fact remained that none of his 'pilots' had ever left the ground.

Counting on them to take out guard towers and soldier's barracks while not hitting a building full of female slaves was a bit too much to ask.

Then there was the troubling news that the Chinese knew when someone approached the fences around their compound; it sounded to him like they were either using motion sensors of some sort, tripwires, pressure pads, or some kind of in-ground vibration sensors. That would be a problem. 

Johnny Corcoran stepped over to the big video monitor, on which the enemy base was depicted, reading the tags that Jan had added to denote which buildings were soldier's barracks, and which one was used for the female slaves. Jim stepped up next to him.

"This is gonna be a tough one."

Jim nodded. "Saving those women might not be an option."

Johnny shook his head at this. "Do you really want to get that kind of reputation? There's a way... we're just not seeing it. There has to be. We've got every kind of weapon available, currently, short of nukes. We're just not looking at this from the right direction."

Leeanne spoke up from the table.

"Guys, you're still trying to do 'sneaky'... why not try 'blatant' instead?"

Johnny and Jim looked at her, then at each other, then back at her.

"What do you mean, Lee?" Jim asked, wondering what she meant.

"Knock on the front gate."

"I don't get it." Johnny replied.

Leeanne rolled her eyes for a moment, muttering "Men---always have to be led by the hand!" loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. 

Jan Archer and Sarah Jennison both grinned, nodding, though neither of them had any idea what she was talking about.

"Am I the only one here who watches those old war movies in the library?"

Jim nodded. "Probably... what do you have in mind?"

"What you need is some kind of diversion.... big enough to take all the attention away from that back fence area where the women are being held, right?"

Jim smiled, starting to see where she was going with this, and motioned for her to continue. 

She got up and walked over to the map, studying it for long moments, before continuing.

"Ok... the main gate is right... here, right?"

Jim nodded. 

"Ok.... can you use a bunch of those rocket launchers Gar was so happy about to knock down those gates.... and maybe those guard towers around it, too?"

Jim looked at her, then at Johnny, then at Gar, who had walked over to the map to stand by his lady.

"That's actually not a bad idea. Gar, how many RPG's could you put into the gates and the towers, here, here, here, here, and here? Well, hell, basically, all of them?"

Gar studied the map for long moments.

"Ten guard towers, multi-level, look like they've been built from pretty heavy logs... I think about four RPG's each should turn 'em into kindling. Have each shooter take along a few extra loads, just to be on the safe side. Maybe an extra guy, to fire a few loads at that generator building. As soon as those stop going off, maybe use four or five choppers to strafe the barracks, hanger, and motor pool... snipers, sitting back in the woods surrounding the place to mop up the survivors. By that point, they won't need any silencers.... the Chinese won't know what hit them. Scorched earth on this one?"

"You betcha. Total Blitzkreig. We're not looking for supplies this time... we're here to do what an Army is supposed to do-kill people and break stuff." Jim replied with a grin.

Gar nodded, studying the screen a bit closer. "Do you think we should knock out the generator building, too?"

Jim thought about it for a long moment and shook his head. "No.... those, we could use. If they're as big as I think they are, we could use them to power a few of the villages we've been freeing. I don't care about their other supplies, but if we can spare those, and their fuel tanks, we can use them in that small town to the south of us; what the hell did you call it?"

"Middleton. They've only got about a hundred people, so, yeah, one big diesel generator would be good for them... a couple of hundred lamps, a few dozen refridgerators, maybe a few dozen of those electric space heaters from warehouse five.... and I think they could do well with some of that hydroponic gear, start growing some vegetables year round."

"Agreed... though they've got enough of our dehydrated stock to last the next year or so. I had four truckloads sent to 'em yesterday."





Karl Mitchell looked around the room they called the 'Great Hall' in amazement. He and his team had come, at Jim Archer's invitation, to negotiate a mutual alliance between his own Rebels and the Militia, and he was already seeing the advantage. He'd already met a number of the villagers who had moved here, who had told him quite a bit; none of them had a bad word to say about the people they'd moved in with.



Sherice was sitting in one of the Cave's several bars when George Klein walked in. She didn't notice until he walked up and took a seat beside her, asking the bartender for a rum and orange juice.

She looked up, startled at the sound of his voice. "You're that man from the hospital!"

He nodded, extending a hand. "George Klein."

"Sherice Donaldson. I didn't expect to see you in here."

"Oh? Why not?"

"I don't know.... you just didn't strike me as the sort of man who comes to a bar. You look more like a family man."

"Now how would you know about drinking men? Did your village have a still?"

"No.... but we gathered a lot of berries and grapes in the woods. One of the village elders had kept a few little wooden barrels in his cellar, used them to make wine in good years. He hid them behind a stack of firewood when the Chinese came calling."

George nodded. He'd heard many such stories already, from other villagers he'd helped in the hospital.

She looked him over again, wondering.... 'Well, it can't hurt to ask.' she thought, as she considered how to frame the question politely.

"Doesn't, errr... your wife... object to you coming in here?"

A pained expression shadowed his face for a moment, and she regretted the question immediately.

"No... my... Martha passed on, a few years ago. The kids are both out on their own, and the grandkids, well... they all have lives of their own. They're all still pretty young."

"But... but... you're too young to have grandchildren!"

"No, not really... I'm fifty one. My oldest son, George junior, is twenty six, and the younger, Max, is twenty four. Junior has twin daughters, eight years old. Max has a son who's just turned six.... cute little nipper... takes after his dad."

She smiled. "I'll bet your place gets pretty lively when they come to visit."

He grinned, "That it does... not often enough, but, well... kids will keep your mind limber."

She smiled, sadly. "I wish I could find out.... the doctor said the soldiers did too much damage to me, inside.... I can't have any kids."

"Ouch... sorry we didn't get there sooner."

"It's alright.... my sister had two; seeing what she went through with hers, well.... that was enough for me. I'm not sure if I would have wanted them or not, to be honest."

He nodded. "So, how are you taking to life here?"

"I love it... knowing that what we're doing actually means something, the soldiers aren't going to come in and take everything we worked for. It's taking some getting used to, though.... so many new things to deal with! I never heard of an electric stove! I never heard about electricity, as far as that goes!"

He smiled at this.... he'd had a rough time of it himself, when his wife died. He was used to serving food, not cooking it. It had taken him six months to learn to cook, working in the hospital kitchens.

"Isn't someone helping you out with that?"

She nodded as she sipped at her drink. "An older lady named Missus Murray... but she isn't what you'd call the best teacher.... she seems to think that I know what some of this stuff is, but I never heard of most of it. I never saw a hand mixer, or a toaster, or a microwave oven before."

"Oh, my God.... they set you up with Debra Murray?! You poor dear... no wonder you're struggling! Listen, you tell Debra to not bother... I'll teach you. That old shrew has no patience at all. I wouldn't ask her to teach you to make toast!"

She giggled a bit at that. His assessment of Debra Murray was dead on. "I wouldn't want to put you out... I know you work a full day at the hospital."

He smiled at this before correcting her. "Hun, I volunteer at the hospital, when new people come in... I used to work at the recycling plant and at the composting piles. That's where I laid my Martha to rest."

"Oh, no! You bury your dead in a compost pile?"

"Of course! My dear, we don't have room in here for a proper cemetary; if we buried people like they used to, we'd have them stacked up fifteen or twenty deep! Cremating them would be a waste.... the way we do it, our dead go back to the land, and they help to fertilize the fields we grow our food in. It might sound a bit... I don't know, distasteful? ... But it's part of the cycle of life. Where did your village put your dead?"




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 12



"We buried 'em in the fields..." she replied, eyes widening as she realized that he was saying, basically, the same thing.

He smiled as he saw her make the connection.

"See? What we do isn't so different. We just, kinda, help the process along a bit."

He decided to leave out part of the process... she didn't really need to know the part about the wood chipper.

"Ok, listen, why don't you come back to my home with me, I'll cook dinner tonight, you can give me a hand in the kitchen, and we'll start you out with proper lessons tonight? I'll call Mrs. Murray, tell her you won't be needing her anymore, I'm going to be teaching you from now on."

"Really? Well.... what about the rest of the stuff? Washing clothes, keeping house, and all of that?"

"Don't worry... I have to do all of that at my place, too... I can teach you as we go."

She gave him a doubtful look. "Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to be a bother for you.... you've already been so nice to me."

He laid his hand on hers, on top of the bar.

"Honey, I've got a two bedroom apartment that's entirely too big for me, I live alone, and I'll be glad for the company. Besides.... I like you. I found you attractive when you were still healing up in the hospital wing. I'd love to spend more time with you. I was tempted to ask you out when you were still in the hospital wing. I've been hoping to run into you ever since you were released, but I didn't think you'd go for a fat old fart like me."

Two hours later, they were sitting in his living room, together on the couch, sipping on drinks and watching an old movie on his flat screen in companionable silence. He had an arm around her shoulder, and she had her head resting on his.

"George?"

"Hmm?"

"Will it bother your sons, you and I seeing each other?"

"I don't know about that... might make 'em jealous... the old man always finding prettier women than they do!"

"C'mon, now!" she laughed, slapping him lightly on the chest.

"I'm serious! Here, let me show you."

He led her to the mantle, where there were several framed photographs.

"This is Junior, his wife, Tina, and their girls.... taken when the girls were four years old." He said, pointing at a picture of a medium height young man with a tall, black haired woman who appeared to be sneering at the camera, with two little brunette girls sitting in front of them.

"Oh, wow! Who drew these? They're very lifelike!"

He stared for a few minutes before realizing that she'd probably never seen a camera before.

Wordlessly, he reached into a drawer, taking out his old digital camera. Looking through the viewfinder, he focused in on her, said "Smile!" and snapped her picture.

Walking over to his desk, he hooked the camera up to his computer, downloaded the shot, and hit the 'print' button. 

She looked on in utter amazement as her picture appeared, first on the small video screen, then on paper, as the laser printer buzzed back and forth, reproducing her image on a sheet of photo paper.

"Oh, Wow! Is that me?"

"Yes, Ma'am.... I'll have to find a frame for it, of course, but I think I'll add this one to my collection here."

He led her back over to the mantle, standing the picture of her up behind the smaller family photos.

"This is my youngest, Max, and his wife, Pam... she's a little bitchy, but I'll never tell her that. Junior, and Tina, and this one here on the end is Martha and I when the boys were younger. Breast cancer took her from me when she was forty six."

She was surprised... Martha had been a very beautiful, light skinned black woman, if she was any judge of features.

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to bring up old memories."

"Death is part of life, isn't it? The doctors did what they could, but they caught it too late. She hung on for a year longer than they thought she would. She managed to see both of our sons get married, and met her grandkids. I guess you can't ask for much more from life, huh?"

She turned to face him, giving him a firm hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Maybe not, but you deserved more... it sounds like you loved her very much."

He returned the hug, for a bit longer than was, perhaps, necessary, and said "Now.... I thought you were going to help me out in the kitchen?"

In the kitchen, he showed her where everything was and set her to cutting up the leftover shrimp that had been part of his dinner the night before, while he put the noodles on to boil, then he taught her to grate the cheeses while he got out the small blender, garlic, onion, several other spices, and cream. 

Within forty minutes, he was ladling out the shrimp alfredo pasta into bowls and leading her back to the living room, where he put in a fresh DVD, about a man who was wrongly imprisoned, gained his freedom, inherited a fortune, and turned the tables on those who had wronged him.

By the time the end credits were scrolling up the screen, they had moved together close enough that their arms were around each other and her head was, once again, laying on his shoulder.

"That was good.... the way Edmond got his revenge on Mondego and those other two.... that was just right."

"Yes... it's based on ancient history. A classic of literature, back before the war, or so they tell me. I never read the book, but this is one of about four different versions of this movie they had in the library.... I've seen one other. I'm kinda working my way through them."

She reached up, kissing him on the cheek. "I hope I can be here for the others."

He reciprocated, kissing her on the forehead; as she looked up at him, he gazed into her eyes, whispering "I hope you'll be around for a lot more than that." 

She looked back at him, with a 'Deer in the headlights' look, and asked "Are you sure? I mean.... you know what they did to me.... are you really sure you want someone like me around?"

He smiled sadly at her and nodded. "Hun, we've all got things we've done we're not proud of, in our pasts... what was done to you was... well... just that... it was done TO you; it wasn't something you asked for, or consented to. The damage that was done to your body has mostly been repaired. The damage to your mind, your heart, well... only you can say when that heals. If I can help with that healing, I will... if you'll let me. You're still a very beautiful woman, and if I said I wasn't attracted to you, I'd be lying through my teeth."

She smiled, brought her other arm around, and hugged him around the neck long and hard. "Thank you... Mrs. Davidson was right; you're a sweetheart." She whispered in his ear.

She moved around, until she was sitting across his lap, and kissed him, lightly, and he returned the kisses with enthusiasm; soon their lips parted, and their tongues were curling against each other, the movie before them forgotten. 

His hand reached up, seemingly of it's own will, and squeezed her full breast lightly. In the few weeks since she and the other women had been brought here, she'd filled out on the rich food, and was back to her full 36D size.

She felt a moment of anxiety as he fondled her, but fought it back down, knowing that it was an act of instinct, as was the hardness pressing upwards from his pants, pushing itself against the back of her left thigh.

She knew, too, that it was instinct that was making her wet between the legs, and causing her breath to come in small gasps. She pushed back from him for a moment, looking deep in his eyes. "Honey, are you sure about this?"

He reached up to her cheek, stroking it lightly, nodding. "As sure as I can be of anything. If you aren't ready yet, I understand, though."

She stood, slowly, pulled him to his feet, kissing him deeply and molding her body to his in a tight hug, feeling his hardness pressing into her belly, and whispered in his ear. "I think we're gonna need more room, Dear."

He smiled and nodded, reaching for the remote control, shutting off the DVD player and the TV, handed her her drink and picked up his own and took her other hand, leading her to his bedroom.

Standing by the bed, he took a quick swallow of his drink, setting it on the nightstand, followed by her own, then took her in his arms, rubbing her back from her shoulders to the full cheeks of her ass as they kissed deeply again, barely breaking the kiss as they sat on the edge of the bed, her pulling the hem of his shirt from his pants and pulling it over his head.

He returned the favor, burying his face in her cleavage, savoring her chocolate brown skin as she ran her fingers through his unfashionably long hair, feeling the stirrings between her thighs as he nuzzled lightly at her dark brown nipples.

She reached for the button of his jeans, unzipping his pants and reaching in to fondle his hard cock, realizing he was a lot bigger than the soldiers had been, mentally admonishing herself for making the comparison. This was a man who actually appeared to care about her as a person; they had been little more than animals, using her to fulfill their own needs. Her counsellor, Mrs. Davidson, had been right. She'd found a good man, here, and the prospect of intimacy with him wasn't nearly as frightening as being raped by the soldiers had been.

He reached past the elastic band of her light sweatpants, feeling no panties, but a neatly trimmed bush. Her little nubbin was already poking out from behind it's protective hood, and he fondled it gently, taking things slow, knowing she was still likely to be a bit skittish about being touched so intimately. 

Soon his middle finger found the hole, sliding inside and rubbing against her G-spot, resulting in a flood of her juices as her breath quickened yet again.

She was feeling things she'd never felt before; her only experience with sex had been with Chinese rapists, so this was a pleasant surprise for her. She stood up slowly from the edge of the bed, sliding her pants down and stepping out of them; he did the same and moved back, laying down on the far side of the mattress and holding an arm out to her. She sat down, scooted over, and lay on her side facing him.

"You know, in a way, this is my frst time."

He smiled at her. "I haven't been with a virgin in over thirty years... hope I still remember how to treat one."

She moved closer, molding her body to his own, wrapping her arm around his neck and murmuring in his ear "I think you're doing pretty well so far."

He kissed her, hard, almost forcing his tongue into her mouth, carressing her breasts with his free hand, before pulling back and looking deep in her eyes. "You know, I could fall in love with you."

She felt a stirring, deep in the pit of her stomach, and squeezed her new lover hard. 

"I know, Baby.... I feel the same about you. Now lay back... I want to make love to you."

He lay back on the bed and she sat up, getting her first real good look, realizing that he was, indeed, built much better than any of the soldiers, in every way. Years of labor-intensive activity had left him pretty toned, and his cock stood up proudly at a good eight inches. She licked her lips and climbed aboard, fitting the head to her wide open pussy lips and sinking down slowly until he was buried in her to the hilt, and started riding him slowly.

He reached up, taking a full breast in each hand, massaging them gently and tweaking the dark brown nipples with his thumbs, meeting her gaze as she stared down on him, her mouth half open as her breath came in little gasps. 

For long moments she kept to her slow, steady pace, and he restrained himself, knowing that she needed this as a way of being the one in control; from things she'd let slip in the 'lunch line', while she was still in the hospital, she'd been a captive of the Chinese for nearly three years. Taking control in bed must be a novelty for her.

He took hold of her hips and pushed backwards with his feet on the bed, getting up into a semi-upright position, his back against the pillows and the padded headboard, so she could lean forward, which she did, once again bringing her full breasts in range of his willing mouth. He took a brown nipple in his lips, nibbling and sucking lightly at it, driving her over the edge, and the walls of her pussy clamped down on his hardness as she came, moaning continually as she picked up the pace. He held on to her hips, knowing he was close himself, trying desperately to hold out for a few moments longer, but it was no use. She felt the pulsing in her core as he blasted his jets of sperm inside her, and tears filled her eyes as she realized that if she never got anything she wanted, ever again, the one thing she would want more than anything was to bear this man's child.





Somewhere, on another plane of existence, a Djinn, who had once been called DJ, heard her wish. He looked up the long table to a magnificent throne, where his master sat, holding court, and the silent plea was evident on his face.

The being there saw this, and nodded, once.

Deep purple eyes flashed for just an instant. It was a small thing, really, and the two people who had wished for a child were both, deep down, good people. They were also already deeply in love, though neither had admitted it to the other just yet. They would have their child, and several more.

The Master looked down the long table at his servant, connecting with him mentally. 'You know, sooner or later, you're going to have to let these people go.' It wasn't a question.

The Djinn mentally nodded. 'I know, my Lord... but these people have shown qualities that aren't as common as they should be, amongst your children. There is a good, dare I say Noble, quality to them, and, in truth, not many of them ask for much. They aren't dependent on anyone, and their goals are mostly good ones. They want their country and their freedom back, nothing more. I see nothing wrong with giving them a little nudge from time to time.'

'I concur... just don't overdo it, hmmm?'

'I won't. Milord.... I did take the liberty of making a few of their supplies self-replenishing, of course... fuel, ammunition, that sort of thing.... I didn't think you'd mind.'

He paused in thought for a moment, and added, 'I also took the liberty of laying upon them a spell that keeps them from getting some of the illnesses that they can't cure, after that gentleman's wife contracted cancer. I hoped you wouldn't mind.'

'I don't.... just, as I said, don't overdo it.'



Sherice felt something, deep in her insides, something that felt even better than the several orgasms George had already given her, but wrote it off to imagination. 



DJ felt her idle thought, and smiled. There would be time enough for her to discover the meaning of the feeling she'd had, straddling her new lover, who would ask her to move in with him that very night, and ask her to be his wife within a few week's time. In fact, she would know what that feeling meant in nine months and three day's time.... when their first daughter, Julie, would be born.





Gene eased up to the edge of the forest surrounding the Chinese base, noting that his team were all in position before clicking his throat mic.

"Team two, in position."

Jim Archer's voice answered him.

"Acknowledged, Two... stand by."

One by one, the other seven teams reported in, until, finally, Archer's voice came through the headset.

"Rockets, prepare to fire... on three.... two.... one... Fire!"

A mix of seventy five RPG and LAW rockets fired at once, turning every guard tower and the main gate into piles of splinters; within moments, four Huey Cobra and six Apache helicopter gunships flew into position, strafing the enemy barracks with .50 caliber machine guns and .223 caliber miniguns. The hanger doors of the base opened, and a tow vehicle tried to pull out one of the Chinese Hinds.... before it could get it's rotor up to speed, three of the Apaches were there, turning the poorly maintained chopper into a mass of flaming, twisted metal.

Teams of snipers moved up to within two hundred yards of the base, and the surviving enemy troops came under fire from all directions at once. A few of them managed to get their rifles into play, and some even got lucky; four of the militia members were wounded, one seriously, and two, Bob Greenwood and Marty Little, would be going home in body bags.

Still, for an operation involving over a thousand troops and ten gunships, Archer knew they'd gotten off light. He wondered how long such luck could hold.

A voice was screaming, in Chinese, over some of the loudspeakers around the camp. Mark Little, twin brother of the recently deceased Marty, listened for a moment, trying to puzzle out the words.... he'd been studying the Chinese language for a month, but wasn't yet truly proficient. 

Suddenly he realized what the nearly incoherent voice was saying. 

He looked over at Archer and raised an eyebrow. "Sir, he's telling the survivors to kill the American whores."

Archer nodded at this. Touching a finger to his earpiece, he instructed the women who were headed to the prisoner barracks to hurry... weapons hot.

Sarah Jennison sprinted the last forty yards to the open door of the women's barracks, only to find that a Chinese soldier had gotten there ahead of her; he'd already shot four of the women and was drawing a bead on a fifth when she burst into the one room building, silenced .45 pistol in her hand. 

He swung around to level his gun at her and fired, missing her left ear by inches.

She didn't miss, the fat 230 grain slug taking him in the center of the chest.

He crumpled to the floor, and the girl in the bed nearest him grabbed for the pistol he'd dropped, held it awkwardly, and proceeded to empty it into his body. She was still pulling the trigger on an empty cartridge, crying uncontrollably, when Sarah walked over to her, laying one hand on the young woman's shoulder.

"It's ok... he's dead, and you're safe now." She told the young woman, gently taking the empty pistol from her as the rest of her team filed into the building.

Once all of the Chinese were dead, it took nearly two full hours to sort everything out; again, they found a small mountain of American equipment, including a number of rocket launchers, grenade rifles, Stinger missiles, and several tons of ammunition. In another hour they had all of it loaded up and ready to roll.

They dragged all of the bodies into a pile in the center of the compound and soaked them in a mix of gasoline and diesel fuel, and the remaining buildings were wired up with the Semtex they'd found in one of the warehouses, and, again, they set it off when they were a safe distance away.





Gar sat back in the driver's seat of the old Ford cargo van, Leeanne at his side, feeling a deep satisfaction at the work they'd done this night. They hadn't gotten away unscathed, this he knew; in the back of the truck he was driving were the corpses of three Militia members and the four young women who had been killed in the barracks, who they refused to leave at the burning Chinese base they'd left behind. These would be buried in the fields back at the cave. Ahead of him, he knew, were the two makeshift ambulances carrying the half dozen wounded, and ahead of them were seven truckloads of the female prisoners they'd freed.

It was a good thing they'd found a lot of trucks at the enemy base; they also had a dozen trucks loaded with American equipment, everything from boots and uniforms to explosives and 40MM grenades for the grenade rifles they had at the Cave. 

He was stirred from his reverie by Leeanne, who asked "Honey, how well can you drive this thing?"

"I think I'm doing a decent job, why?"

She smiled and said "Because, there's something I want to try."

She reached into his lap, unbuttoning his fly and fishing his cock out before leaning down and taking him into her mouth.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 13



Bob Sharpe had stayed behind at Juniper base with a small army of techs and mechanics, and had brought along three truckloads of food and other supplies, along with two small tankers of fuel; one diesel and another of aircraft gas. One of the first things to be unloaded had been one of the smaller diesel generators liberated from one of the Chinese bases, a five hundred megawatt model, capable of powering a fair amount of the base by itself. It was soon hooked into the main power grid of the base, and areas that hadn't been lit up in years quickly came to light.

Rick Jamison looked around the hanger, quietly awed by the amount of activity; young Mr. Coswell wasn't fooling around, and he sure didn't let any grass grow under his feet. He had two teams of mechanics at work, each on a different plane. Both planes were quickly being disassembled, with parts being methodically tagged, tested, and moved to two seperate piles, each one with a sign behind it. One sign read 'Pass'; the other was labeled 'Fail'. The 'fail' pile was depressingly large, while the 'pass' pile was pitifully small. 

Coswell came walking up as Jamison was looking over the piles. "Hello, Sir... anything I can show you?"

"I guess you weren't kidding about your expertise, young man. It would appear your people know what they're doing."

Pete puffed up a bit at this... "Well, Sir, as my dad used to say, if you can't do it right, don't do it at all, because a pilot's life is at stake if you do it wrong."

Jamison jerked upright at this; he'd never thought of it that way, but the young man--and his father-- were absoluteley right.

Bob Sharpe came walking up to the two men at that moment, saluting smartly.

"Colonel Jamison, one of my tech boys has made a bit of a discovery. I think you should be there for it, Sir."

Jamison turned to Sharpe, eyebrow lifting as he spoke. "I'm a Colonel, now, am I? When did this happen, Lieutenant?"

Sharpe grinned. "My CO told me that this size of a base would warrant a Colonel as it's Commanding Officer, Sir... I assumed you knew that."

"Well, I didn't, because we've never really made an issue of rank before, but I'll take that under advisement, son... now what's this about a discovery?"

"One of our computer techs was accessing an old databank, Sir, looking for service records of your planes... he ran across a 'top secret' inventory list. It would seem that there is a storage building on this base that isn't listed on any of the official blueprints."

"What?!"

"Yes Sir.... and some of the things listed in the inventory, well... they could be a game changer, Sir."

"How is it that we never found this, Lieutenant?"

"It was meant to be found Sir, but it's existence was only entrusted to a very few people... I'm guessing those people were away from the base during the war, and likely got themselves killed before they could get back here. The entrance is, well... it's kind of disguised, Sir."

"Damn... so where is this 'hidden' storage? For that matter, what's stored there?"

"Just underneath the bunkers your planes were stored in, Sir.... and as for what's in there, well... I think it's best we see for ourselves."

They reached the secondary hanger, only to find that Frank Bergen, the Quartermaster who had brought out the truckloads of supplies and had stayed behind to help with the inventory, already had two big bulldozers hooked up, pulling heavy chains, attached to massive hooks that seemed to be bolted into the floor itself.

Jamison grinned... these boys were in for a huge disappointment; those hooks were just plane tie downs.

Bergen got the nod from Sharpe and spoke into his throat mic, and the two 'dozers revved up their engines, lifted the power take off points their chains were hooked to, and began to inch forward. 

With a shreik of metal-on-metal, an entire section of the floor began to move.

Jamison looked on in awe as a long ramp was revealed, angling down into darkness. Well over two hundred feet wide and a hundred feet long, it was big enough to handle any of the planes on the base... with room to spare. He took a step forward, only to be stopped by Sharpe. 

"Hold on, Sir... we have to pump out the gas first."

"Gas?"

Sharpe nodded. "According to the record, everything below this point was flooded with Nitrogen gas, to displace the oxygen and preserve the equipment and supplies down there. Walk too far down that ramp, you'll suffocate in a matter of minutes. Here, watch this."

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a miniature flare, used on the runways as a backup, in case of a power failure. These had a two minute burn time. Lighting it up, he tossed it down the ramp... within three feet, it went out.

Sharpe nodded to himself. "No oxygen, no flame."

Jamison looked on, stunned. Ten steps would have killed him.

"Ok, Lieutenant, so how do we get that gas out of there?"

"We're going to pump it out, Sir, and use it to fill up a few hundred compressed gas tanks.... we can use it as a substitute gas for inert gas welding, you see. We try not to waste anything, if we can find some other use for it. We can also re-use this particular gas for food storage."

"Ok.... how long will that take?"

Sharpe shot a look over at Frank Bergen, who was walking over to join them. "Frank, how long 'til we can go down there? A couple of feet an hour?"

Bergen grabbed at his heart; depicting a mock heart attack.

"Sir! You wound me! We're bringing in five big compressors, and about a hundred empty one hundred gallon tanks.... and we've got a few thousand more over at our base, I already called for 'em, they should be here in a few hours. Some of those are over a thousand gallons each. I'll have this whole bunker safe in five, maybe six hours."

Even as he spoke, several massive air compressors were hauled over to the top of the ramp, and long hoses were attached to the intakes... the other ends of the hoses were tipped with what appeared to be big air filters, heavily weighted, on roller carriages, which were subsequently rolled down the ramps into the darkness on long rope tethers. 

Bergen looked off to one side, nodding twice, and switches were thrown on the side wall, lighting up the descending tunnel all the way to the bottom, and they watched as the small carriages rolled all the way down. The big compressors were turned on and were slowly allowed to fill.

A small team moved up, filling large upright tanks not unlike welding tanks, then moved these aside for labeling while fresh ones took their places.

"Why don't you gentlemen go have a cup of coffee; I'll let you know when it's safe to go down. This is going to take some time."

"Sounds good, thanks, Frank."

Meanwhile, Jamison was still looking at the huge opening in the floor, muttering "Right under our feet this whole time, and we never even knew it."



Jim Archer grabbed his briefcase, got out of the Hummer and walked up to the warehouse with the two men from the Jackson Hole Rebels, well aware of the riflemen on the rooftop. This would be his first meeting with the commander of these men; he wanted to get some idea of their strength, level of training, and weaknesses, in equipment and training and so forth.

Walking up to the door guards, he saluted smartly and introduced himself.

"Gentlemen, Colonel Jim Archer, Wyoming State Constitutional Militia."

The older of the two men at the door returned the salute, replying "Colonel... I'm Sergaent Bob Sanderson, Jackson Hole Rebels. Colonel Montgomery told us you were coming. Kendall, kindly escort the gentleman to meet the Colonel."

The young man led him inside, introduced them and saluted smartly before turning and heading back to his post.

Montgomery, it turned out, was a rather stoutly built man in his early fifties; he stood up as they approached, and the two men shook hands and sat, assessing each other as the usual pleasantries were exchanged.\

"I understand it was your people who pulled mine out of the fire and patched 'em up... I'm grateful, Sir."

"As I understand it, yours were a big help to mine, as well, Colonel, scouting that Chinese base. I'd call that an even trade."

"Fair enough... though I wish you boys would have let us know before you destroyed the place... there was plenty of equipment there we could have used. We've been having to get our ammo and whatnot one ambush at a time. Leaves us runnin' short most of the time."

Jim grinned. "I thought that might be a problem for you folks.... don't worry about it- I've got two truckloads of ordnance headed this way right now. I got a bit ahead of them, but they should be along shortly. We've taken enough from the bases we've destroyed that we're runnin' out of places to put it."

"Lord, I should have such problems! I've got volunteers that are walking around with clubs."

Jim smiled. 'Not for long.' he thought.

Jim got a state roadmap from his briefcase and spread it on the desk, pointing out the red circles on several spots. "These are the Chinese bases our latest intel has shown us... do you know of any others?"

Montgomery peered closely at the ancient roadmap, taking a few moments to figure out the location of his own small base, then put his finger on it.

"We're.... about... here, right?"

Archer looked closely at the point his finger was on, then took a pencil from his pocket, drawing a small circle on the map and saying, "Closer to here, actually, but close enough."

They were interrupted by the crackle of Montgomery's ancient field radio.

"Sir, this is Sergeant Maxwell, at the front gate. We've got two big trucks, just pulled up. The lead driver say's he's with Colonel Archer. Should we let 'em in?"

Montgomery walked over to his window and let out a small gasp. When Archer had said 'truckloads', he'd been expecting pick-up trucks.

Sitting at the front gate were a pair of thirty foot cargo vans.]

He clicked the mic and replied "By all means, Sergeant, let them in. Kindly direct them to the loading dock. I'll see to it that there are crews to unload them."

Picking up a telephone from his desk, he punched in a series of numbers and spoke into it in clipped tones. 

"Corporal Macgruder, assemble two teams of men to unload the trucks that are headed to the loading dock, on the double. Haul everything to the armory. Yes, we're getting resupplied. Thank you."

Jim looked on, amused."Actually, you might want to call him back... half the space in the second truck is full of food packs.... fruits and vegetables, mostly, stuff we've dehydrated and vacuum sealed in foil packaging."

Montgomery just stared at him for a moment, unsure what to say.

"What prompts you to be so generous, Sir?"

"We're all Americans, Colonel.... we look out for our own. Besides, we just harvested a bumper crop. We're running out of room to store the stuff. Quite aside from all of that, I was kinda hoping we could ship some of our current crop of refugees down here, set 'em up in that small suburb a few blocks east of you; they're well versed in farming, and we've been teaching them to handle weapons. Most of them know how to read, too, which is a big plus; a few know how to drive pretty well, and I've already got light pick-ups they can drive. That suburban area I looked over has quite a few vacant lots, where they can set up gardens... by the end of this spring, they can have enough vegetables growing to keep themselves fed, and keep you folks partially supplied... You folks, in turn, can offer them some protection from the Chinese and continue their training and use them as auxiliary troops, should the need arise."

Montgomery rubbed at his chin for a moment, thinking it over. Considering how limited his resources were, having a bunch of people dedicated to growing food would be a good idea, and having more people training to join his Rebels wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, either. This man knew how to cover all the bases, that was for sure.

Montgomery excused himself, citing administrative work to be done, and had the visiting Colonel shown to a small house in the circle of his small base where he could rest and refresh himself.

Jerry Bannon opened another crate, finding another twelve M16s. He grinned... this brought the total to well over two hundred, and there were twenty crates just like this one, still waiting to be opened.... not to mention dozens of ammo cans, each full of spare magazines, and at least a hundred and fifty cases of .223 ammunition.

There were other boxes and crates, too, labeled 'Rocket launchers', 'Grenade launchers', '40MM Grenades', 'Hand grenades', and the Good Lord knew what else. He'd already found four crates full of RPG loads, which was a lucky break, considering he'd been down to less than thirty for the entire base. This Militia Commander was a Godsend.... he was half tempted to walk over to the Colonel's office and kiss the man's ass in thanks.

In the kitchen area of the complex, Glen Paulson looked through the boxes of dried and canned foods in awe.... there was enough food here to feed the entire base for the next half year! Not to mention the things he hadn't had in his inventory in ages.... sacks of flour, cornmeal, sugar--real sugar! Oh, the guys in the mess hall were in for a surprise tonight! He peeled the lid back on an old coffee can, not sure what to expect... Coffee! Actual ground coffee! And there were twenty three more cans, just like this one, in this box alone! They'd used up the last of the coffee they'd taken from a Chinese base over a year ago. With a 'Whoop!' he called out to his two assistant cooks'

"Nader! Jackson!"

Both men came rushing over, with a pair of "Sirs."

"I want you two to go grab hunting rifles, go out and kill me a couple of deer... some rabbits... hell, get a buffalo, if you can find one! We need meat to go along with all of these vegetables! While you're at it, have someone go out to the barns, tell 'em we need as much fresh milk as they can squeeze out, at least thirty gallons, and about ten pounds of butter. Get moving!"

With a chorus of "Yes Sirs!" the two men were off.

Paulson grinned as a thought crossed his mind... the rest of the men might have to wait for the lunch breaks, but he had a big thirty cup coffee maker sitting on the shelf. 

'No time like the present!' he thought to himself, as he pulled it off the shelf and plugged it in. 

Corporal Jerry Bannon reported to his CO, holding a notebook with four pages of the new inventory brought to them by the Militia Commander.

"To sum it all up, Sir... we could load the men up with enough gear that they wouldn't be able to move.... and we'd still have a boatload of equipment sitting in the armory." he concluded with a grin.

Montgomery smiled. "Very good, Corporal... but let's not let this go to our heads. Standing orders stay in place; we still take every bit of equipment left on our enemy's corpses."

"Yes Sir! Oh, and Sir? Please, thank that Militia Commander for me."

"I already have, son... in fact, I was half tempted to offer him my wife for the night!"

"I know what you mean, Sir.... when I saw some of the stuff he had brought to us, I seriously considered telling my daughter to give him a blowjob!"

Montgomery chuckled at this; he'd seen Bannon's daughter... she had a body most men would kill for.



George and Sherice sat down to dinner with Father John, at the restaurant that they all knew as Mama Maria's.... even though it was now run by a fifth generation descendant of the lady who had originally opened it. Their love had bloomed over the past few weeks, and George had popped the question this very night. He knew that Sherice was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.... and he knew his Martha would approve.

Quite aside from that, she'd just come back from the doctor, from her follow-up appointment-- somehow, impossibly, she was pregnant. It was barely detectable, in fact, Doc Willis had run the test three times to be sure, but it was confirmed.... they were going to have a baby.

They both wanted to get married as quickly as possible. That was the reason they'd invited Father John to split a pizza with them; they wanted to know how soon he could perform the ceremony.

"Ok, John... can we do this next week?"

The priest nodded. "No problem... but are you sure? I mean, truly, unequivocally certain?"

George nodded. "Absolutely... I know that my Martha, God rest her soul, would approve... she'd want me to be happy, and this lady makes me happier than I've been in years."

John looked over at Sherice, raising an eyebrow. 

"And you, young lady? Are you sure about this?"

She threw her arms around George's shoulders, nodding. 

"Sir, nobody's ever made me this happy, ever. I can't think of any other man I'd want to be with."

"Ok... well, do you have witnesses? A best man? A maid of honor?"

George nodded. "My old crew mate, from the composting crew.... Harry Porter. Sherice, here, wants to ask the woman who freed her... but we're not sure who that was."

John nodded. "Don't worry about it, I think I know who you're talking about. Sarah Jennison. She leads that all-female squad that goes into those kind of barracks, where those Chinese thugs keep their female prisoners. I'll give her a call tomorrow, see if she's willing. I'm certain she will be."

George called his old buddy the next day, who relented after a minimum of wheedling on George's part. He and George had been friends for years, ever since George had noticed his friend's name, and the similarity to a series of children's books and movies, about a boy wizard. They had watched the movies together when they were kids, and Harry had wound up enduring a fair bit of good-natured needling over it.

Of course, whenever anyone asked him where his 'magic wand' was, he reached for his zipper and asked "Do you really want to see it?"

Sarah Jennison sat back and smiled at Sherice. They were having a drink in the same bar where Sherice had found George, nearly a month ago.

"Maid of honor? Hun, isn't that usually the place of the mother of the bride?"

"I don't know... this is my first wedding... besides, my mother isn't here. She was killed by one of those Chinese bastards when I was taken."

Sarah looked away for a second. "I'm sorry... I... I didn't know."

"Honey, there's no way you could have known. Anyway... you're the woman who set me free. I can't think of anyone better. You got me into a new life. You made it possible to get out of there, and set up to find a wonderful man. In a way, you made all of this possible. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have next to me when I marry him."

Sarah nodded... this wasn't the first time she'd been asked to do this. Three other women she'd had a hand in freeing had asked her to stand up with them to date; she couldn't say no to any of them.



Bob Sharpe and Rick Jamison walked slowly down into the now-cleared tunnel, flashlights in hand, reassured by the small, burning road flare that burned at the very floor of the ramp, which was, in fact, much deeper than it looked. At the very bottom, it opened up to a massive chamber; even with half of the lights burned out, they could still see well enough to tell that this was a game-changer.

They couldn't even see the far end; just a line of heavy support pillars vanishing off into the distance.... the entire base must have been built over it.

Bob stepped back out to the foot of the long ramp and clicked the mic on his field radio. "Pete, can you get down here, please? Just drop what you're doing, this is more important."

His radio crackled an instant later. "Acknowledged."

Five minutes later, he stood beside them, jaw nearly on the floor.

"Geez, Sir, why'd you have me waste time on those planes up topside?"

"We didn't know about these." Jamison replied.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 13



Sharpe grinned at him. "Can you identify any of these, Corporal?"

"Yes Sir... a few of 'em, anyway... I know that line is all F-35 Joint Strike fighters.... those over there are F-22 Raptors. These funny looking black ones are F-117 Nighthawks... stealth fighters. Over there are Hawker Harriers... I think I read something about those usually being a US Marine Corps plane. Those choppers over there were called Apaches, and the ones further down with the two big rotors on top are Chinook troop carriers. Oh, my God! Have you got a count on these yet?"

"No, Pete.... you're seeing these five minutes after we saw 'em for the first time. Look over there... there's more. Looks like planes and choppers aren't the only thing stored down here."

Off to their left, and going off into the distance, were rows upon rows of tanks, armored personnel carriers, hummers, and other rolling stock.

"How long.... oh, geez, I'll bet those engines are about shot."

"They've been in a Nitrogen atmosphere all this time."

"WHAT! Holy shit, you're kiddin' me!"

Jamison turned to him, partially in shock. "Does that make a difference?"

Colson turned to him, disbelief clear on his features.

"You bet it does, Sir! You could fly any of these planes right now!"

"You're kidding!"

"No Sir.... nitrogen preserves the seals in the engines, Y'see. They don't dry rot, like they would in regular air. Hang on, Sirs.... let me check something."

He ran over to one of the planes, a Hawker Harrier, jumped in the cockpit, flipped several switches, and the engine began to start. He flipped several more, and the engine caught and roared to life. He shut it down quickly, and once everything had settled back down, he jumped out of the cockpit, scrambled down to the ground, and ran back over to the two men.

"Just as I thought, gentlemen.... a full fuel tank, fully armed.... that plane could go to war right now, and if it can, I'll bet every other plane down here can. You, Sir, have a fully functional airbase here... and from the looks of things, you've got armor and artillery support, as well."

"Artillery!?"

"Yes, Sir! Didn't you notice? Behind that block of Hummers, you've got a shitload of Howitzers. Look like 105s and 155s. Serious whoop-ass, Sir."



Mickey and Doris were sitting back in 'their' cove, watching the ducks swim in the shallows, occasionally diving for bits of the underwater vegetation or whatever it was ducks went for. Mickey had brought along his fishing rods, and had a small bucket of worms at his side, along with a cooler full of water which currently held a bluegill and three perch.

"When is Cassie getting here, hun?"

He looked at his watch. "Should be about another forty five minutes. She said she was doing a shift in the main kitchen today, canning those blueberries they picked in the last few days."

"Oh, cool! I hope she brings back a couple of jars."

He nodded, grinning. "I told her to snag a few jars on her way out of there. She said she'd go off the clock a few hours early and take a couple in place of those credit hours."

His attention was caught by his bobber, which dove below the surface, come back up, and was now pulling away from the shoreline, making a run for deeper water. He grabbed the rod, gave it a hard tug to set the hook, and started reeling. 

After a brief struggle, he pulled in a decent sized Smallmouth Bass. He added it to the cooler, re-baited his hook, and cast it back out, a bit deeper than it had been.

"I wish you'd pay as much attention to me as you're paying to those fish!"

He turned to her and grinned.

"Honey, you won't be saying that when I take these off the grill."

She smiled back at him. "Ok, you've got me there." Doris had a weakness for the way he grilled fish, and they didn't do that too often.

He set the rod back in the impromptu holder, fed a few more sticks into the fire, and looked over at her as she lay back in her bikini on the blanket.

"Are Billie Jean and Jeff joining us?"

She nodded. 

"In a little while... I think Jeff wanted to stop by the general store, pick up a fishing rod and some tackle of his own. About time he started spending some of the credits he's built up. BJ says he's a bit of a tightwad."

By the time Cassie, Billie Jean, and Jeff showed up, the fire was burning it's way through a number of small cut-offs from the woodshops-small blocks of well-dried pine and oak they had no use for- and Mickey was fileting several of the perch he'd already caught, getting them ready for grilling. 

Doris sat off to one side, slicing up several lemons, and had a small bottle of powdered garlic next to her. Mickey pulled a small folding grill top from the gym bag at his side, folding out the legs and setting it over the coals.

Within another twenty minutes, the five of them were sitting back, plates from Doris's small gym tote in hand, chewing their way through the grilled fish and the corn muffins she'd brought along to go with it, chattering away about anything and everything.

Cassie noted that Jeff and Billie Jean were sitting quite close together; she shot a look at Doris, averting her eyes toward the young couple and smiling.

Mickey sat back next to Doris and pulled a slim silver case from his pocket; extracting a fat doobie from it, he grabbed a burning twig from the fire and lit it up, passing it to Doris.

Jeff spoke up, as Billie Jean was passing him the burning number.

"I hear Colonel Archer is looking for volunteers to move to that village south of here... the one by the Rebel's base."

Mickey nodded. "I don't think he'll accept any of us, though... he wants people who've completed the combat training, people who've already had experience in the fighting."

Doris, who occaisionally worked with Jan Archer, shook her head.

"No, that's wrong.... he wants to send out some villagers, too... people with farming experience. I think he wants people who can train with the Rebels, and back them up if they need it. I know he's planning to send along a ton of weapons and that sort of thing."

Jeff nodded. "He already did. I helped load most of it... two truckloads of it. Enough to outfit a small army, according to Mr. Phillips.... he was glad to be rid of it... said the warehouse it was in was packed to the rafters, and they needed the extra room. About half of one of the trucks was loaded with food, too."

Cassie shot a look at Jeff. "Are you planning on going with them?"

Jeff shook his head. "No... I still need a lot of training, and I want to stay in school a bit longer, too. I'm set to start driver's training next month, too. I think that would be a handy skill to have."

His face reflected a mild worry, at that statement; Mickey caught it and replied "Relax... nothin' to it. Driving is easy, once you get the hang of it. Not so different from driving a golf cart."

Bob Sharpe and Pete Coswell sat back in Colonel Jamison's office, sipping coffee and discussing the new discovery.

"Colonel, do you have any flight simulators here?"

"Actually, yes, we do... never had much reason to use them, though. We didn't have much in the way of fuel for our planes, so we didn't really need any pilots, and we needed the electrical power elsewhere, you see. Those solar panels and windmills can only generate so much, and we need most of it to cook our food and run essential systems, like lights and our bank of phones."

Sharpe nodded. "Well, Sir, you're going to need pilots now.... if I might make a suggestion, how about we swap some people, between our base and yours? We've got more pilots than we have planes for, currently. I could have fifty or a hundred of them down here in a few hours, and we can send a bunch of your people to our base to use our own simulators, under supervision. The people we bring down here can serve as flight instructors here, on your simulators, and we can train twice as many people at the same time. How many of your people, do you think, would like to learn to fly?"

Jamison grinned. "All of 'em."

Bob smiled at this. "OK... well, how many, in round numbers?"

"To be honest, Captain, I'm not sure. We haven't done a head count in the past few years. If I had to guess, I'd say about three hundred or so."

"Ok, that's perfect. We can send half of those to our base, teach them to fly.... and to drive, for that matter; and the people I bring down here can teach the other half. Matter of fact, if you'd like, I can have a group of our tank drivers down here, too, teach your folks how to use some of that armor and artillery while we're at it."

Then it hit him; the Colonel had called him 'Captain'.

"Sir, I'm a Lieutenant."

"Not anymore... I talked to your Commander a little while ago. He told me I could break it to you."

"Ok.... well, Sir, you still outrank me. Anyway, do you want me to get those instructors down here? We can send back a load of your people in the same buses."

Jamison grinned at this. "You want to build a full scale military here, huh?"

Sharpe grinned and nodded. "You betcha, Sir... what's the point of having all of that equipment if you never use it? Besides, if you want to start attacking the Chinese with us, you're going to need it all... air power, armor, and ground troops. We use guerilla tactics that have been passed down for generations, and our ancestors included every kind of Spec Ops troops the old US military had to offer... Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Marine Force Recon. We use snipers extensively, and we refuse to play fair. We Are going to drive those bastards out of our country... and we can't do it alone, Sir. I'll tell you the same thing my commander would say, if he were here, right now... we need every allie we can get, and we all need to be recruiting, and training, every day of the year."



Doris gave the plates a quick rinse in the lake and set them off to the side to dry, then settled beside Mickey, accepting the fresh joint he'd lit up. and gave a contented sigh as Cassie pulled a big plastic jug from her cooler. They all looked curiously at it; the liquid in it was a dark blue, almost purple.

Jeff was the first to speak.

"Ok, what the hell is that?"

She smiled at this; "It's a kind of punch... a new experiment from the kitchens. It's got blueberries, white and Concord grapes, pomegranate juice, and apple juice in it, plus just a bit of powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit. I grabbed a jug on my way out."

She filled their cups, one by one, and passed around the whiskey bottle; only Jeff and Mickey added any alcohol to theirs, though. All agreed, however, that it made a smooth drink.

Billie Jean was the first... she leaned over to Jeff, kissing him on the neck and whispering in his ear. He turned and kissed her slowly, tentatively, and she responded with a bit more vigor.

Doris, meanwhile, looked over at Cassie, winked, and reached for Mickey's shorts, unbuttoning the three buttons of his fly and fishing out his hardening cock, stroking him lightly as Cassie moved around next to her and reached out for her full breasts, kneading them lightly as Doris dove face first into Mickey's lap.

Jeff looked over at the other three and grinned, then turned his head back to Billie Jean and kissed her hard, his tongue entering her willing mouth even as he tugged at the hem of the light tank top she was wearing, taking her ample tits in both hands and kneading them softly. 

She reciprocated, breaking the kiss to pull his shirt out of his cargo shorts, then kissing her way down his neck to his chest, intent on finding out if something Mrs. Davidson had told her was true; that men's nipples were almost as sensitive as her own.

Mickey lay back, enjoying Doris' intense blowjob as Cassie lowered her freshly shaved pussy to his waiting mouth. Doris, meanwhile, scooted around so that her own furry bush was within range of Cassie, who quickly took her up on the invitation and buried her head between her friend's thighs, tasting her sweet flesh and fluttering her tongue across the little nubbin of her clit, and the three of them made a perfect triangle.

Billie Jean worked over Jeff's nipples for a few minutes, but decided it wasn't as much fun as something else she had in mind, and moved lower, unbuttoning the fly of his shorts and fishing out his hardness, diving mouth first over it, feeling the head hit the back of her throat before bobbing back up, tongue swirling over the head as she drilled the tip of her tongue into the tiny hole. She bobbed back down, licking all the way, and it wasn't long before he was pulsing his cum into her mouth, as she desperately tried to swallow fast enough to keep up. She continued to suck at him, but he was spent for the moment, and she sat up, grabbing for her cup and washing his seed down with a few swallows of the blueberry punch.

He sat back, tugging at her jeans and pulling her to him, smirking at her as he said "My turn, sweety.... I want a taste too."

She shed her jeans and lay down beside him on the blanket, throwing an arm and a leg over him possessively, and said "Give me a minute, Honey... I just want to lay here with you for a few minutes."

He wrapped his arms around her, feeling her snuggle up to him, laying her head on his shoulder, and leaned his head towards her, kissing her forehead and whispering "I love you, babe" as he fondled her full breast with one hand, while his other was busy between her thighs, rubbing at her hardening clit.

She turned her face upwards towards his and replied "I love you too, hun... now will you quit teasin' and eat my pussy?"

He pushed her over onto her back and kissed her, long and slow, before nibbling his way lightly down her neck, pausing to nibble and suck at her pinkish red nipples, taking his time and making love to the little points for long moments before continuing further down, swirling his tongue in her belly button, then crawling backwards and repositioning himself between her now-spread thighs and kissing her squarely on her unfurled nether lips, his tongue insinuating itself into her juicy hole. For long moments, he licked all around her lips before moving back up to her clit, fluttering his tongue over it again and again, as her thighs clamped down on his head until he was sure it was going to pop like a pimple.

She was cumming almost nonstop now, orgasms coming in waves, as he took her little nubbin between his lips and sucked it hard, and she finally couldn't take it any longer; reaching for his shoulders, she pulled him forward, his cock naturally sliding into her waiting pussy as if it had eyes of it's own. He kissed her, hard, as he began to pump into her, idly thinking that she hadn't told him to put a rubber on this time.



Bob Sharpe called his Commander on the satellite phone, telling him about the discovery at Juniper Base, which, quite naturally, got the wheels turning in Archer's mind. Within two weeks, teams had been sent out, and the same sort of hooks were located at three more bombed out military bases around their area... He'd been afraid the bases had been nuked, but the Chinese had apparently thought these bases were too small to bother with; rather than radioactive holes in the ground, the scouts had found bases that, while they had sustained substantial damage, several were still, in fact, quite rebuildable.

It appeared the bombs, at least some of them, had either fallen short or had gone past their targets. The suburban areas surrounding the small army and air force bases were peppered with areas that were semi-destroyed.

A lot of the small houses were more or less intact, though, and that gave him an idea.

Assembling a team, made up of a few of his veteran training cadre and a handful of the villagers, he sent them to the least damaged of the bases, to assess the damage and determine how much work would be required to get them back up and running.

Within two weeks, he had answers to several questions; one small US Army base, to the east of the Cave, had recieved minimal damage. The civilian suburbs surrounding it were semi-intact, and there were, in fact, small survivor populations in some of the homes. His scouting teams had been met with some suspicion; some of the survivors asking if they were from the government. Once the civilians were assured that they were not, in fact, from any official government source, the scouts were cautiously welcomed by the communities.

Particularly when several of the scouts went out and returned with several freshly killed deer.

Most of these villagers considered themselves lucky if they managed to trap a few rabbits; they mostly survived on rats and squirrels.

The village elders, led by a man named Bill Hendricks, were ready to flatly refuse anymore people moving into the area, until Phil Huett explained that the people moving in would be bringing along hunting rifles, enough seeds to start at least a hundred gardens, and several year's supply of preserved food, along with tools, vehicles, farming equipment, and generators to power the many homes, giving them electricity to run ovens, refridgerators, lights, and other conveniences the villagers had only heard of in old stories. They would also send along enough technicians to set all of these things up, and a small contingent of instructors to teach them how to use these things. When he added the promise of drilling a new well, and adding a purifier to deliver clean water, they were sold.

Within a month, several dozen trucks arrived, many of them towing trailers, and the techs and mechanics and others went to work. By the end of the spring, the small suburban community was breaking ground in numerous small plots, planting thousands of seeds for close to a hundred varieties of vegetables and fruit, and several large garages had been converted to barns for cattle, chicken coops, and one was filled up with small hutches for rabbits and other small game. Two of the vacant lots were planted with saplings of apple, plum, and pear trees.

During the same time, the old military base was opened back up, and extensive repairs were made. The barracks and supply depots, of course, had long since been looted by the Chinese, but, again, they had missed what was just under their feet; Frank Bergen was again kept busy for most of a day. In the warehouse they found under the base were several huge chambers, again flooded with nitrogen, this time concealing tons of infantry supplies, everything from rifles and uniforms to Humvees, helicopters, and tanks.

There was also a large underground bunker here, unoccupied, that included extensive written records.

In a month, the base was set up for training, instructors had moved in, and new recruits were pouring in from half a dozen surrounding villages. The Wyoming State Constitutional Militia began to grow exponentially.

Kathy Dupree wasn't a farmer, a scout, or a mechanic; she was completely inept with a rifle, and even worse with a pistol, and nobody in their right mind would have trusted her in the medical field.

She was, however, a computer geek first class. It had been said of her that she could make a computer do anything short of shining her shoes and cooking her dinner... and she was probably working on those.

At the moment, though, she was programming a new search pattern into the satellite dish outside; she wanted to know just how many communications satellites were still functioning, up in orbit.

She had just finished scanning all of the documents from the latest military base they had re-opened, and had set up a program to analyze the small mountain of data. She was still working on the search program when her data analysis program beeped from the other console; she scooted the rolling office chair over and looked at the screen, which was flashing an address.

She punched in a series of commands and was rewarded with more details; upon reading these, she reached for the phone on the desktop.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 13



Jim Archer showed up five minutes later, as did his wife and several members of the council.

"Ok, Kathy, what's important enough that you call all of us out of a council meeting at eight o'clock at night?"

Silently, she handed him several printouts from the data she'd located just minutes before.

He read through the two pages quickly, then, again, more slowly, eyes widening as the implications of what he was reading began to sink in.

"This..... this isn't possible. The founder never mentioned this.... not even the possibility!"

Kathy shrugged. "Maybe he didn't know? Something like this.... I'd think it would be above top secret."

"You're probably right. The question is, have the Chinese found this place?"

Jim handed the pages over to John Corcoran while he rubbed at his chin with the other hand, thinking it over.

"I doubt it, now that I think about it... or we'd have seen them with these things already."

Corcoran read through the pages; his eyes soon going just as wide as Jim's had. "Is this for real?"

Kathy nodded. "It came straight from that new base, from the old paperwork we found there. I scanned it all into the main computer less than an hour ago."

Jan Archer took the pages from Corcoran, reading through them quickly. They gave the location of a civilian research facility, specializing in Laser technology. Her own eyes widened at the possibilities.

"Have you looked up these coordinates yet?"

Kathy nodded. "They're in southern Oregon.... well outside of the free zone. There are at least three more Chinese bases between here and there. Big ones. Two in Idaho, here and here, and another here, in Oregon. The research base is about seventy miles northeast of that last one."

Jim nodded, looking at the map that was now showing on the screen and shooting a look at his wife. 

She nodded, in turn, going to another console and copying the digital map to a disc so she could use it from her laptop and show it on one of the big screens in the council office.

Jan hooked her laptop up to the Cave network and set a search for all of the information that had been loaded on Chinese bases, specifically the bases between the Cave and the weapon research lab in Oregon. Within two minutes, she had her answers.

The nearest base, to them, was a major supply depot. According to the latest intelligence, which had been gleaned from paperwork taken from the last base they'd hit, was that this base was home to well over five thousand troops, a good fifty tanks and support vehicles for them, about a hundred Armored personnel carriers, and numerous hummers and trucks.

It also had a good thirty helicopters and a small contingent of fighter aircraft.

Jim looked over the listings, his thoughts grim. He didn't have nearly enough people to take this place on. It would take at least another year before he could field a force strong enough. It would have to wait.

Phil Huett was busy exploring in a suburb well to the east of the cave when he found it. He pulled out his satellite phone and called the Cave.

Leeanne answered the phone at the control room.

"Leeanne, dear, can you get Frank Bergen on the line for me?"

Bergen picked up the line. "Yeah, Phil, what's up?"

"How many of those big diesel generators do we have in stock, currently?"

"Three, why? If you're looking to power up another village, we don't have enough. Two of those three are in pieces right now, waiting on new parts from the machine shop."

Huett grinned into the phone.

"I just found an old industrial equipment supplier's warehouse. There are twenty seven big ones here... I mean 'tow behind a big fuckin' truck' type big. A shitload of parts, too.... looks like they did sales, service, and rentals here, back in the day. That ain't all, either.... there're well drills, concrete saws, big damned pumps, you name it."

Bergen, by this point, was grinning from ear to ear. "Have you got a GPS unit with you?"

"You betcha!" He quickly read off the coordinates.

Within four hours, twenty five of the military deuce and a half trucks were pulling in to the area of the warehouse; within three days, Bergen had the crews strip the place of everything but the furniture in the office.

Max Klein led his patrol of scouts through southern Idaho, looking into the rumor of a small base of Chinese. What few details they had were of a small 'air cavalry' base, whatever that was supposed to mean. The Commander had said that it meant infantry that were set up for rapid response, via transport choppers; something they definitely wanted to nip in the bud.

What they found was far more than a 'small' base, though. He and his team spent several days observing from a distance through long lenses, taking numerous pictures, and finally pulling back to a safe distance to compare notes.

He and his men totaled up their counts, and the numbers were appalling. It looked like the Chinese had raided more than one American Army base... there were thirty Chinook troop transport choppers, along with a dozen or so Bell 'Huey's, fifteen of the big Chinese 'Hinds', and twenty jet fighters, which appeared to be the Chinese copies of the American twin-tailed F-15, a carrier based plane, normally. There were also a good fifty barracks type buildings, of a size to house at least seventy five to a hundred men each. There were seven warehouses, at least, and several hangers. There were also dozens of smaller, single family home sized buildings; presumably officer's quarters.

He sat back in the old garage where his team had taken refuge, writing up his summary/conclusion, noting that this base, at first glance, didn't appear to have the usual barracks of female prisoners, meaning it was open to an all-out, go for broke assault. If they could put fifty to a hundred fighter jets to work on it with missiles and the 20MM 'Vulcan' gatling guns, as well as twenty or thirty tanks, a few dozen attack choppers, and a few dozen howitzers, then send in foot troops to mop up with light machine guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers, they might well get away unscathed, or, at least, they would keep the casualties to a minimum.

It wasn't like they needed the Chinese supplies, after all.

Jim Archer sat back looking over the digital photographs on a laptop while reading Max's summary, even though he disagreed with him. The younger man didn't realize just how valuable those Chinooks were, and some of the flight instructors had expressed an interest in capturing a few of the Hinds, for study and to show the budding pilots their strengths and weaknesses.

The kid was right, though, in one respect; this base was going to be a nightmare. Taking it intact would require the largest number of troops they'd ever used in a single operation, and losses would be significant. They might do well to move small groupings of troops into staging areas all around this base, over a week or so, then converge on it from all sides at once. There were small, abandoned towns all around the place, which would make things easier.

Even so, they would have to proceed carefully. The Chinese had taken to booby trapping some of the suburban houses around their bases; one of the scouting teams he had sent out had found this out the hard way. The lone survivor had barely made it back alive... in fact, he was still in the hospital, and was probably going to need months of physical therapy before he would be able to walk again.

He was still thinking it over, two weeks later, when Phill Huett came by, a large, flat wooden box in his hands. 

A Mama Maria's special; Large, deep dish, with garlic, three kinds of cheese, two kinds of peppers, onions, mushrooms, and their own version of 'Italian' sausage.

"I come bearing gifts, O Great one."

"Ok, smartass.... what's on your mind?"

"Now, C'mon, Jim, do I need a reason to bring a pizza over?"

"If it were anyone else, I'd say no... you, on the other hand...."

"Ouch! Ok, ok, you got me. There are a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about."

Jim waited until they were seated at his kitchen table, glasses of home made beer in hand, munching away at slices of the pizza before Phil broached the subject that was bothering him.

"I went through the latest training schedule for the new people."

"And...?"

"I noticed Tim Riley was on there."

"I know. I put him there. A little discipline would do that man a world of good."

"You realize that might backfire on us."

Archer nodded, chewing on a mouthful of pizza. "I know, there's the chance he might go running to the Chinese. Still, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt; Jim Miller is his history teacher. He says he thinks he might have gotten through to the bloody fool. If not, well, we'll send him out on local patrols, and have his squad leader keep an eye on him."

"If nothing else, maybe some Chinese punk will kill him before he can do any damage."

"There is that.... and he doesn't know the actual location of this base. I thought about making him spend time on the serving line, serving food to the women who've been held by the Chinese as slaves, but we haven't liberated any lately, and those we have are now mostly living on their own or have taken up with men here... or other women."

Huett refilled his beer mug before asking. "That bother you?"

Archer did the same, reaching for another slice of pizza and shaking his head.

"Not really, no. If it makes them feel safe, who are we to judge?"

"True enough... though it seems like a waste of some good pussy."

He'd timed it perfectly; Archer was just taking a swallow of beer, and some of it shot out of his nose. He eyed Phil sourly, but couldn't hold the look.

"What's the matter? Did you have your eye on one who turned to women?"

Phil nodded. "Cute little blonde, name o' Sally Winters. Nice tits and legs up to damn near her neck. I asked her out, one night, after her training session at the range, but the look she gave me! Surprised I didn't get frostbite!"

Archer smiled at this; he knew a lot of the women they'd saved from the slavery of the Chinese had become extremely wary of men in general. Given time, though, enough of them would come around. Huett had been a confirmed bachelor most of his life; rumor had it, according to Jim's wife, that the poor guy wasn't exactly built any too well.

George Klein looked over the new class of recruits as he explained to them the methods he'd learned, forty years ago, of moving silently through the woods, and how to tell if one was succeeding. He'd been taught, as a young boy, by both his father and his granddad, and passing on these skills was satisfying, knowing he was preparing the next generation to defend the Cave, and their way of life. He no longer went out himself; not with a young wife who was six months pregnant. He smiled at the thought, even as he continued with the instruction.



His son, Max, meanwhile, was making an appearance in the council office, accompanied by several of his squad members; they were there to walk the council members through some of the photographs they'd taken at the Chinese base.

"As I said, sir, that satellite dish they're using is on a kind of tower/pedestal thing, at least fifty feet tall. We saw it repositioning itself several times while we were there, so I have to assume they're using it, probably for communications, though I couldn't say who they're talking to. It could be bases further west of here or mainland China itself. We saw plenty of planes and choppers outside, but we couldn't get close enough to see what they had in the hangers. We do know that they've got a few tanks in those outbuildings.... looked like updated versions of what the old books called 'Type 99s', though I couldn't say for sure."

He flipped through the notebook before him, settling on a different page.

"They appear to be using a lot of old American equipment, too. Chinooks and Humvees, obviously, as well as those Hueys, but also guns. I think some of the machine guns in the guard towers are M2 Brownings, and I know I saw a few of their soldiers carrying M16s. There's no mistaking that profile. It's going to be a rough one, if we just try to go in there with ground troops, Sir."

Archer nodded. "You're right, Sergaent, but to be honest, we're going to need to take that base as intact as possible. We're getting too overloaded here; we need to expand the number of training bases, and we need to bring more of the locals into our sphere of influence."

He paused for a moment, taking a long swallow from his coffee cup as he got his thoughts together. 

"We also need to build up the amount of land under cultivation. We're eventually going to have to feed an entire country, after all. We can't keep going on food we have in storage and the output of the farms we have here. If we keep growing at this rate, by this time next year, we're going to need at least another two thousand acres of farmland, maybe more."

Max nodded, deep in thought for a moment.

"Well, sir, we counted at least seven small villages between here and there. All of them had large areas of land growing food, much more than they really needed.... of course, the Chinese are taking most of it. If we eliminate the Chinese, they'll have more food than they know what to do with."

"What about livestock? Cattle, pigs, chickens? Sheep, goats, that sort of thing?"

Max walked over to the big plasma display, which currently showed a map of the area in question.

"They all have chickens, of course.... two villages, here, and... about... here, they also appeared to have small flocks of turkeys. This one and this one over here both had small herds of cows, although this one was the only one where we saw a bull. I'm guessing they loan it out to the other one in the spring, because the one that has no bull still had several calves running around. I don't think any of them didn't have a few pigs running around loose. I think they just let those forage in the woods nearby. They also have a few fishnets.... probably for the river over here." He concluded, pointing out a small river southwest of the town.

Archer smiled... Max was nothing if not thorough. His father's teachings, no doubt.



Bob Sharpe was sitting back in the mess hall at Juniper base, sipping at a cup of coffee as he read through some of the reports the combined teams were coming up with about the underground bunker and it's contents when a young woman in a centuries-old Airman's uniform appeared at his elbow.

"More coffee, Captain?"

He turned and smiled up at the young woman. "Please, miss...?"

"Barlow... but you can call me Jenny." she replied as she topped off his cup.

"Thank you, Jenny."

'Damn... she fills out that uniform nicely!' he thought, as she continued to gaze at him.

"Is it true? Are you really going to teach us to fly again?" she asked as she stood by his side.

He nodded. "As soon as we can get enough power running to use those flight simulators again, yes. I'm guessing you want to take the training?"

She nodded enthusiastically.

"You bet! I'd love to learn to fly, feel all that power under me. Seems like that'd be better'n sex!"

He chuckled a bit at that.

"Well, I'm not so sure about That, but it is a huge rush. I took one of those F-22s up a few days ago.... it's so much fun I can't really describe it."

"Oh, lordy! Could you take me up sometime?"

"Well, the F-22, there isn't a trainer version of that, but... there are a few F-16 trainers here... they haven't been brought up yet, but when they are, sure, I could take you up on a patrol. I'll warn you, though.... if we run into any Chinese planes up there, things could get dangerous in a hurry."

"That's ok... you'd just shoot them down, right?"

He gave her a hint of a smile.

"I don't know, dear... I've never been in an actual dogfight before."

"A... dogfight? I don't understand. What do dogs have to do with it?"

He smiled again. "That's what it's called when two planes fight in the air, hun.... don't ask me why, but it's traditional, goes back to the time when they first started using planes in war."

"Oh, ok... well, can we go sometime this week? I have the whole day off, the day after tomorrow."

"I'll see. I know Colonel Jamison wants to get a few more of those planes brought up from their bunker as soon as he can. I'll talk to my mechanic down there, see if he can move a few trainers to the front of the line."

"That would be SO cool! Can we talk about it, later on? I get off in an hour."

He smiled. "Sure, no problem.... I've got about another hour of reading to do here. Just come and get me when you're ready."

"I've got a better idea.... when I finish my shift here, I'll bring us out a couple of bowls of stew and we can talk about it over dinner."

He nodded, smiling. "Sounds like a plan. I didn't have any dinner plans."

Archer managed to get a few dozen people relocated to the new village just before winter hit, selecting just those houses that had more than one fireplace, and by the time spring was starting, had moved several tractors, plows, disc harrows, and manure spreaders up to clear fields for a late spring planting. Within a week, several tons of compost had been spread on the five acres that had been prepared and it was sectioned off into five seperate parcels, growing an acre each of corn, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and red beans.

Five cows and a yearling bull were moved into a nearby pasture, with another area designated for chickens, while yet another was set up, on the edge of the forest, for pigs. 

Within a year, it would not only be self-sufficient; it would be trading surplus food with the nearby Rebel base for extra ammunition and fuel for their few pick-ups. Within two more years, they would expand the amount of land under cultivation twice, to nearly four times what they'd begun with.



Phil Huett and Jim Archer sat back on the hilltop, a little over half a mile away from the Chinese base, getting a first hand look through long telescopes at what they were up against, recording much of it to video via attached digital cameras for later review. They soon found that Max Klein had been wrong in one part of his assessment; the Chinese did, indeed, have a barracks full of female slaves here... it was merely concealed a bit, being in the middle of the soldier's barracks.

Phil gave a deep sigh. "Well, that puts the kibosh on an air-only attack. We can't hit all of those barracks without killing the women."

"I know. Sometimes I hate having a conscience."

"So how are we going to do this?"

Archer grinned. "Remember that proposal I made, awhile back, about scaring the hell out of them?"

"Killing a few, then a few more a week later, and so on?" Huett replied, slowly grinning as the scenario played out in his head.

Archer smiled and nodded. "Maybe it's time to dust that idea off and put it to work. Maybe refine it a bit. Intersperse sniper attacks with the occasional use of rocket launchers and RPG's, maybe get in close enough to use a few grenade launchers on those guard towers."

Huett grinned. "I like it.... but I have another idea. What say we start things off with a bang?"

Within three days, the team was in position; just down the road from the main gate to the base, and just past a curve in that road, out of sight of the guard towers, Jimmy Brunell and four teammates went to work, burying a line of anti tank land mines across the dirt road. Two hundred yards further down the road, they did it again, adding a peppering of anti personnel mines on the shoulders of the road. Further down, they added a dozen 'Bouncing Bettys'; mines which, when stepped on, popped up twenty or so feet in the air before exploding, sending steel ball bearings flying in all directions with murderous force. Some of the troops called it a flying Claymore.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 14



Billy Jackson smiled to himself as he and his team of scouts worked their way closer in to the Chinese base. All twelve of them were carrying the silenced .270 caliber sniper rifles that were so popular with the Cave troops, save for Billy himself; he'd recently upgraded to a .308 Winchester that could reach out nearly three quarters of a mile. After half a day of building up their blinds, getting set up to shoot from total concealment, they were finally ready. Now they merely had to wait for the right opportunity.

That opportunity finally came in the midafternoon.

Two large trucks rolled into the compound, just after the noon lunch hour had passed; replacement troops and fresh supplies. 

The last of the daily patrols returned, and Colonel Kwan called for a general assembly in the parade ground, closest to the fence on the north side of the compound... with the replacements that had just come in front and center.

Which suited Bill Jackson and his team just fine; they had, basically, an unobstructed line of sight to the troops they were targeting. Some of their rounds would, undoubtedly, hit the fences, and be sent off in unpredictable trajectories; this didn't bother them too much, as it would merely add to the enemy troop's panic.

Billy waited until just the right moment, when the Chinese CO was closest to the fence, before clicking the throat mic, murmuring "Ok, guys... everyone pick two targets, center mass shots only. I'm taking the Commander, but every other trooper is fair game. On three... two... one... fire!"

In less than ten seconds, the Commander and eleven troopers dropped like so many rocks, and a few seconds later, a dozen more joined them. 

Jackson's team pulled their rifles back into their blinds and sat back, looking on in amusement as the Chinese troops were thrown into an utter panic.

Twenty three of the Chinese troops lay dead or dying, and the Commander was missing half of his head; Jackson, sure of his abilities, had chosen to put his round squarely in the ear canal of the enemy commander, with devastating results. Quietly, they waited, watching as Chinese soldiers organized into patrol groups and headed out the front gate... all of them headed in the wrong directions.

Thirty minutes passed, and the troops who had stayed in the camp began to relax a bit, thinking that the enemy snipers had left the area to avoid discovery.

Jackson whispered into his throat mic. 

"Gentlemen, those guards in the towers look entirely too comfortable; what do you think?"

A dozen rifles whispered through their silencers; a dozen guards died, and a dozen scouts sat back to wait once again.

Jenny Barlow held Bob's head as he nuzzled at her large nipples, squirming all over his lap as she felt his hardness growing under her. It didn't feel like he was huge or anything, but she had a feeling he knew quite well how to use what he had... and since their flight, she was feeling Very horny. She threw her arms back, shrugging out of the old uniform blouse she'd worn, and reached down, unbuttoning her pants as he continued his oral exploration of her full 34Ds.

Reaching between them, she started unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers, pushing it back and off to reveal his moderately hairy chest, before reaching for his belt buckle and then his pants buttons.

He stood suddenly, lifting her to her feet so they could both shed the uniform trousers they were wearing, leaving him in his briefs, while she was completely naked, save for a pair of multicolored socks.

She smiled at him wordlessly and knelt at his feet, pulling the briefs down in a quick tug, taking his hardening six and a half inches in her mouth in one swift motion, and started bobbing her head, licking up and down his shaft like an old pro. Within minutes, she was rewarded with more cum in her mouth than she would have thought possible, and was hard pressed to swallow it fast enough to keep up.

He smiled down at her as she licked her lips, making sure she didn't miss a drop, then pulled her to her feet, pushed her gently back to the couch, pulled her knees apart, and dove face first between her spread thighs, tongue leading the way, and soon had her moaning as he drilled his tongue as deep as he could get into her streaming hole, licking all around her wide open pussy lips, finally settling on her stiff little clit. He shoved two fingers into her tight little hole as he fluttered his tongue over her little nubbin, turning his hand and finding her G-Spot with his fingertip and massaging it lightly as her thighs clamped down on his head.

Soon she was shuddering under him, as waves of pleasure rolled through her body, the orgasm ripping through her as she flooded his tongue and face with her sweet/tart juices. She was vocal about it, giving several small cries as he continued to eat her sweet cunt, until he couldn't take it any more and stood, lifting her up with him, sliding his cock into her while she clung to him. He started walking about the room, slamming into her with every step, and she came again as he backed her up against a wall and began to pound into her in earnest.

"Oh, God... fuck me, honeeee! Harder baby, harder!"

He merely grunted as he slammed into her, balls deep... and he thought, for one crazy instant, that he felt his full nuts slip inside along with his shaft.

Finally, he couldn't hold back anymore, and unleashed his second load deep inside her, kissing her roughly as his balls drained themselves.

They settled back on the couch, both gasping for breath, and his cock slowly shriveled and pulled out of her on it's own. He reached up to kiss her lightly again, and grinned.

"Remind me to take you flying again soon, hun."

"MMMmmm... Babe, after That performance, you won't need to take me flying!" 

Billie Jean and Jeff showed up at the apartment shared by Cassie, Doris, and Mickey, Jeff carrying a cooler full of juices and a bottle of whiskey, while Billie Jean held a small wooden carrier with a crock pot inside, full of a noodles, venison, mushrooms, and cheese sauce concoction she'd had cooking all day while she was working at the daycare center. Doris met them at the door and welcomed them inside with a kiss for each of them.

"Hi, babes... do you guys know Barb and Lenny?"

BJ shook her head, but Jeff nodded. Len Ryan was one of the guys from his training class.

Cassie came out of the kitchen, another young woman in tow, eyes lighting up as she spotted BJ and Jeff.

"Hey, guys! Do you know Shandra?"

BJ nodded, eyes lighting up at the sight of the light skinned black woman, who had come in a few months ago, after being held captive at a Chinese base for more than six months. She'd been in counseling with Mrs. Davidson for the last few months, and BJ had bumped into her there while helping Leeanne out, telling the new women about her own experiences with the soldiers and assuring them that they were safe here, among other things. She'd volunteered to do it, but Leeanne had made sure she got credits for it anyway.

In the living room of the spacious apartment, they met another young couple, Fran Mitchell and Mark Wellston. Both were cave raised, and longtime friends of Cassie, Mickey, and Doris.

Once everyone had a plate of the various foods that each had brought, they settled in the living room to eat and gossip while a concert DVD played in the background. 

Most of the talk surrounded who was leaving, going to the new village by the rebel base, and who was staying here. Fran and Mark had decided to relocate to the rebel base, which got a frown from Cassie; they were good friends, and she'd spent a few enjoyable afternoons with her face buried between Frannie's thighs while Mark had plowed her from behind... and she was hoping for a repeat performance tonight.

Shandra sat next to BJ, looking to the older girl for some reassurance. BJ realized this early on, and slipped an arm around the young woman's shoulder, leaning over and whispering "Don't worry, hun... you don't have to do anything you don't want to... just go with it."

"Are... are we going to have sex here tonight?"

"Beats me, dear... just stay by me, and I'll take care of you." BJ replied, kissing her on the neck, just below her ear and giving her left breast a playful squeeze.

Cassie took note of this and gave BJ a mock frown. "Not yet, babe..." she said as she reached into the pocket of the man's T shirt she wore, pulling out a big joint and a lighter and firing up.

Mickey grinned and started pouring whiskey into glasses, topping them off with various juices, and nodded. "Yeah... let's get a little lubricated first."

Doris smiled at him from the floor by Jeff's feet and replied "You know I'm Always lubricated, hun." with a leer and a wink.

Lenny and Jeff both pulled joints from their pockets, lighting them up and passing them around, and soon the whole group was enjoying the feeling of a mellow buzz.

By the time the last roach was burning itself out in the ashtray, Doris had dragged Jeff to his feet and was dancing with him to the tones of an old Rush tune, while BJ was doing the same with Shandra, and Cassie was sitting in Mark's lap, playfully squirming all over him, feeling his cock growing hard under her ministrations. Fran came over and sat next to Mickey, shedding her thin T shirt before straddling him on the couch. 

Before long the clothes were flying, and BJ had begun kissing Shandra passionately; something the young woman wasn't entirely ready for. She was trembling a bit as BJ caressed the young woman's tongue with her own, but soon, instinct began to take over, and she was fondling BJ's full breasts with something approaching enthusiasm. BJ swung around until she was straddling the young woman, cupping her full ass cheeks as she continued french kissing her.

Cassie pulled Mark's shorts down, diving face first into his lap, taking his cock to the back of her throat in one gulp, while Lenny moved up behind her, spearing her dripping cunt in a quick thrust, and she moaned as he bottomed out inside her. The vibrations in her throat caught Mark just right, and he began thrusting his hips, fucking her mouth even as Lenny thrust his cock into her tight cunt from behind.

BJ worked her way backwards a bit, taking one of Shandra's chocolate brown tits in her mouth, bringing her hand down to carress the woman's rapidly unfurling pussy lips, while the black girl ran her fingers through the young redhead's hair, if a bit nervously. She'd never had sex like this before... up until now, it had just been a soldier, coming in, unzipping his fly, and jumping on her.

Jeff, meanwhile, was soon between Doris' thighs, diligently licking at her freshly shaved pussy, while Barb was squatting over her face, thoroughly enjoying her overly active tongue and fondling Doris' firm breasts.

Mark could no longer take it, and blasted his cum down Cassie's throat, but she didn't let up, licking and sucking at the head of his cock until he was hard again, then moving around until Lenny was under her; Mark, sensing what she was after, moved around behind her, feeding his hard-on into her rectum, and soon, the two young men had a rhythm going, double fucking her as she cried out at the pleasure of being filled from both sides.

BJ pulled back a bit, looking deep into Shandra's eyes and murmuring "Honey, do you trust me?"

Shandra nodded, obviously still a bit nervous, as BJ backed up a bit, lifting the young woman's thighs over her shoulders and diving into her neatly trimmed muff, licking quickly, lightly, at her hardened clit.

Mickey lifted Fran up, positioning her over his hard cock, lowering her until the head slipped between the open lips of her steaming cunt and began to fuck her from the bottom up, but she soon took control, bucking her hips back against his.

Shandra closed her eyes and threw her head back, actually enjoying sex for the first time, barely noticing when Jeff moved up behind BJ and slipped his cock into her ass. BJ noticed, though, and clenched her cheeks together, making her rear hole as tight as she could.

He just grinned and kept thrusting into her, soon blasting a load of cum deep into her bowel.

The room was soon filled with moans, grunts, and small cries of orgasms, drowning out the music from the multi speaker home theater system.

Shandra was gasping for breath as BJ continued her relentless assault on her clit, driving the younger woman to multiple orgasms before Jeff came over and took her place.

BJ grabbed a wet washcloth and cleaned his cock off before taking him in her mouth, getting him hard again and wrapping him in a condom. She moved up and lay on her side next to Shandra, kissing her neck before whispering "Are you ready for a man, honey?" 

Shandra nodded, nervously eyeing Jeff for a moment. 

BJ knew this was a turning point for her; she kissed the younger woman's ear before breathing out "Don't worry, hun... he's going to be very gentle with you. We know you need to see the other side of sex... from a man who cares about how you feel. Mickey did the same thing for me when I got here."

She shot a look at Jeff, who was licking and kissing his way up the chocolate brown skin of Shandra, paying particular attention to the caps of her breasts, before slowly sliding up between her thighs and into her well lubricated pussy. He pushed in slowly, until their groins met, and just held there for a moment, letting her get used to him as he reached down to kiss her, lightly, just quick pecks on the lips and cheeks at first. Soon, though, nature took over; he slid his tongue into her open mouth as he started slowly thrusting into her, and she, feeling good with it, wrapped her thighs around him, locking her ankles behind his back and trying to draw him in as deep as possible. He picked up a little speed as she began to moan underneath him, breathing harder as his motions triggered several orgasms in her.

Mark, once again hard, zeroed in on Frannie's ass, which was still bouncing on Mickey's cock, and grabbed ahold of her hips from behind; she realized his intent and held still for a moment, gasping as he bulled his way into her tight backdoor. She began rocking back and forth, pulling away from one cock as the other slid into her. Soon she was shuddering in orgasm, followed closely by Mickey, and as she collapsed forward on him, Mark took over and began to pound into her ass in earnest, soon blasting ropes of his cum deep in her bowel.

Lenny grunted as he came, deep in Cassie's womb, and slowly pulled out of her... BJ moved over, pushing Cassie onto her back and licking the gobs of semen out of her pussy as he grabbed a drink and recovered. 

He lay back against the front of the couch for a moment, eyes closed, but they shot open as a mouth closed over his now-limp cock.

It was Shandra, bobbing her head down on him even as Jeff continued fucking her from behind. He smiled, running his fingers through her thick, curly hair as she gave her first consensual blowjob. She had obviously learned a bit from watching the other young women here; she was using her lips and tongue quite well, if not expertly. Her small hand closed around the base of his dick and began to stroke him slowly as she sucked at the head, and soon, he reached for her shoulder, grunting out the words "Gonna cum, Babe!"

She moaned around his cock and took him all the way down to the root, just in time, as he blasted several ropes of cum down her throat. She coughed a little, but managed to swallow it all, as Jeff came, filling the rubber and grabbing her tits as he did. She grabbed ahold of Lenny's hips, holding on for dear life as another orgasm ripped through her.

Frank Bergen sat back in his office, going over the inventory of the new equipment. After cleaning up the old diesel engines and a little rebuilding and refurbishing, they now had twenty two working generators, big enough to run small villages, and another fifteen that could do the same job if they doubled up.

This would prove important, as they already had four new bases to work on, including the second base they'd attacked. It now seemed like ancient history, but in reality, had been a mere two years ago. The old buildings were a complete loss, of course, but the runway was almost intact, save for a couple of small craters where mines had gone off when a small plane, carrying Chinese investigators, had tried to land there. The wreckage, with the bodies still inside, was still sitting off to one side of the old runway; feral dogs and other animals had found their way in through the broken glass to pick at the rotting corpses.

Jim sat back in his living room with Johnny Corcoran, who had been elected to run the city, now that Jim had reached the end of his term.

"Jim, you know I'm not happy about this." It was a statement, not a question.

"Oh, hell, John, you know you're up to the job, just as well as I do. You were my right hand for years."

"That never meant I wanted this job. I never envied you... I'm lousy at all of that fuckin' paperwork, man!"

"Well, shit... that's why you get a staff together. You know how to delegate. Just go with it. Besides, you know you can always call on me for ideas. You've still got to pick a council, too, and you know they'll help you out anyway they can. I will make one suggestion, though..."

Corcoran raised an eyebrow.

"For the council, pick out a few of the older villagers... Bob Gunderson, Herb Dixon, and Mike Cromwell would be good choices. They'll give you good advice about dealing with the other villagers we've got here, and about who we should relocate to the new villages and bases we're setting up."

John nodded. "I expect you're right about that. It'll give the villagers a voice on the council, too... that'll go a long way to integrating them into the population here." He paused in thought for a minute.

"You know Frank wants to start fixing up some of the roads, right?"

Jim nodded. "I like the idea... we've got a lot of things that can't handle the roads around here, as they are. Rebuilding them would be a big plus. I guess you heard about that old Ford dealership Tom Dorn and his team found."

"The one with all the old pick-ups? Yeah, I heard about that... A good thing, that. If we can rebuild some of them, get them up and running, we can use them to equip some of these villages, give them a way to trade some of their produce with the bases we're setting up."

"How many men do you want to put on that?"

"I don't know... might want to split 'em up, ten man teams on each road, working on a few miles a day. Frank said he had three teams, working at those old heavy equipment dealers we've found, but most of that equipment is well over a century and a half old... probably gonna need some major league rebuilding to bring it up to snuff... might be awhile before we can get anyone on the trucks."

"True... but we needed the 'dozers and loaders anyway... getting the engines flushed, relubed, and running again won't be that big a deal. A lot of those dealers used fuel preservatives and layers of inert gasses in their fuel tanks as a matter of course, so we may get lucky there too."

"Actually, we already did." Jim replied, cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"Tom Dorn and his team were out on a long range patrol, while you were at Juniper."

"Ok... what does that mean? Did they find something special?"

Archer nodded. "They were poking around in northern Colorado, near the southern edge of Wyoming. Found a little bitty refinery... said it looked like a place that was set up for small scale, regional work. He also said there were wellheads all around the place, all of them capped off."

"And you think there might be oil there, just waiting to be pumped up and refined into new gas."

"I think it's possible. They've been sitting, idle, since before the great war... that's a long time for oil to flow through the cracks and fissures, deep inside the earth's crust. it wouldn't hurt to set a couple of pump heads, see if there's anything there."




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 14



"You DO realize that we don't have anyone here who knows a thing about running an oil well, let alone a refinery?"

"Yes, I do... but I also realize that we probably have the greatest library known to this country, currently, aside from the Library of Congress or the National Archives... if those places didn't get nuked. On top of that, Dorn and his team brought back close to a truckload of paperwork from the place... and we've got a whole generation of kids who've been taught to think with their fingers; between those things, I think we can learn to get the machinery back up and running."

"We're spread pretty thin as it is, you know."

Archer nodded. "Dangerously thin, at the moment... but we have to expand our territory. By this time next year, we should have at least eight or ten operating bases... and I mean Fully operational. Armor, artillery, air support, the works. We need to expand the training programs, get more people learning how to shoot, how to stalk these Chinese punks... outdoor survival comes naturally to most of them, so it's just a matter of teaching them the military side of things. We need an army."

He paused in thought for a moment, and added "And we need it right fuckin' now."

Corcoran gave him a sour look. "I see why you were so happy to leave office; this is gonna be a logistical nightmare."

"Oh, hell, Johnny, I'll bet you know a hundred people who could train new recruits at the rifle range right now. Delegate, guy! Get yourself a good bunch of instructors, get the classes going, and have the instructors rotate between the classes, so the trainees get more than one perspective on the art. Hell, you know all of this."

Corcoran nodded, deep in thought for the moment; he knew they had nearly four thousand snipers in the Cave alone, and another thousand in training. Adding in those who had moved down by the Rebel base, and a few of the other bases and villages in their Free Zone, would nearly double that. Most of the trainees were making good progress, too, and he knew that soon, their sniper corps would number into the low five digit range by itself.

The main trouble, as he saw it, was pilots and armor crews. They'd found four bases with planes stored in nitrogen atmospheres so far, including Juniper, and had at least five hundred usable planes and helicopters as a result... but they had less than half that number of good, certifiable pilots so far, though training was going quickly. Nearly a hundred of the planes were the two seat F16 trainers, but those had been dated even before the war, and transitioning the pilots into the F22s, F35s, and the F117 Stealths wasn't as easy as it sounded. The helicopters were a similar story; transitioning someone from an old Bell Huey to a Blackhawk or an Apache was a trainer's nightmare.

The armor was posing a similar problem; people who'd trained on the old Shermans and Pattons in the Cave had a tough time with the Abrams they were finding under the old military bases... they were worlds apart. Even with the hundreds of training manuals they were digging up, it was a long, slow process. Crews for their most modern armor were few and far between, and would remain so for months to come, perhaps years.

Brian Arthur took his class out to the impromptu shooting range, set on assessing their current skills. This group was predominantly Villagers, with a sprinkling of Cave raised kids, and so far, most of them were making good progress. Emma Wilkins had, in fact, taken several rabbits that had wandered too close to the range just the day before, both head shots, both at a range of over two hundred yards, with single shots from an M16, which he had given her high praise for. She was nearly ready for a class of recruits of her own.

As the class took turns shooting at the longer distance targets, out to three hundred yards, he saw that the main problem was that they were having trouble correcting for the wind, which today was blowing across the range from right to left, strong enough to blow their shots off to one side. At a short range, under fifty yards, it wouldn't have mattered so much; they'd still be 'on the paper'. Out at three hundred yards, however, this translated to being off by several feet or more.

After two hours, he called a cease-fire, and led them back to the large hanger on the base they were using as a classroom, sitting them down and putting their noses back in the books; an old training manual left behind by the US Army, telling them to read up again on the section on ballistics. Leaving them to their reading for a few minutes, he took the time to grab a cup of coffee, then started going through the paper targets, one at a time.

Emma was, once again, the star of the show; she was one of three who had actually gotten near the bull's eye, and had, in fact, placed a few shots close enough to the bull's eye to be considered killing shots. Most of the targets, though, were nearly clean, with just a few shots on the extreme left edges. He gave a deep sigh as he realized that it wasn't so much the ballistics aspect per se'; it came down to a lifetime of never having learned the basic math skills to begin with. He would have to get them back into school, learning to do the necessary math in their heads so they could calculate the compensation for wind drift and bullet drop.

At Juniper Base, Pete Coswell was doing double duty, both as a flight instructor and slowly bringing equipment up from 'the basement', as he called it, starting with the trainers. Of course, there were other things coming to light as well; some of the side chambers of the massive underground storage bunkers held small arms, everything from M16s to M2 Browning big .50s. One section of one of the rooms held a number of lightweight personal six barreled miniguns, in .223 caliber, along with hundreds of cases of belted ammunition for them. Those were going to be fun... it would take a strong man to carry and control them, but they would come in handy at some of the Chinese bases.

Herb Montgomery sat back in his office looking over the report of the most recent patrols. His men were finding fewer of the Chinese; they were staying closer to their base. He knew that wouldn't last long, The commander of that Chinese base was an arrogant son of a bitch, and was thoroughly brainwashed into thinking that the Communist Chinese had every right to be here.

Montgomery had never attacked that base, but with the number of troops that were training now, plus the infusion of Militia troops, who had proven to be excellent drill instructors, he knew it wouldn't be long before he could. His people were not only learning to shoot straight; they were also learning the tactics that the Militia had already used successfully to destroy several Chinese bases. Give them another few months of instruction, plus the amount of equipment flowing in from the militia's discoveries, and he knew it wouldn't be long. His Rebels were hungry for some action.

Rick Jamison welcomed Jim Archer and Johnny Corcoran to Juniper base, all the while wondering what was on their minds. Jim explained that he was retiring from his post as the commander of the militia base and taking on the role of advisor, and instructing the newer recruits in tactics, ambushes, and other 'need to know' things that went with militia duty. He wanted to make sure the men he'd forged alliances with knew that there was a new hand at the helm.

Jamison nodded, sipping at his coffee. "It's a good thing you men are here, actually; I was going to call you, see if you could lend me some people."

"Oh? What do you have in mind, Colonel?" John asked.

"Well... we've got a Chinese base, about forty miles west of here. They hadn't really paid much attention to us before; I think they thought we were just a small farming community. That all changed a few weeks ago, when Captain Sharpe took one of those trainers up with a young woman from the base here and wound up shooting down four of their helicopters. We've had their jets doing fly-bys several times a week since, and that, gentlemen, makes me nervous, because I don't have enough trained troops to take them on, just yet."

"Have you sent out any scouts yet, to recon the place?"

Jamison nodded. "Preliminary reports say there are about two thousand troops there, and about twenty of those big helicopters. About fifty fighter jets, too... I'm not sure how many pilots they have for them, though."

Corcoran shot a look at Archer, who nodded.

"Ok... have your guys done any mapping of that base? We need to know all we can about it ahead of time."

Jamison sighed. "Not enough... we don't have any way to take pictures of the place, and my scouts, well... let's just say there isn't an artist in the bunch."

Corcoran grinned at this, pulling out his satellite phone. Punching in a series of numbers, he was quickly connected to the main swithboard back at the Cave.

"Hi, Katy? John Corcoran... listen, can you find Tom Dorn for me?"

Two minutes later, Dorn came on the line.

"Yes Sir, what can I do for you?"

"Assemble a team... night vision gear, silent weapons, digital cameras, extra memory cards, the works. Get 'em down to Juniper tonight. We have an enemy base to scout, and it sounds like a big one. Have them draw ration bars for at least a three to four day op. Have 'em bring down a few extra laptops with chargers and a case of extra digital cameras, too, while they're at it."

"Yes, Sir... anything else?"

Corcoran stroked his chin in thought for a moment, nodding to himself.

"Yes... Put the sniper corps on alert. Tell them we may have work for them in a few days... and have some of our demolition guys on standby, too... I think we'll put them to work on this one too."

Billy Jackson pulled his troops back to a small suburb, about eight miles from the enemy base, to wait and let the Chinese stew over the latest losses his squad had inflicted upon them. It was a gamble, giving them time to reorganize, but worth the risk. They'd relocated to an old hospital, which had an extensive basement, including what appeared to be a large conference room. They set up their small camp stoves, had a hot meal, and bedded down for the night. 

Jackson woke in the middle of the night at a prod from one of the men he'd put on watch; someone, it appeared, was nosing around in the hospital above them. He nodded, whispering to the watcher to wake the rest of the men. Everyone put on their headsets and crouched behind boxes and overturned tables.

They all got out silenced pistols and waited, focused on the entry stairwells at either end of the room.

They didn't have long to wait.

Jackson saw the first movement; a pair of legs appeared at the top of the stairs. The clothing was wrong, though; they were wearing what appeared to be very old blue jeans. He whispered "Hold fire... those don't look like soldiers."

Three men and a woman came down the stairs, dressed in old clothing and carrying bows. They were looking around warily, and appeared not to be in very good shape.

Jackson waited until they were all fully in the basement before standing up, flashlight in hand, and said "Ok... who are you people?"

The man in the lead started to bring his bow up, and Jackson cocked his pistol, saying "I wouldn't do that."

His men stood up from their own places of concealment, bringing silenced rifles and pistols to bear in a show of force. It worked; the man, and his three companions, lowered their bows.

"Man... who the fuck are you?"

"I'll ask the questions here, bud. What are you doing here?"

"Runnin' from the soldiers... there's patrols everywhere. We're lookin' to get out of their way."

"Ok, I can understand that. Now who are you?"

"The soldiers hit our village about an hour ago... they were lookin' for guns. They killed almost everyone. We barely got away."

"Damn... probably lookin' for us." Jackson muttered under his breath.

To the strangers, he replied "Ok, well, come on in... we aren't Chinese soldiers. Maybe you can tell us something about what's going on out there."

The leader of the foursome slung his bow across his shoulder and stepped forward. Extending his hand, he said "Don Brewer."

Jackson shook his hand, replying "Sergaent Bill Jackson."

Brewer drew back his hand in shock. "You're soldiers?!"

"Not in the way that you're thinking, no. We're members of the state Militia."

"Mil...militia? Never heard of it."

"Call us citizen soldiers. We kill Chinese."

Brewer's eyes widened as the implications sunk in.

"You must be the people they're lookin' for. They came to our town, screamin' at us about some o' theirs that got killed today, swore we were hidin' the people that killed them."

"Damn... I'm sorry about that. We're trying to drive those bastards out of our country. I didn't know there was a civilian town nearby. "

"It wasn't a big place... there were only about twenty five of us to begin with... and I think a few others got away."

"Ok, well... if you can find the others who got away, there's a small town, about thirty, thirty five miles southwest of here; if you can make it that far, you'll be safe there, it's part of our free zone, and under our protection. It's across the state border, in Northwest Wyoming. Look for a small town called Quincy. Tell 'em Sergaent Jackson sent you, and you need sanctuary. They won't turn you away."

Brewer nodded. "You guys got anything to eat? We ain't had any time to do any huntin'."

Two people from Jackson's squad stepped forward, pulling off their packs, reaching inside, and passed out half a dozen of the nuts-and-chocolate ration bars each. Pete Anderson showed them how to unwrap them, biting into one of his own and chewing. The four imitated him, eyes lighting up as they tasted the chocolate, apparently for the first time.

They would talk long into the night, and Billy finally decided his squad would have to escort the survivors; none of them had ever been more than a few miles from their town, and they had no sense of direction. They picked up another twelve survivors on the way out of the area, a mix of men, women, and children, and it took nearly four days to get them all across the state line and into the new town, where they got a warm reception from the villagers in Quincy. Within a week, they were integrating into their new home, and were, indeed, soon pulling their own weight on the farms and in the small grain mill that this town was built around.

Jackson and his team resupplied, and after a few days of sleeping in real beds, redeployed to the northwest, moving quietly back into the area of the Chinese base, only to find guards who were far more vigilant now. It didn't do them much good, though; the militia members changed their tactics, this time mining the road out of the base by night, then falling back and circling around to the opposite side of the enemy encampment and popping half a dozen guards before fading back into the deep woods, watching as the enemy troops streamed out of the front gate and walked right into the mix of bouncing bettys and claymores.

In three day's time, they racked up an impressive body count. They counted over thirty Chinese dead.

Tom Dorn looked over the Chinese base, down near Juniper field, silently cursing. The place was huge, and it was going to be an absolute nightmare to take on, even with the twenty five hundred snipers under his command. What was worse, they had not one but two barracks full of female prisoners, one at either end of the base; and Dorn knew how Corcoran and Archer felt about collateral damage. An air attack was out of the question. This would have to be ground troops only, and even with silenced weapons and surprise on their side, it could easily turn into an out-and-out slugfest.

Don Brewer looked around the small town with something approaching awe... he didn't recognize any of the equipment set up around the area, but he knew, somehow, that it wasn't anything generally used by regular people. When he asked what on earth 'those things' were, he was told they were anti-aircraft guns, 60MM mortars, and 105MM howitzers, plus a sprinkling of Patton and Abrams tanks. This town was not without it's defenses. On top of the town hall, at the top of a twenty foot mast, was a small, camoflagued radar dish, which was monitored around the clock. 

The whole town was surrounded by farmland, and four acres had been set aside for orchards, although none of the trees would be large enough to bear fruit for several years; still, the Cave-started saplings were off to a good start. Their planting holes had been dug extra deep, and half filled in with compost before lowering the young trees into place. They were buried half way up their young trunks, which the Cavedwellers knew would promote a huge root ball.

At the small military barracks in the center of town, actually an old warehouse that had been converted for their use, Bill Jackson and his team resupplied with fresh ammunition and other equipment. They'd decided to take a week to rest and give the Chinese time to settle, perhaps thinking they'd seen the worst of it.

It worked; when they returned to the area, they saw that the enemy troops had been busy, clearing the land and mowing the grass out to a hundred and fifty yards from their fencelines. Jackson knew the land they'd cleared had probably been mined as well... he looked at his teammates and grinned... knowing there wasn't one of them who couldn't hit a man sized target from five hundred yards. This was going to be fun.

Cassie, Mickey, and Doris drove down to the new village in three new-old pickups, all of their worldly possessions stored in the backs under the bolted on caps. The three of them had made the decision a few days after their last party.

They'd made the decision, mostly, because with the influx of villagers, the value of their wages had gone down- the Cave just had too many farm and kitchen workers. The new town, located a few miles from the Rebel base, had been started as a joint set up between the Rebels and the Militia, a place for the local refugees from both areas to set up and start farming and trading with the Rebels, and to train with both Rebel and Militia instructors in the deadly arts.

Mickey and Doris had both been learning to shoot since they were seven or eight years old, so they would make a welcome addition to the village south of the Cave, known as Middleton, and Cassie was a pretty decent combat nurse... and of course, all three were well versed in farm work. Cassie was also a pretty fair hand in the kitchens, so none of them would lack for work.

They took up residence in a sprawling three bedroom ranch house in the little suburb, moved in their belongings, and within a month, had a small garden growing in the backyard, including a dozen pot plants of varying types, and had established themselves in jobs in the community. Mark and Fran were frequent visitors.

Mickey settled on an old log in the woods near the quiet suburb, sweaty after a full day of cutting and collecting firewood. The house they'd moved into had three separate fireplaces; a big woodstove in the basement, which also heated the water for the house, and two on the main floor, which were the main source of heat and could, in a pinch, be used as cook stoves, in case the electricity went out. 

He'd been cutting up deadfalls, mostly, for the past four hours, and had the back of the big pickup nearly full. Two or three more days like this would see them through the winter with ease, and he'd marked enough dead, dry wood for at least an extra two days of cutting and splitting. The hydraulic woodsplitters back at the town were going to get a workout.

He loaded up the chainsaw and gas can last, wrapped up the four rabbits he'd shot with the .22 automatic pistol after frightening them from under the logs he'd been cutting up, and put them in the old, faded brown truck, and was just about to head back to the settlement when he saw them... Chinese soldiers, three of them, walking through the woods bold as brass, a bit over a hundred yards away. They hadn't seen him, yet, so he eased the door of the truck open, quietly grabbing the M-4 Carbine from behind the seat and chambering a round as quietly as he could.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 14



They were moving away from him, towards the general direction of the settlement... a scout party.

He drew a bead on the one closest to him, grinning as he muttered under his breath "Not today, boys." and squeezed the trigger, smiling with satisfaction as the enemy soldier's head exploded, showering his two friends with blood, brains, and bits of bone. Just that quick, he shifted his aim, and the black rifle spoke again, and again, and the other two were down as well.

He was just about to pat himself on the back when a shot rang out; the mirror on the truck shattered, cutting him with the flying, broken glass, and he ducked down, looking all around for the source of the shot.

He spotted the rifle first, the light brown wood of the AK-47 contrasting with the dark surroundings as the soldier tried to get a clean shot at him, and he switched the Carbine to three round burst fire, targeting the flat green helmet as soon as he spotted it. He squeezed off the quick burst, hearing the rounds hitting the steel with distinct ringing sounds, and settled back to wait.

Five minutes passed, and he heard no signs of movement, so he worked his way over to the corpses, noting the first three had all been clean kills. He quickly stripped them of their rifles and ammunition, their packs, and their belts, with their sidearms, spare magazines, and several hand grenades. 

A little more searching revealed the fourth, and here, he got a bit of a surprise; this one wasn't dead. He couldn't move--his neck had been broken by the force of the bullets hitting his helmet--- but he was definitely alive, and chattering away angrily at the American who had dared to shoot at him and his three buddies. 

Mickey quickly marked the location on his handheld GPS unit, stripped this one, too, of arms and supplies, and left him there. If the Base Commander wanted him picked up and brought in for questioning, well and good... if not, he could rot there. Mickey had heard far too many horror stories from Billie Jean, and numerous others, to have the slightest bit of sympathy for these little punks.

Upon getting back to the settlement, he made a bee-line for the barracks, reporting to the duty officer, and was soon brought before the C.O.

Phil Huett, who had taken over the scouting command duties at the small town, looked intensely at Mickey as he questioned him.

"Mr. Miller, why didn't you load up the live one and bring him back with you?"

Mickey shrugged. "I didn't think it would be safe to try to move a man with a broken neck. Besides, back at the Cave, one of my closest friends was raped a bunch of times by those bastards... I can't work up a whole lot of sympathy for 'em, know what I mean? I figured I'd come back here, fill you guys in, let you decide whether to send out an ambulance or let the feral dogs have him."

Phil nodded. "Well, you did well to bring their weapons and supplies back, and marking down the coordinates. We'll send a team out that way, pick him up and maybe bury the others, and clean up the site a little. Thanks for letting me know. Drop off the weapons and whatnot at the armory." he concluded, by way of a dismissal. Before turning away, he picked up the conversation again, however.

"That sounds like some pretty good shooting, Mr. Miller... why aren't you on our sniper teams?"

"Sir, that was close range--less than a hundred and twenty yards or so... and I'm a decent shot at that range. Get out to four, five, six hundred yards... I'm a lousy shot."

"Ah... but you know your limitations. Always a good thing. Carry on, young man."

Mickey did as he was told, dropping off the four rifles and the rest of their supplies, getting the value of the items credited to his account, and headed over to the communal woodpile, dropping off the small truckload of fresh wood and gaining a load of split, dried firewood in return, and was soon back at the house, unloading it into a wheelbarrow and hauling it all back to stack in the racks against the back of the house near the door. He was just finishing up when Doris turned up, just getting home from the school, where she worked, part time, teaching the younger kids to read.

"Oooh! looks like we're set for the winter!"

"Not yet, babe. This load might last into December" he replied, accepting the quick kiss from her.

She got a whiff and stepped back. "Oh! Geez, Mickey! Go take a shower! You're all sweaty!"

He gave her a lewd grin. "You didn't say that the last time I got sweaty near you!"

She had the grace to blush a little. "Last night, you mean?"

He nodded... 'I sweat a lot when I butt fuck you, dear."

"True... but that's a different kind of sweat, baby... and I wasn't exactly dry myself!"

"True. It's your turn to cook tonight, isn't it?"

She nodded. "Haven't a clue what I'm gonna make, though."

"I've got four rabbits in the truck... already skinned and dressed. Caught 'em running out from under the logs I was cuttin' up. I kept the hearts, too, so if you want to use them in the gravy, all we'll need is potatoes."

"No... I'm in the mood for some Alfredo pasta, too. I think I'll debone them, pan fry the meat, and cut it into chunks and add it to the noodles. Do we have any garlic and parmesan left?"

He had to stop and think for a minute.

"I think so... I know I bought a bunch of groceries with the last of my credits back at the Cave, just before we left. So did Cass, come to think of it. The chives in the garden are ready, though. So are a few other spices, come to think of it. The cilantro, the rosemary, and the bay, a few others."

"Speaking of Cassie, where is she? She's usually home before I am."

"Beats me, dear... I think she's working in the canning kitchens today, so there's no telling when she'll get home."

"Ok... well, wanna help me get my truck unloaded? This wood will wait. I picked up something special."

He looked at her quizzically. "Should I be afraid to ask?" 

Looking past her, he saw a number of big cardboard boxes in the back of the truck.

"You heard about Mike Dennison's discovery, in that city south of here?"

"Nope... what did he find?"

"A garden supply place."

"Oooookay... what does that mean?" he replied, lifting an eyebrow.

"They brought back a couple of truckloads of hydroponic gear... I used a bunch of credits up... I've got lights, pumps, wave tables, growing medium, timers, the works. We can set it up in the basement, grow things all winter long."

"Ooooh! We can keep a pot crop going year round?"

"We can do more than that... how do fresh strawberries in February sound?"

"Sounds good... tomatoes and peppers would be better, though."

"Oh, Hell, no! Those damned ghost chilies of yours about kill me!"

"Hun, we can always grow some bells, maybe some of those banana peppers. You know you love it when I put those on a pizza."

"Ok, that's true... I wouldn't mind growing some red beans, either."

"Okay, well, let's get it all unloaded, first... no point in gettin' ahead of ourselves."

Dorn sat in the Commander's office, sipping coffee with Colonel Jamison and Captain Sharpe, making his report.

"The bottom line , Gentlemen, is that this one is going to be a major league pain in the ass, even with a force of twenty five hundred shooters. I think we might be better off waiting for some more of our long range patrols to come in... the more people we can bring to bear on this place, the better. If I had my way, we'd go in with at least a four-to-one advantage."

Jamison looked over the large drawing of the base carefully. "Maybe we should just go in with some helicopters, take the whole damned place out at once."

Sharpe shook his head. "Not with two barracks full of American woman prisoners, No Sir. We Always spare them, and liberate them. We've never deliberately killed an American P.O.W., and I refuse to start now."

Jamison held his outrage at being dressed down by a subordinate in check; the look in Sharpe's eyes told him this was one argument he couldn't win, especially considering the answering nod from Dorn. He'd heard of the militia's reputation for freeing prisoners, and he found it admirable. He nodded, again turning his eyes to the large sheet of paper.

"Well... what about just using the choppers on all of these guard towers and a few of these barracks?"

Sharpe looked over the map carefully, but it was just a pretense to gain time to gather his thoughts. 

"I'd like to, Sir, but in truth, we don't have enough experienced pilots... and an inexperienced pilot might be tempted to shoot up areas that he shouldn't... or use rockets, sending shrapnel in every direction. No, we're better off going in with ground troops only. By all means, we should probably have a few birds in the air, held way back, just in case they manage to get one or two of those 'Hinds' up... but they'd be back-up only, and even then would have to be our older, more experienced hands. We don't want some kid up there, with too much enthusiasm and not enough restraint."

"Or common sense." Jamison replied, agreeing with Sharpe, much to his own surprise.

"Besides all of that, the kids haven't been on any test flights yet... we don't know how well the simulators have taught them until they solo."

Sharpe nodded, still deep in thought.

Billie Jean and Jeff sat in the front seat of the golf cart, Shandra and Mark Culligan in the back, making their way down to 'their' cove in the lake building. It had been a few weeks since Cassie, Doris, and Mickey had left, and BJ and Jeff were missing their friends. It had been Jeff's idea, to show Shandra and Mark their 'special place'. 

Mark, of course, knew of the place; he was Cave born and raised, a descendant of Ron and Marlene Dupree, and had been attracted to Shandra since first seeing her in one of the reading classes he helped to tutor for the incoming villagers. Not many of the women in the Cave shared his nut-brown hue... and he was related to many of those who did.

Jeff carried his fishing rod and a small tackle box, with a small bucket of worms and a folding grill, in the back of the modified golf cart; along with two small coolers and a cargo box that held plastic plates and cups and other utensils.

BJ reached into her shirt pocket, pulling out a small wooden case and a Zippo... flipping back the lid, she selected a fat doobie, lighting up and passing it to Jeff after taking a deep hit. He inhaled sharply, then passed it back to Shandra, over his shoulder.

Shandra took a small hit before passing the joint to Mark; she didn't want to get too buzzed, as it made her horny as hell. By the time the joint was burning itself out in the ashtray, they were pulling up to the entry of the lake building... only to find that someone else had beat them there. There was another of the small, electric carts pulled up by the wide entrance, with a long, low trailer attached.

Walking in and around the shoreline, they spotted the occupants of the other cart, and the reason for the trailer; out on the lake, sixty yards from shore, was a small aluminum jonboat with Jimmy Archer, junior, and Debbie Bergen in it, trolling their way across the lake. 

Even as they watched, Jimmy shut down the little electric motor and grabbed for one of the fishing rods, giving it a good hard tug and then reeling furiously. A few moments later, he reeled in a fat bluegill.

While the girls laid out the blankets, Mark and Jeff walked into the trees that ringed the lake, each returning in moments with small handfulls of firewood, pine needles, and dry leaves.

Within a few minutes, the small fire was burning in the ring of stones, plates, utensils, and cups were passed around, filled with fruit juices and a bit of alcohol, another doobie was making the rounds, and Jeff's fishing line was out in the water, though he didn't know that a chubby perch had already stolen his bait. BJ and Shandra were cooking hamburgers on the small folding grill while Jeff dug out the buns and sliced cheese off the small block they'd brought along.

After their lunch, they laid back, talking, smoking and drinking while music came from the small radio/CD player, mostly trying to figure out where they were going to be in a few month's time. Mark was already thinking about the suburb near to Juniper Base; Jeff and BJ, on the other hand, were considering the new town near the Rebel base at Jackson Hole, to be close to Mickey, Cassie, and Doris. Doris had already sent BJ a note, asking her to come down for a visit.

When she mentioned this, she lamented that she missed her old friends. Jeff just grinned.

"You miss the orgies, you mean!"

BJ slapped him playfully on the chest. "What, you don't miss havin' Doris sittin' on your face?"

He grinned back at her. "She is tasty!"

Shandra blushed. She hadn't told anyone about the party they'd had. She shot a look at Mark, who was looking on, wide-eyed. He'd only just met BJ and Jeff, at the third villager-cave party a few days ago, and hadn't really known what to expect. BJ grinned at him. 

"Don't look so shocked, honey. Anna told me All about you."

He blushed, though it was a bit hard to tell under his dark skin. Anna Maxwell was a young woman he dated, off and on. She also gave incredible blowjobs.

"What did she tell you?"

"Unh uh... you'll have to ask her. She did say that she thought you'd be attracted to Shandra, here."

Mark blushed again, shooting a look at Shandra, who was looking a bit red in the face herself. 

"Well... she wasn't wrong about that."

Shandra looked up at him, wide eyed, and he smiled gently at her, while patting a spot on the blanket next to him; she nodded and moved to join him.

Phil Huett knocked on the door of the old ranch house, the next day, waiting as Mickey and Doris, unbeknownst to him, scrambled to get back into their clothes. As soon as Doris finished buttoning her jeans, Mickey opened the door.

"Captain Huett? What can I do for you?"

"I just dropped by to tell you that my men got out there, to the patch of woods you shot those Chinese at, only to find the area swarming with Chinese. They were looking for their missing patrol. Our people got into a firefight with them, and won... we lost three good men, but no Chinese left the scene alive. The point is, until further notice, that whole area is unsafe. I hope you're done gathering firewood for a while."

"Ouch... okay. Thanks for letting me know. I was going to go back out that way tomorrow. There's a lot of deadfalls out there that are perfect for firewood, and it's a shame to just let it rot. I know that area pretty well."

"I was hoping you'd say that. I wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to lead a few patrols out that way. I looked you up, you see, after you left my office yesterday; your instructors agreed with your personal assessment of yourself. They said you have good to excellent close range shooting abilities, fair to poor at longer distances, but your scouting skills... they gave you very high marks. Same thing goes for your woodsman and survival skills. Would you consider leading a team of scouts?"

Mickey rubbed his chin in thought for a moment, shooting a look at Doris, who had an anxious look in her eyes.

"Let me think about that for a day or two, Sir."

Huett nodded. He knew about the living arrangements Mickey had, with the two young women, and he'd heard rumors about what went on behind closed doors here; he would have second thoughts about leaving such an arrangement himself.

Bob Sharpe and Colonel Jamison decided to hold off on attacking the Chinese base for another few months, for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Jamison still had several classes of recruits learning to shoot straight, and he was hoping to include some of his own snipers in the attack. He also wanted to give the ground a chance to dry out and firm up a bit, since they were still in the tail end of fall, and much of the snow was still falling. Early June would be soon enough, he decided.

Sharpe, for his part, was more than willing to go along with the Colonel. A fair number of people had moved down from the Cave, and he knew some of them were pretty fair shots in their own rights. 

Quite a few of them made their livings by scrounging the surrounding countryside, digging up pre-war equipment to be refurbished and repurposed.

One in particular, Rory Calhoun, had come back from a small town to the west of them and had immediately gone back out with a flatbed car hauler; he was back, two days later, with an aged, but new appearing, pickup truck on the back. He had found an ancient Dodge dealership, which yielded up half a dozen new/old vehicles, along with a treasure trove of spare parts, tools, and machinery... including the backup generator once used by the old business. From his find he racked up enough credits to claim one of the aged pickups for himself... after it was rebuilt and restored to a running state.

Mark looked deep into Shandra's eyes as they talked in low tones; it turned out they had several common interests, including the guilty pleasure of some of the many hardcore porn movies in the common library of the Cave. Mark, it turned out, was a fan of the movies that featured big-breasted black women; Shandra looked down at her own ample chest and grinned.

"Am I big enough for you?" she asked, with a somewhat shy grin.

He answered her by leaning forward, kissing her gently while reaching up to fondle her right breast under the sweatshirt she wore.

"What do you think, sweety?" he smiled as he caressed her 36DDs. 

She returned his kiss, tentatively, while laying a hand on his thigh.

BJ grinned at Jeff. She'd known the two would hit it off. Jeff grinned back at her and pulled his shirt off... then reached for hers, freeing her 34Ds, and pulling her toward him.

Soon her tongue was in his mouth, while his hands were busy with her full breasts and hers were tugging at the button of his shorts. 

She reached in and fished out his hardening cock, gently stroking him as he caressed her, then broke the long kiss to bend forward, taking his hardness in her mouth. He trailed one hand down her back and slid it into her gym shorts, finding her nether lips already unfurling, and reached further under her, plunging two fingers inside her already steamy pussy, and began to saw them in and out of her.

Shandra caught sight of the other two out of the corner of her eye and followed suit, unbuttoning the cargo shorts Mark was wearing and reaching inside, grabbing ahold of what turned out to be a substantial piece of meat. Now she understood what BJ had meant when she'd repeated what Anna had told her; Mark Culligan was a little ship with a big whistle. 

She felt him grow at her touch, and pulled his hardness out over the top of his underwear and out of his pants, and he sat back, groaning as the cool air hit his exposed pecker. She started to lean down to take him in her mouth, but he pushed her back. She eyed him curiously, and he shook his head.

"Not unless I get to taste you too, babe."

She smiled, leaned back, and unbuttoned her jeans, pushing them down and off. Maneuvering around until her neatly trimmed muff was over his face, she bent forward to take his shaft into her mouth, though she couldn't get him all the way in. He began to lap at her open quim like a dog, short, rapid strokes that soon had her running honey, and she plunged down on him, taking most of his nine inch pole before bobbing back up, licking and nibbling as she went.

BJ swallowed hard as Jeff exploded in her mouth, while he massaged her pillowy breasts with both hands, unable to reach anything else from the position they were in. Even as he pumped the last of his cum down her throat, she continued to suck at the head of his cock, which stayed hard long enough for her to shed her gym shorts and plunge her now-dripping cunt down on him, riding him like a stallion. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 15



The troops withdrew, first to Juniper base, to rest for a day, then to their respective bases, to inventory their new supplies and get them situated in storage rooms and armories.

John Corcoran sent a small truckload to the newly rebuilt Greenwood base; it was the second Chinese base they'd hit, over two years ago, renamed for the first man of theirs who had been killed in this war, Bob Greenwood. 

They'd basically had to rebuild from the ground up, but it was now finished, with well over thirty buildings, a hanger full of choppers and planes, and a growing population of villagers who came in by ones and by fives from the surrounding countryside, all looking for a safe place to get away from the Chinese soldiers. 

Most were put to work clearing and planting fields with all manner of vegetables and seed grain, while all of them spent at least an hour or two each day in a class room, learning to read, write, and the other basics they'd need. 

Tony Mendoza fired up the big diesel generator, and lights came on all over the new town. Greenwood, once again, had electricity. Karl Greenwood, cousin of the town's namesake, would stick around to keep the equipment running, though it didn't need too much in the way of care; between the generator, the two acre field of solar panels, and the three massive windmills, and the room full of storage batteries, power was pretty much taken care of. He and his team would, eventually, set up half a dozen more of the big wind generators, leaving the big diesel engine to serve as a back up. 

By the last day of June, all of the fields were off to a good start and guard patrols were established, and many of the newer refugees from the surrounding countryside were established in homes in the small community-slash-military base.

A small team of techs moved in, set up several drills, and soon hit ground water, which they routed through purifiers. Within another year, they would set up an overly large waste water treatment plant, capable of handling three times the five thousand houses that had been built, rebuilt, and repaired there and in the surrounding countryside. 

They wanted plenty of room for expansion, as refugees from other areas around the state kept coming in, not large numbers, but enough to raise concerns.

Gar Davidson ran his current class around the track, building their endurance. He and Leeanne had taken up some of the training duties at the Cave, mostly symbolic now, considering how many of the newest villager-refugees were moving into the newer villages they were establishing; still, enough came through the Cave to keep them both busy. 

Leeanne, of course, was busy enough as it was... she and Gar had twins; precocious little boys who were currently two years old. Still, she took her other jobs seriously, working with the young women who had been freed from the assorted Chinese bases and teaching school for the incoming refugees, often with her boys, Timmy and Tommy, playing in the corner behind her desk.

After three miles, Gar called a halt, and gave the class of farmers a chance to rest, although he knew he could probably have pushed most of them a bit further. 

This group had been here a week, and hadn't really had enough time to overeat and build up a lot of fat; they'd mostly been working in fields and with animals all of their lives, and considering how much of the food they'd grown had been stolen by Chinese troops over the years, it was a miracle that so many had survived this long. 

As he was writing the class time on his clipboard, one of the older people caught his attention. 

"Sir, could we get some water? Runnin' in circles tends to dry us out."

A few others in the small group nodded in agreement.

He grinned. "You folks need to be more observant. Look behind you."

A silent golf cart had pulled up behind them, a hundred yards away, towing a small, refrigerated trailer... full of bottles of water and assorted fruit juices.

The entire group of sweaty, panting trainees got up as one and ran to the small cart.

Gar watched, mildly amused. They were running to the drink cart faster than they'd run on the track. 'Nothing like a little incentive' he thought. 

George and Sherice were, once again, working the serving line for the young women who had come in from the Chinese base west of Juniper field.

Sherice's heart went out to them; she remembered all too well being in the same dark place most of these women were in, not so very long ago. She tried to offer a few words of encouragement to each one, and found herself, more than once, telling them of her own experiences with the little yellow men.

A few didn't believe her, at first, but the scars on her arms and legs from the whips some of the Chinese had favored convinced them. Her post-pregnancy weight was what threw some of them off; she still had an extra twenty pounds on her since she'd given birth to Julie Anne. Their child, in fact, often accompanied her parents to the serving lines, sleeping in her stroller behind them as they handed out food and drink.

George hadn't been wild about her trying to lose all the weight she'd gained during her pregnancy; he still thought she was a bit too skinny, to be honest, but he'd made a deal with her... he wouldn't say anything about her losing the weight so long as he went with her to the gym and tried to lose a bit himself. 

The result was he had lost well over twenty pounds, and was back to the weight he'd maintained during the time he'd worked at the composting piles. He also felt better than he had in several years.

She stood in the kitchen, cooking a small buffalo roast for them, while he sat at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes and chopping onions and garlic. 

"Honey?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you really going into the field again?"

He turned in the swiveling kitchen chair, catching her by the waist. Pulling her into his lap, he kissed her lightly.

"No, dear... I'm just going to take my class out, run 'em through their paces in a natural setting. I want them to get some real-world experience before they start trying to fool the real thing. The forests near here are pretty safe, but still, I want to see how they do when they know that the possibility of running into Chinese is there. I can't have them getting cocky... humble and careful would be my preference."

"Well, still, you be careful out there. Baby girl needs her Daddy."

"Don't worry, dear... we're all going to be armed, me included. Julie Anne will grow up with a father."

She gave him an impish grin, replying "Who's talking about her? I meant Me!"

He smiled, kissing her again, this time licking along her lips til they opened, sliding his tongue in between and caressing her own while his hand reached up for her full breast.

She slapped his hand, playfully, reminding him that the baby was right behind them in her playpen. 

He grinned and gave her a playful squeeze, reminding her that Julie was too young to remember anything at this point, anyway. Besides, she was fast asleep. Reaching up under her short skirt, he gave her hardening clit a quick rub.

She jumped out of his lap, her breath already coming in short, ragged gasps.

"Damn it, George, let me get the roast in the oven, at least! I don't want to wait until midnight to eat!"

He grinned back at her. "I just felt somethin' I wanna eat, Baby girl."

"Well, I'm gonna make you wait for that, too... You're a dirty ol' man, you know that?"

He grinned and nodded. "Yup! I'm not a dead ol' man, though, Babe!"

She smiled back at him at that... Hell, she knew That... a fact for which she was eternally grateful.

Leeanne sat back in her office, gazing at the young woman who was her latest subject. Missy was twenty two, as far as she knew, anyway, and had just come from the camp that the joint operation had taken the week before.

"I'm still nervous, Mrs. Davidson... every time I hear a man's voice, I want to jump out of my skin."

"Don't worry, hun... that's normal. If I told you how many women have told me something like that, you'd think I was kidding you. Billie Jean and Shandra, two of the women here that I've talked to, could tell you all about it... those soldiers-don't call them men, by the way- they were nothing more than animals, and you have every right to hate them, and what they did to you. You just have to remember... real men don't do that to a woman. A real man will love you, and yes, may want to have sex with you. The men in this base, the men you'll meet here, they don't force a woman against her will. If any were to try, it would be considered a crime here. He would be punished."

"What do you mean?"

"My dear, it's never happened, to be honest, but if it did, I'd think at the very least, he'd be banished from this place... if the other men didn't beat him within an inch of his life. I would be partial to horsewhipping such a man, myself, but then, I'm biased. I know our current commander, John Corcoran, is a bit hot tempered, and might just shoot him and be done with it. This is a zero-tolerance city, you see. Criminal behavior isn't something we put up with."

"Well, I like that... it's just..." The young brunette looked down into her lap.

"It's just that what the Chinese did to you has wounded your spirit." Leeanne replied softly.

The young woman nodded without looking up.

"Honey, don't worry about it too much. It happens to every woman those bastards have done this to. I promise you, it will pass. Listen, next week, we're having a party in the Great Hall... we have them every month or so, for all of the singles in the Cave, to give the new people a chance to meet and get to know the people who already live here. I want you to come, meet some of the people here. There are a lot of good men here; some were born here, others came from nearby villages and towns. I want you to meet BJ, and Shandra, and Sherice, and some of the other women our own soldiers have freed and brought here to live. Women just like you, who were prisoners of those bastards for months, sometimes years."

Missy looked up, tears in her eyes. "Women like me?"

Leeanne nodded. "Yes, dear. Young women exactly like you. Girls who were torn from homes and family because some Chinese scumbag had an urge. Women who were raped repeatedly, by punks who wouldn't have a chance with most women, considering the way they behave. You'll also get the chance to meet some young men, who will treat you well, who will respect you, who will talk to you, who will ask you out for dinner or drinks, who will ask before they touch you. Young men who will treat you like a Lady, because that's the way they were raised."

"They just do that to get into my pants."

Leeanne nodded, remembering her first husband.

"Some will, yes. But there are others, hun. Young men who will want to get to know you, who will want to spend time with you, who will wait until the time is right... and keep in mind, even those men who just want you for your body, those who just want sex... many of them aren't happy unless you enjoy what you do together. They will do everything they can to give you an orgasm."

Missy looked at her quizzically. "What's an orgasm?"

Leeanne just stared at the young woman for a moment, not sure if she was joking or not.

Thinking it through, though, it made perfect sense. Missy had been held prisoner by the Chinese since before she'd turned fifteen; and the soldiers weren't well known for giving a damn about the pleasure of the young women they raped. Of course, by all accounts, most of them weren't known for their stamina, either... none of them stayed in the saddle long enough for the young women to get their rocks off... and of course, there were some poor women who, no matter how good and loving their partners were, just had a hard time cumming. She thought it through, and mentally thanked God she wasn't one of them. 

Somewhere, on a higher plane of existence, a Being on a high, Golden throne heard her silent prayer, and smiled. He looked into the young brunette's head for a moment, saw the mental block that had grown up there over the years of abuse she had suffered, and quietly removed most of it, leaving only enough to allow her to live a normal life. 

She would soon find out what an 'orgasm' was. She was, after all, one of his children; he wouldn't want her deprived of some small amount of pleasure if it was an easy fix.

Leeanne smiled gently at Missy. "An orgasm is kinda hard to describe, hun... it's different for every woman, I think... all I can really tell you is that you'll know it when you feel it. It's one of the most pleasurable experiences you'll ever have. Some women have a hard time having one... others, well... I've met a few that can have them just by riding a bicycle, or just from sitting on their lover's lap, kissing and caressing each other. I've known others who need to be in certain positions, or need long periods of foreplay; Like I said, it varies from one woman to the next. You just need to find the right man-or the right woman."

"WOMAN!?!"

"Sure. There are women here who can't stand to be near a man, babe, but have women as lovers instead. They're called lesbians. There are others who, I know for a fact, enjoy the company of both. We call them bisexual."

"But... but... how do two women...?"

"Like I said, dear... come to the party next week, I'll introduce you to some young friends of mine. They'll be happy to help you."

"Could ... could you... show me... "

Leeanne smiled sadly at her. "Honey, it isn't really my 'thing'... and even if it was, I have three more sessions scheduled today. I'll tell you what though, give me a sec, I'll see if there isn't someone who could help you out tonight. Hang on."

With that, she pulled out her cellphone, reached for the phonebook on her desk, looked through it for a moment, and dialed a number. 

Jeff answered his phone, surprised to hear Leeanne's voice.

"Oh, hi, Mrs. Davidson... how are you doing?"

"Ok, Jeff, but I have a young lady here with me who could really use some help... and it's the kind I can't really give her. Would you and Billie object to having a dinner guest tonight?"

"Well, you know I wouldn't... Let me give my girl a call, I'll have her call you. I'm a little busy at the moment, but I can make time for it."

"Oh! I'm sorry! I hope I'm not getting you in trouble!?"

"No trouble at all... the cornfield won't mind." he replied with a smile she couldn't see.

She grinned. "Ok, I'll wait for her call... she isn't doing anything time sensitive, is she?"

"No, as a matter of fact, she took the day off to go do a little grocery shopping and stop off at the clinic. I could just tell her to swing by your office as soon as she gets done."

"Oh, could you? That would be even better!"

"Sure, I'll call her right now. I'll talk to you later, Mrs. Davidson."

"Ok, thank you, Jeff."

Ten minutes later, BJ pulled up in the corridor outside of the clinic building. Jumping out of the golf cart, she walked in, not quite sure what to expect, only to find Leeanne talking in quiet tones with a young brunette woman about her own age, who glanced over at her nervously as she entered the small, two room office.

"Hi, Leeanne! What's up?" she asked as she reached out to give a warm hug to the woman who had helped her out, so many months ago.

Leeanne returned the hug, whispering in BJ's ear for a moment.

BJ sat down in the other chair facing the desk, while listening as Leeanne explained that Missy was a refugee from the base the latest operation had occurred at, nodding as she began to understand. While she did, she examined the young woman from the corner of her eye.

Missy was a medium height, slender brunette, who hadn't had time to really fill out much just yet. Small breasted and petite, she looked, in truth, like a teenager... until one looked into her eyes. Her eyes were old beyond her years.

She turned to look at Missy for a moment.

"Hun, have you been assigned quarters yet?"

Missy shook her head.

Leeanne cut in. "Missy and the other women from that base just arrived yesterday. I was going to make arrangements for her after this interview."

BJ smiled and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I'll take her home with me. Jeff and I are going to try to start a family, and having another young woman around would be a big help... that is, if you'd like that, hun?" she replied, looking towards Missy. 

The young girl's eyes lit up. "You want me to stay with you?"

"Sure... we have three bedrooms, and right now, it's just the two of us. I can always use a bit of help around the house. I'm sure Jeff won't mind."

Missy pulled back a bit.

"You have a husband?"

"No, dear, I have a boyfriend. We live together. We might get married, but not just now. We're... well, we love each other, but neither one of us has mentioned getting married, just yet."

"I... I wouldn't get in the way, would I?"

"No, sweety... Don't worry, I think you'll fit right in with us. Trust me. Jeff and I both come from a village where the soldiers raided us regularly. We know what you went through; we've been there. We've got a lot of friends here who've been through it. We'll see about getting you into school, get you a job in here, and work on getting used to being free again."

"A job?"

"Oh yes... hun, we all work, here. I help out in the kitchens and at one of the daycares. Jeff works at the farms, and he's learning gunsmithing. A friend of ours works in the vehicle shop. Another works in the hospital, he's a nurse. Everybody here has some sort of job to do, and we all take the military training, of course."

Leeanne nodded. "The military training and the martial arts are voluntary, of course, hun... but most of the women we've freed from that slavery go for it. I think they like the idea of being able to fight back. In fact, about half of Sarah's squad, currently, are young women like you, who were once refugees from Chinese military bases. Sarah Jennison is the woman who leads the squad that freed you."

She scratched at her chin for a minute, and continued.

"I think most of them are just taking the training so they can get revenge, comes to that."

Billie Jean caught Leeanne's attention. "Can she stay here for a few more minutes? I have to go next door to the lab, have some blood work done. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes or so."

Leeanne nodded. "No problem... and thanks, dear. You're an angel."

"Well... half, maybe." BJ replied with a wink.

Missy went home with BJ, and was soon happily working in the milking barns... and learning to shoot a rifle. Hearing BJ and Jeff making love every night took a bit of getting used to, but she managed, and just being around the young couple did a lot to help her get used to being close to people again... particularly people of the male persuasion. Sometimes, laying in bed at night, listening to the moaning and smal cries of lust, she would find herself with a hand between her thighs, touching her most sensitive spots...

She also filled out physically, given the fact that she was finally on a good, steady diet. Jeff and BJ liked to eat well; some of the meals they put before her seemed to be too good to be true. The first night she was there, BJ had a slow cooker making beef stroganoff... although the 'beef' was actually venison. Jeff advised her to start out with small portions; he didn't want her to eat too much, too soon, and make herself sick. 

Still, within three months, she'd filled out nicely, and both Jeff and BJ were complimenting her on her new curves. After some experimenting, BJ soon had her fitted into a thirty four C-cup bra, and her hips widened out to thirty two inches.

A month after this, Jeff decided she was ready for her first party. He knew several of his friends who were attracted to the young brunette, and he invited a few of them, along with a few others, over for a party, splurging at the dispensary for an ounce of Hawaiian and an ounce of Thai pot, while BJ brought home several bottles of whiskey, a case of the Cave brewed beer, and several gallons of assorted fruit juices.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 15



BJ and Missy were in the kitchen, making the first of several pizzas for the 'little get-together' when the younger girl started questioning things.

"BJ, do you really think I'll fit in with your friends?"

"Honey, just relax... if I didn't think you were ready for this, I wouldn't have set it up. They'll love you. Don't worry so much, okay?"

"But... will I have to have sex with them?"

BJ took her by the shoulders and swung the young girl around to face her.

"Missy, listen to me: you are a free woman now. You don't Have to do Anything you don't want to do. If any guy tried to force you to do something you weren't comfortable with, I'd throw him out. We're just going to have dinner and drinks and a little smoke with a few friends, watch a few concerts, and then we'll go from there. Everyone who's coming is single, so don't worry about making anyone else jealous... just go with the flow, babe."

Missy raised an eyebrow. "What are 'concerts'?"

BJ smiled. "Something from a long time ago, hun... they're something you've never seen before, but I promise you, you'll like them... Jeff is partial to something they used to call 'hard rock', so that's what we'll be seeing tonight. It's basically groups of people on a stage, making music. Kinda like the movies we watch, most nights."

"Okay... that sounds nice."

An hour later, the first two pizzas were out on the counter and Jeff was opening the door to their few guests.

First through the door was Tony Mendoza, junior, and his girlfriend Veronica Hale, followed by Shandra and Mark, who had pretty much become an item, and Mark Miller, who was a distant cousin of Mickey. Barbie Vincent, who was a transplant from one of the villages that had been freed from the tyranny of the Chinese, and her occasional girlfriend, Karla Willis, another refugee, brought up the rear.

For the first few hours, talk centered on who was working where, new discoveries made by some of the scouting teams, who was seeing who, and general gossip from around the Cave and the several towns that were, once again, sprouting up in different places around the area near the Cave.

Tony was basically plugged in to everything his father worked on; he informed them that one of the scouting teams had recently found an old 'bottling plant' which had once specialized in something called '7UP', among others. It had, apparently, been a popular drink before the war, and he, along with a few other of his dad's students, were reading through the mountains of paperwork that had been retrieved from there. The goal was to get the place back up and working again, another step towards bringing some of the normal, pre-war world back to them.

Mark, meanwhile, was on the team that was learning, from the paperwork retrieved from the old refinery, how to work all the equipment at that ancient facility. They had already set new well heads on a few of the capped wells nearby, with a fair amount of difficulty, and had found that Colonel Archer's assumptions had been correct. There were indeed, substantial amounts of crude oil available in the ancient wells. They were currently pumping it into huge storage tanks, but Mark estimated that they could well be refining new fuels in a matter of a year or less.

Mark Miller had just come back from an expedition with another team, disconnecting a small town to their north from the centuries-old power grid and setting the small community up to be self sufficient. 

Between the two small diesel generators, the relatively large bank of solar panels, and the half-dozen wind generators, the little town had more power than it really needed.

Veronica and BJ gossiped a bit about the daycare where they both worked, with Barbie and Karla occasionally chiming in.

By six P.M.. they'd finished off four pizzas and two pans of cheesebread, most of the case of beer, and several rounds of cocktails, and several joints were making the rounds. 

A Dio concert played across the plasma screen in the background, Ronnie James belting out a song called 'Man on the silver mountain'.

Barbie made the first move, on BJ, while Karla moved over to settle next to Jeff. Missy watched in fascinated immobility as the two couples began kissing and fondling each other, until Shandra and Mark scooted over to sit on either side of her. Shandra slid an arm around her and whispered in her ear "BJ said you've had a rough time, hun."

Missy nodded. "I... I'm not sure I'm ready for this."

Shandra smiled gently at the young woman, then reached over and kissed her gently on the neck, just below her ear, several times. 

Mark followed suit on the opposite side, and Missy flinched a little, but he drew back and looked into her eyes.

"Don't worry, hun... Shandra, here, went through the same thing."

Missy turned to look at the chocolate skinned beauty next to her. "Really? You were a prisoner too?"

Shandra pulled back to look into her eyes. "For about six months. I hated those bastards. You're lucky, hun... you're in a place now where the men are nothin' like them."

Missy looked over at Mark nervously; he nodded, reaching over to kiss her on the cheek.

"Relax, dear. We aren't all punks like those soldier bastards. They think they own us... that's why we're fighting to push them out of the country."

"So you won't try to have sex with me?"

He smiled gently at her. "Sweetheart, my lady and I may try to seduce you... but we would never try to force you. It always has to be your decision. May we try, at least? You'll enjoy it, I promise you. Shandra, here, is a Superb lover."

Missy shot a look at the woman beside her. "You like girls?"

"I like being with other women, dear... and men." Shandra corrected her, as she reached up and began to fondle one of Missy's breasts. 

"And you are a very attractive young woman. You've only seen the wrong side of sex... I would love to show you the other side, and so would my man, here. We both just want to help you get through this, just like BJ and Jeff helped me."

Missy was feeling better, as Shandra's hand on her breast began to feel good, much to her surprise. She nodded nervously.

Shandra reached up to kiss her lightly, just brief meetings of the lips. Soon, her tongue was insinuating itself between her lips, and Shandra's hand on her breast was becoming a bit more aggressive, while Mark's hand was massaging her thigh, just below her groin. Her nipples hardened into little spikes, while she began to feel a flood of warmth between her thighs.

Mark reached for one of her hands, bringing it to his own lap and laying it gently on his hardening cock. Much to her own surprise, she didn't pull away, instead taking a light grip on his hardening tool and squeezing it, just a bit. He returned his hand to her thigh and moved it upwards, under the short skirt she'd worn at BJ's suggestion; soon, his fingers were caressing her naked clit and she was feeling herself becoming wet between the thighs. This was a far cry from a soldier, coming in the barracks, dropping his pants and forcing himself upon her dry.

Shandra was still kissing her passionately, while Tony had moved up behind her, pulling down Shandra's shorts and was sawing two fingers in and out of her open pussy, while his girlfriend, Veronica, was between his thighs, slowly sucking on his cock. Across the room, BJ was laying back, running her finger's through Barbie's hair as the young blond diligently licked at her pussy, while Karla was happily bouncing on Jeff's lap.

Mark moved his hand between her thighs, sliding a finger into her slowly, seeking and finding her G-spot and massaging it lightly even as his thumb continued to stimulate her clit, which soon had her moaning into Shandra's mouth. 

Shandra, in turn, pulled back a bit, pulling Missy's shirt from the skirt and over her head, freeing her breasts, which the young black woman soon reached for with her mouth, nibbling and sucking at first one, then the other.

Missy couldn't believe how good she was feeling; the two gentle people were causing stirrings in her body, reactions she'd never had before. She felt the build-up deep in her core, and didn't know quite how to describe it; she knew only that it felt better than anything she'd ever experienced, even when she had lain in bed, slowly masturbating to the sounds of her roommate's lovemaking. 

Mark withdrew his fingers from the young woman and unbuttoned her skirt, drawing it down her legs, then pulled her legs apart and kissed her squarely on her wide-open muff, licking lightly at her unfurled labia and drilling his tongue into her open hole, licking upwards to her fully exposed clit. This, finally, drove her to her first moaning orgasm, and she finally knew what Mrs. Davidson had meant. It felt better than anything she'd ever known.

Jeff rolled over, putting Karla on her back and began pounding into her in earnest, while Barbie moved around, straddling her girlfriend's face. 

Mark pulled away for a moment, stripping off his pants, and moved up between her thighs, fitted a rubber to his hardness, then slid just the head into Missy's open pussy.

"Are you ready for this, sweetheart?"

She nodded, nervously, and he pushed into her slowly until he was buried in her to the hilt; she moaned, feeling more full than she ever had before, moaning again as he slowly started to stroke in and out of her, taking his time, feeling her instinctively start to hump her groin back against him.

BJ, meanwhile, came over and pushed Shandra to her back, burying her face between her thighs, licking away at the exposed brown/pink clit, sending the chocolate brown woman over the edge herself.

Later that night, after the guests had left and the apartment had been cleaned up, BJ and Jeff weren't truly surprised when Missy crawled into bed with them. 

Jeff got out of bed for a moment, so BJ could move to the far side, pulling Missy with her, then laid back down so that the younger woman was between them. 

He rolled to his side, spooning up to the young woman between them, and even as BJ began kissing her, reaching down between them to fondle the young woman's hardening clit, Missy felt his lips at her neck, his hands caressing her sides and buttocks, one hand reaching around to fondle a firm breast.

Missy responded by cocking one leg up, giving BJ plenty of room, which she took full advantage of, sliding two fingers into Missy's still flooded pussy, gently sawing them in and out of her, feeling for the spongy bit of tissue inside of her, finding her G-spot and rubbing it lightly.

Jeff's middle finger joined hers for a few moments, but he was only getting it lubricated; moments later, he withdrew it and she felt it lightly rubbing against the tight little rosebud of her anus. 

Missy shuddered, not sure if she was quite ready for That, but he went very slow, gently opening her asshole with first one, then two fingers, finally pushing in to the second knuckle, then withdrawing, finger fucking her ass as his cock once again grew to full hardness and slid between her thighs. 

BJ felt the head of his dick slap against the back of her hand, and pulled back, fitting the head to Missy's sopping cunt and withdrawing as he slid as much of his thick shaft as he could into her from the awkward position, beginning a slow thrust into her, hearing her moan deep in her throat as the two of them languidly made love to her.

John Corcoran sat back in his office, looking over the preliminary reports from a scouting party, which had been looking over the next Chinese base on their list, northwest of the Cave, in southeastern Idaho. It was the last obstacle between them and the research facility in Idaho.

This one was smaller than the last one they'd hit, but, according to the locals in the nearby villages and towns, the Base Commander was a particularly vicious punk who was well known for the cruelty he and his troops indulged in. Some of the scouting parties that went into that area found themselves herding groups of refugees back into their free zone; soon they had to establish several more towns, stretching themselves even further.

People from the first three villages they had freed moved in, and soon had the new towns organized, bringing along tons of supplies to last through the coming winter, while technical teams moved in, setting up power, water, and sewage systems. Teams of the refugees, aided and guided by the Cave-trained villagers, cleared land for crops and a large compost pile. 

Several of the descendants of the original Cavedwellers moved in, as well, taking over the duties of teaching the new people to read, write, do basic math, and started training them in military skills.

Their 'boot camp' would continue for the entire winter and well into spring, and would be well worth it; by the following fall, they would boast over a thousand trained fighters. A fair number of them even went on to become decent snipers.

John Corcoran spent long minutes looking over the map as he waited for the council to join him. The newest town they'd rebuilt, from what had once, long ago, been a small suburban community, brought the total to well over a dozen new towns.

This one incorporated one of the conquered Chinese bases, and he knew it was still vulnerable, even with the truckloads of equipment he'd had sent there.

Leeanne and Gar showed up for the meeting, followed by Jim and Jan Archer, Bob Gunderson, and Herb Dixon. 

Tony Mendoza came in next, followed by Karl Mitchell, who had moved to the Cave as a permanent liaison from the rebel base.

After everyone had gotten something to drink from the table against the wall, Corcoran called for order.

"Okay, folks... I called you all here to talk about something that's becoming a bigger problem with every new town we set up. I know, we're finding more old trucks and cars, hidden inside old 'showroom' buildings all the time; they're the only ones that are salvagable. The current problem is a bit more pressing, I'm afraid. We need more heavy farm equipment."

Jim caught his eye.

"We need to find more of the old businesses that dealt in those things."

John nodded. "Exactly... the problem is, you don't find those on every street corner, like we do with the old car dealerships. They're more specialized. And the equipment we're finding in old barns and whatnot are usually too far gone to salvage. We need to find equipment that's been inside, out of the weather and the humidity."

"So we need to send out more scouting teams... with more specific instructions. What all do we need?"

"Bulldozers and excavators, to clear land... plows and harrows and such, for prepping the cleared topsoil... cultivators and seeders. Harvesting equipment. Hay balers... wagons we can build, so those aren't that big a deal. Some big dump trucks, manure spreaders, and loaders... what else?"

"Can we get the woodshop working on more of those crate-baskets? We could use a few hundred more of those, at least." Leeanne suggested.

Archer nodded. "We need to get a few guys out with chainsaws for that... and a portable sawmill. The shop is running low on wood."

Tony looked up at this. "We could get some of those small, garden type tractors, too... I know some of the soil around here is rocky as hell. We can use a few of those, towing trailers, and put the kids to work, collecting the rocks and hauling them off to one specific spot. Maybe set them up with some kind of frame faced with a screen, quarter inch holes, to run the dirt through, get all of the big rocks out and leave the dirt and smallest stones behind."

Corcoran looked at him for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Tony shrugged. "We can use 'em in the road repair project we've got going... they'll make a good foundation to lay the new concrete on."

"Speaking of that... is that old concrete plant up and running yet?"

"Not quite... we're trying to get the mix right... we need something that can stand up to the winters here."

Jan Archer looked up at this. "You know, I remember reading something about that, years ago in the library... one of the northern states was having trouble with their roads... something about seasonal expansion leaving cracks and such."

Jim glanced at his wife. "So? What did they do about it?"

"They shredded old tires, mixed them into the concrete mix... about a fifteen percent mix, I think it was."

"The rubber would allow the road to expand and contract with the temperature changes without cracking." Jim replied, nodding to himself. "It just might work."

"What do we use to shred the tires, though?" Corcoran asked.

"Maybe send 'em through a big wood chipper, several times, to chew 'em into little pieces?" Jim replied.

Frank Bergen looked up at that. "You do realize that'll tear up the blades pretty bad, right? Those old tires have steel belts in 'em... they'll dull those blades in a heartbeat."

Corcoran shot him a look. "Do we have any spares?"

Bergen shook his head. "Not enough... nowhere near."

"OK... could you send some of the spare parts to a couple of the machine shops, use them as patterns to have some extras made?"

Bergen's eyes went out of focus for a moment; he was considering how much steel stock he had left.

"If we could get some big blocks of stainless steel, maybe... although it's a cast iron bitch to work with. Nothing else I can think of will hold an edge long enough to do any good."

Jim Archer nodded, mentally cursing... so much of the old tech had been lost. Most of the major metal suppliers had been in the big cities, and the last time a patrol had approached one of those, even now, over a hundred years after the war, the rad counts had started to climb before they got within two miles of it. Major metropolitan areas were out of the question.

Phil Huett mentally cursed as he studied the small Chinese base. What the place lacked in size, it made up for in vigilance, and this one had a dozen guard towers, heavily armed. Guard patrols were frequent, day and night, and didn't seem to fit any set pattern. 

The land surrounding the small base was cleared out to a distance of about four hundred yards, and appeared to have buried motion detectors; one night, he watched as a small deer wandered into the cleared area.

It was still a good two hundred yards from the fences when bright parachute flares popped into the air above it and it was cut nearly in half by a burst of machine gun fire. One or more of the rounds tore completely through the deer; it apparently hit a buried mine, as the explosion caught the attention of guards in other towers, and three searchlight beams converged on the spot where the deer had been, moments ago. What they'd revealed had looked like remnants from the world's worst butcher shop.

He and the four ten man squads under his command kept the place under surveillance for nearly a week, taking numerous pictures through long lenses, and what they learned was disturbing, to say the least. It was set up for a strong defense; there were anti-aircraft emplacements all around, with radar systems controlling them, apparently. Some were set up with heavy machine guns, while others appeared to use some sort of small missiles.

To make matters worse, there was a large barracks full of women, set squarely in the middle of the small camp. Getting them out alive might well prove to be impossible.

On top of all of this, there were similar small encampments to the north and south, not quite as big, but almost as heavily defended, meaning that reinforcements were close by. The only way to take them on would be a three-pronged attack, simultaneously taking out all three camps at once. Splitting their forces would spread them dangerously thin, even with troops from both the Rebel base and Juniper, and the new towns that were even now training up troops of their own. This was going to take a lot of planning and a lot of practice. He was beginning to understand the term 'All hands on deck.'




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 15



Mickey and Doris had both been re-tasked to teaching shooting classes in their small town, and they took their jobs seriously, although they took vastly different approaches. 

Doris kept them in the classroom for the first few weeks, teaching the theory of ballistics; every day, when her students walked in, they were confronted with 'problems' on blackboards, involving how to take shots from different directions, at different distances, with estimated wind velocities and shifting wind patterns factored in.

Mickey, on the other hand, took a more hands on approach, taking the people out to different ranges to shoot at different distances at targets that got progressively smaller.

Between the two of them, though, the new recruits made rapid progress, particularly when Mickey took his class out one day, startling them with full sized photographs of Chinese soldiers as their targets. This upped the ante considerably; the class concentrated as never before, and the results were impressive, to say the least. By the time the cease-fire was called, the faces and chests of the targets were a real mess.

'Nothin' like a little motivation' he thought as he watched the targets being shredded with his binoculars, by the entire class. 'God only knows what they'd look like if I'd given them full automatics.' he thought to himself.

A few weeks later, he changed things up; instead of the usual sniper's rifles, the gun cabinets were filled with forty MM grenade launchers, along with bandoleers of practice rounds. Once they'd finished reading the training materials provided, they were led out to the range, where targets were set out at fifty, a hundred, and a hundred and fifty yards. 

This, of course, baffled most of the class completely, although a few of them had a decent handle on things by the late afternoon.

He would alternate them between rifles, pistols, and grenade launchers for the next two months, drilling the different problems into their heads constantly, always finishing his classes with the words "Ladies and Gentlemen, these things Must become second nature to you. You must be able to switch from one to another in your sleep! You never know, in combat, which one you're going to need next! Think on these things this evening, you will be tested again tomorrow!"

Phil was back at the Cave, filling in John, Jim, and the rest of the council members on what he'd found at the three small bases.

"As much as I hate to say this, Ladies and Gentlemen, there may be no way to hit these places without losing the prisoners. The two smaller bases, to the north and south of this one don't appear to have any prisoners; we observed both of them for over a week, and never saw any sign of them. The main one, though, in between the two... from the size of the barracks they're in, I'd guess there are about forty, maybe fifty women there. They've cleared the land surrounding the fences out to well past RPG and LAW range, and the whole area, as far as we could tell, is mined. They've ringed it with anti aircraft guns and surface to air missile sites, all radar guided, so an aerial attack would be tricky, at best."

John nodded, deep in thought. "So we're going to have to change up our tactics again."

Phil looked over at him, curiously."What do you have in mind?"

"The two smaller bases... how are they equipped? All Chinese equipment, American gear, mixed...?"

"It looked like mostly AKs, from where we were sitting... nothin' special, why?"

"So we could pretty much flatten those bases without really losing much, right?"

"Yeah... " Phil started to see where he was going with this; the beginnings of a smile touched his lips.

"Would four Apaches and a couple of Abrams, followed by ground troops, at each of those small camps do the trick, then?"

Archer looked up sharply at this.

"What are you thinking, Johnny?"

"We've got those Stealth fighters they found, down at Juniper... they're already loaded up with small, laser guided bombs. We don't know that the Chinese radar can track them... and I doubt that they can. All of those SAM launchers at the big base in the middle are tied into one radar pod, and if we take that out first, they're blind. At fifteen thousand feet, the Nighthawks can launch Smart bombs from a few miles out, in the middle of the night... especially if we have someone on the ground, painting the site with a laser from six or eight hundred yards out. We can take out their AA capability, then move in with Apaches, F22s, and Harriers, and destroy the guard towers and the front gates, then move in with heavy armor. Five, maybe six tanks followed by APCs loaded with as many men as'll fit."

Phil nodded. "I think we'll want multiple guys on the 'painting' lasers, just to be on the safe side... my guys can handle that. The question is, just how powerful are these 'Smart bombs'? Will they wipe out the whole camp?"

John Corcoran frowned. "Hadn't thought of that... maybe we could modify one... open up the warhead, take out most of the explosive charge, limit the blast to just the radar and a little of the surrounding area?"

Jim nodded... "We could, but it'll still send shrapnel all over the place."

Corcoran frowned in thought for a minute, then began to smile.

Archer noticed this. "Okay... what are you thinking?"

"Remember that APC, the one with the inch and three quarter machine cannon bolted to the side?"

Archer nodded, the beginnings of a grin touching his face. "How many rounds do you have for it?"

"About twenty five hundred. We've kept the machine shop busy, and a lot of the used twenty-two brass found it's way to the smelter, too. We've also been breaking down a shitload of AK rounds, melting down the lead and the brass and re-using the powder."

The planning session would go long into the night, moving, eventually, from the council office to one of the restaurants in the Cave.

Frank Bergen came over to sit with Jim Archer and John Corcoran, with a plate of buffalo steak and mashed potatoes in hand. As they ate, they discussed the state of the ordnance warehouse.

Corcoran was going over reports from the small towns and villages they'd set up; the numbers were promising, but he had to keep in mind that many of the people he was looking at were needed where they were, as the farming season was in full swing.

Juniper base was coming along nicely, as well.

They, too, had been expanding outwards, with five towns of their own producing food and keeping livestock... and training new troops.

Within several weeks, two teams were assembled from all of the bases and a number of the small towns in the surrounding towns; the two small 'reinforcing bases', to the north and south of the Chinese base that stood in the way of their march into Idaho, were their targets, and the enemy never knew what hit them. 

Sherman, Patton, and Abrams tanks rolled into positions surrounding the bases, pounding the guard towers and the anti aircraft emplacements, followed closely by Apache, Blackhawk, and Huey attack helicopters with their miniguns and heavy machine guns, and five thousand ground troops followed up, killing the few survivors with sniper fire and short bursts from M 16s.

A wealth of paperwork was found in the administrative buildings and the communications shacks, along with, again, hundreds of American rifles and pistols and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, among other things. 

All of this was divided up among the small towns, and the American troops once again withdrew to their assorted bases and towns to take stock, patch up the wounded, and bury their dead, of which there were, in Jim's eyes, far too many.

They'd lost nearly fifty people on this op.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 16



 Sorry this has taken so long, folks. I've had to re-write it numerous times, but it's finally done.

Well, this chapter, at least... grin. 

*****

Cassie and Doris spent three days setting up the growing equipment in the basement of the old ranch house, while Mickey was out on patrol. They'd already decided to start with tomatoes, yellow banana peppers, red bell peppers, snow peas, and a few small pot plants, just for their boyfriend. Hanging the lights and setting up the timers, consulting several books on the subject, they were almost ready... the only problem was finding a suitable fertilizer mixture, as the old liquid plant foods from the warehouses were basically useless.

Mickey solved this problem, fitting a large bucket with a faucet at the bottom, then laying several layers of old bedsheet across the bottom, filling the bucket with grass clippings, chopped up leaves, liquified chicken, rabbit, and fish guts run through a blender, rabbit droppings from the hutches Cassie was keeping out by the garage, along with fruit and vegetable peelings and egg shells that had been run through the same blender, and topping it off with several gallons of lake water... after a few weeks of sitting in the sun, he opened the tap, pouring a few gallons of the witch's brew into bottles and pouring small amounts into the planters. The basement garden took off like gangbusters, and soon they were looking at the prospect of two crops a year, so long as they manipulated the lighting properly.

Bob Sharpe and Pete Coswell concentrated as never before, handling their respective 'smart' bombs carefully as they disassembled the two warheads. Using plastic spoons, they scooped out small amounts of the clay-like explosive the 'heads were packed with, reducing the effective loads by roughly half; they wanted to destroy a small target while not sending the shrapnel too far, endangering the American prisoners on the Chinese base. Modifying the small warheads was tricky business. 

Bob had already run a test with a full strength bomb, just to give them a baseline to work with. The small bomb had completely destroyed the old dump truck they'd set up as a target, and pieces of it had gone through the walls of houses three and four hundred yards away; this was not acceptable. The radar installation they would be targeting was only three hundred yards from a building full of American women who the Chinese were using as sexual slaves, and they wanted to liberate these women alive, not hold funeral services for them. 

John Corcoran, Jim Archer, Rick Jamison, and Herb Montgomery sat back a bit over a mile from the small concrete shed that was serving as their 'test target' for the reduced power smart bombs. A few hundred yards closer, there was a small team in a fairly deep fox hole, holding the targeting laser pointing squarely at the side wall of the shed. 

Bob Sharpe's voice came out of the speakers of the field radio they'd brought along; "Bomb is away and approaching target."

They watched through telescopes as the small bomb entered the side of the building... the walls just collapsed, and parts of the sheet tin roof flew up in the air in pieces, none of them landing more than fifty or sixty yards from the site.

Success. 

Jim picked up the mic for the field radio. "Captain Sharpe, how far away was that launch? We barely heard your plane."

"Roughly two and a half miles, Sir... these Stealth fighters are built to be more quiet than some of the jets of their day." came the reply. "F117, returning to base."

"Acknowledged. Good job, Captain."

BJ, Jeff, and Missy were walking through one of the clothing warehouses, getting together a decent wardrobe for the younger woman. Jeff sat in a chair, a bit impatiently, looking on as the girls picked dresses, pants, and blouses for Missy. BJ finally noticed this and caught his eye.

"Oh, go on, dear... I know you wanted to go to the range."

Jeff grinned and nodded... he did, indeed, want to go to the ordnance warehouse, and the attached shooting range, although not for the reason BJ thought.

"Hey, Sarge, got anything good?"

Sergaent Tim Masterson, who ran the ordnance warehouse, gave his standard reply. "Got a good dose of the clap... want some?"

Jeff grinned at the old joke... he'd had to have the joke explained to him, the first time he'd heard it... now it was just a sign that all was good in the Cave. 

"I need to get some practice in for myself... an M-4 and a few hundred rounds. I also need a .22, single shot or a bolt action, preferably scoped, with targets, cleaning kit, and enough rounds to start a young woman on sniper training."

"That pretty little brunette that moved in with you and Billie Jean?"

"Now just how did you hear about her?"

"I hear Everything, young man." he replied with a grin. "Wait here a minute."

Within moments he was back, a pair of fabric gun cases and a picking basket in his hands, filled with a small cleaning kit, a pad of targets, four boxes of .223 rounds, and a five hundred round box of .22 rounds.

Opening the first case, he pulled out the M4 carbine and laid it on the counter. "No rental fee, but the rounds will cost you fifty creds. This one, " he continued, as he opened the second case, "Ruger bolt action... ten round mag, standard three to nine scope, five hundred Winchester loads, kit, and targets, five hundred creds. Remember to bring back your brass."

Jeff looked over the old rifle carefully, but could find no flaws; the bore looked clean and the wooden stock was solid.

"Four hundred, you old chiseler... we both know you've probably got fifty more just like it back there."

"Split the difference... call it four-fifty, and no charge for the .223s."

"Done! Is there anyone in the range at the moment?"

The older man shook his head, pointing over his shoulder with a thumb, and Jeff grabbed the two cases and other supplies, and went into the range to practice, and to evaluate the old/new bolt action. 

Two hours later, back at the apartment, while the girls were putting away the new clothing Missy had picked out, Jeff put some steaks on the electric grill and made a few phone calls, confirming the number of people who were headed over.

BJ came into the kitchen, saw how many of the venison steaks he had out, and all but screamed at him.

"Good Lord, Jeff! How much do you think we're going to eat?"

He smiled at her. "Honey, we've got Jim Barrows, Len Ryan, Mark and Shandra, Veronica, Tony, Barbie, Connie, Sherry Connely, Sue Jennison, and John Carlson, coming over... everybody's bringing something, and we'll have a potluck. Don't worry, dear, I have it all under control."

After the guests had all been welcomed, and the assorted dishes had found a place on the table, they all settled down to eat and gossip. Tony got high praise for the 'soft drinks' he'd brought in from the ancient bottling plant they'd re-opened; the '7-up' and 'ginger ale' made excellent drink mixers, and were considered a welcome change from the fruit juices they normally used. 

Connie had brought along several bottles from the distillery; one of a twelve year old whiskey, which had been made with several pounds of dried and crushed marijuana leaves added into the original mash, the other, something that they had called a 'spiced rum', made mostly from sugar cane.

After dinner, they sat back in the living room, smoking and drinking, gossiping about who was sleeping with who, the young men talking about the progress being made on the road reconstruction projects and who was going on the next attack on the various Chinese bases and camps that were still operating. 

Lenny Ryan was particularly enthusiastic; he had just recently solo'd in one of the Cave's fleet of Huey Cobra gunships, and was desperate to try out his skills against the real thing.

Tony put a damper on his enthusiasm; "You won't be so hot to trot when the Chinese start firing those missiles at you. I hear they're a cast iron bitch to deal with."

Lenny grinned back at him. "Naahh... I'll just jink off to the side, let it fly right past."

"Nope... some of them are heat seekers... they'll fly right up your tailpipe. You'd better be careful out there. I hear that Colonel Archer has a special team trying to figure out a way to take them out first, but they have a ways to go on it yet. You might be better off sticking to a regular plane for the moment." he replied, before taking another hit off the doobie and passing it on to Veronica. "And you might want to stay away from partying the night before, too... the last thing you want to do is go into air combat with a hangover."

Jim Barrows grinned at this. "That's why I stuck to the armor training... I'd rather be inside fifty tons of steel when the shit hits the fan. Don't have to worry about being shot out of the sky."

Barbie, sitting next to Jim, smiled and replied, "That's why I like being a sniper... I get to shoot those assholes from a distance, and they can't see where my bullets are coming from."

Jeff grinned and raised his glass to her. "You bet... Lieutenant Phillips told me he wants me on the sniper teams earlier today. Came out to the cornfield to let me know. I guess all the extra range time is paying off."

Jim smiled and replied "Ok, but can you do it outside when the wind is blowing?"

Jeff reached into a drawer in the coffee table, fishing out a target that had one very torn up bull's eye. The notations at the bottom read '400 yards, eastern wind at ten mph. Ten rounds, .270 Winchester. Lt. Howard Phillips, spotter/advisor.'

"You tell me."

Across the room, BJ and Veronica were talking about the plans they were helping with, for the wedding of Mark and Shandra. Mark was raising objections, telling them both he and Shandra wanted to keep it small and private, with Shandra nodding in agreement. 

"Oh, come on, Mark... we're not talking about inviting everyone in the Cave... just a few dozen people, a small cake, a dinner at Mama Maria's... "

"I've seen your idea of a guest list... a few dozen people? I think you missed four people in building 25."

They had a good laugh at that.

Veronica grinned. "Sounds like you're planning an orgy, not a wedding reception!"

Mark looked at her in shock. "Oh, Hell, no! I ain't sharin' on my wedding night!"

Lenny and Sue apparently both had the same idea.

"Well, are you sharing her tonight?" Lenny asked with a leering grin, even as Sue said pretty much the same thing.

Shandra answered for him, reaching for the hem of Sue's blouse, pulling it up and over her head, freeing her small breasts. Reaching across to tweak one of her brightly pink nipples, she grinned.

"What do you think, Honey?"

Lenny helped her out, unbuttoning Sue's shorts and pulling them down her hips... and then beating her to the punch, diving face first between Sue's thighs, reaching for her already swollen clit with his tongue.

Shandra gave him a mock scowl, even as Mark grinned and pulled her back and began kissing her neck, reaching around to palm her heavy breasts.

Barbie moved back to sit by Missy. The two had already met and become friends in the milking barns; Missy was a milker, while Barbie collected the buckets and took it to the tanks for filtering and pasteurizing.

John settled next to her on the other side... he and Barb were old friends. Between the two of them, Missy was in good hands... literally, as John reached for one of her breasts, and Barbie reached under her her skirt and began stroking her exposed clit. John began kissing her neck, as Barbie insinuated first one, then two fingers into Missy's already moistening pussy, seeking and finding her G-spot, lightly massaging the spongy tissue as Missy began to moan, reaching out to either side, grabbing John's hardening cock even as she began massaging one of Barbie's smaller breasts.

BJ looked over at Jeff, smiling at him even as Tony began tugging at the bottom of her thin t shirt and Connie and Veronica moved to sit on either side of her boyfriend, one reaching for his shirt as the other tugged at the button of his jeans.

Within a few moments, the last of the clothing had settled to the floor and the furniture and floor was covered by writhing bodies.

Barbie was happily riding John's face even as Missy rode his hard dick, facing Barbie and sharing with her a deep kiss. BJ was involved in an intense sixty-nine with Tony, deep throating his cock and licking at his balls as he fluttered his tongue over her swollen clit.

Connie and Sherry were sharing a deep sixty nine even as Jeff slid his hardness into Sherry's ass, slowly sliding in until he bottomed out and began stroking into her hard and fast, literally knocking her forward. Connie finally gave up and twisted around, once again spreading her thighs for Sherry's willing tongue as John slid his cock past her lips. She moaned in pleasure from Sherry's fluttering tongue even as she bobbed her mouth over his thick shaft, until the vibration of her groans sent him over the edge and he blasted ropes of cum down her throat.

John reached between them, thumbing Missy's clit even as she rode him, sending her over the top even as he blasted his own cum into her womb. BJ jumped off of Tony's face and settled her tight little quim over his hardness, riding him slowly for long moments until he grew bored with that, grabbing her hips and hammering into her from beneath. Jeff came over to the couple and slowly slid his hardened member up his girlfriend's ass, feeling Tony's cock through the thin membrane seperating the two, and began pounding into her hard, driving BJ to another moaning orgasm even as Tony lost control and basted her insides with his own cum.

Colonel Archer and Mayor Corcoran sat down with Colonel Montgomery and Colonel Jamison, finalizing their battle plans for the next base on their list... the last Chinese base between the Cave and the research facility that had been their ultimate goal for months now.

Bob Sharpe was settled in a chair at the table, looking over the latest surveillance photos of the big base, which included several dozen pictures taken by one of the Stealth fighters. He was the first to speak.

"It looks like they've upgraded their radar gear again. Look here... they've added a second dish, on this tower, here." He said, pointing at a spot on one of the many photographs.

Archer nodded. "It looks like they're adding a few more watch towers, too, here and here... probably going to put in machine guns or rocket launchers."

Montgomery nodded. "We're going to need a Lot of snipers on this one. Look here... looks like they're building another barracks."

Sharpe nodded. "We need a lot more surveillance on them. It's hard to tell when they're all going to be out on that assembly area, where we can get a good count on them from aerial photos."

Corcoran had been silent up until now, but he was frowning. "We can't pull too many people from the fields right now... we've got a shitload of planting to do."

Jamison agreed, "Same here... we're clearing more fields than ever. We're barely keeping up with all of the refugees that have come in, these past few months. I'm thinking about clearing out a few of those underground storage rooms, back at the base, setting them up as hydroponic bays and growing more vegetables down there."

"What will you do for lights, that sort of thing?" Archer asked idly.

"One of the long range patrols out of Middleton found two warehouses full of gardening equipment... including indoor gardening... took two big panel vans down, came back with both of them filled to overflowing. Said he'd barely made a dent in what was there."

Corcoran raised an eyebrow at this. "Has it been tested?"

Jamison nodded. "Minimal radiation, and most of it works. Lights, timers, pumps, books on the subject, the works. I guess, back in the day, it was mostly used for growing stuff that was, shall we say, 'less than legal'?"

Archer nodded, frowning. He'd read about the prohibition of certain things, of course, in school... where any government got the idea they had the authority to outlaw plant life was beyond him. He'd always figured such authority rested with one Being... God himself. 

On a higher plane of existence, a Being on a golden throne sat back, smiling. Finally, His children were starting to get it. He looked down, at the places where the items in question were stored, and nodded. All of the equipment they'd found, and all that had been left to be picked up on another day, would perform flawlessly.

Mickey led his small patrol team through the brush near their town, following a rumor from a wandering trader that there were Chinese patrols in the area. He and his men were to check things out and report back if it was anything they couldn't handle.

They were a little over five miles out when his point man froze, dropping to one knee and giving the 'Halt' hand signal. Mickey and the other eight men in his squad instantly dropped to knee height, slipping behind bushes, trees, and big rocks as they did. 

Ken Jeffries, his point man, clicked his throat mic, murmuring ''Three tents, no guards on watch. Sir, you might want to have a look at this."

Mickey slipped forward, keeping the noise to a minimum. It was well after midnight, but still, he wasn't taking any chances.

Ken pointed... sure enough, there were three tents, with what sounded like muffled grunts coming from one of them.

Mickey folded down the goggles for his infrared sighting gear. 'Well...' he thought... 'Either there are women along on this patrol, or one of them is butt fucking another.'

He looked at Ken and grinned, then looked back to Billy Two-Feathers, another of his team, pointing at him and making a 'come here' gesture.

Carefully laying down his rifle, he drew his silenced nine mm pistol and held it up for both men to see; they both nodded, mimicking his action, stepping over to the other two tents, while he stepped to the tent with the two 'lovers'. When his men were in position, he held up three fingers for both to see, then folded one down, then the second one, and finally the third. 

The three men twitched the tent flaps aside, quickly took aim, and double tapped each of the occupants of the tents. Sure enough, both of the occupants of the tent Mickey had taken were male... the one on top collapsing on the other, making the second pair of shots tricky, but Mickey managed to shoot the 'reciever' in the head, killing him instantly.

They dragged the bodies out into the small clearing, cut away their clothing, searching their pockets in the process, and piled up the weapons and ammunition belts to one side.

A search of the entire campsite revealed several backpacks, nearly a dozen extra magazines for the Chinese rifles, a crude map of the area, half a dozen food packs, and a dozen grenades. Loading themselves down, they struck the tents, burying them and the cut away clothes and bedrolls in a shallow pit well back from the trail, then dragged the dead bodies back into the brush, cutting them open in several places to encourage the local wildlife.

After all, the local wolves, bears, and mountain lions needed to eat too.

Billy, a local who claimed to be part Apache Indian, grabbed out his belt knife, taking the scalps for his 'collection'.

Later that day, back at the base, Mickey filled out his report and turned it in to Colonel Huett, while his men dropped off the Chinese equipment and weapons. Standing in the Colonel's office, he filled him in on the gist of what they'd found, leaving nothing out.

Huett smiled when Mickey remarked on what they'd caught the two Chinese soldiers doing.

"Caught 'em with their pants down, huh?"

Mickey grinned. "Yes sir... kinda funny, actually... from what I learned in basic, I thought that sort of thing was a strict no-no for them."




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 16



"Well, no matter how hard they try, they can't stop human nature. Carry on, Sergeant."

"Yes, Sir... uh, Sir, I'm a corporal."

"Not any more... this is your seventh patrol, and you and your men have gotten better with each outing... carry on, young man. Stop by the quartermaster's, tell him I sent you to pick up your new insignia."

"Yes Sir!"

George Klein led his small squad of students through the brush, about ten miles out from the Cave, assessing their abilities in what he thought was going to be an uneventful two day patrol. 

All of that changed when they heard the helicopters. 

They were walking down a forest trail when the three big 'Hind' choppers landed in a clearing less than half a mile away. Three men stepped out of the rear doors of each, rifles in hand, packs on their backs, as George and his team watched through binoculars.

He clicked his throat mic. "Well, kids, it looks like we're going to earn our pay on this one. Hold back until those choppers leave, then we work our way towards them, quiet and easy. Roberts, Carmichael, I want you two out to either side... you're our wing men. Davis, you're on point. Silenced weapons only. Let us know when you're in position... we move forward, as a team, on your mark."

Three responses came through his earpiece immediately. "Yes Sir!"

The nine man team of Chinese were getting themselves organized when George and his scouts got there. Jerry Davis held up his hand in the 'Halt' gesture he'd been taught, dropping to one knee less than ten feet from the edge of the treeline of the large clearing the helicopters had dropped off the patrol in. The rest of the team mimicked his actions, and they settled in to observe for a moment.

Three of the soldiers were arguing over a sheet of paper, each pointing in a different direction. Finally, they seemed to reach a consensus, and started to move off in a westerly direction... they would walk right past the spot where George and his group were settled in, concealed behind trees and undergrowth. The one who appeared to be in command folded the sheet, which appeared to be a map, and nodded to himself, taking up a spot towards the rear of the group.

George looked on as the group started to move out, thinking to himself 'Typical... leading from behind.'

Clicking his throat mic, he murmured "Ok... center mass and head shots as finishers... leave that officer to me, kids. I want him alive."

Silenced .270 rifles came up, and whispered... and eight soldiers dropped like stones. The ninth dropped his rifle as he grabbed for his arm, and George worked the bolt quickly, bouncing a second round off the top of the Chinese officer's helmet, knocking the man to the ground, stunned.

The entire action was over in less than three minutes.

Cleaning up the mess took considerably longer, as the team searched the bodies of the dead, stashing the bodies back in the brush where the animals would find them, and the enemy officer was disarmed and dragged off to one side.

George caught one man's eye.

"Alvarez, get on the field radio, give our coordinates to the Cave, tell 'em we need an extraction. One Chinook should do, with an Apache escort. Tell them to keep an eye on the radar... those Hinds might still be in the area."

Back at the Cave, a Chinook troop carrier and four of the Apache gunships were towed out of the tunnel and spooled up, and were in the air within seven minutes.

Within another thirty minutes, they were all back, the 'copters were back in the hanger, and the blindfolded Chinese prisoner was led to a holding cell. 

John Corcoran looked on in awe as the line of trucks approached the main entrance to the Cave's equipment garage. Each was towing a big trailer carrying one big piece of farming gear of some sort, mostly tractors and harvesters of one sort or another. Several were towing low trailers with three or four small, garden type tractors, and smaller, downscaled equipment for use with such smaller equipment. Those would come in handy, considering how many of the local villages were farming gardens that were only a few acres in size.

Lou Gunn, who was commanding this group of scouts, got out of the lead Humvee and came to John's office to report... it seemed he'd found more than one dealership of the heavy equipment; Corcoran was tempted to do a back flip when Gunn told him how many machines he had left behind, due to a simple lack of trucks to tow it all back with. They now had enough to supply Juniper, the Jacksone hole base, and several other semi large base-towns and still have enough left over to augment their own equipment pool. In addition, they had enough of the smaller machines to equip half a dozen small towns. 

Lou was sitting in the great hall with Corcoran, Jim Archer, Frank Bergen, and Bob Gunderson, having coffee and muffins and going over his long range patrol.

"When we go back out, we need to take along some extra men... as guards. We ran into several Chinese patrols to the south east. I think they were brought in by chopper; I know we heard helicopters off in the distance three times, and we never found any kind of ground transport. We'll also need them as support drivers, so be certain they can all drive. We'll also need to take along about five or six more humvees or duece and a halfs, to tow back some of the heavy equipment we found. There were excavators, bulldozers, and backhoes left behind... they might need some work, but they'll make good additions to what we have right now. "

Jim Archer caught his eye. "You said you ran into Chinese patrols?"

Gunn nodded, taking a sip of coffee. "Ten men in the first one, twelve in the second, nine in the third. Don't worry... we stripped them of weapons and left the bodies in the underbrush. The local wildlife has probably reduced them to piles of bones by now."

He paused for a moment, to take another drink, and continued. "The paperwork they were carrying, and a few maps, we passed on to the intel geeks. We also ran into a few wandering traders... something new, that. I traded one a Chinese pistol and a few hundred rounds of ammo for a few cans of pre-war coffee that he found in a smashed up old grocery store. He was carrying it, but had no idea what it was. He never admitted it, but I got the distinct impression the old fart couldn't read."

Corcoran grinned. "Did you at least teach him a little bit about shooting?"

Gunn nodded. "Gave him a down-and-dirty, twenty minute lesson in the care and feeding of a Chinese 9mm Semi automatic pistol, taught him to clean it, and how to use the safety when he's carrying it, so's it won't go and shoot his pecker off when it's stuck in his belt. Gave him a cleaning kit and about 200 rounds of 9mm, so he should be good to go for a while. I also told him about the free zone we've set up... he already knew some of the towns; conducts trade with a few of them."

"I'm not so sure that was a good idea."

Gunn frowned at this. "Sir, what's the point, if we set up towns that are afraid to trade with guys like him? He could become a minor intel asset."

Archer nodded. "Ok, you might be right...and it's not like we're hiding."

Gunn nodded. "True... oh, yeah... we need to step up the patrols to our southeast, too... another group of the traders we ran across mentioned a bunch of what he called raiders and bandits working that area. One of the ones I talked to said he thought they were led by deserters from the Chinese... they're using Chinese weapons, at any rate. They haven't attacked any towns yet, but they're getting more brazen about attacking lone traders; it's why he was traveling in a caravan with four others just like him, plus paid guards. He gave me a lot of information, that one did."

He spread an old road map out on the table which covered the entire country and pointed to an area in the Dakotas, saying "This area here... they call it the 'Black hills'... he said there are several machine shops there, and a very big dealership of those old motorcycles. Those might come in handy. They can go into areas where a Humvee has trouble navigating, due to their size... might be worth looking into." He paused in thought for a moment. 

"I gave him and a few of their guards a couple of the Chinese rifles, taught them a little bit about using them and taking care of them, plus gave 'em all of the spare magazines and ammo... got a couple of nice blocks of stainless steel in return... geiger counter says it's clean. I already turned them over to the shop. Walt Towers almost kissed me when he saw them."

Corcoran smiled at this; he'd been wondering where they were going to find any, and here it was, falling into their lap!

"Did he tell you where he found that?"

"Just a general location. He played that one pretty close to the vest. Still, they're pretty nice pieces... about fourteen inches long and nine inches wide, about four inches thick... we should be able to make some good gun barrels out of them."

"Gun barrels, hell! We need those for chipper blades! That'll be perfect for them... we can get started on shredding those tires for the road repairs we're working on." 

Sherice nearly broke down in tears when George finally came in through the door of their apartment.

"Damn you, George! I thought you said that was gonna be an easy patrol!"

"Whoa, whoa, honey! It Was an easy patrol!"

"Then why did Mrs. Corcoran come all the way down here to tell me that your people got into a fight, and I should be ready for bad news?!?"

George frowned at this, mentally cursing the Mayor's wife. 

"Sweetheart, Lucille Corcoran has a long history of paranoia, and a bad habit of jumping the gun. My kids performed exactly as they were supposed to, and did better than I'd hoped, if you want to know the truth. It was sheer bad luck that the Chinese were out there today, but my team handled it properly."

"They have a good teacher."

He moved to embrace her, awkwardly, as she was holding Julie Ann to her breast, allowing the baby to nurse. He still managed it, careful not to squeeze the child between them, and kissed her lightly.

"Not to worry, babe. I'm back, We're all well, the Chinese soldiers are dead, and everything is right in the world."

"Wellll... ok, then, but you better go take a shower... as soon as the baby's had her lunch and I can get her down for a nap, I'm takin' your white ass to bed!"

He chuckled at this, a little confused... he thought combat was supposed to hike up HIS hormones. 'Might be because the baby's still on the tit.' he thought.

"Let me fix a cup of coffee and a sandwich first, hun... I haven't taken time to eat since last night. We were just about to stop and make camp for the afternoon, fix some breakfast, when we heard the Chinese choppers dropping off that patrol."

Rick Jamison looked out the window of the armored Humvee at the numerous new fields his people were preparing for planting... and there were several dozen new ones. There were nearly five hundred new people living in the suburbs surrounding the base, and even with help from the Cave dwellers, it was all they could do to keep up with food production. Most of what they were planting was easy stuff... low maintenence with high yields, but it was still a long, time consuming process. He noticed that the planters included everybody from the new villages, including kids who looked to be no older than seven or eight years old, and remarked on this to his driver.

"Yes, Sir... teach 'em young. Gives them a solid work ethic right off the bat. We don't want the kids thinking they get a free pass, just because they're young. There'll be time enough for them to go to school once the planting is finished and the crops are off to a good start. We do need to get some composting piles going, though."

Jamison nodded absently, still gazing out the window, seeing a small group down by the river setting nets. "Have they been getting a lot of fish?"

The driver nodded. "Yes, Sir... about thirty pounds a day, although some of it isn't really what you'd call the best eating... the carp they've been chopping up and burying in the fields, but the trout and whatnot is pretty good. Some of the kids are running trap lines, too... I understand some of them are using those 'live-catch' traps, and bringing the rabbits and such back to raise in cages in a few of those old garages. They've learned a lot."

Jamison thought this over, then realized how the man's thoughts had been worded.

"You're Cave raised, aren't you?"

The driver nodded. "Yes, Sir... my family were part of the first generation, dating back to the months before the War. My Great, great grandfather was a veteran of what was then known as the Gulf War. He Joined the original 'dwellers because he was thoroughly fed up with the mess the country was in."

He paused in thought for a moment, realizing Jamison was hanging on his every word.

"Great grandpa was a bit of a closet historian. He kept a series of personal journals, that have become family heirlooms; basically, a history of the country and world events up until the day of the war, and events inside the cave afterward. Some of the things he wrote, well... they were a little hard for me to believe. It wasn't until I was school-age that I realized they were true; He wasn't the only one keeping the history alive, you see... many of our founders did the same, and the tale they tell... well, it was pretty sad."

"How so?" Jamison prodded him, now interested more in the young man's words than the passing scenery.

"Well, Sir, first off, there were, basically two ruling political parties in what this country used to be... 'Democrats' and 'Republicans'. There were a bunch of smaller political parties, too, but the Democrats and Republicans basically kept them locked out of the process. The Republicans basically believed that hard work could make a man successful, but that some things should be restricted... they mostly agreed with another group, called 'Libertarians'... and the Democrats believed that success should be taxed into the poorhouse, and everyone should be 'equal'. A 'get from the rich, give to the poor' mentality, that often meant paying people not to work... as if that would ever work!"

"But... everyone has to work! You can't reward people for doing nothing!"

"Great grandpa agreed with you, Sir."

"And what about these 'Libertarians'?"

"Well, from the things the founders said, the Libertarians were pretty much the best of both worlds, so to speak. They had a firm belief in hard work, but also believed in taking care of those who had a hard time, or were in need... but only to a point. 'A hand up, not a handout' was their basic creed, along with a firm belief in personal freedom. The only people they thought should get any sort of real, full time help were the very old, who had already 'paid their dues', the smallest children, those who were disabled, and veterans who had problems, due to their service to the country... After all, a guy who lost an arm or a leg in combat was hardly qualified to go out and pick fruit in the fields. They believed in the right of anyone to own a gun, for example, something the Democrats vehemently opposed. They believed if you shot a thief or someone who was raping your child, that was your absolute right, and something you should never be punished for. The Democrats put laws in place so if you defended your self, or your daughter, or even the family pet, you would be called a criminal, and put in jail."

"That's absurd!"

"Yes, Sir... but that is what was happening."

"What about the 'Republicans'?"

"Well, Sir, they sided with the Libertarians on some things... the guns, for example... but they wanted too much control in other areas of life."

"Like..." 

"Well, sir, they seemed to think they could stick their nose into your bedroom, see who you were sleeping with."

"But that's crazy!"

"Agreed, Sir... if the Republicans had their way, I wouldn't be having sex with my girlfriend until we get married... if we do."

"So if your girlfriend didn't like having sex with you, you wouldn't find out until it was too late?"

"Yup... and then the process to end the marriage could take a year or more."

"That doesn't make much sense either."

"No Sir, it doesn't. They also had a problem with couples of the same sex."

"What did those others... the... 'Libertarians', you called them? What did they say on the subject?"

"They said it was the business of the individuals, and the government should keep it's overly large nose out of it entirely."

"Was there a down side to the Libertarians?"

"Well... yes and no. Some Libertarians wanted all drugs legalized... including some that were extremely addictive... like two that were called 'heroin' and 'cocaine', along with the Marijuana we still use today. From what I learned in school, both of them were pretty bad. The Democrats were apparently okay with the marijuana, but against the heroin and the cocaine, and with good reason, as far as I can tell. The republicans were against all three. I guess in a way, the war accomplished that much. Neither Heroin or Cocaine have been seen in this country since. We still have marijuana, of course... matter of fact, we grow it at home... use parts of it to make things like paper, cloth, animal feed... the seeds get fed to our chickens. The flowers, well... they make a nice smoke... I have a little, myself, from time to time... I understand some of that goes into a pain relief ointment that one of the labs at the Cave has developed, too."

"I'm beginning to like these 'Libertarians.' "

Tom Whittle sat back and smiled, nodding. 

Herb Montgomery, meanwhile, was sitting in his office, going over the new inventory listings of equipment they'd gotten from the last Chinese base they had hit. It was gratifying, knowing that instead of worrying about every round of ammunition they fired, he could actually use some for training for a change... and the four 'drill instructors' who had come down from Archer's command had brought along truckloads of ammunition for the M16 rifles his men were now equipped with. 

He looked out of his west window, watching, idly, as one of those instructors stood behind a line of recruits at the new target range, barking out orders that he couldn't quite hear, seeing them respond by firing what appeared to be short bursts. Such a thing would have been unthinkable a year ago.

At another section of the range, he watched, this time through binoculars, as a group of two dozen of his people fired bolt action rifles, at targets that were much further away, while yet another of the Cave instructors looked on.

He shifted his gaze to the targets themselves, seeing that some of his troops were, in fact, doing quite well, while others were having trouble hitting the paper, much less actually getting near the Bull's eye.

Pete Coswell sat back with his morning coffee and a small plate of donuts in the base cafeteria, enjoying the short break. He'd been up since before dawn, getting another of the Hawker Harriers prepped for the upcoming operation, making sure the load of Maverick missiles were installed properly and the fuel levels were topped off.

Tina Brawley, a young woman from one of his training classes, stepped up, coffee pot in hand, and asked if he was ready for a warm up.

He nodded, and she topped off his coffee cup, idly asking how the work on the planes was going.

He looked up at her. She was a slightly chunky blonde, a bit too flat chested for his tastes, though not really unattractive. She had a cute face with a button nose and always seemed to have a mischievous grin, and she'd flirted with him more than once.

"It's going... we need to get a few more planes ready, but the work goes on pretty well."

"Sir... are we getting ready for an operation of some kind?"




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 16



He gazed at her for a long moment. "Young lady, even if I knew for certain, you know I couldn't tell you."

She nodded, eyes on his, and said "Well, have you heard any good rumors, at least? The whole base is buzzing, but nobody knows for sure."

"I couldn't tell you if I did know, hun... and I don't. The most I know is that I'm getting ready for a few of you kids to solo in some of the planes, and for that, we need to bring them up from the basement and make sure they're airworthy."

"The one you brought up this morning... that was what they call a 'Harrier', wasn't it?"

He nodded. "It's a tricky little bird to fly, but once you get the hang of it, it's all kinds of fun. I'm just making sure everything on it works like it's supposed to."

She grinned back at him, nodding. "I saw you... it really does take off straight up, doesn't it?"

He nodded... "Lands that way, too... doesn't need a runway. It takes some getting used to, but once you've flown it a few times, and gotten used to what it can do, you can hover in one spot for as long as you like, unload any weapon on it on an enemy target. I think those were made in a country called 'England', back before the war. I know that the Hawker company started there, at least... back in the 1930's and 40's, they were a big supplier to the English air force, if the history I read in school was accurate."

She frowned at that. "We don't have too many history books here. I don't think it was a big priority here, back then."

"Well, we'll have to do something about that; it's important for people to know their history. If you don't know where you came from, how do you know where to go?"

She smiled at this before excusing herself and moving on to the next table, filling coffee cups as she went until the pot she was carrying was empty.

Five minutes later, she was back, a cup of her own in hand. "Mind if I join you?"

He smiled, nodding towards the empty seat across from him. 

She gazed at him across the table for long moments before asking the question he was expecting.

"Can I ask you something?"

He looked back at her, his expression unreadable, until he raised an eyebrow.

"Why haven't you ever asked me out?"

He gave her a sad smile. "Sweety, I'm a good ten years older than you, for one... and I make it a policy to never date a woman in a class that I'm teaching. It wouldn't look right, and if you did exceptionally well, there would be mutters of 'favoritism', while, if you weren't doing so well, you might think I was judging you more harshly than the rest of the class. I'd be put in a 'no win' situation."

She nodded, sitting back for a moment to consider his words, realizing the spot she might have put him in.

"Well, you're not teaching me now."

"This is true... but I will be again soon. I understand you're about ready for flight school."

"Oh! I hadn't thought of that! Well, what about after my flight training?"

"Well... we'll see. You're still quite a bit younger than me."

She grinned at this. "I've always thought older men were better lovers. They know what they're doing, instead of some young kid who's all hands."

He grinned at this. "Had some experience with those, I guess?"

She had the good grace to blush. "A little, yeah." She thought for a moment about her last date, with Robbie... she'd had to keep pulling his hands away from her ass. Of course, what he'd lacked in finesse, and size, he'd made up for in endurance... when she'd finally let him slip his cock into her, she'd begun to wonder if he was ever going to finish... she'd found out that night that she was multi-orgasmic.

Jamison, Corcoran, and Montgomery sat in Corcoran's office, going over the numbers a final time. The Cave would be fielding four thousand snipers, while the other two bases would each be sending a bit over fifteen hundred apiece... Juniper would supply the Harriers, while the Cave would bring a dozen Cobras and Apaches to the party, along with all of the armor. The Stealths had already been moved up from Juniper to the Cave. 

It would be the biggest operation they'd engaged in to date. 

Jimmy Cooper slid into the seat of the Hawker Harrier, plugging in his flight suit and the connections for his microphone and oxygen mask, going through his pre-flight as he listened to the chatter from the other four pilots. He was the ranking officer on this flight, and knew a bit more than the others.

"Alright, guys, knock it off! Davis, Weathers, what part of 'radio silence' did you not understand?"

"Sorry, Boss!" Came their answers. 

He couldn't really blame them... they'd been told, at the briefing, that this was just going to be a quick transfer of the planes to the Militia Base, a place none of them had ever been to before. Little did they know that they'd be in combat the next day. They only knew that several Chinooks had been taking full loads of ground troops somewhere for the past two days, and a massive C-130 cargo plane had joined in with several much more substantial loads... and that huge cargo carrier had been brought up from the deep, undergroud bunker in pieces, to be assembled once it had cleared the huge tunnel mouth. It had taken nearly four days just to get the wings re-attached and all of the control surfaces working correctly.

The flight to the Cave was short and, thankfully, uneventful. As the engines shut down, Cooper and the others climbed down, to be greeted by Ed Greene, the Chief of flight operations for the Cave.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Militia base camp one. My name is Major Greene; I'll take you to the Great Hall, where the Commanders are waiting."

Cooper nodded, looking over his shoulder at the other four pilots, indicating they should follow with a nod of his head.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 17



 Ok, folks, here is the next chapter. For those of you who think I might be wrapping things up, well... maybe. I'm still considering several other 'sidestreets' that this overly long tale can go down, so bear with me, I'm still making up my mind on a few of them. I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, stay tuned, and all the rest of that happy stuff. 

*****

John Corcoran looked out over the assembled troops, smiling with pride. They'd come such a long way in just a few short years. Between the Rebels from Jackson Hole and the Juniper troops, who had arrived the night before, plus his own Militia troops, over eight thousand men and women were ready to move against the Chinese base... and that didn't take into account the numerous pilots and the crews driving the various APCs and tanks.

It meant stripping all three bases, along with literally dozens of small towns, down to the barest of minimums; still, it was what the commanders deemed necessary to ensure a decisive victory against the invaders, while keeping their own casualties to a minimum.

Their battle plan was simple and straightforward; Chinook troop carriers, escorted by Apache, Blackhawk, and Cobra gunships, would ferry some of the advance troops into place, fifteen to twenty miles out from the Chinese base, to locate and secure 'landing strips' on some of the old highways... where a number of the old cargo planes would land with the bulk of the troops, along with much of the lighter armor. The heavier tanks would drive up at the same time, accompanied by a number of deuce and a halves, APCS, and Hummers carrying more infantry and heavy weapon squads.

The Stealth fighters would drop in just before dawn, taking out the radar, the anti aircraft emplacements, and as many of the guard towers as they had smart bombs for, then the choppers and the Harriers would move in. By the time that bit of carnage was over, the snipers and the rest of the ground troops would be in position and the real fun could begin. 

They knew that there was little chance that their intent would remain hidden for long... there was too much chance of the troop carriers and the helicopters showing up on the enemy radar. They were instead counting on speed and strength of sheer numbers, along with the superior training and the high morale of their own troops to carry the day. He had reconsidered, after a bit of persuading by Jim Archer, and they were actually back to the original plan.

'

The Stealth fighters would hit the two radar dishes well before dawn, and would then drop off all of their remaining smart bombs on guard towers, the main gate, anti air rocket emplacements and machine gun towers, followed up by the Hawker Harriers and the choppers. Tanks and APCs would follow them in, followed by ground troops backed up by snipers from the surrounding terrain. If all went as planned, they could have the entire operation wrapped up by early afternoon.

This base was surrounded on two sides by dense woods, but the other two sides were small, suburban homes. This was both good and bad, as the Chinese had taken to booby trapping both the wooded areas and local houses where people might be tempted to take shelter and use as hiding places to attack from. They used something similar to claymores, with tripwires that had to be carefully cut. 

On the bright side, many of the houses surrounding the base to both the north and west were two and three stories high, giving the snipers up to two levels of height advantage.

Bob Sharpe ran through his preflight in the F-117, while around him four others did the same, checking the munitions listings and fuel levels, seeing to it that the engines were all running normally and the running gear was acting like it should. His flight of five ships would be the point men; if they didn't do their jobs right those who came behind would be in deep shit, and he knew it.

"Ok, people, listen up!" he said into the mask mic. 

Four pilots perked up their ears.

"I want precision... You all know your targets, and you know what's at stake. When we get done, I want a clear path for the Harriers and the choppers. Be careful what you hit, there are American POWs down there and we want them coming home with us alive. Radio silence from this point on until after those radar dishes are knocked out. Sharpe out!"

There was a chorus of 'Yes Sirs' and then silence.

The flight to the enemy base took an uneventful twenty minutes, and, as planned, the nearest of their ground troops had laser sighting devices pinpointing the radar dishes and other targets when they got within three miles of the base.

Each of the Stealth fighter/bombers chose their appointed targets and let fly, switching between targets as fast as they could, exhausting their loads of smart bombs and switching to air to ground missiles to take out the control tower and the main gates and destroying strategically placed sections of the fences.

Lieutenant Hin was in an utter panic. Whatever was up there had taken out both of their radar towers, six rocket emplacements, four machine gun towers, the control tower, the main gate, and at least ten sections of fence... and he couldn't even see them in the pre-dawn gloom. What was worse, the Chinese knock-off of an American Stinger missile that he held to his shoulder couldn't even get a reading, much less a lock on any target up there. He thought, just for an instant, that he caught a look at something as another Maverick missile left one of the Stealths, and he fired blindly.

Lt. Jimmy 'Coop' Cooper saw the missile headed towards him and deployed a pair of flares behind as he kicked in the afterburners of the big jet, adding a load of chaff for good measure.

The Chaff countermeasure had barely left it's bay in his plane when the Stinger caught it, exploding just behind him and peppering his plane with shrapnel. His rudder control suddenly felt sluggish, though he still had control. 

"Major, I'm hit."

Sharpe heard this, but recognized Coop's voice, and knew there was no hint of panic there. Cooper was one of his more level headed pilots.

"Can you get back to base, Coop?"

"I think so, Boss."

"Alright, Brother man... nice and easy, I'll stay alongside of you the rest of the way back. Don't try to push it, just grab some altitude... go up to angel's ten and hold it there until we get close to Juniper."

Both men pulled back on their control sticks and climbed to ten thousand feet, giving Cooper ample room for error if he had to punch out and abandon the aircraft. The short flight was uneventful, though, and Cooper managed to land the black jet and taxi it over to the mouth of the tunnel leading to the repair hanger.

Back at the Chinese base, utter chaos reigned.

Snipers were picking off Chinese troopers as they left their barracks, and American armor was rushing into the camp from all sides. One APC in particular, with big guns built on to either side, drove through a hole in the fence, set itself across from the barracks, and opened fire, the two cannon firing rounds that appeared to be explosive; three buildings were virtually vaporized in a matter of minutes.

Commander Chun ran out of his quarters and looked around in dismay and utter fury; these were His men, and this was His base. How dare these American bandits attack their betters?! He was still screaming orders that nobody could hear when a sniper's bullet took him in the upper left shoulder, spinning him to the ground. He was out of the fight, never having had the chance to get properly dressed. He would be found later, by one of the troopers, who would haul him to his platoon Sergaent for rudimentary bandaging and subsequent interrogation.

Three of the six Harriers hovered fifty yards out from the base fences, seeking and finding targets for their Mavericks at every turn. Two fired simultaneously at the hanger where the Hinds were stored; the two missiles hit in rapid succession, and the entire building exploded in a fireball that was visible from miles away.

Four Blackhawks, six Apaches, and four Cobras, along with three Harriers, ringed the base, firing missiles and miniguns and their M2 .50s into the surrounding buildings and some of the surrounding terrain, setting off the mines that the Chinese had salted the ground with. As they exhausted their ammo, they turned away to return to the Militia base, leaving behind a path of destruction that the troops could walk through with impunity.

The American troops began a slow advance into the remains of the base, even as the four Abrams tanks drove back and forth through the fences, widening the holes and flattening the remnants of some of the guard towers. One of the surviving Chinese troops managed to get a machine gun back upright; he opened fire on the nearest tank, his rounds barely scratching the paint on the fifty ton behemoth, but catching the attention of those inside.

Before those inside the tank could react, however, Mark Watson came stepping up out of the gloom, looking for targets... seeing the foolish soldier, he spun to bring the six rotating barrels of the personal minigun he was carrying to bear... ripping the man in half. He grinned, once again giving thanks for the fact that he was one of the few men strong enough to carry the mini-Gatling gun.

Sarah Jennison ran into the camp, making a beeline for the structure that the surveillance told them housed the female slaves, and found... nothing. The building was empty. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she instructed her girls to spread out and search the entire camp, looking for the women while praying that they were still alive.

Finally, the voice of Jill Everheart came over her headset. "Ma'am, over here, northern side of the camp... you're going to want to see this."

"Any survivors?"

"A few dozen, maybe... we're going to need medics over here on the double. It's... it's pretty bad, Ma'am."

The women had been moved to a building that, according to their surveillance, had been a barracks full of enemy troops. It had subsequently been hit by at least one rocket and a long burst of machine gun fire, perhaps more than one. 

Twenty seven of the occupants were dead or dying, and twenty six more were seriously wounded.

Sarah didn't hesitate. "McCoy, Carruthers, get out there, find the ambulances, bring back every medic you can find, on the double!"

Within five minutes, a dozen medics and nurses came back to the building; by the time they were finished, they were nearly out of bandages and other supplies in their kits. They managed to save the lives of forty two of the female prisoners, out of a total of sixty three. Only ten of the women in the building had not been hit. The counselors were going to be busy for quite some time to come. 

They found a wealth of intelligence at the base communications shed, and a long list of radio contacts... it would take their intel people several weeks to go through it all.

They also found the usual stacks of supplies, both Chinese and American, much of which was in sad shape. They decided, this time, to leave all of the weapons behind, taking only the ammunition and a few other odds and ends, making more room in the trucks for the wounded and the former prisoners. Corcoran called in four of the Chinooks to ferry the worst of the wounded back to the Cave... including all of the women the Chinese had held prisoner.

The hospital wing of the Cave would be a very busy place for the next three days.

Bill Jackson lay in the hospital bed, still wondering how he had missed the trigger that had blown up the house he was going to shoot from. His legs felt like they were held down by lead weights; he lay there for the first several days wondering if he would ever be able to walk again... but the counselor who came to see him assured him that he would, and consoled him by pointing out that he had fared better than two of his comrades. Pete Mollen and Johnny Glenhurst had been hit by enemy fire and had suffered spinal injuries. Both men were paralyzed from the waist down.

Jim Archer, John Corcoran, Lou Gunn, Bob Gunderson, Herb Montgomery, and Rick Jamison sat in conference, going over the after battle reports and the reams of intelligence they'd picked up. There was a listing of radio contacts and frequencies amongst the pile, and Montgomery was shocked to find out that one of the people in one of his satellite towns was on that list. A spy amongst his own people was the last thing he'd expected to find.

Archer sat back at the table, rubbing his eyes... he'd been up for over two and a half days, and fatigue was settling deep into his bones. Finding out that there were Americans spying for the Chinese was taking a toll, too... it was demoralizing, learning that people he'd had a hand in freeing were actually helping the soldiers his people were fighting.

Lou Gunn sat, deep in thought; he recognized one of the men from the photographs of the assorted spies the enemy was using. He'd met the man... it was one of the wandering traders he'd met while out on patrol. The Chinese were supplying him with the weapons and ammunition to guard his trade caravan, along with trade goods to aid in his 'cover' identity.

Corcoran sat, going over some of the reports when it occurred to him. Maybe it was time to switch tactics again. He reached for the phone on the tabletop, punching in the number for the main warehouse chamber.

Frank Bergen picked up on the third ring. "Warehouse."

"Frank, it's John Corcoran... listen, do we have any wooden wagons down there that we could modify for long distance trading? Something that could be pulled by a couple of horses?"

Archer looked up sharply at this; he had an idea that he knew where Johnny was going with this.

Bergen had to think on it for a moment; then he nodded to himself. "I think we could fix up something for that, Sir... what do you have in mind?"

"C'mon up to the council room for a few minutes... and bring along a sketch pad. We've got work to do."

Archer, Jamison, Montgomery, and Gunn exchanged looks; all had some idea of what he was thinking, though none were certain. 

They called down to the kitchens as they waited, knowing this was going to be a long night, and platters of cold cuts, cheese, bread, pizza, and urns of coffee and jugs of juices were brought in just ahead of Bergen's arrival. After everyone had set themselves up with food and drink, they settled in for a long planning session.

Bob Gunderson nodded when Corcoran laid out his ideas; he knew a few of the older men from the villages who could pull this off.

"I know a few folks that would be perfect for this; the question isn't can they do it... but Will they?"

Archer nodded. "We can't order them... it has to be voluntary. If they're grumbling about being 'sent out', they could easily blow their own cover."

Montgomery agreed. "That, and if we ask, and they turn us down, they have to be sworn to secrecy. We can't have anyone blabbin' all over town about how we asked 'em to go out and put themselves at risk to gather intelligence for us."

Jamison nodded. "It'll have to be a team, or teams, I suppose... men and women who can work together. Small weapons only, and some way to conceal them if they run up on a patrol they can't handle. Could we rig up these wagons with some false floorboards, or something similar?"

Bergen grinned and nodded. "I'll have the lads work up something. What kind of 'trade goods' though? What trades well out in the wastes where they'll be heading?"

Gunderson spoke up. "The things we were always too short on, back in the village... needles and thread, fabric for fixing old clothes up, a few bows and arrows might be good..."

Jamison spoke up. "What about other weapons? Guns and ammo?"

Gunderson frowned at this. "No... anyone with guns out there... they'll think you're working for the soldiers. Mundane goods would be better... blankets are always good, the thicker the better. Anything that looks a bit on the old side. Winter clothing... a good, thick sweater or coat is worth ten times it's weight in food. Dried meat... preferably smoked; that will bring a premium. Smoked fish would be good too. Fishnets... fishing string and hooks... farmin' tools are always good, axes, shovels, rakes, hoes, and the like, as long as they look old. Knives and scissors. Maybe a few hundred of those firestarter thingies. Nothing new, that'll raise too many questions."

Archer nodded. "No problem... we've found enough of that stuff in some of these abandoned homes to outfit a dozen traders. Hmmmm... what about bottles of juice?"

"You'll need a good story to go with that... something like 'We ran across an old couple who was squeezing apples, or grapes, or whatever'. Fill up a dozen or so of those little bottles... the ones with those screw on tops. Nothing they can't explain... orange juice, or lemonade, those would take some explainin'. Maybe some of those old camp type coffee pots, tell 'em they can use 'em for boilin' water, gettin' the bugs and whatnot out. Unbroken glass jars, especially if they've got lids, those are a prize. Candles are always good too, if they look homemade."

Archer smiled... Even Gunderson, who had been with them for a few years now, wasn't entirely comfortable with some of the new things he'd learned, not completely. He looked up, catching Frank Bergen's eye. 

"The wagons will need some hidden stashes... for guns, digital cameras, night vision gear, spare magazines and ammo... I don't want these guys going out defenseless. Add a spot for a satellite phone, too, and some way to keep 'em charged. Do we have any of those little solar panel battery chargers?"

Bergen nodded. "I can rig something up. No worries. What kind of weapons are we talking about, though?"

Archer and Corcoran looked at each other, frowning in thought for a minute. It was Corcoran who finally spoke. 

"We want to keep it compact... but as much firepower as we can pack into a tight spot. Silenced pistols, maybe a few of the M4 Carbines, one silenced hunting rifle... something with a scope, so they can take out an enemy from a distance would be good... we can't go too far overboard with it."

"What about sabotage equipment? What if they run up on a situation where they could, say, rig up some explosives, something like that?"

Archer mulled it over for a few seconds, but it was Jamison who beat him to the punch.

"No... absolutely not... we need these guys gathering intelligence, not strung up by the first soldiers who see them. If they run around killing people deliberately and blowing stuff up, the Chinese might put two and two together and start hitting every wandering trader, just on general principles. It's too much of a risk. Defensive weapons only, and we have to stress the fact that they're for a last resort only. Carry weapons should be bows, maybe a few crossbows, knives... that sort of thing."

Corcoran smiled... his counterpart from Juniper was thinking like a veteran spymaster already, anticipating problems instead of trying to solve them after the fact.

Montgomery spoke up. "We could use them to spread some rumors, while we're at it... like... 'I hear those militia types have an old missile silo... or two, or three... with an intact nuke, or a bunch of cruise missiles', or something along those lines."

Corcoran started to smile; it was obvious he liked the idea... but Archer frowned in thought.

"We do that, we're painting a target square on our backs, and on our cities. A whispering campaign like that could backfire on us big-time." He shook his head. "No... I think having our faux traders gathering intel quietly, reporting back by satphone is pushing it."

Sherice came to the bedroom, having finally gotten Julie Ann to sleep, and shed her robe, laying down next to her husband with an exhausted sigh. They'd both had a long day, serving up food to the many wounded in the hospital wing for nearly fourteen hours. George rolled over, taking her in his arms, content just to have his arms around her again. She kissed him lightly. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 17



"I'm not really in the mood tonight, dear... can you just hold me?"

He nodded, with a bit of a sad smile. 

"I know what you mean, honey... I think we both saw a bit too much today."

She frowned and nodded. "Yes... those poor women! I thought I had it bad!"

"Best not to dwell on it, my dear... hopefully, they'll heal."

"What about your kids?"

"I know... poor Smithers lost one of his legs, just below the knee... he's likely going to be pensioned. I put him in for an honorable discharge, full pay and bonuses intact. Max called earlier... he lost three people on his team."

"Oh, no! Is he alright?"

"He's fine. A few of his team members got too cocky, tried to get too close to the edge of the woods on the southern edge of that base, and triggered some kind of mine."

"Ouch... "

George nodded. "Well, they all knew what could happen. It's a risky thing, war is."

She nodded, cuddling deeper into his embrace, while he lay there, thinking of the unfairness of it all.

Leeanne lay with her head on Gar's shoulder. They had had much the same conversation. 

"Babe?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"I mean... isn't there some other way to get those 'soldiers' out of the country? Make them want to leave?"

"Not that I can think of, dear... the best way to drive them out is to make it too dangerous to stay... and the only way to do that is to kill so many of them that they know we mean business."

"Yeah... but so many of our people are getting killed at the same time."

"You can't make an omelet..."

"Without breaking some eggs. I know... I just hate having to see the faces of those young women. Telling them it'll be ok, knowing that we might come under attack at any minute. Knowing that every time you leave might be the last time I ever see you. "

He hugged her close. "Honey, don't worry... I had a close call, yes... but I survived, and so did my team. We survived, and the Chinese lost another base. We'll rebuild, we'll recruit, while all they can do is beg for more reinforcements from overseas, that I doubt they have."

He and his small team of scouts had been investigating a block of houses north of the base, and they had found quite a few tripwires and the like... but they'd almost missed a pressure pad, concealed under an old welcome mat. He was almost embarassed to admit that he hadn't been the one to catch it. Susie Cole, a junior member of his scouting team, had seen the wires at the last minute, and had pulled him back from stepping on it.

When he'd told her about it, Leeanne had looked at him with a straight face and quipped "You have my permission to sleep with her."

He'd grinned and pointed out that Sue's husband, also a member of the teams, might object to that.

"So sleep with him too!" was her answer.

He grinned at her before replying... by diving under the covers, pulling her leg over his shoulder, and diving face first into her well trimmed muff, his tongue seeking and finding her sensitive clit. Wiggling his tongue against it furiously for a moment, he looked up at her eyes in the dim light from the hallway lamp that they left on for the boys.

"There's only one woman I want to sleep with, baby!" he replied as he began licking her pussy in earnest.

She lay back further, bringing her knees up as his tongue went to work on her clit, moaning and clutching at his head, pressing his face into her core as her first orgasm approached. He always seemed to sense just what she needed.

Or maybe he was just as horny as she was suddenly feeling.

As she came, he brought a hand up between them, slipping both middle fingers into her tight cunt, and sliding his index finger into the tight ring of her ass, making her hips jump off the mattress for a moment in surprise, sawing all three in and out of her several times as he continued to nibble and suck at her engorged clit. She came hard, leaving his chin and his short goatee, as well as his hand, dripping in her juices, some of her secretions dripping to the finger that he was still shoving in and out of her anus... and giving him an idea...

He suddenly pulled his face away and stood up on his knees, throwing off the covers in the process and grabbing her by the waist, flipping her over on to her belly. Spreading her ass cheeks with one hand, he guided his hardness with the other, until the head was poised at her backdoor, and with one hard shove, buried half of his cock in her not quite ready rectum, eliciting a half moan-half scream from her.

"Oh! God, honey, Let me get ready for That!"

He just grinned as he continued to bull his way into her ass, until he was buried in her to the hilt... then began stroking into her at a pace that got faster with each stroke, until she caught up to the pace he was setting, and they were fucking like rabbits, with her slamming back against him as hard as he was pushing into her. 

"OH OH OH! FUCK ME, HONEEEEE!" She moaned as he continued to plow into her bowel, feeling her as she squirted a small amount of her girl-cum out to wash his balls and thighs with her explosive orgasm. That alone was enough, and he erupted, blasting jets of his own cream into her ass until, spent, they collapsed to the mattress together, still joined at the hips, him kissing the back of her neck as his hard on subsided and pulled out of her on its own.

He rolled to his back, and she followed, turning to lay her head on his shoulder, letting her breathing return to normal... 

"Geez, babe! What brought that on?"

"I dunno... it just.. felt right."

"Did it ever! You were really throwin' the steel there for a little bit!"

He worked his arm under her, bringing it up so his hand was on her shoulder, and drew her to him, kissing her hard, insinuating his tongue into her mouth to carress her own, kissing and nuzzling her open mouth for long moments.

"You got into the spirit of things after a few moments, babe."

"With my big, strong, handsome man fucking my ass like that? How else would I react?"

She grinned, throwing a leg across his hips, and levered herself up to straddle him, reaching between them for his now half hard again cock, fitting the head to her wide open pussylips and plunging down on him in one hard thrust, riding him slowly, teasingly, as he grew to full hardness inside her.

She winked down at him. "Good boy... it's Momma's turn!"

He just grinned up at her, reaching up to massage her ample tits as she continued to ride him, letting her set the pace.

Archer and Corcoran were going over a map of the region, debating whether to send their 'trader' scouts towards the northwest, and the research facility, or to send them northeast, into the area known as the Black Hills, in an attempt to misdirect the Chinese away from their ultimate goal. 

Archer pointed at the area to the northeast. "If we send 'em up this way first, we can have them look over that old motorcycle dealership Lou was talking about. We could use a bunch of those for short range scouts." 

"Isn't their range kind of limited?"

Jim nodded. "Any patrol we send 'em on, over about two hundred miles, is going to need to include a pick-up, loaded down with gas cans and other gear... plus a couple of big funnels. Still, they'd be good for keeping an eye on things within, say, a fifty mile radius of the Cave, here, and going into areas where the Humvees are too conspicuous. Those they can do on a single tank of fuel."

"I don't know, Jim... I kinda want to see what we've got to the northwest... If they were workin' on what we think they were workin' on..."

"Could be a game-changer, that's true. Maybe we could send a full battle group up that way... say... I don't know, thirty, forty men?"

"I was thinking more like a hundred. Five, maybe six APC'S, including the one with the two machine cannons, in case they run into anything heavy."

"Won't do anything against a tank."

"Nope... but that's what RPG's and LAWs are for... and they can always call for air support. I want to send a few of the computer geeks along on this one... and a few mechanics, to get the generators up and running. Maybe a few of the scientists, too, to look over everything there, decide what's relevant and what they can leave behind."

Archer nodded, deep in thought for a moment. "You think they might find something else up there?"

Corcoran grinned. "Maybe a few long-forgotten Nuke ICBMs with launch codes, that'd be nice."

Archer gave a wan smile, agreeing with him... but not with high hopes. From all of the accounts left behind by the Founders, there weren't likely to be any of Those left. Hell, he'd settle for the access codes for a few of the spy satellites that were still up, that they hadn't been able to use, so far.

The only scouting patrol they'd sent up that way had reported buildings that had been partially damaged by a nearby bomb blast, but radiation levels were minimal. The place was set up like an office park, not a military testing facility.

Jan lay back, beside her husband, smoking a doobie as they discussed the events of the past few days.

"Damn it, Jan, no! I don't want you going! There are plenty of other techs that we can send!"

She replied calmly "No, Jim... it has to be the best and brightest... and nobody here is as good as I am with that old technology. I'll pick the team, but I have to head it up. You know damned well I'm the best in this place at what I do. Don't worry, you know I can handle a pistol with the best of them. I can take care of myself. Besides, my big, strong husband won't let anything happen to me."

He knew everything she was saying was true, still, it galled him to be upbraided by his wife about this. He raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm planning on going?"

"I know you better than anyone, Jim... you think I haven't noticed how you look, every time you talk about that place? You practically rub your hands together. You can't wait to get back in the field."

He frowned. She was right, of course... as much as he tried to deny it, he was downright bored with the administrative crap, and he was chomping at the bit to get back out there with a rifle in his hands.

They passed the doobie back and forth a few more times, until it was too small to hold onto, then dropped it into the ashtray, letting it go out, each lost in thought.

Finally, she sealed the deal, and the subject, by the simple expedient of unsnapping the crotch of her panties and settling her freshly shaved pussy over his mouth.

He knew what she was doing, of course, but decided to relax to the inevitable as he began fluttering his tongue over her engorged clit. She scooted around, taking his hardness between her lips, sucking at the head like it was her own personal lollipop, until he was good and hard, then spinning around and settling herself over him, taking his entire length in one downward thrust, sitting up on her knees to ride him slowly.

He wasn't having it, though, and grabbed her by the hips, slamming up into her, taking her breath away for just a moment before they were fucking away at rabbit-like speed. It felt almost primal, their need for each other, and for once, she wasn't shushing him, worrying about the kids hearing. 

Mickey Miller lay in his hospital bed, wondering when Cassie and Doris would get there and start bitching him out for taking stupid chances. His squad had been one of the first into the small town northwest of the Chinese base, and had chosen a three story house to set up their sniper's nest in, but that was where things had gone horribly wrong.

Bruce Davidson had gone straight in the front door, and all hell had broken loose as the door triggered the trap; at least three small mines, similar to the infamous 'bouncing Bettys', had flown into the air, bursting at shoulder height and wreaking havoc on his entire squad. Seven of his ten man squad had been hit somewhere, with Davidson himself taking two of the steel shot right in the face, killing him instantly.

Mickey himself had been hit in both arms and one leg as well as several hits in the abdomen and chest, and had been in surgery for over six hours, according to the nurse who'd been in earlier. She had changed the saline bag and injected something into the IV line. She couldn't know he was awake; he got the feeling she talked to all of her unconscious patients this way. He tried to answer her, but found that he didn't have enough breath for speech. As much as he tried to fight it, sleep overtook him again as the drugs took effect.

Jeff O'neil woke up in the hospital room to find BJ on one side of his bed, Missy on the other, his leg weighted down with ten pounds of plaster. Somewhere, in the background, one of his favorite CDs was playing, an old Metal Church tune. He vaguely remembered a Chinese soldier running at his squad with an AK, screaming obscenities at the 'American pigs' who were shooting at him and his comrades.

"How long was I out?" he asked... or tried to, at least.

BJ looked at him curiously... it was clear that he was trying to talk, but all that was coming out was a dry, whispering gurgle.

"Don't try to talk, honey... you've got a feeding tube down your throat, and we can't understand you. You're in the hospital, and Doctor Karlson says you're going to be here at least another two weeks."

He attempted to nod, weakly, to show that he understood, then cocked an eyebrow at her.

She thought she understood what he wanted to know, so she answered him as best as she could.

"You were hit in your left leg, your belly, your chest, your left arm, and a few bullets bounced off your helmet. The medic in the field gave you a double shot of some kind of pain killer, that they think saved your life, because it slowed your metabolism and knocked you out, kept you still while they bandaged you up. You've been out since then, for the past three days. I don't know what they operated on you for, but you were in surgery for over four hours, and you've been sleeping ever since. Go back to sleep, sweetheart, you'll heal faster. Missy and I will be here when you wake up."

Missy bent over the bed, kissing him on the cheek. "Yeah, you've gotta get better... you owe me some shooting lessons!"

He tried to smile at her, but the drugs took over, and he slipped back into the warm folds of unconsciousness.

Doris sat at Mickey's bedside, holding his hand as he slept, keeping half an eye on the monitors. His heartbeat, she could tell, was a bit on the slow and weak side, but she knew that was partially due to the drugs they had given him an hour ago. Between the X-rays and the metal detector, they'd taken nearly twenty pieces of shrapnel out of his chest and abdomen; he was lucky to be alive. The surgeon, a family friend, had told her that two of those chunks of metal had narrowly missed his heart and one had punctured one of his lungs. He would be in this bed for at least another four weeks, and he'd carry the scar from his navel to just below his throat for the rest of his life. His sternum, which they'd had to separate in order to get to some of the shrapnel, would take nearly a year to heal completely. She had been warned that the doctor had ordered that he be kept asleep as much as possible to further the healing process.

On the bright side, he was showing a good amount of brain activity, in spite of the numerous drugs he was on. The doctor informed her that it meant there hadn't been any sort of brain damage, and he expected Mickey to make a full recovery.

Jim Archer, Junior, sat in the chair next to the bed of one of his platoon members, holding her hand lightly as he hoped like hell she would wake up... she'd been comatose for the better part of a week, now, and the doctor wasn't sure if she would wake up or not. He prayed that she would. Not exactly pretty, in fact a little mannish, if truth was to be told, she still deserved her chance at a real life... and she was the girlfriend of a friend of his, another member of his team; both of them had, at some point, been prisoners of the Chinese.

Sarah Lennard found the right room number and stopped, looking in the window. There sat Corporal Archer, holding her lover's unfeeling hand as she lay in her coma. He was obviously distraught; his head was bowed, but his lips were moving, and it took a moment for her to realize that he was actually Praying over Jen's sleeping form. Though she had little feeling for men in general, she suddenly felt an infusion of warmth for her superior, who she knew considered her a friend, if a stand-offish, rather aloof friend. He Was human, after all.

It was in that moment that she truly began to realize why he worked his platoon as hard as he did... it was because he wanted them to be survivors, and that he cared far more deeply for them, herself included, than he would ever let on. She looked on for several more moments before turning and slipping away... she didn't want to intrude on this very private moment.

Johnny Corcoran sat at his desk, going over the listings of the wounded, and the details of each case. It was a depressingly long list. The list of casualties was there, too, and while it wasn't quite as long as the list of wounded, it was still entirely too long. Out of nearly ten thousand combatants, they'd lost over four hundred, and had nearly a thousand wounded. He recognized far too many of those names... and he silently hoped like hell it had all been worth it.

Rick Jamison read over the details of the next casualty on his list. This was going to be a particularly tough one; Corporal Davison had left behind not only a wife, but four children, as well. 

His nervousness must have shown; Father Marcus Rogan laid his hand on Rick's shoulder and murmured "Steady, old friend."

Jamison was glad for the support; he'd made far too many of these visits already. Telling a woman that her man wasn't going to be coming home was never easy. Telling a man's children that daddy was gone to Heaven was even worse. 

Julie Davison looked out of the kitchen window to see Colonel Jamison and the town Minister coming up the walk, and barely had the time to breathe out the words "Dear God, no!" before they were knocking on the front door.

She silently thanked God that the kids were playing in the local schoolyard, and weren't home, as she moved to the door.

Jamison nodded to her as the door opened. "Julie, may we come in?"

"My... my husband is gone, isn't he?"

Jamison nodded as he and Father Rogan walked into the living room with her. 

"He saved his squadmates, Julie. He threw himself in front of a machine gun nest and dropped a grenade on them as he fell. He was killed instantly."

She dissolved into tears as the Minister folded his arms around her, stroking her back and making shushing noises, trying to tell her that her husband had died defending life, that he was a hero, and that he had felt no pain. It was no consolation to her, however... 

Jamison assured her that she and the children would be well taken care of. As a widow of this war, she would have full access to the grocery market and general stores, of course, and she and her children would continue to draw her husband's pension credits for the next twenty years.

It would not be the last visit he would make that day... and he had half a dozen of his officers making similar visits.

Billie Jean and Missy sat at the kitchen table that night, drinking tea and sharing companionable silence. Neither was particularly hungry; they'd had sandwiches that they hadn't really tasted at the hospital while sitting with Jeff. Missy had made a half-hearted attempt at doing some busy-work around the apartment when they'd gotten back, but had long since given it up as a lost cause. They had finally settled down, both having a good cry, holding each other as they wondered what would happen with their boyfriend.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 17



Leeanne sat in her office, talking in low tones with yet another young woman about her experiences in the Chinese camp. This one had been a prisoner for over four years, and looked like a near skeleton from the meager diet of substandard food that was all that the soldiers had given her and her fellow captives to live on. The first thing she'd eaten in the hospital, a half of a roast beef and cheese sandwich, had nearly made her sick. It was too rich for her.

At every base, in every small town, the same scenarios played out, over and over again. They buried their dead, tended to the wounded; widows and now-fatherless-and in a few cases, motherless-children cried themselves to sleep, or just tried to understand why. Slowly, life returned to some semblance of normalcy; and slowly, life went on. The many small communities closed ranks, and a new determination took hold... summed up in six simple words... 'We take care of our own!'

It had been seven weeks since the last attack, almost to the day, and many of the more lightly wounded had been discharged from the hospitals at the three main bases.

Mickey sat back on the sofa in their small, suburban ranch house, watching a vampire movie, Doris beside him, while Cassie puttered in the kitchen, fixing a light lunch for them. He was still restricted to soft foods, easily digestible, but that didn't bother any of them... he was just happy to be home with his two lovers, and they were just as happy to have him home at last. His lung, and the ribs covering it, were well on the way to healing, and the doctor had told him just yesterday that he could smoke a little bit again; in fact, he encouraged it, as it would make an effective pain killer, just as long as he didn't overdo it.

Doris had gone out and gotten a small water pipe, and had taken several large buds from the drying rack just this morning, breaking up a small portion for him, ignoring his protests that he was ready for a full load in the small pipe's bowl.

Back at the Cave, Jeff sat back on the sofa in the living room of their apartment, a cup of coffee in hand, while Missy checked his bandages. He'd had BJ pick up an antibiotic ointment from the hospital on the day he was released, and was using it religiously; as a result, his wounds were healing quickly. He was still stiff in spots, and sore as hell, most of the time, but he was getting better. He'd surprised both of his ladies when he solemnly informed Missy that yes, he knew he still 'owed her shooting lessons', but they would have to wait another few weeks.

They hadn't thought he'd remembered that.

He still had to be pushed around in a wheel chair, much of the time, but he was getting better at walking, too, working out for short periods on an elliptical exercise machine, slowly regaining his strength.

BJ, of course, teased him a bit whenever he got on the thing... telling him the longer he stayed on it, the sooner he'd be ready for sex with her again. 

He turned the tables on her, telling her he couldn't wait... to screw their mutual girlfriend, Missy. 

He was getting frustrated, listening to the two of them making love without him; particularly when Missy went to one of the adult stores in the Cave and came back with a contraption of straps and an attached dildo. Bj had been particularly vocal that night.

Over the ensuing weeks, things settled into a routine once again, with a few exceptions... John Corcoran sent out several teams, who managed to come back with several dozen horses; breaking them to pull the trader wagons turned into an adventure in itself. 

A few were broken and trained to saddle and rider; considering nobody in the Cave and the surrounding bases and towns had ever done this before, it was all a hit-or-miss subject. There were books on the subject, in the library, but learning it from a book and actually doing it were two different things.

Eventually, though, they got a handle on things, and soon had four trading caravans going out, hauling wagon loads of surplus gear they'd found in many of the abandoned homes and farms, and coming back with other trade goods, much of which they didn't really need... but it worked to keep up appearances, while the men and women discreetly gathered information on Chinese camps and movements around the regions.

It also turned out to be a good cover for policing certain areas; nothing surprised a gang of bandits more than attempting to rob a small group of wandering traders, only to find themselves facing M16s, 40mm grenade launchers, and men and women skilled in their use.

One particularly large group of the criminals thought they had the upper hand; that changed when the 'traders' they thought they had surrounded called out on their satellite phones, and had air support in less than ten minutes from two Blackhawk helicpters. One of the fools took a shot at one of the choppers, and found out, firsthand, what being the target of a .50 caliber M2 Browning was like... just before he was ripped nearly in half by a stream of rounds from the heavy machine gun.

The pilot briefly considered just touching off a Maverick at the entire group, but figured it would be a waste of a perfectly good rocket.

General Minn, Supreme commander for the Western region of the occupied United States, was beside himself... He had lost contact with yet another base in north western Wyoming, and could get no answers, because there had been no survivors at any of the bases that had been attacked. The only information he did have was that whoever was doing this was well armed, they were using American aircraft and armor the likes of which hadn't been seen since before the Great war, and they were, apparently, highly motivated.

One patrol group, which had been away from it's base, gathering provisions, had managed to avoid the attackers... these lucky men had reported that their base camp had come under attack by people in ancient American uniforms, carrying comparable weapons and using ancient aircraft and heavy armor. They had seen this and turned away at once, not stopping until they reached the safety of a Chinese base in northern California.

He had, at first, written off their accounts as pure fantasy, but after seeing what had been done to one of the bases, from the co-pilot's seat of an aging Hind, had been forced to re-evaluate that opinion. The base they had come from looked like it had been attacked by an angry god with a giant rake.

There was a new and deadly predator loose in his region, and it was hunting his troops.

What was worse, his spies had proven ineffectual; the few American peasants he'd managed to recruit, through intimidation and bribery, were frightened to death over what the price would be, if they were caught by this new force. Those few that did make reports to him about them didn't do so a second time.

Jim, Jan, and their small team of scouts and techs spent nearly a full day exploring the ruins of the small industrial park, finally finding their objective just after dark. It was in a sub-basement of the main building, and well hidden from casual view. It took the entire team nearly three days to dig out the hidden entrance, but in the end was well worth the effort, as the team spent several days thoroughly documenting the entire lab, moving nothing until every square foot of the place had been photographed from multiple angles. Jim wanted no detail, no matter how minor, overlooked; a decision his wife, and the rest of the scientists they had along, most definitely agreed with.

Jan settled at the worktable they were using as a lunch table, a short stack of notebooks in one hand, a plate of sandwiches in the other, and settled in beside her husband. He eyed the books for a moment, and she saw the direction of his gaze.

"As near as I can tell, these are from the head of research, his chief assistant, and the chief of the manufacturing lines."

"Manufacturing? You mean some of this stuff was in production?"

She nodded, absently, while reading a page in one of the books.

"Some of this technology was extremely advanced... the batteries they had developed, to power some of these weapons... they're incredible! If we hooked one into the main power grid, it could power a small town... for a month!"

"Can they be recharged, though?"

She nodded again. "Yes, lucky for us... though they'll take the entire output from one of those big diesel Generators to recharge... we'd better be glad they built a Lot of them... and a big recharging station."

He rubbed his eyes... he hadn't gotten much sleep in the past week. "Ok, so what should we do, haul all of this stuff back home, or get some more people up here, turn this place into an extension of our territory?"

"I don't want to move this equipment. I think we should repopulate this place, and rebuild the local farming community around this area to keep it supplied. If this man's notes are correct, this place got it's power from a hydro-electric dam a few miles away... plus some form of geo-thermal generators, located here somewhere. If we can get those back up and working, that would be a good start."

He nodded, stifling a yawn.

"Jim, how long has it been since you slept?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, dammit, go get some rest! You're no good to us if you're falling asleep at your post!"

"I don't have a 'post', dear... and this stuff is too important to leave on anyone else. There are guards to post, there are inventories to check out, there's..."

"Nothing more important than you being back up to a hundred percent." she finished for him, cutting him off in mid-sentence. 

"You go find a place to lay out the bedrolls and curl up for a while. I promise you, if we come under attack or anything, I'll wake you up."

He nodded, going back up to the entrance, collecting his bedroll and two sleeping bags, and heading to one of the offices, where he remembered seeing a relatively comfortable, wide couch. He barely remembered to flip over the cushions, to keep the dust to a minimum, before covering the old furniture with a blanket and one of the sleeping bags, laying down and pulling the other bag over him and falling into a deep sleep.

He was walking down several flights of stairs, to a deep level they hadn't explored yet, when he found the main administrator's office. He walked straight from the door to the far wall, reaching up and taking down a painting of three horses drinking from a pond in the middle of a meadow from the wall, revealing a medium sized wall safe. 

He spun the dial... 46-28-38. Instinctively, he knew that the combination was the measurements of the man's wife. 

'Must have been a real looker' crossed his mind.

The safe unlocked, and he turned the handle, revealing several large-ish looseleaf binders full of what appeared to be mathematical equations. 

He realized, without being told, that these were the last piece of the puzzle his wife and the other techs were working on.

Jim awoke from the dream to find Jan sleeping peacefully beside him, her body molded to his own. He realized he couldn't get up without waking her, so he gave in to the inevitable and rolled to his side, wrapping his wife in his arms and falling into another deep, and this time dreamless sleep.

Jan found herself in one of the upper levels of the complex, staring at a blank wall. Reaching up, she pushed at two corners of the drywall at once, and the entire section slid sideways, revealing a door labeled 'Satellite control'.

She floated into the room, took a seat at one of the computer consoles, hit the power switch, and waited as the mainframe booted up. 

When the prompt came up, she typed in the words 'Strategic defense' and, after a bit over five minutes of serious hacking, was finally rewarded with a view of the earth from space.

Somewhere, on another plane of existence, a being once known as DJ sat back and smiled. 'That's enough of a nudge to get them started.' He thought.



Dan and the Bottle Ch. 18



 Yes, folks, I'm at it again; welcome to my latest chapter. I'm using this one to address several points that I glossed over before, and expanding on a few things that I felt weren't adequately covered before. Hope you continue to enjoy my tale.

*****

Over the course of the next three months, Jeff continued with the physical therapy prescribed by Dr. Karlson, sneaking in extra time in the home gym whenever BJ and Missy weren't looking. He knew he'd already missed out on a few small skirmishes, but he wanted to be back up to snuff for the next serious battle. 

Both of the young women knew he was doing it, of course. The new definition in his arms and legs was hard to hide, after all. 

Doctor Karlson noticed, as well. 

"Jeff, you've been cheating." It was a statement, not a question. 

Jeff gave him an embarrassed shrug. 

"I can't just sit around, Doc. I can only read the same book, watch the same movie, the same concert, so many times. When I'm bored, I hit the machines, try to get some extra time in. It's either that or cook, and I don't want my girl to see me getting fat, do I?"

"I suppose not. What's your diet look like these days?"

"Oh, the usual... cheeseburgers, pizza, lots of noodles... "

The doctor grinned. "No wonder you're worried about getting fat. Are you getting anything in the way of vegetables?"

"Some, yeah... BJ makes sure of that,... and I drink a lot of juice."

"Well, that's something, anyway. I hope you cut down on smoking a bit."

"Just a couple of joints a day... it helps with the soreness after a workout. Helps me sleep, too."

"Ok, well... most of your wounds are healed up nicely, and those that haven't are well on the way. I'll inform the Colonel that you're ok for light duty. You can go back to a regular schedule at the target range, too. Just don't overdo it. How many miles are you doing on that elliptical thingamabob?" 

"I don't know... there's no guage on it."

"Well, guess."

"Ummm... I don't know, maybe four or five at a time."

Karlson gave him a skeptical look... "Ok,... how many times a day?"

Jeff flushed a bit. "Five or six."

"Uh huh... or eight or ten, by the look of it. I want you to cut back on the breads and noodles a bit, get more in the way of protiens. More meats, fish, roasted or baked, not fried. Get some good venison and some of the buffalo beef... better for you than regular cow. What about this pizza? Mama's? "

"No, I make it myself. BJ found a recipe for 'Chicago style' with the toppings in the middle, crust on the top and bottom, both; kinda like a big sandwich. I make it with that sausage that Ronald's butcher shop makes, mushrooms, chopped onions, and banana peppers, lots of garlic, and three kinds of cheese. Provolone and parmesan in the middle, mozzarela in the edges of the crust."

"Damn! Next time you make that, call me! That sounds good!"

Jeff returned his grin. "Drop by this afternoon... I've got a half a pie in the fridge. It's just as good fresh from the microwave."

"You're on."

Jim and Jan awoke to find some of the lights working in the office of the small research base; this was a good thing, as now, perhaps, the elevators would work, as well.

The door opened, and Lieutenant Pete Grover poked his head in. 

"Colonel, Ma'am, we've gotten one of the Geothermal generators back online. We're cooking breakfast in the conference room on this floor, should be ready in about ten minutes. Coffee is ready now, and the rest of the supplies have been brought in from topside."

Jim thanked the younger man, choosing to ignore the furtive looks the boy had given to his wife's semi nude form. Hell, he'd been young once. Jan had stripped down to bra and panties before laying down with him, and he knew that she'd attract attention from a younger man... she had, after all, never failed to catch his eye.

The two of them dressed and set off in search of the conference room, following the smell of fresh coffee and warmed muffins, settling into seats there and enjoying a prolonged breakfast while discussing their plans for the day. Jim idly mentioned his dream of the night before, of an office on level five, and a safe there that they might want to have a look in.

His wife had a rather strange reaction... "I had that kind of dream, too... only it was level three. A hidden door, and a bunch of computers, labeled as a control room."

"Which one do you want to check out first?"

"I don't know... you said yours had a safe?"

He nodded. "I even remember the combination."

"Ok, let's go there first. I want to see what's in that safe... if it's really there."

Five minutes later, they were in the office, and Jim walked up to the painting, which matched his dream image perfectly, took it down... and it was there, exactly as it had been in his dream.

He tried the combination, half expecting it not to work. With a 'click', the lock disengaged, and he turned the handle, and the door swung open.

The only difference from his dream was the.44 magnum revolver laying on top of the notebooks, with three boxes of ammunition beside it. He took that out, checking it... fully loaded, with an extra hundred and fifty rounds. He stuck it in his pocket, then passed the notebooks to his wife.

John Davidson sat back and relaxed for the first time in several days. He was just back to the Militia base after an extended run to the southeast, and it would be nice to get a solid night of sleep without some raider crew trying to steal his horses and wagon. He and his crew had mapped three small towns, one of which had thought he was leading a new kind of bandit gang and had kept him under guard until they'd looked in the various boxes in the wagon... and even then, he'd sensed eyes following him and his two guards as they dickered over the goods he carried. Finally, though, the amount of goods he was carrying convinced them of his sincerity, and he and his men were welcomed, albeit grudgingly. 

When they saw the things he had to trade, they really opened up. Two crossbows and sixty quarrels for them, along with five boxes of candles and four big bottles of aged whiskey netted him several dozen still-sealed cans of pre-war coffee and three boxes of good, well seasoned firewood, along with a couple of dozen fresh tanned rabbit furs. He didn't want to look too easy, so he'd held out for a dozen fresh-baked corn muffins and a big blueberry pie to go along with it, and dinner for himself and his crew.

While he was there, he settled in the common hall for a bit, drinking small glasses of home made wine with some of the locals and gathering rumors of the local landscape. Over the course of the evening, he learned that there were two other villages nearby; one was in the ruins of a small suburb, while another was hidden in a pre-war factory of some sort. He tried to keep his face neutral as he gently prodded for more information on that one. He was polite about it, and discreet, and those who figured out what he was doing thought he was just looking for future business opportunities.

As the sun started to set, he and his two men, who were getting ready to set up their tents, were approached by a small group of couples... men with their wives and mates in tow... or so they thought.

One man, who they took to be some sort of village elder, stepped forward.

"Gentlemen, we're hoping you'll do us one more favor tonight."

John lifted an eyebrow... he thought he knew what was coming next.

"We're a pretty close community. A little too close, if you know what I mean."

John kept his face neutral, motioning for the man to continue.

"Yes... well, that kind of gives us a bit of a problem... most of us are related, one way or another... and we can't really breed any more. We were kinda hopin', that is... would you gents be willin' to bring children back to our village? These here women are all good breedin' age, none are less than twenty winters old, so they're matured enough to care for a child, but none of us can get them pregnant anymore. We're too closely related, y'see. If you would be willing, well... we'd be grateful."

Mike Sanderson looked at him as if he'd just hit the lottery. "You... you want us to get your women pregnant?"

The older man nodded. "It'll get some fresh blood into the village without getting new neighbors. We don't want anyone new movin' in, but you men ain't doin' that. You'll be movin' on in the mornin'. All of these women are gettin' close to their time of the month, so we know they're most likely fertile right now. They're all clean, and healthy, and they're all old enough. We wouldn't turn ya loose on our younger daughters... but we need more children, to keep the village alive. "

A quick head count totaled ten women... John looked over at Mike and Dennis and saw big smiles. "Ok... we'd be happy to. I have to say, it wasn't something I was expecting when we set out, but what the hell. How are we going to do this, though?"

The older man sighed in relief. "Don't know... I guess you and your men can pick women, or let the women pick you. We'll let you work that out."

Three of the women had already gone over to Mike... no surprise there, as he was called 'Big Mike' for a reason. At six foot seven, and two hundred and forty pounds of lean muscle, he was easily the biggest man amongst them. Dennis Jefferson was next in line, at six-four, and John was actually the shortest of the team, at five-eight. Four of the women walked over to Dennis, and the remaining three came over to John's side as the men of the village turned and left.

The young women led the team to what they called the 'guesting house', a sprawling, split level ranch that was set up for travelers, and upon getting inside, the young women drew lots, to see who would be getting into bed with who first, leading the three men to guess that this wasn't the first time they'd done this.

A young, buxom redhead stepped up to John, taking him by the hand. "I'm Charlene... but most people call me Charlie."

"Hello, Charlie... tell me... are you... okay with this? I mean... this isn't exactly... normal, is it?"

She giggled a little. "Well, the last time a stranger came through, the older women got him... so it's our turn. It's kinda normal. I don't want ta be havin' kids with my daddy, or my uncle, so I had to wait for someone like you to come through town."

Dennis was deep in conversation with a young woman who'd introduced herself as Darlene, who was apparently Charlie's sister, while Mike was talking to Lori, a chunky little brunette. Two of the young women had gone over to the fireplace in the big living room, building a fire in the hearth, and another reached to a shelf for a bottle of the home made wine.

John watched all of this with a bit of amusement; the thought crossed his mind that he'd best leave this out of his report. His girlfriend might not understand, and she wasn't exactly the forgiving sort. Then another thought occurred, and he looked outside towards the wagon.

Three men were standing around it, bows in hand, apparently as guards, while another was busily feeding the horses from a large plastic tub full of fresh cut grass. Another man walked up with two big buckets of water.

"Our goods will be ok?"

"Oh, yes, Sir. We want you to come back again... we don't get enough visitors here. My daddy doesn't take much to stealin', especially from traders. If we let anyone steal from you, you might not come back!"

As she said this, she was fondling his cock through his pants, and he returned the favor, reaching for one of her plump breasts. 

"Are you wantin' to go somewhere private, or were you planning on staying in this room?"

She smiled at him. "We can stay in this room... how else is Holly going to know when it's her turn?" she asked, pointing at a slender blonde, who looked like she was getting herself ready for him; she had one hand up under the thick sweater she wore, fondling her own small tits, and the other down the front of the loose sweat pants that she was wearing, apparently busily fingering her clit.

Charlie stood up abruptly, and dragged the thin shirt she was wearing off, followed by her pants, not the least bit self conscious, and the rest of the women in the room followed suit, leaving John and his team feeling like it was Christmas morning, and all of the gifts had just unwrapped themselves. She knelt down at John's feet, tugging at his boots, then his socks, then reached for his belt buckle, which he helped her with, feeling his dick spring free as she tugged his pants down.

He stood up then, lifting her to her feet and spinning her around to a seat on the old sofa, and smiled as she sat back and spread her legs wide. She had her eyes tightly closed, but they sprung open in surprise when he put her thighs on his shoulders and his lips closed over her exposed clit.

"Oh! I didn't think you were gonna do That!"

He didn't answer, just began licking her pussy intensely, fluttering his tongue over her clit one moment, licking all around her puffy, engorged pussy lips the next, driving his tongue into her exposed hole for long moments.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Nobody's ever licked me down there! Oh that's goooood"

He grinned and went back to fluttering his tongue over her clit as he stuffed a finger into her tight little hole, sawing it in and out of her for long moments before turning it, feeling for, and finally locating the spongy bit of tissue of her G-spot, massaging it lightly as his tongue continued it's ministrations.

Charlene lay back against the couch cushions, certain that she was about to pass out from the pleasure... and he hadn't even stuck his cock in her yet! She was no virgin; her cousin Ronnie had seen to that the previous winter, but she hadn't been with a man since then. Ronnie had been pretty disappointing anyway... he hadn't exactly been big on making sure she was wet enough, the night he'd popped her cherry, and hadn't lasted very long afterward before he blew his nut inside her.

This man, though... his chin was covered in her juices, when he finally came up for air; he stood up on his knees, leaning forward to kiss her slowly as he fitted the fat head of his cock to her now-slick entrance, and with a grunt, forced the first two inches of his hardness inside of her... she groaned as he entered her, then held there for a moment so she could grow accustomed to his intruding member, his hands busily fondling her soft, spongy tits for long moments before he gave a hard push. The rest of his cock slid into her, leaving her feeling stuffed, and once again he stopped, allowing her pussy to stretch out to hold him.

She looked across the room at Lori, who was happily bouncing away on Mike's cock; even from where she sat, she could tell that he was huge. Little Lori was grinning like a cat in a roomful of mice, as she rode what appeared at first to be a tree trunk. She was a little jealous, at first.

Then John began thrusting his own rather substantial piece of meat into her. He took long, slow strokes at first, then began to pick up speed as she started thrusting back at him, crying out in pleasure as he rammed into her.

On the other couch, across the room, her sister was on her hands and knees, holding onto one arm of the sofa as Dennis plowed into her tight little muff from behind; she was grunting like a little pig with his every push.

"Oh, God harder! Fuck me harder! Oh! Oh! Oh yeahhhh...!" she moaned as he slammed into her doggy style... 

He just smiled as he sped up his thrusting hips, pounding into her with an almost rabbit-like speed. He couldn't last long, though, at that pace, and was soon basting her insides with his cum, even as she experienced her first orgasm.

Charlene felt John painting her cervix with his own load, and locked her ankles together behind his head, holding him inside her for long moments so that his sperm could do it's work, making her a baby... not that she really cared at this point... that had been a fuck she'd remember for the rest of her life!

Mike maneuvered Lori underneath him and began pumping into her hard, finally losing control and sending jets of his cum deep inside of her, looking on in amusement as her eyes rolled back in her head. It was not exactly new to him, her reaction; his last girlfriend had been almost as small as she was, and the first time he'd had sex with her, his monster dick had made her cum so many times she'd passed out from sheer pleasure. He just smiled, lifting her in his arms and carrying her to a recliner, laying her in it to recover.

When he turned back to the couch, there was a tall redhead sitting in the spot Lori had just vacated. She smiled, curling a finger at him. "My turn, Big Boy."

He grinned, thinking idly that he could get used to this.

Joanne moved over to where Dennis had just pulled his cock from Darlene and stood at the head of the couch.

"C'Mon, Dar... help me get ready for him."

Darlene looked up at her with a grin. "Honey, there isn't much that'll get you ready for That... he's GOOD!" She replied; still, her tongue snaked out, licking away at her friend's clit. 

The redhead looked up at Mike and winked, saying "I'm Debbie." before taking his cock in her mouth, cleaning off the residue of his joining with Lori and getting him back to full hardness before he surprised her, pulling his cock out of her mouth and diving face first between her thighs to lap at her pussy like a thirsty pup. Within moments, she was practically gushing; he continued his oral ministrations for long moments, knowing she needed to be well lubricated before she could take his twelve inches. She lay her head back, moaning as she squeezed her own tits, feeling her orgasm building as he continued to lap quickly at her clit.

Charlene got up, without getting dressed, and walked to the kitchen to pour glasses of wine, while the slender blonde named Holly settled next to John, reaching for his lips with her own as she took his mostly soft cock in one hand, squeezing him lightly and releasing over and over again.

John reached for her small breasts, squeezing and fondling her, tweaking her hard little nipples as she began stroking him lightly. She licked her lips and bent forward, taking his cockhead in her mouth, sucking lightly, tasting his cum and Charlene's juices as she did, feeling him grow inside her mouth.

He reached for her shoulders, pushing her back against the couch, and returned the favor, settling between her thighs, finding that she had a bit of a stronger taste than her friend Charlene. He took to her shaved quim like a starving man at a feast, nibbling at her full labia and clit for long moments, until she was dripping wet. She let him continue until she couldn't take it any longer, until she moaned out the words "I need you inside me!"

He got up, sat back on the couch next to her, and grabbed her by the hips, spinning her to face him and pulling her into his lap, sliding into her as naturally as if they'd been doing this together all of their lives. She smiled down at him as she began to ride him, slowly, lovingly, increasing her speed a little at a time, until she was bouncing along on his hardness like there was no tomorrow. He nuzzled at her breasts as she did, nibbling and sucking at her thick, puffy nipples as she squeezed the muscles in her cunt to try to make him cum faster.

He took hold of her hips, rocking back up into her, feeling the familiar tingling in his nuts but not really wanting it to end.

Debbie leaned forward, moaning uncontrollably as Mike drilled into her from behind, his thickness stretching her nether lips as she'd had only once before. She wasn't a virgin, either... one of the boys in her village had seen to that.

She'd since had sex a number of times, with some of the traveling traders, and with a few of the young men from the next village over, when she'd met them at the local swimmin' hole... she'd fucked three of them one day, at one point taking two of their cocks into her pussy at once... stretching her wide, something she hadn't really recovered from, not completely, at least. Neither of them had been anywhere near as big as Mike, but the two of them together had stretched her sufficiently to make it easier for her to take him now.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 18



She moaned "Fuck meee..." as she slammed back at him, and he was happy to oblige her, slamming into her with gut wrenching force, the head of his cock banging at the mouth of her cervix as he finally came, releasing a gush of cum deep inside her grasping cunt. He held on to her tightly as he felt his load unleash itself in her.

Joanne wrapped her thighs around Dennis' hips, holding on for dear life as he pounded into her, her arms wrapped around his neck as she moaned almost uncontrollably. She was the youngest of the bunch, barely nineteen, and had lost her virginity a mere three days ago; to a young man who was, in fact, a semi-distant cousin, and that hadn't been very good. He had not really tried to get her warmed up to the act before slamming his cock into her semi-dry; the only saving grace there had been his smaller-than-average size. He'd barely been able to break through her hymen. Now she was finding out what an extra few inches could do.

Charlene came back into the room, trails of semen running down her inner thighs, and set a wine bottle and a tray of mismatched glasses and cups on the low coffee table in the center of the room, where the long forgotten sack of corn muffins sat, pouring herself a small glass and nibbling on a muffin, regaining her strength for round two. She wanted to get seed from all three of these men before the night was over.

It was a wish that came true for her.

John smiled at the memory as he filled out his report; he considered, just for a moment, giving the other four teams a head's up, but then the thought occurred to him that he'd just be spoiling the surprise. He'd left the small village completely worn out, but with a smile on his face that would be hard to remove with a crowbar. His team mates had similar grins, but had agreed with him... to mention what had happened with the young women of the village would risk their girlfriends and Dennis' wife finding out.

He and his two team mates visited two other villages on their trading expedition, and had found much the same conditions at each, trading needles, thread, fabric, seeds, and a number of other things for furs and hides from the local wildlife, scrounged cans of a number of different foods, most of which he knew would be unusable, and a stack of ancient DVDs which the villagers had no idea what to do with. 

Their true purpose, of course, was to gather information, and they'd gotten plenty of that, including the locations of nests of raiders and several small, hidden Chinese encampments. Small scouting patrols would confirm these within the next month.

John Corcoran sat back in the Mayor's office, reviewing the reports that were coming in, marking the locations of the small villages on a large state map pinned to the wall, and wondering whether he should send a few dozen colonists over that way. From what the first team had reported, these villagers were a bit on the xenophobic side... not really surprising, all things considered. 

Still, if he sent a small group, with a few wagonloads of food and seed grain, he thought it likely that a small group of 'refugees' would not be turned away... especially if they came in knowing how to fight, how to hunt and trap, and improve the lives of everybody involved. A handful of young people, with all of the tools and equipment necessary to augment the small village, might actually be welcomed. It didn't hurt that by all reports, these villages had plenty of empty houses. The suburb they were living in had, after all, once been home to five hundred times their number, at least.

Jenny Marshall sat in the wagon seat next to her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Mark Hughes, and once again went over the cover story in her head... they were refugees, running from a village that had been decimated by the soldiers, and they were simply looking for land to plant some gardens, a warm house to live in, and good neighbors to trade with. Yes, they knew there was a new war going on, between the Chinese soldiers and some new group, but they wanted no part of it. They had plenty of food for the approaching winter, and plenty of seeds to plant, come springtime, and they carried both bows and crossbows, scrounged from an old 'department' store... so they could hunt. They had all they needed, except for a place to live and maybe a cow or two, to provide them with milk and maybe a bit of beef, eventually. They'd scrounged up gardening tools, so they wouldn't be borrowing anyone else's, and they had nine cages full of chickens and rabbits. 

Will and Renee Carlson followed in another wagon, this one, too, loaded down with food packs, several kegs of nails, boxes full of warm winter clothing, and several axes and other gardening tools, along with several fishing rods and tackle boxes and a big box full of spring traps. A box full of plastic jars, full of enough seeds to plant a dozen big gardens as well as six more cages of rabbits and chickens rounded out the load, and there was a goat trailing along behind them, it's homemade harness tied to the back of the wagon.

Now, if only these other villagers didn't turn them away.

Passing through the village John Davidson had told them about, they found themselves surrounded by half a dozen people, some of whom had bows in hand. An old man, who appeared to be the village elder, stepped forward. 

"Who are you folks, and what do you want?"

"I'm Mark, an' this here's my girl, Jenny... we're just gettin' away from them soldiers, lookin' for a new place to live. Behind us are Will and Renee... they're from our old village too."

"Uh huh... we've heard that one before. What's in the wagon?"

"Food, clothes, tools, seeds, cookin' tools... got a couple of bows and some arrows, too... just missed a deer, last night. We don't mean no harm to anybody... like I said, we're just lookin' for a new place to call home. Them Chinese soldiers hit our village a few days ago, killed off most of our cows, took a bunch of women, and most of the food we had that wasn't hidden."

Two men were looking over the sides of the wagons, checking out the content. Both turned towards the elder and nodded.

The old man looked to either side, cocking an eyebrow at some of the others in the small group, and saw most of them nodding. These kids seemed pretty harmless. 

"Well... we've got a few empty houses, and if you've got anything to trade, we might have a cow for you. Gary, here, will show you which houses are empty, and where we plant and whatnot."

Mark grinned... "Would ten good, new spring traps get me a few cows and the next bull calf that you get?"

The older man looked at him in surprise. "Traps? Hell, ten of those would buy the whole damned herd!"

He didn't mention that the 'herd' in question was less than twenty cows and one aging bull, and four calves, only one of which was a male.

Within a few hours, they were set up in a pair of three bedroom ranch houses; both of which had two fireplaces, a big wood stove, and backed up to a small patch of woods. There were racks built onto the backs of both houses, each of which still held several dozen small logs, and just past the fenceline were several fallen trees, which Mark knew he could get at least a few month's worth of firewood from before they'd have to go off exploring for more.

They thanked the young man who'd brought them to the houses, and asked a few more questions, about where to get water and so forth, and then set about building a fire in one of the hearths and unloading the small wagons, waiting until nobody was looking before digging under the false floorboards for the guns, ammunition, satellite phones, and other gear.

Will Markeson took the call from Mark Hughes with some relief; The kids had gotten a foothold in the small village to the east without incident. His instructions were to do nothing to attract attention for the next six months, at the least, just keep their heads down, plant some crops, and do their best to blend in with the locals... while gathering as much information as they could.

Will took a number of similar calls like this, in the next few weeks, young volunteers who would, eventually, insinuate themselves into small, heretofore overlooked villages all around the free zone, working behind the scenes to bring the occupants around to the ways of the Cavedweller's outlook on life. It wasn't that hard, not really; most of the villagers already did more than their share of trading, back and forth, and had a good idea of the concept of trading value for value. Now it was just a question of getting them on board with the idea of mutual defense.

Jan sat at a table in one of the upper levels of the research base, reading through the notebooks that Jim had found in the safe. These, she knew, were the final key, though she'd need more reference books than she'd brought along to fully decipher them. This was a form of mathematics that was above even her head... and she was a genuine math whiz.

It was at that moment that one of her assistants had rushed into the room, looking for her.

"Ma'am, we found 'em!" He was carrying a small but long wooden case in his hands.

She motioned him over to the lab table and looked carefully at the small crate. The labeling stenciled on the top indicated that it was an 'Electric Rifle, type III, Mk VI".

Flipping open the lid, she found herself looking at something that looked like it belonged in a bad science fiction movie from back before the war. The stock was some form of polymer, and most of the long weapon seemed to be some form of carbon-fiber material. The barrel itself was some sort of tempered glass or crystal, carefully formed into a thick octagon two and a half feet long, encased in black carbon fiber rings that were tied together with long flat rods made from the same material. There were several switches and dials on one side of the plastic housing, one of which was labeled 'S-BU-BE'; one of the dials was obviously a range selector, with increments clearly marked as '50/100/500', and a switch marked 'RE/CH'. The power cell plugged into the base of the light rifle was clearly marked, as well... '750V, 12.25M A'. The entire weapon was barely four feet long, and weighed about half as much as a loaded M-16. A user's guide was conveniently clipped into the inside of the lid of the case.

She leafed through it quickly, learning that the 'RE/CH' meant 'Ready/Charge', 'S/BU/BE' stood for 'Safe/Burst'/Beam' fire, and the numbers meant different ranges, in yard increments. A digital counter on the opposite side indicated the amount of charge left, by percentages. Each of the power cells packed 750 volts and over 12 million amps.

"How many of these did you find?"

"We aren't sure yet, Ma'am... Sergaent Stone counted fifty on the one shelf... and there are at least eighty shelves down there. Some of those appear to contain extra power cells and charging stations."

"Have any of these been test fired yet?"

"Your husband is waiting until you're done, Ma'am. He said he wants to take it outside before test firing it."

She nodded... that would likely be wise; they had no idea how powerful these things might be, so better safe than sorry. If they were what they thought they were, one beam could easily drill a hole through the wall... and at this level, they might be well below the local water table.

"Is there anything else I should know about?"

The younger man nodded. 

"It appears that this isn't all they were working on, Ma'am. On the very bottom levels are several prototypes that don't appear to work... Professor Ernesto thinks they're... well... he thinks they're some form of plasma weapon, Ma'am." 

She cocked an eyebrow at that one. "Sounds like something out of an old pre war video game."

The young man grinned. "That's pretty much what he said, Ma'am." 

Then his expression sobered. "There's more, Ma'am... the geothermal power that runs this complex, well, it wasn't sufficient to run the charging stations for these things. They ran from a seperate generator."

She nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"We found that, too... it's a nuclear reactor. About half the size of this room. And it's still online. It was in a stand by mode when we found it."

"So it's not likely that we could relocate this lab to one of our bases."

"No, Ma'am."

"Has my husband been informed of this?"

"Yes, Ma'am... he said he wanted to talk to you and the other techs about who to bring out here, to establish this as another base. I think he wants to move about a company-sized unit here, to guard the facility, plus as many techs as you and the professor deem necessary."

Later that morning, Jan and Jim, with the other technician/researchers in tow, went up and out of the facility, taking along three of the 'electric rifles' for testing.

The 'burst' setting was just that... a three 'round' burst of half a foot long trails of a reddish light, which burned their way through anything in their path. On the 'beam' setting, the rifle would fire a long beam of intense red light as long as the trigger was held back... melting it's way through the engine block of an old car in the process... and continuing on, to light up a large tree beyond the old Plymouth that was the initial target, to boot. Of the old car, well... it was more a pile of molten metal than anything else.

Within three weeks, Frank Bergen had moved a construction crew in, and they had repaired damage at over a thousand homes in an adjacent suburb, gotten seventy acres ready for planting, cleared an area for a communal compost pile, (which someone on the crew labled the 'shit pit' during a long night of Caved brewed beer, whiskey, and many doobies), and had modified a long, straight stretch of road into a landing strip, adapting several old warehouses as hangers for air support. Fifteen hundred volunteers moved into the area, an old grocery store was restored and put back to use, and supplies rolled in by the truckload, and an area that had been devoid of human life was once again a thriving community.

Within another three months, they had two hundred troops trained in the use of the 'electric rifles'- which they took to calling 'lasers', for lack of a better term- and this new development was, basically, an open secret amongst the Militia troops.

They also tied the local community into the small nuclear reactor at the base, ensuring electrical power until they could build up a system of solar and wind generators.

Mickey Miller was getting better with each passing day, to the point that Doris and Cassie were beginning to worry... he was making noise about wanting to get back out in the field.

Already, he was spending time at the target range at least twice a week, and Phil Huett was startled to find out how much progress he'd made. Where he'd been a mediocre shot before the last battle, he was now shooting a much lighter .220 swift rifle at the five hundred yard range... and doing it well. 

He had also progressed from walking a few hundred yards at a time to going for five mile runs and ten mile bike rides. They left him out of breath for a few minutes, and he usually had to stop a few times to catch his breath, but his doctor was impressed, nonetheless. His ribs and sternum had healed completely, according to the X-rays, and finally he was given a clean bill of health to return to active duty.

Jeff O'Neil was making similar progress, which worried his own two lovers tremendously. BJ and Missy, while delighted to have their man back, couldn't bear the thought of losing him again.

Both were afraid the next time it might be more permanent.

He, of course, scoffed at this, telling them both that he was 'too ornery' to be killed. He assured them both that he was going to die in bed, making love to one or both of them, and telling them both not to worry so much.

Jim settled in behind the wheel of his ancestor's favorite car, marveling at the feeling of power rumbling through the gas pedal to his foot, the big 454 Chevy engine growling to be unleashed. He slid the shifter into first gear, intent on trying out the new roads that Bergen's crews had worked on all of the previous summer and fall. The route he'd chosen would take him from the Cave to the research base, about two hundred and twenty miles away. He had an additional twenty gallons of fuel in 'Jerry' cans, strapped down in the Chevelle's trunk, not knowing what kind of range he could get out of the big engine. 

He had no idea that this car didn't need to be refueled... ever. 

When he arrived at the new base, a shade over two hours later, he was startled to see that the gas gauge still read full.

Somewhere, a Djinn, once known to his great grandfather as DJ, smiled. He was, of course, on a different assignment entirely, in an old section of eastern europe once known as Poland, assigned to a young girl. His Master had assigned him to her out of pity, considering the circumstances of her life in the age-old farming community. He was happy helping her; her wishes were modest, and more often than not were aimed at improving the living conditions for her entire village. Still, he liked looking in on his old friend's people from time to time, just to see how they fared. He knew now that their destiny was far wider in scope than a small section of their own country.

Sherice Klein sat with her baby on her lap, taking a rest from volunteering in the hospital wing; she'd already done a six hour shift at the accounting rooms, reading over receipts from the grocery store in the Cave and deducting amounts from the accounts of various Cavedwellers. This earned her fifteen credits per hour, a good thing, considering Julie Anne was growing like the proverbial weed. Baby clothes, and clothes for young children, were cheap, of course; the 'thrift shop' that they'd cleaned out a few years ago had contained more clothing than the Cavedwellers would ever likely need, and they had been scrounging clothing for all ages in abandoned buildings and towns ever since. Still, she had to pay for it, just like anything else.

Her husband, George, stood in the serving line, a soup ladle in hand, filling bowls for the women who were still in the hospital recovering from their time as prisoners of the soldiers, and seeing some of the wounds they'd suffered made his blood boil. Abrasions on wrists and ankles were common, from being tied, spread eagle, to beds, sometimes face up, usually face down to facilitate anal sex. Many of the young women had to endure surgery to repair torn rectums, and very few didn't have damage to their vaginal areas as well. He knew the hospital was getting near-daily shipments of antibiotics from the labs, and even then was nearly out of the medicine at any given time. Pain killers were in even shorter supply, and anaesthetics were right behind those.

Mike Clark sat at the controls of the D-12 bulldozer, clearing the stumps from yet another field in the new town, which they hadn't named yet, idly wondering what they'd be growing in this one. This was his third field for the day, and he had two more on his schedule before dinnertime. He'd already worked through lunch, only stopping long enough to unwrap a sandwich and grab a bottle of grape juice from the little cooler he had strapped to the fender of the big machine.

On the edges of the fields he'd already cleared, men with chainsaws were busily carving up the old tree stumps, loading the big chunks of wood into wagons for the short trip to the drying sheds, where they'd be cut into smaller pieces and stacked for the forced hot air drying necessary to turn them into firewood. Nothing would go to waste here.

In a field he'd started in, earlier this morning, he saw two manure spreaders criss-crossing the field, dumping some of the several hundreds of tons of compost they'd shipped in from the Cave and several of the older, more established villages and towns, followed closely by tractors pulling plows that turned the earth in opposite directions. That field would be ready for planting in a few days. It was late in the season, of course, but as rich as this earth was, and considering the tons of compost they were plowing into it, they knew the first crops would grow quickly.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 18



He got to the edge of the new field, and was about to turn and cut the next row when he caught movement from the corner of his eye.

At the northern edge of the field, running behind the tree line, were a short line of men in darkened yellow uniforms, who appeared to be moving into position around the small town.

He shut the big machine down, taking the key from the ignition, and ran to his truck, trying to keep the D-12 between himself and the sight line of the enemy soldiers. Sliding the ignition key into the steering column of the truck, he grabbed for his CB mic, sending out a general call to all of the troops stationed in town.

Half a dozen people acknowleged his original, general shout-out, but one voice cut through the rest; Colonel Billy Jackson himself, who cut through the clutter immediately, asking for quiet.

"Ok, Mister Clark, what exactly is the problem?"

"Sir, be advised: Chinese troops are moving into position around the town; they appear to be lightly armed, but that could change. I'm in the new field to the north of town. Suggest going to high alert."

"Acknowledged and agreed... all troops, go to high alert, cocked, locked, and ready to rock. Prep for battle, boys an' girls. Full loads, and don't spare the rocket launchers. grenade launchers, and S.A.W.s."

A chorus of 'Yes sir's' came from the radio's speakers, and all around town, men and women grabbed rifles, fighting harnesses, and equipment belts. Crews ran to heavy Armored Personnel carriers and Bradley fighting vehicles, and sniper teams ran to get to fortified, upper floor shooting positions in three and four story homes around the perimeter of the town, where spotting scopes and motion detection equipment were soon set up and operating.

In the main office of the defense force, computers booted up and perimeter cameras were brought to bear, revealing Chinese moving into what they apparently thought were well-concealed positions around town, looking for targets, and finding... nothing. 

The locals, what few were out, were mostly carrying old American rifles, and retreating into houses, where windows were opening.

Major Kwan looked around the edge of the town they were approaching, cursing quietly. The Americans had spotted them too soon, and had time to get to defensive positions. He called for his men to pull back, not realizing that his radio frequency was being monitored in the main headquarters of his enemy... and that his retreat order was too little, too late.

Bill Jackson smiled as his interpreter relayed the Chinese commands. Grabbing the mic that his own troops were monitoring, he thumbed the button, calmly informing his people that the free fire zone was now open for business.

All over town, men and women chambered rounds, sighting in on retreating Chinese troops, and opened fire. Sniper rifles, many of them silenced, whispered; Squad Automatic Weapons and Browning M2 Big .50s chattered, and twenty-five mm chain guns on top of Bradley fighting vehicles roared; grenade launchers popped as RPGs and LAWs roared from their launchers, and all around the perimeter of the town, Chinese died. 

Some few returned fire; ineffectually, for the most part, but a few rounds connected. 

The village lost seven people that day, and twice as many were wounded, nine seriously.

A team of their best scouts backtracked the Chinese, to a small, hidden encampment, about thirty miles to the north.

Will Jackson, Junior, leader of the team, sat back, watching as the three big trucks rolled into the Chinese camp. From the first two, more than a dozen men piled out of each, wearing Chinese uniforms and carrying AKs. The third backed up to one of the larger tents to offload dozens of boxes, obviously supplies for the new base they were attempting to build in the hidden spot. It was well off the nearest road, and just barely accessible for a truck with four wheel drive.

Will smiled... this was going to be fun.

He and his team waited until nearly midnight, watching as the perimeter guards settled in for the night, becoming more bored by the minute.

Tom Samuels moved up behind the snoozing guard, slipping the piano wire loop over the man's head, and pulling hard on the wooden handles. Blood spurted as the man was nearly decapitated. Tom drew back into the thick underbrush before turning and heading to the other side of the small camp.

At the other end, Andy Marlowe finished with the last of the small mines he was burying, stepping carefully, and made off to the rallying point.

Six hundred yards away, Barbie Nixon, another member of the team, carefully set the tripwire for the four Claymores she'd set; when this one was tripped, all four would go off at once, aimed inwards in a box formation roughly thirty feet long and ten feet wide, creating a killing box the size of a large truck on the trail leading into the camp. 

Further down the rough trail of ruts that led from the road to the hidden camp, Al Dizett set another trap, burying a number of anti-tank mines, then adding tripwires before and after the line of mines across the road, which would set off Claymores hidden in the trees above.

Will finished setting his own little contribution, a pound and a half of Cave made C-four, crammed into the nooks and crannies of a large boulder facing the camp... enough to turn the massive rock into gravel... gravel that would be flying into the camp at bullet-like speed. Plugging in the remote detonator, he grinned evilly as he, too, made his way back to the rally point.

Once the last of his people turned up, they sat back to wait. It was't long before the first of the six garrotted guards were discovered, and the alarm was raised.

Chinese soldiers ran in all directions, setting off more of the heavy concentration of Claymores and Bouncing Bettys, spitting death in all directions; they tried drawing back to the center of their camp, thinking it would be safe until daylight, when they could get men out with metal detectors. It was at that point that Will set off the explosives in the big rock, with predictible results. Chunks of jagged rock, ranging in size from gravel to the size of baseballs, flew into the camp in a wide arc, at speeds comparable to rifle fire, creating a killing zone at least fifty feet wide.

The entire team shared a mutual grin, chambering rounds in their silenced rifles and setting to work. Not many of the Chinese weren't wounded in some way; most of their shooting involved finishing shots.

When they were finished, the only sounds left were coming from a few of the tents, where the moans and screams of pain drowned out the sounds of the silenced rifles.

A thought occurred to Will, as his team members looked over at him, and he gave a wolfish grin... "Gentlemen, we're going to leave those few wounded in the tents."

"Why, Sir?"

"Two reasons, actually... One: their screaming and groaning will draw in the wild dogs and the other scavengers, and Two: if they manage to survive those, they might... might... be found by their fellow soldiers. How much terror will that spread amongst the enemy troops?"

Barbie grinned... she liked that idea.

Considering the fact that she'd been a prisoner of the soldiers a mere year and a half ago, it came as no surprise to anyone there.

She smiled in Jackson's direction. "Sir, you have a wicked sense of humor."

"Naaahhh... I just have no sympathy for those bastards."

Later that night, she would enter his tent unannounced, and practically rape her Oh so lucky Commanding Officer. Which, in turn, came as quite a shock to him; he knew for a fact that back at the camp, she was known to prefer women, and in fact lived with her girlfriend.

Of course, the next month, when she missed her period, she had a bit of explaining to do... and eight months after that, when she gave birth to two baby boys, Karla, her girlfriend, almost fell over when Barbie asked if she wanted to be listed as the father.

Jim led another small group of recruits out to the firing range, this one a quarter mile away from an old car dealership, from which they'd already taken everything of value. There was a clean line of sight from the hilltop on which they set up to the used car lot, which was full of rusting hulks that had once been clean automobiles; those would be their targets. Paper targets would have been worse than useless with these rifles.

"Okay, People, listen up! I know you're used to all firing at once, but these weapons are different from anything we've ever used, and the batteries take a devil of a time to recharge, so we have to be conservative in how we use them. I'm going to fire on the first one in line, to mark the starting point. I will point out the second shooter and tell him which vehicle is his target. Three round burst fire only, folks, and then back to safe, and the next person steps up. Are we clear?"

A chorus of 'Yes, Sirs!' followed, and he nodded.

Turning to face the old car lot, he chose an old Chevy and fired a quick burst into it, turning most of the aging rust pile into a pile of molten metal, and then turned.

The shots had been nearly silent. In fact, they were quieter than a silenced bolt action .270.

"Davis! You're up next! I want you shooting at the one to the immediate left of the one I just hit! I'll take accuracy over speed, but don't dawdle!"

"Yes, Sir!" Ernie Davis replied, drawing a bead on the old Dodge pick-up.

And so it went for the next three hours, until everyone had had at least ten or eleven chances to shoot the unfamiliar rifles, growing comfortable with the lack of recoil and the flat-as-a-bowstring trajectories. The fact that there were no solid projectiles involved, just intense beams of energy, worked in their favor, as there was no bullet drop or wind deflection. By the end of the session, Jim was quite pleased with their progress. 

Within a month of their locating the old research base, they had three full platoons trained in the use of the laser rifles, and were back in production of both the rifles and the immensely potent power cells for them... and the science department was hard at work, developing a pistol based on the new/old technology.

Ed Anderson looked out the window of his modest home, doing a double take as he realized a trader had actually made it to his town, in the Black Hills. What's more, it wasn't just one trader, it was an entire caravan, with three wagons and a full dozen men, many of them carrying bows and crossbows; a few of them even appeared to be carrying... guns! Real, antique, guns! He knew they were antiques, because he had one just like these, hidden in his storm cellar, a leftover from his great-grandfather. Not that it really mattered... he'd never seen a single round of ammunition for it.

'Maybe they'll sell me some ammunition.' he thought, considering what kind of surprise he could arrange, the next time some bunch of raider punks or soldiers came to town. He grabbed a shirt even as he looked around, wondering what he could use for trading.

Jimmy Shaw sat back in the wagon seat, wondering how long it would be before somebody came out to trade. He'd felt eyes on himself and his squad since they'd entered the small, suburban neighborhood. 

His unspoken question was answered a few minutes later, as an old man, carrying an M-16 that looked like it hadn't been cleaned or lubricated since the great war, stepped out of a house behind him to his right; he could sense the tension in his own team, and held his empty hands up, signalling for calm on both sides.

"Easy, old timer... we're just lookin' to trade."

"Uh huh... where'd y'all get them guns?"

"We scrounged an old Army base a few weeks ago... found a few boxes of 'em, hidden in the back of a warehouse, along with a few crates of ammo. We've got a few extra to trade, but they're expensive. We won't let any of that go cheap."

"I 'spect you won't." The old man replied, slinging the age old battle rifle over his shoulder and extending his hand. "Ed Anderson."

"Jim Shaw. Is there anything you folks need? We've got some tradin' goods here... thick blankets, warm clothes, magnesium firestarters, sharp knives, jars full of seeds, got a couple of good arkansas whetstones... "

"I could use a new whetstone. What kind of seeds have you got?"

By this point, Ed's neighbors were poking their heads out, and seeing the small trade caravan, came trickling out, a few at a time, to trade with the strangers.

Jim and his team, of course, took this as an opportunity to spread a few rumors, about a certain militia 'army', making life very difficult for the Chinese... and that they might be headed this way.

In turn, he and his team mates, most of whom were posing as simple, hired guards, gathered rumors of a small contingent of Chinese who were holed up in a town called Sturgis, maybe two dozen strong. Later that evening, after they were encamped in an old, unoccupied farmhouse, they discussed the possibilities. All of them were experienced fighters, with extensive training in martial arts, infiltration, and various Special Forces techniques.

Within a week, they had split into a pair of five man teams, still maintaining their cover stories as wandering traders, approaching the town from both the northwest and the south east, taking numerous photographs and filling several notebooks with written commentary.

The Chinese in Sturgis turned out to be a helluva lot more than a mere two dozen, they soon learned, after several days of steady surveillance. It was closer to two hundred, and even as they watched, more were pouring in.

Three of the big Army deuce and a halves, preceded and followed by armored Humvees, rolled into town as they watched; two of the big trucks contained troops, while the third was backed up to a warehouse and a number of steel ammo boxes and wooden crates were offloaded. Apparently it was loaded with weapons, ammunition, and food.

Jim got on his satellite phone, relaying this new development to his superiors back at the Cave; he knew Mayor Corcoran and Colonel Archer would want to know right away.

John Corcoran sat back in his office, both hands covering his face wearily as he contemplated these new developments. Archer was still at the base in Idaho; even if he set out with the newly trained troops right now, it would take the better part of three days to get an operation up and running to root the Chinese out of Sturgis. Planning it alone could take a week, and that would only be after Shaw and his teams got back here with their intel. One more mess to deal with... and that didn't take into account the number of other small Chinese bases that were seemingly coming out of the woodwork.

"What I wouldn't give for a few thousand Tomahawks right now!" he said to the empty room.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the Cave, with help from Juniper and Jackson hole, sent teams to five different Chinese encampments, wiping them off the map entirely, preparations for moving on the base at Sturgis. They were mostly small camps anyway, none populated by more than fifty or a hundred men, but Corcoran and his allies considered them good practice for their newest people.

When Jim Archer came back from Idaho, and Jim Shaw and his team came in from their trading circuit, planning began in earnest, with a lot of help from the high resolution cameras fitted onto two F-117 Stealth fighters, and a newly discovered Keyhole 16 spy satellite that Archer guessed hadn't been known to too many people, even back before the war. Jan Archer had found that one, after several weeks of hacking the computers at the research base where they'd found the 'electric rifles'. She was still there, still getting information out of the large mainframe.

Sturgis, it turned out, was going to be a genuine clusterfuck. The Chinese were spread out in two different hotels and several dozen houses, some far apart from each other. Worse still, there were civilians interspersed amongst the enemy troops, not by choice, but by force. Patrols were regular, frequent, and numerous.

This one was going to have to be special ops work, exclusively. More importantly, it would all have to happen in a single night, to preclude the possibility of Chinese retaliation against the civilian population.

It took nearly a month of constant surveillance to pinpoint the locations of all of the Chinese troops; eventually, though, they had all of the homes and hotels identified, and they could start identifying and assigning targets. This one was going to have to be up close and personal.

Within two weeks, the planning was complete, the weapons were chosen and laid out, and the final planning was in motion. Snipers would take up positions all around the town, first, followed by more, who would infiltrate and get to the rooftops of more than a dozen six and eight story buildings in the center of town, to take out roving patrols inside the city.

Then the rest of the troops would move in, going house to house, killing the rest of the Chinese in their beds, using knives, garrotes, and silenced pistols.

The operation went off with almost clockwork precision... Almost. Otto Michaels slipped in to one of the hotel rooms he'd been assigned to, only to find the bed empty. He barely had time to position himself in a blind spot before the soldier he was looking for exited the bathroom, popping the man twice in the back of the head, and then another for good measure.

Jimmy Hall ran into much the same thing; one of his assignments was in the shower when he stepped into the hotel suite, and he left the cooling corpse draining blood and brain tissue down the drain of the tub.

On one of the rooftops, Mike Jefferson took careful aim; the electric rifle spat out it's silent burst of three short bolts of red energy, and a Chinese soldier's head and helmet were melted into a puddle at the top of his corpse, which fell in it's tracks. He smiled as the rest of the man's patrol stopped, gawking at the corpse; he switched to beam fire and cut each of the other three men in half as he swung the rifle in a narrow arc, setting the small rifle back to safe as the German shepherd that had been accompanying them sniffed at the cooked meat of their lower torsos.

"That's right, big boy... lunch!" He murmured as he went back to looking for targets.

It took a full two days to dig out all of the Chinese troops, but in the end, they got what Jim wanted. In the back of the old Harley dealership, they found nearly fifty old/new bikes, many of them still hidden in their original, factory shipping crates. 

Archer moved a small company, two hundred men, into the town, which elicited some grumbling from the locals, until the supply trucks rolled in by the dozens, carrying tons of dried storage foods and other supplies, followed by over a hundred techs and a full contingent of heavy equipment and operators.

These chose one old neighborhood, three square blocks of it, which was unoccupied due to extensive bomb damage, and proceeded to demolish it, taking all of the old debris out to the edge of town to be sorted and either repurposed or run through crushers before burying it in the pit they had taken their fill dirt from, and soon a two hundred and ninety acre field sprung up in the spot where the old homes had been. This was quickly prepped and left to absorb tons of compost before the next planting season.  

Another sixty acres was set up as an orchard, with apple, pear, and plum saplings from the cave, as well as cuttings from the vineyard; many of these would be bearing fruit within two years.

The old construction lumber that wasn't re-usable was cut into shorter pieces and piled up in the center of town, and the locals were informed that it was free firewood. It didn't last the day.

The entire town was disconnected from the old power grid, and several large wind generators and a twenty five acre section of solar panels was set up, and soon, the people of Sturgis again had modern conveniences like electric lights, heat, and hot running water. 




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 19



Ok, folks... as promised, here's the next chapter. It isn't quite as long as I thought it was going to be, but long enough. I spent a fair amount of time editing, adding a bit here, taking out a bit there, which explains why it took so long; I'm introducing some new people, too, so bear with me. As usual, I fully expect to piss off some liberals, but to be honest, I don't care. I hope you enjoy it. 





In other parts of the country, rebellion was brewing. In northern California, far from the liberal centers in Los Angeles and the Bay area, people who had long been independent of the democrat machine that had run the state before the war had kept their heads down, quietly living off the land while the southern part of the state took a hammering during the war.

There had, of course, been a fair few cases of radiation sickness; it was inevitable, considering how many nukes the state had taken, and the wide range of wind spread fallout.

Gene Anderson had lived in the north country all of his life. His great great grandfather had moved out to a cabin in the foothills of the mountain country to get away from what he referred to as 'the goddamn commies who are ruinin' this state!' He had blankly refused to turn in the .45 automatic and the select fire M3 carbine he had carried from Omaha beach to the heart of Germany during World War two; telling anyone who would listen that he'd fought to protect his right to do so, and any asshole in Sacremento who said he couldn't keep 'em could damned well kiss his ass. 

He'd moved up to the north country, built a cabin that backed up to the opening of an old gold mine, and had financed many of the improvements he'd made through the simple expediency of expanding his home into the mountainside, using the small amounts of gold he found on semi-annual runs to Vegas, where he would buy more guns, ammunition, long term storage foods, solar panels, and anything else that struck his fancy, smuggling the goods back to his hidden cabin in the woods by the pick-up load.

Gene still lived in the small community that had grown around his great granddad's place, most of which had been former soldiers like his ancestor. All of them had followed his ancestor's example, honeycombing the mountain with tunnels to the point that it was hard to tell where one home ended and the next began. Outside there were a dozen or more small, cleared fields, growing everything from corn and wheat to tomatoes, potatoes, and hay for the numerous animals they kept.

Gene's son Donny made his living through farming, hunting, and prospecting, though not in the older meaning of the word. Every day he was out with his metal detector, looking for buried caches of people long dead; people who had buried stashes of weapons, ammunition, and other survival supplies.

His optimism wasn't entirely unfounded; he carried a Thompson sub machine gun, which had come from the first such stash he had found, while actually looking for gold. He had since found several others, containing everything from semi-automatic 9mm pistols to fine shotguns to several crates of fully automatic M16s. He'd long since lost count of the number of hidden stashes of ammunition he'd found.... he still had at least twenty different calibers that he didn't even have guns for... yet.

His father had joked, once, that he could easily open a sporting goods store. A fair number of his neighbors, in fact, traded with him for some of the ancient ammo, among other things.

He even found a little gold, on occasion.

Several of their neighbors had been talking about forming their own militia; they had heard, over the past year, of a militia group to the east that was driving the Chinese to distraction, and many of them wanted to form their own group to help in the fight to drive the Chinese from their country. Most had little experience with military training, it was true, but they were disgusted with what they'd seen in the more low-lying areas of the state to the south of them... and most were, at the least, experienced hunters. Chinese soldiers were well known, to the south, for keeping much of the civilian population in virtual slavery.

A few of them got together, every week or so, for barbecue, homebrewed beer, and home made wine, and more and more, the talk amongst them centered on what to do about the Chinese. 



It was becoming obvious to them that the time for action was fast approaching, as the Chinese were forcing their way further into the mountains, looking for 'troublemakers'. Rumors were flying, of course, but they knew there was a grain of truth behind them. Anyone caught with a firearm was immediately arrested... Hell, they'd known that. It had been California public policy for years before the great war.

Patrick Murray, a long time resident, knew it firsthand; his great grand father had been threatened with arrest for refusing to turn in a semi-automatic Bushmaster AR 15.... while serving in the US Marines, at a military base in the Bay area. His CO told the Sheriff's deputies that if they didn't get the hell off his base, he'd arrest them and put them in front of a military tribunal on the charge of Treason against the US Constitution.

Treason, he had reminded them, was a capitol crime, punishable by hanging.

Donny and many of his neighbors were hunters already, and knew a thing or two about camoflage, blending in with the landscape while they stalked deer and other animals in the foothills area. Now they dug out many of the old books that had been hidden away by their ancestors; books on outdoorsman skills, novels about various fighters and scouts from previous wars, military surplus textbooks for soldier training, ranger handbooks, and training guides for such exotic groups as the British SAS, the Green Berets, and the Russian Spetznaz, combing through them for any little nuggets of information they could find.



Meanwhile, far to the east, in rural Texas, another such group was forming, along quite similar lines. Texas had, before the war, been a 'machine gun friendly' state. A fair number of residents had been collectors of automatic weapons, and many of those had scoffed when the feds had informed them that such weapons were to be turned in for destruction, in the days leading up to the Great war, basically giving the liberal democrats the finger.

One conservative candidate for the state legislature had, in fact, taken it a step further. During a debate with his liberal democrat opponent, who had been a long time advocate of gun control and confiscation; prior to a mid-term election, the flamboyant republican had produced a large rubber dildo and had invited his openly lesbian counterpart to go fuck herself.

She was not amused.... but the voters were. The conservative candidate won by a large margin.

The video of this incident, while heavily censored by the TV stations, had gone out on the internet in it's raw form. Within two hours, it had been viewed and shared well over a million times. It had been titled 'A good answer for the gun grabbers.'

Mike O'Connell, whose great-great-grandfather had been a World War Two veteran, was one of the founding members of this particular group. He was also the current owner of his ancestor's collection, much of which he'd brought back when he came home from his march across Europe. 

Among his collection were several Thompson sub machine guns, four Browning Automatic Rifles, an M2 Browning .50 cal., a Finnish Lahti 20mm anti-tank cannon, which had been obsolete by the time the war started, and a German MG42 belt-fed machine gun, which he'd had a gunsmith re-chamber to take .308 rounds. It hadn't been cheap, but the trade off was that ammunition was cheaper and far more plentiful for it. He'd also brought back a fair number of bolt action rifles, from Germany, England, and the US. 

Mike's grandfather had told him, once, that when his father had come home from the war, the three big crates he'd brought with him had taken up almost the entire bed of his uncle's old farm truck... and a good portion of the weapons he'd brought back had been won from other soldiers on the ship home, playing poker.

Most of these were still hidden, in the cellar of one of the barns at the ancestral farm in west Texas, carefully oiled and put away for the day they might be needed... Mike's grandfather, Frank, had had fond memories of firing the many machine guns in this collection... and adding to it. 

There had been a thriving black market for such weapons in Texas for decades, before the war, and great grandpa had taken full advantage of it, reasoning that he was getting the full automatic M16s and Uzis and Mac 10s off the streets and away from the hands of the gang bangers and the drug cartels. He had also spent much of the money he'd made working in the oilfields on reloading equipment, supplies, and case upon case of ammunition, stashing it all in the cellars beneath the several old barns on the property. The dry Texas climate was perfect for long term storage of such things.

Mike himself was trained in gunsmithing by his own father from an early age, and had in fact grown up scavenging the nearby towns for lead, much of it in the form of old wheel weights taken from the tires of old, abandoned cars and several local junkyards. This he melted down to cast bullets from.

Many of his neighbors, who were farmers and ranchers, for the most part, wanted to get in on the action as well. They, too, had heard stories, recently, about a modern day militia that was giving the Chinese fits to the north of them; and since many of them had had cattle rustled to feed the Chinese and Cuban armies, by little yellow and brown men who took the animals in broad daylight, at gunpoint, the men were spoiling for a fight. All of them had suffered lean years because of the depridations of the Communists. What they lacked in skill, they made up for with enthusiasm....and firepower.

Things finally came to a head one day, when one of the smaller ranches was invaded by yet another squad of Cuban troops. When the rancher came outside, to tell them he had nothing left to give, the Cuban commander merely sneered and told his troops to 'load them all up!'

The rancher calmly went inside of his house, called several of his neighbors on the CB radio, and sat back to wait.

Within five minutes, men on horseback, carrying rifles which had mostly been provided by Mike, were streaming onto his property. They spread out, in two semi circles, surrounding the Cubans.

The leader of this group, Phil Gregory, calmly informed them that they weren't takin' Jake's cattle.



Captain Menendez looked up and realized his men were surrounded; what's more, these men were carrying guns! He decided to try to bluster his way out.... after all, his soldiers had these people thoroughly cowed, didn't they?

"You men will hand over those guns and go back to your homes, and be glad we allow you to live!"

He didn't get the response he expected. A three round burst of .223 rounds from Mike's M4 Carbine shut him up for good. His men tried to bring their AK 47s to bear, but it was too little, too late. Every Texan there had chosen a target, and their rifles spoke.... and loudly, at that. The soldiers fell like bowling pins.

Only one of the soldiers got a shot off. Billy Mason, one of the ranch hands on Phil's ranch, spun and dropped.

He was hit in the shoulder, and would spend the next three months healing. He was lucky. The local medic had just recently located an old stash of an anti biotic creme, and he didn't lose the arm to gangrene.

After the last soldier had been killed, the farmers and ranchers had unloaded the cattle from the trailer, loaded up the bodies, after taking every weapon and other useful items from the corpses, and drove the Hummer that the trailer was hooked up to into the nearest town, parking the vehicles a half block away from the Cuban garrison and walking away.

The Cubans in the garrison didn't notice the returned vehicles for nearly four hours... and by the time they did, the heat of the Texas sun was already doing it's work.... the bodies were starting to get decidedly ripe.

In the mountains of northern Kentucky, Seth Jones was busy tending to his still, hidden in the backwoods at the extreme edge of the family's ancestral property. The local detachment of the Cuban army, that controlled this part of the country, claimed that people no longer owned the land; that they were merely permitted to live there. The residents largely ignored them, save for those times when the local platoons came calling to attempt to confiscate food. 

This didn't work, for the most part, as the locals had long been adept at hiding things they didn't want found... and Cuban soldiers who ventured too deep into the mountains in search of these hiding places were unlikely to come out. Many, in fact, wound up fertilizing the very fields and gardens they had come looking for in the first place. 

Garden plots, most no larger than a few hundred square yards, were plentiful, mostly tended by people the soldiers never saw. The hill people were fiercely independent, and weren't likely to change anytime soon.

Seth finished feeding the wood into the firebox of his still, picking up the AK47 he had taken from a dead Cuban soldier a few summers ago, and headed back to take care of his mother's gardens. 

This year she was growing tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, and a rather large amount of beans, some of which she would trade for corn and other grains. On the way home, he decided to check his trap lines.

His snares had been generous today... he had seven rabbits and a squirrel for the dinner table. He quickly field dressed them before heading home, leaving the small pile of guts out for the local scavengers.

One of the neighbors was over; Harry Ballard's truck was parked out front. 'Probably wants another tank full of 'shine for his old beater.' he thought. More of the alcohol he made wound up being used as fuel than was drank, he knew... but it brought in a steady stream of barter, so he didn't really care how it was used.



Inside the kitchen, he found Harry at the table, drinking a glass of grape juice. He must have just pressed a new batch, and brought some over.... but when he turned, at Seth's entrance, Seth knew immediately that something was wrong.

"Harry, what's the matter?"

"They got 'em, Seth... the Goddamn Cubans took a bunch of kids. Took 'em right out of the pond a few hours ago."

The pond was the local swimmin' hole, and a lot of the local kids used it as such when nobody was there to fish.

"Well, then, we gotta get 'em back. All there is to it. Question is, how the hell did they get that close?"'

"Don't know.... but the kids are gone, and there's tracks from one o' them big ol' Army trucks, backed up right to the pond.... lotta boot prints all around, from the boots them bastards wear. They took our kids, man!"

Seth took special note of the 'our'. It told him that Harry's own daughter might well be among the kids who had been taken.

"Ok, calm down, Harry.... won't do no one any good, goin' off half-cocked. We need to find 'em, and we need a plan for a-bringin' 'em back."

"I've already called on Mike Hunter and Bill Jaeger.... surprised they ain't here, yet."

Hearing tires crunch in the gravel driveway, Seth nodded. "That's probably them now."

Seth stepped to the door, admitting the two men, then turned to his base station CB radio, setting the dial to channel three.

"Break channel." He said into the mic, calmly.

"You broke it, you fix it." came the response.

"Jimmy, we need to get the network up an' workin'. Them Goddamn Cubans done took a bunch o' kids. We need to find out where they're bein' held, and we're gonna need some folks to bring 'em back."

"Gotcha, Seth.... I'll start makin' phone calls, get ever-one out lookin'. Who-all knows already?"

"Harry, Mike, and Bill are here, so don't worry about them.... get the rest of our people out an' about. We need to know where the kids are bein' held, and how many."

"Got it.... anything else?"

"Yeah.... tell everyone to make sure they've got plenty of ammo loaded up." Seth concluded, grimly.

"Roger that."

Within an hour, the people of the hills were organized, and an hour after that, they knew exactly where the children were.... a small, barbed wire enclosed encampment outside of Lewiston, which the people had long suspected was a 're-education' center. 

Within another two hours, the men of the small village, along with groups from several other local towns, had assembled in a field not far from the place. 

A few wanted to just go in the front gate, kill every soldier there, and take the kids back by main force; cooler heads prevailed, however, and planning began in earnest. It wouldn't do any good if the kids got caught in the crossfire.

A little after dawn, multiple gunshots rang out; all around the camp, Cuban soldiers died. By the time the alarm was raised, more of the soldiers were streaming out of the log barracks, only to find themselves stepping into what amounted to a target range for the people of the nearby hills.

Within another hour, the gates had been unchained, the kids were on their way home, and the dead soldiers were stacked in the center of the camp like cordwood. 

Seth took a gallon jug of 'shine from his backpack and poured about half of it over the stack of corpses before Harry stepped up, grabbing the jug from his hands.

"Good Goddamn, boy, you just gonna waste it all? Your daddy'd be ashamed of you!" Taking a long swig from the jug, he grinned and passed it back.

Seth smiled, taking a long pull from the jug himself, and fished out a kitchen match, igniting it with a flick of his thumb and tossing it on the pile of bodies.

"I didn't want to count on them uniforms o' theirs staying lit up. 'Sides, there's more where that came from."

With that, he stepped over to the barracks that the soldiers had been using, looking through the door for long moments before stepping inside. Moments later, he stepped back out with a big ammo can in each hand.

Bill Jaeger saw what he was up to and ran to join him, and the two of them, now aided by several others, cleared the building of spare ammunition, rifles and pistols, grenades, RPGs, and other useful ordnance, loading it into ancient trucks and horse drawn wagons; upon finishing, Seth again pulled out his jug of moonshine, pouring a long trail of it down the center of the room between the bunks, and set it ablaze. It would burn long enough to catch the wooden floor and the bunks on fire, and from there, it was all over.

Others pulled out their own jugs and canteens, making sure the rest of the buildings in the small camp got the same treatment. By the time they left, the entire camp was burning merrily.

Further north, in the ruins of Detroit, now occupied by elements of the Chinese army, acts of rebellion were a bit more complex. Once a manufacturing powerhouse, the city and it's suburbs had been decimated during the war; there were still areas there so hot with radioactivity that walking into them, even with heavy protective gear, was considered a death sentence. Still, a few of the old factories, in some of the far-flung suburbs, had been brought back online, building various equipment for the Chinese military.... when the assembly lines weren't being sabotaged by the locals, acts which happened frequently.

Jim Archer sat in the communications room, reading the transcripts from his interpreters of the reports the Chinese and Cubans were making around the country, and sat back, smiling broadly. The links to the assorted communications satellites were working perfectly, and the reports coming in were heartening, to say the least. He and his people were no longer alone in their fight.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 19



Donny Anderson sat back in the living room of the cabin, having a drink with a few friends. John Medford had brought over a gallon jug of his latest efforts, and in truth, it wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it was less harsh than the last batch. With a bit of orange juice, it actually made a pretty smooth drink.

"I'm telling you, Donny... we need to get some guys organized. Them fuckin' Chinese are trying to push deeper into the wine country.... and that backs up to our territory. They'll be knockin' on our doors inside of a year at this rate. We need to get to trainin', and we need to do it now."

Don nodded... "I know... but we don't have near enough ammo, nor enough guns, just yet. We need to get a helluva lot more than we have now. We need to hit on a bigger stash than anything I've found so far."

Ken Reynolds, another of his neighbors, sat back, quietly. He knew what they had to do, but was loath to admit it. When he finally spoke, it was but a single word.

"Ambush."

The other two looked up from their drinks, eyebrows raised.

"Look, we know where their supply convoys run, right? We know how many men guard them.... we just need enough people to stop a few of their trucks. Two, maybe three truckloads of their ordnance, we'll have everything we need.... RPGs, Grenades, rifles, ammo, pistols, rations, explosives, you name it. We drop a big log across the road in front of them, wait until they stop, drop another one behind them so's they can't back up, then kill them all, cut up the logs with a couple of chainsaws, roll the pieces out of the way, and bring the trucks back here... stash 'em in one of the caves, unload what we need, then we can use the trucks to give us the element of surprise at their camps. Roll in looking like a supply convoy, but the trucks are actually loaded up with our people, armed to the teeth."

Both Donny and John nodded. It sounded like at least the beginnings of a plan. All they needed was the right place to set it up.... and Donny knew a few places where it would work.

John smiled. "I like it... and as a bonus, once we have their trucks, we can load up all of that wood, too.... Don't know about you two, but I can always use extra firewood."

Once it was set up, the ambush worked, if not exactly as they'd planned.... the Chinese had put up a serious fight, and they'd lost a few good people. Still, they'd managed to hijack three trucks, loaded almost to overflowing with munitions, medical supplies, and field rations. Now they had the opposite problem.... they had more guns than they had people for. They settled on a name.... the 'Klamath Regional Militia' and began quietly recruiting.

Within four months, they'd have nearly a hundred and twenty people learning to shoot. Many of them had to be restrained from switching the select fire weapons to full automatic, of course; while the Communists could afford the 'spray and pray' approach, the new militia didn't have the unlimited supply of ammunition that their opponents had. They did their best to instill their people with what they took to calling a 'sniper mindset'... one shot, one kill. 

Within two months, the newest people were ready for their first operation, and they kept a close eye on the operations of the local Chinese base.

One of the men in the group had been left a large amount of radio equipment, powered by solar panels and a large windmill; he used this now to keep an ear on the Chinese, and using an ancient language program for his computer, he had learned the key words to listen for. 

Upon hearing the outgoing transmission, that said the camp was asking for fresh supplies, he waited for the response, which he fed through the computer, learning the date the fresh gear would arrive. It couldn't have come at a better time; they were down to less than five thousand rounds of the AK 47 ammunition... and most of it wasn't reloadable.



Frank Bergen was in New Mexico, doing a little advance work for Jim Archer. Another small field of wells had been located there, all of them capped off, with sun-faded metal tags that indicated that they'd been shut down in the mid-1990s. If Jim's assumptions were correct, they would be a good source of oil to feed the refinery in Colorada. If everything worked out as well as he hoped, they could be pumping crude out of here in a month or two... and there were nearly a hundred wells here, spread out over two square miles. 

After making a few calls back to the Cave, he soon had his construction crew onsite, and a crew of instructors from Colorado to teach some of the local volunteers to run the new pumps and other equipment. 

There was a small suburb nearby, which had served, in the past, as a bedroom community for the oilfields; repairing the damage of several decades of neglect and vandalism was child's play for his crew. 

They were nearly finished with the repairs and the new construction when disaster struck.

Bergen himself was away at the time, so he managed to survive; he had just left, an hour before, to head back to Wyoming.... his construction crew wasn't quite so lucky.

Kenny Carlson had been searching the old houses, compiling a listing of the resources left behind by the previous occupants; in a basement of one of the houses, he found an old trunk, wood and leather with tarnished brass grommets and hinges.... he opened it, expecting to find old clothes or tools.

The explosion vaporized him, and an area of several square miles around him. The contents of the ancient trunk had been a crude five kiloton nuclear bomb, equipped with a motion trigger.

The team of terrorists that had been tasked with smuggling the bomb into the country and setting it off had been captured by an old agency of the American government-- Homeland Security--- but they hadn't found out about this particular bomb before all hell had broken loose.

A few of the people on Bergen's construction teams had survived the initial blast, having been in cellars working on circuit breaker boxes and so forth.... but they wouldn't last long. Radiation sickness was a horrible way to die.

News of the explosion spread quickly amongst the free territory; it left many people devastated.

The people on the construction teams, and the Militia contingent that was sent along to keep them safe, had come from all over the territory.

The worst part, for Archer, Bergen, and the rest of the leaders of the new Militia, was not knowing. The bomb had obliterated all signs of it's own presence. They didn't know what kind of bomb had gone off, where it had come from, or whether it was a result of enemy action.

Almost as bad was the long list of troubles that came along with this setback; Bergen had lost some of his most experienced people, and the nearby oilfield was going to be off-limits for a good twenty or thirty years, due to the fallout.... and the ensuing radioactive cloud spread out for several miles in every direction. Worse still, the prevailing winds were pushing the cloud straight towards Wyoming. 

In this, however, they finally caught a break, of sorts. It was late fall, and heavy rains brought most of the radioactive particles back to earth in southern Idaho and northern Utah. What remained in the upper atmosphere steadily lost strength as it floated towards their home. It had also been over a century and a half old; much of it's initial strength had been sapped by the passage of time. Had this bomb been fresh, the damage might have been much greater.

Still, evacuating the people who lived in the path of the fallout took far more time than they'd have liked... and some flatly refused to leave.

John Corcoran took a deep breath before knocking on the apartment door. This wasn't going to be easy. It never was.

Marcy Jackson opened the door, expecting to see one of her neighbors. She hadn't heard yet, about the disaster in Nevada. She was surprised, and a bit taken aback, to see Mayor Corcoran standing there.

"John, what can I do for you?"

"Hello, Marcy. Can I come in? There's something I need to talk to you about."

She couldn't for the life of her figure what he needed to talk to her about; her two Bills, husband and son, were both gone. Her husband was on some boring guard duty, down in Nevada or New Mexico or somesuch, and her son was at the Rebel base, in Jackson Hole, helping to train the newest recruits down there.

Once he was seated in their living room, and after turning down her offer of coffee, he jumped right into it.

"Marcy, I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to give it to you straight... your husband was killed a few days ago, down at the oilfield we were opening up. We don't know where it came from, but some sort of nuclear bomb went off down there.... it killed off the entire team."

She didn't react at all, for several seconds.... when she did, it came in slow tears and a single word. "How..." she gulped several times, as if unable to get enough air into her lungs. "Who...?"

"We don't know. It never showed up on radar or on any of the satellite feeds, so we've ruled out missiles or aircraft. Might have been some sort of leftover from the great war, but right now, we don't have a clue."

"Omigod! Bill! How did this happen?!"

"Honestly, we don't know, Marce.... all we know for certain, at this point, is that it was a nuke, and not a very big one. The blast killed off everything for about five miles in every direction, including everyone in the oilfield and the entire town around it. We lost a lot of good people down there."

He watched, feeling helpless, as the woman dissolved into tears. What could he say, at a time like this? 'Next time I have to do something like this, I've got to bring the wife along.' he thought to himself.

Back in Texas, Mike O'Connell settled into the role of leader of their little group quite naturally. He wasn't particularly keen on it, and, indeed, had hoped someone else would take the job; nobody else wanted it, though. He had his hands full just teaching the numerous farmers to shoot straight. Trigger control was proving to be a problem, too... at one point, he considered having some of the selector switches on the automatic weapons welded into semi automatic positions, an idea which was eventually discarded as impractical, at best.... it would also render the weapon's safeties inoperable.

Another problem he faced was one that was not uncommon amongst the various Militia groups around the country.... while his ancestors had been diligent about stockpiling ammo and reloading supplies, his supply was still finite.

Once they ran through that, they would have to switch to confiscated AK 47s and take the ammo from soldiers they killed, a few hundred rounds at a time... at best. It was true, he had a pretty decent stockpile of ammo and reloading powder, and literally hundreds of pounds of castable lead; still, those stocks would run out sooner or later.

He, too, was thinking about supply convoys, by this time.

Back in Wyoming, Jim Archer was calling for volunteers from his oldest, most experienced people. He had his people monitoring the radio transmissions of the Chinese in that area, and the reports he was getting were disturbing; it seemed the communist troops were closing in on this new 'Klamath Regional Militia' and if they didn't get some help soon, they'd be wiped out.

'Helluva time to lose Bill Jackson.' he thought. 'This kind of thing is right up his alley.'

In the end, he decided to send them a resupply convoy with as many sniper/scouts as he could spare, men and women who could upgrade their training and tactics and teach them about the importance of such things as close air support.

As far as he could tell, from what the Chinese reports were saying, they had none at the moment.

'First things first' he thought, as the cadre filed in to the council room.

"Okay, folks, listen up! The reason I called you all here.... we have a bit of a situation developing in northern California. There's a small militia group there, not really sure how small, that has been hijacking Chinese supply convoys. We're getting reports second hand, through the Chinese reports, so I'm not really sure how accurate they are, but from the sound of things, it's not a big group. I want to help these folks out, but first we have to send out some scouts to find them."

Turning to the blackboard behind him, he flipped it over, revealing a large map of the northern California area. Using an old dowel rod as a pointer, he encircled a small area on the map with the tip, saying, "This is roughly the area they've been working in. As far as we can tell, they've taken about four supply convoys, so far, none bigger than three or four trucks. Apparently, they strip the bodies of the soldiers and just leave them by the roadside for the local animals to chew on."

Ray Edmundson smiled. "People after my own heart."

Jim grinned, nodding. "Indeed. They're sending a message... 'Don't fuck with this!' It might be effective, if they have enough people to back it up.... which I suspect they don't. I want to send them some supplies, yes, but I also want to reinforce them with troops. We need to teach them to recruit new troops, and teach some of their people how to train new people. I know, after the debacle in Nevada, we're short-handed. I get that. I think, if we can send them, say, a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred people, and a couple of truckloads of supplies, we can pull this off. Get them up and running right, we'll have new allies covering our backs on the coast... and they can start taking the rest of their state back."

"What's the plan for finding them, though?" Ray Ferguson queried, studying the map behind Jim intensely. "That's some rough country. We don't even know who we're looking for. Our people could find themselves in the hands of collaborators quite easily."

Jim nodded. "I know. It's going to be dicey, which is why I want volunteers for the initial scouting teams. Four teams, maybe ten people in each, one at each point of the compass, about sixty, seventy miles from the center of the area that we know these folks have been working. Constant radio contact, with each other and with us, here. Locater beacons, so we can keep an eye on them through the GPS satellites, and plenty of handheld GPS units so they can let us know where to airdrop supplies at, once they've made contact."

"When they find them, our people might wind up as prisoners." Ferguson pointed out.

"I know. That's why I want to send some experienced people in, leading these patrols. We need to find these people, prove to them that we're friendly, and set up some sort of alliance with them. Once our scouts make contact, we can find a place nearby to set up a base camp and start flying in equipment and supplies with the Chinooks. Full field loads, as much spare ammo as they can stagger with, and at least one sniper rifle with each group. Secondary packs full of field rations, water purifiers, bladder canteens, firestarters, the works. At least half of each team should have tubes under their M16s, too.... I want our people loaded for bear, folks."

Ferguson looked intensely at the map. "No freeways nearby.... so we can't send 'em in a C130. They're going to have to go in on foot."

Frank Bergen frowned, shaking his head. "No need for that.... I can rig up Humvees with enough 'chutes that it shouldn't be a problem. A '130 can drop four of them in each area, and that'll give the teams extra load capacity.... and firepower."

Jim nodded.... "And we have the planes.... how fast can you have them rigged for drops?"

Bergen frowned again, deep in thought for a moment. "How much of a hurry are you in? I want to test the setup at least five or six times first, just to make sure the chutes work properly. They're going to need to be balanced, so the trucks don't come down on their sides or anything.... I'll need at least a week, preferably two."

Ferguson looked up at this... "How about dropping the first teams in on foot, then use some Chinooks to bring in some smaller vehicles?"

Jim frowned. "I don't think the choppers have the range we need."

Bergen shook his head again.... "Maybe not, but if we send along an extra one, carrying a bunch of cans of fuel...."

Archer nodded. "Ok.... let's look at both possibilities. We've got a bunch of light pickups we can haul in, don't we?"

Bergen nodded again."Ford Rangers and Dodge Dakotas.... Jeeps and Hummer H3s... I'll have the boys wet sand a few of them, give 'em camo paintjobs... they can be ready in a few days. Each of the Chinooks can carry at least two, and still have room for troops and extra fuel."

Archer nodded again, thinking it over.... 

"Ok. How many choppers do we have?"

"If I call in a few from each of the local bases, I can scrape up at least twenty. More than we need, at any rate."

"Do it. We can send in more troops that way, and the pickups can be loaded with extra supplies, too.... I'm willing to bet this new group won't say no to a few hundred pounds of dried beef, and a few truckloads of our spare rifles and ammo."

John Davidson frowned in thought for a moment. "Don't we have a base in southern Oregon, that we could send people from?"

Jim nodded. "I considered it, but most of the people there are still in training. I want to give them a few more months, let 'em get some experience under their belts. We've still got a few Chinese bases in Oregon and Washington state to deal with. Still, we could use that one as a stop-off and refueling station. We've got a small camp in northern California, too, come to think of it, but it isn't real well established, just yet. They're still struggling with getting water and power systems set up. Matter of fact, some of their folks are still living in tents."

Bergen looked up at this, catching Jim's eye. "I've been meaning to talk to you about the Oregon base.... We could send them a few big tanker planes full of av-gas, base some planes and choppers there. They don't have much in the way of air support-just a couple of Cobras and a handful of prop planes from world war two. They desperately need some jets."

Jim nodded. "We've got the extra planes... what did you want to send them?"

Bergen consulted his notes, which irritated him a little. He used to have all of this information in his head, and never needed reminders like this.

"Well... at the moment, we have more Stealths, Harriers, and F-18s than we know what to do with. We could send 'em a dozen of each and not notice the loss... and Juniper has more if we need them."

Archer frowned and nodded. "Ok, but do they have pilots for them?"

Bergen nodded. "I sent them two simulators six months ago. They've had kids in training ever since."

"Ok, send 'em.... and make sure they get the support gear they need, too... ammo, missiles, spare parts, a couple of ground crews, wrench turners, the works."

Bergen smiled as he made notes to send the gear, and a couple of his construction crews there, as well... Winter was coming, and he wouldn't leave his people sleeping in tents.

The planning took several weeks, and included a number of overflights by the F117 Stealth fighters, outfitted with multiple cameras, to scout landing zones for the helicopters, well away from both the local Chinese bases in the area and the area where, they suspected, the new militia group was located. 

Drop zones were located for the troops they would send in on foot, too, and soon the operation began to look a bit overloaded. By the time they were done, summer was drawing to a close.

At the end of September, they finished up their final preparations and loaded the choppers for the flight to California. Advance teams boarded the three C130s, staggering under their loads of supplies and heavy parachutes, and were soon airborne. These troops would drop in a wide arc, starting well north of the area they were to search and swinging to the west, in a wide crescent that would ensure that they missed nothing. They would proceed south and east, looking to make contact with the people they were seeking while doing their best to evade the Chinese troops.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 19



The second wave would consist of the chopper borne troops, driving the numerous small pickups and SUVs loaded with additional supplies, keeping in contact with the foot soldiers with field radios. All in all, they would have nearly three hundred troops on the ground in the area and two dozen vehicles, some carrying heavy weapons.

Others would be loaded down with extra fuel.

After several weeks of practice drops and additional training, the entire operation went off with almost perfect precision; almost. A few of the paratroops wound up stuck in trees, and one of the choppers landed in a clearing that, it turned out, was right in the path of a Chinese patrol; the men on board ran down the ramp as soon as it was fully folded down, fanned out around the small clearing, and were soon engaged in a full scale, if somewhat lopsided, firefight with the communist troops. They would send the bodies of four of their fellows back to the Cave in the chopper, after they were certain the Chinese were wiped out to the last man.... and after spending nearly an hour refueling the big helicopter, five gallons at a time.

It was Gene Rawlings who made first contact, and that was almost accidental.

Mike Jamison was headed back to his cabin after a mostly unsuccessful hunt; his gamebag contained a measly two rabbits and a single squirrel. He almost wet himself when a section of the local landscape moved towards him, automatically bringing the Ruger 10/22 to bear on the outlandishly dressed stranger before him.

The man, whose face was painted in several streaks of brown and green, raised his hands in a non-threatening manner; reassuring, considering he had Mike seriously outgunned.

"Easy, there, partner.... I'm no threat to you."

"Who the fuck are you, and what do you want? You're obviously no hunter."

"Gene Rawlings... Wyoming State Constitutional Militia."

"Bullshit!"



Gene shook his head. "No Bullshit, guy..... "

"Well.... what the hell are you doin' here? You're a long way from home."

"I was sent out to look for a militia group out this way. We heard about 'em from translated Chinese radio transmissions."

"And just what do you intend to do, once you find 'em?"

"My Commander wants to set up an alliance with them... send 'em extra troops, weapons, supplies, help them get more people recruited and trained, that sort of thing."

"Uh huh.... how do I know you're not one of those Goddamn collaborators?"

"Had some trouble with them kinda punks, have you?"

"Some, yeah." Mike admitted.

"Well.... look up in that tree behind me."

Mike risked a quick glance up, and saw the remains of Gene's parachute tangled in the branches.

"Would one of your 'collaboraters' risk jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, miss his landing zone by a couple of hundred yards, and wind up tangled in a damned tree just to fool you?"

'Well, when you put it That way...' Mike thought, and grinned. "I guess not."

He led Gene to an abandoned hunter's cabin, deep in the woods, and left him there for the moment, running off to the home of a nearby friend, where he used a long-hidden radio to contact several other people. By the time his friends had shown up, twilight had given way to full darkness.

Gene, realizing that the other man had already shown him a certain level of trust, took advantage of his host's absence to put some kindling in the fireplace, starting a small fire with the firewood in the rack by the hearth, taking out his mess kit and heating up a stew from the field rations in his pack and a bit of water from his canteen.

When Walt and Ed showed up at Jim's cabin, Mike was in for a shock.... they had a guest with them. It was John Marshall, who had airdropped in a few miles away from where Gene had landed.

After much discussion, it became obvious that both John and Gene were legit; it didn't hurt that Walt had actually been out deer hunting when Marshall had come floating down out of the sky, landing in a clearing mere yards from where he'd been sitting in his blind.

The four of them hiked back to the old hunter's cabin, where they found Gene busily cooking his meal over the fire, while an old, battered coffee pot boiled on a flat stone in the coals.

"John! You made it!"

"Hey, Gene.... good to see you managed to land without twisting your ankle this time."

Rawlings winced. He'd landed badly in one of his training jumps and had nearly missed out on this op.

"Landed in a damned tree.... had to cut myself loose and climb down... nearly wound up on my ass."

Ed Greeley smiled.... good to see these guys knew each other; it lent credence to both of their stories.

"You two know each other, I take it?"

John nodded. "Are you kidding? Me an' Gene here went through basic together. He's one of the better scouts in our Company.... but not much for jumping outta planes." he grinned.

Gene rallied at this. "Yeah, but I'm a better shot than you!"

"As long as the target's not too far away." Marshall fired back.

Walt Kennison smiled..... it was obvious they were witnessing the reunion of old friends.

John looked over at the fireplace. "You brought along your coffee pot?!"

"Well, hell, yes! You know damned well I don't go nowhere without my coffee!"

Ed, Walt, and Mike watched this back-and-forth between the two men for several moments as they took seats around the table; it was Ed who finally broke in. 

"So you men are both from Wyoming?"

John Marshall nodded. "We've been hearing about a militia group based around here somewhere, 'jacking trucks from the Chinese. Our commander figured if you're against the Chinese, you're on our side, and sent us out to see if we could make some arrangement with you guys, mutual support, that sort of thing. We've had some success.... our free zone is a couple of states, so far, and we're expanding, but not fast enough, y'see."

Mike nodded. "So you want to expand out this way?"

"Not exactly.... Colonel Archer sent us out to contact your boys, see if we could set up an alliance of some sort. We can help you folks get established, help with recruiting and training, supply you with some of our excess gear, and generally help you get organized. We've got more equipment than we know what to do with at the moment, so it won't hurt us to supply you folks with a few tons of equipment and weapons. We've got a small camp north of here, but it isn't fully operational, just yet, so our CO sent us to see what's what."

Mike's eyes grew wide at the words 'tons of equipment.'

Ed had a guarded look on his face as he asked "What makes you so sure we know anything about a 'militia'?"

"I'm not sure.... but if you aren't in one, well.... maybe you know somebody who is. At any rate, we're here to help them out. We brought along our own food, we've got choppers dropping off more, and we've got a few vehicles on the ground... small trucks and Jeeps, mostly. Each of them is hauling a load of gear and supplies, too."

Gene shot him a look, but John brushed it aside. They'd find out about the trucks and the other camp sooner or later.... better that they knew ahead of time, so the mobile troops weren't mistaken for Chinese.

John shrugged out of his field pack, untied the flap, and reached inside, digging out his own mess kit and several packages of his own field rations.

"You fellas hungry? I brought along extra."

Walt nodded. "I could eat, yeah.... here, we've got a few bigger cookpots here. We use this cabin, sometimes, as a stop-off when we're hunting."

John thanked him and filled the gallon stew pot halfway from his canteens, getting the water boiling before opening several packets of an alfredo pasta mix, adding the contents of a packet of dried buffalo meat, and setting it on the hooked chain above the glowing coals to cook.

They continued talking as they shared the meal, topics ranging from local events to what the local hunting prospects were like to the equipment Gene and John were carrying. 

The locals were intensely interested in the M16s, and none had ever seen the grenade launchers that hung beneath the barrels of the rifles.

Finally, Walt broached the question that had been on the minds of himself and his two friends since John had mentioned it.

"What did you mean, help with recruiting?"

John and Gene looked at each other for a moment, each wondering how much they should disclose. It was Gene who finally spoke.

"Well, first let me give you a bit of our history.... John and I were both born into a small city that was pretty well isolated from the outside world, up until eight or ten years back. We were completely self sufficient; we grew our own food, made our own power, had our own schools and hospitals, and generally kept the old ways alive. Many of our ancestors were former military: army, marines, navy SEALS, air force pilots and ground crews, the works... and they trained their kids, who trained their kids, and so on."

He paused to take a sip of coffee before continuing.

"The main 'founder' of the place was a man who was indepently wealthy, and he kinda went all out to build the place. What he left us, well... we were basically set up to survive anything that nature or man could throw at us. He spent ungodly amounts of money to do it, but it protected us all of those years."

"We knew there had been a war, but until the radiation levels started dropping into a safe range, we basically didn't know what was going on in the outside world. We were Really isolated, y'see."

"Anyway, when we finally did start looking around, we learned that the Chinese had taken over most of the country, and they were abusing Americans horribly. That didn't sit too well with us... so we tracked them to their local base, surrounded them with scouting teams for a couple of weeks, kept track of their movements, patrols and the like, gathered all the intelligence that we could, then started planning. A week or so later, we surrounded their base with a couple of thousand snipers, killed every soldier there, rescued the American women they were holding as slaves, looted the place thoroughly, and then rigged the place with explosives, and destroyed it utterly."

He paused for a moment, taking another sip of coffee and guaging his host's reactions. They appeared to be hanging on his every word.

"The people in the local village, that the Chinese had been using like a foodbank, we offered sanctuary... they could come live under our protection, as long as they lived by our rules.... everybody works at something to earn their keep, save for the very young, and the very old; we taught them to read, and write, and other basic skills, and if they wanted, they could go through our military training and join us in the fight to take back our country... which many did. Since then we've done the same with dozens of small towns, and we've pretty much flattened every Chinese base we've run across, those we didn't take for our own use, anyway. We've lost some good people along the way, but we've added more than we've lost. We've also made some pretty strong alliances with several other groups in our area, and we've been expanding our operations ever since-- and that's the long and the short of it. Our current commander heard about another such group out this way, and he sent us to find them, see if we could set up some kind of mutual alliance with them. Eventually, we want to cut the Chinese off from their resupply completely, y'see."

Ed and Walt looked at each other, finally coming to an unspoken assent; it was Walt who finally spoke.

"Well.... we might know someone in this 'militia' you speak of; go ahead and get some rest tonight, we'll see if we can't contact them, see if they'd be interested in your proposal. We'll talk more tomorrow."

Gene nodded. "Fair enough. Hell, we've got time. I'm about beat, anyway.... I've been up for damn near twenty four hours. A good night's sleep sounds like heaven about now."

Ed grinned, pointing at a door to another room. "There's a couple of bunks in there where you can lay out your bedrolls. No pillows or anything, but they'll do ya.... We'll post a guard, see that you're not bothered by anybody before morning."

Gene woke up at nine o'clock, nearly on the dot, to the sound of an engine. He jumped off the bunk, grabbed his rifle, and pulled the chair away from the door, running into the main room of the cabin, seeing Mike Jamison peeking through the window to the outside.

"Looks like a small truck.... but not something the Chinese use. The paint job is all wrong."

Gene stepped to the window, looking out... to see Greg Collingsworth climbing out of the old tiger-striped Ranger pickup.

"It's cool, brother.... I know him. That's one of our supply trucks."

He stepped to the door, swinging it wide, and yelled "Greg! How's it going, dude?"

Collingsworth saw Gene and smiled. "Better, now. I hoped I'd find some more of our people. I saw the cabin, figured I'd ask if anyone here knew anything."

"C'mon in.... John Marshall's here too."

Over a breakfast of leftover pasta, they learned that Greg had lost his co-driver in a firefight with some Chinese troops but had managed to save the truck and his load.

"Don't know how I'm going to break it to Cathy. They've been together since they were, like, seven or eight years old."

Gene nodded, but didn't say anything; he didn't envy the younger man's task. He'd had to deliver such news a few times himself, and it never got any easier.

An hour later, Ed and Walt came walking up to the cabin, with three more men in tow. One was Jeff O'Neil, who had dropped in by parachute, but they didn't recognize the other two.

"Gentlemen, let me introduce Don Anderson and John Medford."

As the men shook hands all around, Donny started the dance. "I understand you folks are looking for the local militia."

Gene nodded. "We were sent out to make contact, and put them in contact with our commander, back in Wyoming. We're also here to assess their needs, in equipment and training, and help out where ever we can."

"I see... and how do we know you're not working for the Chinese?"

Gene rubbed at his chin for a moment, then frowned a little and replied "Well, Sir, to be honest, I'm not sure how to prove a negative like that, except to say that we came here in good faith, and I don't think the Chinese have enough imagination to have someone drop in by parachute."

Greg spoke up, just then. "Well, Gene, be fair.... " Turning towards Don, he asked "Have the Chinese ever offered you weapons and ammunition?"

Don shook his head, clearly wondering where this was going.

"Go out and take a look in the back of the truck I drove up in."

Don shot a look at Ed, who stepped out the door for a few minutes. When he came back, the look on his face was best described as 'stunned'.

"If they hadn't convinced me last night, I'd be convinced now. There's enough guns and ammo in that there truck to start another war!"

Walt jumped from his seat, wanting to see for himself. He was back, a few minutes later, a long wooden crate under one arm, a rectangular metal ammo can dangling from his other hand. He set them down at the table and dug a big screwdriver out of a drawer, prying the lid of the crate off, revealing five new M16 rifles, complete with extra magazines. Opening the lid on the ammo can, he exposed hundreds of rounds of .223 ammunition on stripper clips.

Donny looked on in awe. He hadn't found such a stash in months. "What..... What else have you got out there?"

Greg grinned. "Five more cases of rifles, about ten more ammo cans like this one, a couple of cases of Light anti-tank weapon rocket launchers... the disposable kind; half a dozen cases of grenades, and about ten cases of assorted field rations."

Don was a little shocked.... the ammunition alone was enough to keep his entire group operating for a couple of weeks.

It was eventually decided that Gene and Greg would go with Don and Walt, while the rest stayed at the cabin. Gene and Walt would squeeze into the back of the truck, while Greg drove, with Don riding shotgun. Don, it turned out, knew every backwoods deer trail in the area, and directed Greg through the maze of trails back to his mountainside cabin in a little over an hour.

Within two hours, they had the small truck unloaded, and the true amount of ordinance was revealed.... something that had Don Anderson nearly orgasming in his shorts. As they were grabbing the last of the boxes, the radio in the small truck crackled.

"Anyone out there?"

Greg picked up the mic and answered. "This is GC.... go ahead, Fred."

Fred Nicholls sighed with relief before answering. "Hey, Greg.... where are you fellas at? I'm kinda lost."

Greg smiled to himself before reading off the coordinates from his dashboard mounted GPS unit. 'Poor guy could get lost in his own apartment!' he muttered to himself as he hung up the mic.

Don smiled at the exchange, while Gene nodded in agreement. Fred Nicholls was well known for having no sense of direction.

"Another one of yours, I guess?" Don asked.

Gene nodded. "Fred Nicholls.... helluva sniper, but you have to point him in the right direction, or he'd wind up in the wrong state. Why the hell they've got him driving a truck is anybody's guess. Must have a good co-driver with him."

Walt smiled at this. He'd known a few people like that over the years.

An hour later, a smaller, civilian version of the Humvees the Chinese drove, with a similar tiger striped paint job, pulled up out in front of Don's cabin, and a short, rather rotund man jumped out, looking all around before spotting the vine-and-ivy covered cabin front. Heading towards the door, he didn't realize he was covered by a nine mm automatic until he reached up to knock, and nearly pissed himself from sheer surprise.

"Whoa! I don't know you, Sir, but I'm a friendly!" he exclaimed as he put his hands up.

Gene laid a calming hand on Don's shoulder, saying "It's ok, Don.... he's with us."

Don stepped back, lowering the pistol and motioning Fred inside, to join the party.

Fred turned, motioning to his passenger, Louanne Willis, who nodded, climbing out of the truck and shouldering her .300 Weatherby rifle.

Don turned to Greg, raising an eyebrow. "You have women in your group?"

Greg nodded. "Don't act surprised with her, though.... she's one of the deadliest snipers I know, and she might take offense. She never goes anywhere without that rifle, either.... rumor has it that she sleeps with the damned thing." he grinned.

Fred and Louanne joined them in the deceptively small-looking cabin, which opened into a large subterranean chamber at least an additional sixty feet long and forty feet wide, with heavily braced wooden ceilings that reached up into the mountainside on an angle, reaching heights of a good thirty feet. Several rooms backed up to the side walls, and what appeared to be a large kitchen area backed up to the opposite wall, though the appliances all appeared to be long-unused. Four large woodstoves were spaced around the room to provide heat.

Walt, meanwhile, was looking out of one of the small windows when another light truck pulled up out front.... another Ford, this one an F-150, again painted in the tiger striped Wyoming Militia colors, with two men in the seat and a cap on the back painted to match.

"Is this one of yours too?"

Neil Carlson piled out of the driver's seat at that moment, shouting ''Hello, the house!" 

Greg nodded. "Another one of our supply trucks." he replied, stepping towards the door.



Greg Billings walked into the ranch office building, looking for the Doc. 

The resident veterinarian, Doc Martin, finally turned up in the cafeteria, and he grabbed a bowl of stew and a small plate of biscuits before joining the older man.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 20



Okay, folks, first, I want to thank you for bearing with me.... health issues forced me to put this on hold for a few weeks, but I'm doing the best that I can to catch up. As promised, I'm adding some new areas, and new people, and bringing some old ones back around. I hope you enjoy the show. 

Oh, as usual, I have kept the left wing nonsense to a minimum, and as I have noted numerous times in the past, I am a Constitutional conservative libertarian; if you don't understand that, or object to my views, don't whine to me about it. I couldn't care less. 

*

Far away, in London, England, a Djinn was smiling. He'd just looked in, unannounced and unseen, on the ancestors of one of his old, and favorite, masters, and was happy to see that they were thriving without outside help. 

He'd given them a few small nudges, over the fifteen-odd decades since their ancestor had released him from service... and done so early, no less. 

None had been very big... small increases in their crop yields, when they were in danger of running short on food, a small bit of insight when one of their scientists had been stuck on a problem with much needed medicines, an urge to go in a certain direction, leading one of their number to caches of necessary parts for a piece of farm equipment; for the most part, though, he had left them to their own devices.

This time, though, he had been inclined to intervene. One of the Chinese invaders of their land had been on the verge of finding their hidden city.

It hadn't taken much effort on his part; a poorly fitted fuel line, a small spark, and the Chinese helicopter had exploded in a fireball that startled the men who had just been exiting the Cave. The Chinese copy of the Russian 'Hind' crashed to the earth, a mere four miles from the huge doorway through which their aircraft and heavy armor exited the complex. 

The ensuing secondary explosions, from the assorted munitions carried by the big helicopter, had been spectacular to behold.

John McCarthy would wonder what had brought the big chopper down, though, until the end of his days.

He and his squad got to the crash site in a little under an hour, finding only a burned out shell. They merely shrugged and continued on their patrol.

The Chinese crew, on the other hand, took careful note of the directions the Americans had come from, and which direction they went. All of them had, by some miracle, managed to jump free of the craft when the fire had started.

That, too, was the Djinn's doing; he was, after all, forbidden from physically harming them. They began to backtrack the Americans to their hidden base...

But the Americans were well ahead of them, and had been re-seeding the area around the hidden entrance six or seven times a month, for the past decades since they had first exited their hidden complex, keeping it carefully covered to hide it from prying eyes.

Seth Jones, in Northern Kentucky, sat in his kitchen, going over the list of people he could count on. It wasn't very long, considering the sparse population in the area. He needed more people if he was going to start up a militia unit of his own. Harry, Jim, Sonny, Ed, and a few others, he knew he could count on.... most of the people in the area, though, worked from dawn til well after nightfall, just to feed themselves.

Aside from that, ammunition was always in short supply; much of what Was available was earmarked for hunting. The .308 rounds he'd gotten from that trader a few weeks ago, he knew, might have to last a Very Long Time. He had another four hundred rounds, for the AK he'd taken off a dead Cuban, and they had the small stash they'd taken earlier in the year, when they'd hit the camp the kids had been taken to, but even that wouldn't last forever.

Harry showed up, while he was thinking it over, bringing with him a huge jug of apple juice. He grabbed two glasses from the drain board by the sink, poured two fingers of 'shine into each glass, topped them each with apple juice, and set one in front of Seth as he took the seat opposite the younger man.

"Seth... something on your mind?"

The younger man nodded. "Harry, let me ask you something.... how long are we gonna put up with this crap?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well... these damned Cubans, that's what I mean. How long are we gonna let them push us around?"

"We didn't do too bad, when they took the kids."

"I know... and that's my point. We could be doin' a whole bunch more. They should never have been able to take them kids in the first place."

"Dangerous talk, Seth... could get us killed."

"Well, just sittin' here on our hands is gettin' us nowhere fast.... we need to get organized, get some folks together and start takin' those bastards out. I was talkin' to a trader the other day..."

"Huh? When did a trader come through here?"

"A few days ago. Didn't have much o' nothin', and I think I got the best of what he had. He was talkin' about a 'United States Militia', operatin' west of here.... around Montana and Wyoming. Said they're givin' the Chinese fits."

"What did he have, other than news?"

"I got two hundred rounds of .308 and four of these here Ranger manuals off of him... he said they were good training manuals. Ain't seen nothin' in 'em I didn't already know, for the most part.... most of it is just plain ol' common sense."

"Ok, so... you want to start recruitin', build up a proper sized militia of our own?"

Seth nodded. "If we can just get twenty, maybe twenty five people together to start with, we could build from there.... if we can get on to one of their bases, get a few truckloads of guns and ammo, that sorta shit, we could equip everyone proper-like, plus have stuff left over."

"Now, you know damn well that won't be easy."

"No, it won't... but it'll be the last thing they'll expect... that means we'll have a little advantage, right there."

Both men smiled at the prospect. They talked long into the night about the idea, fine tuning it to a fare-thee-well. Now if only they could get enough people together to pull it off...

Don Anderson sat back in the truck, the first of four that were headed back to the base they'd recently taken back from the Communist Chinese. The truck he was riding in, and the two behind it, were loaded with the people from the new militia base to the north, mostly, the locals that had been undergoing training there, along with the Doctors and technicians from the Wyoming base that had come to start up the hospital at his own new base. The last truck was loaded down with their equipment, including several portable X-ray machines and an MRI scanner.

His driver was one of the men he had met the first day that the Wyoming people had shown up, Greg Collingsworth. He had agreed to come down with them to start a driver's training class. He was also a pretty fair sniper in his own right, so he would be training one class a week in that, too. His own training had come from Jeff O'Neil, who was also training some of the new people.

There were at least a dozen other snipers at the new base they'd just left, and all were training new people, recruited from a dozen different villages and small towns in the area. This would prove important, as they'd discovered another Chinese camp, west of the base that Don and his people had already taken. This one was more than a bit on the crude side, as the Chinese were basically sleeping in tents; the only permanent structures, so far, were the few warehouses where they stored munitions.

Gene Dickinson sat back behind his desk, nearly exhausted from the day's activities. He'd come down with George Klein to train some of the California troops as scouts; he hadn't realized how many people they had. His current class was over fifty people, and his old teacher, George, had taken on nearly twice as many. He understood the urgency, but still, he longed for the day when he was only training a few squads at a time.

Mike O'Connell sat back in the living room of his ranch, waiting for a few of his friends to show up. They had been mostly silent since the day they'd killed the Cubans who had tried to raid Jake Steven's ranch, but most agreed that the time for silence was over. They had decided to get together to discuss who they could approach about forming their own militia. They'd even settled on a name.... the Lone Star Guard. Now they just had to figure out who they could trust.

Their fears were not unwarranted; out here in the country, there wasn't so much of a problem, but some of the larger cities were known for having more liberal attitudes, and the people there were known--some of them, anyway--for working hand-in-glove with the Cubans.

Personally, he thought that anyone who would sell out his country, no matter what price he was offered, should be horsewhipped and then dragged through town by a wild horse.

Frank McGuire, the Lieutenant left in charge of the small militia contingent in Sturgis, South Dakota, looked over the reports carefully. The Chinese from a base somewhere nearby were constantly probing; the only thing keeping them at bay were the new 'electric rifles' that his people were equipped with. When bodies of your troops were constantly turning up, dumped outside of town, with holes literally burned through their chests, it was a situation guaranteed to give any commander pause.

He called for his scouts, and when Jeff Gelder showed up, they sat down with coffee and started going over maps of the area, trying to figure out where the Chinese were coming from.

Jeff examined the map, pointing out that they might have come from the north, or the east, but there was little chance of them coming from the west, given the fact that much of the western area was firmly under Militia control. Still, he'd have his trackers watching for sign in all directions, just in case. If they could backtrack the next group attacking them, and find their camp, they could find out what, exactly, they were dealing with.

"What about the south? How are you sure they're not coming from that direction?"

"They never show up at the southern border... they're always coming from either the north or the east. The west, we've already covered. We can't rule it out entirely, of course, but it's a pretty safe bet."

Frank nodded. "Ok, well.... keep an eye on the situation, do what you can. Is there anything we can do, that we don't have in place?"

Gelder nodded. "We need more electronic surveillance in those areas.... motion activated cameras, night vision capable, preferably, feeding to monitors in one location that we can have a team watching around the clock. Maybe a rapid response team, ready to go the minute the sensors are tripped. If we could catch a few of these punks alive, force them to lead us back to their camp, we could have this mess wrapped up in a few days."

"What about aerial surveillance?"

Gelder thought it over for a minute, but shook his head. "We don't want to tip them off that we're looking for them. Better off staying on the ground, unless it's a last resort. We don't want them figuring it out and pulling up stakes, moving the camp while we're putting together the operation to take them out."

Frank nodded, but he was frowning. "Maybe we should go in the other direction?"

At Jeff's raised eyebrow, he continued. "We start regular air patrols in those areas, frighten them into flight, flush them into the open, and wipe them out in one quick move."

Jeff stroked his chin in thought, nodding. "Interesting thought. Not just yet, though.... we'll keep it as an option, just in case..... for now, let's get the cameras and motion detectors up and running, see what pops up."

"Well," Frank replied, "for the time being, it's business as usual.... we continue with the training, keep working on the upgrades, consolidate the locals in one area... we've got a lot of work to do."

Jeff nodded. He knew there were still at least five hundred people who couldn't hit a barn door if they were standing inside it, and that was being generous. Getting them properly trained was a chore he wasn't looking forward to.

Herb Montgomery sat in his office, going over reports of the latest operations. His people were doing well, taking out small Chinese camps almost as fast as they were finding them. They'd hit four in the past two months, and though they'd lost some people, they were killing at least eight or ten of the soldiers for every man they lost. He attributed this disparity to the rigorous training his troops were getting from their allies, and the superior firepower they were now hooked up with. He came to a particular report and smiled... it was an inventory sheet, listing the latest additions to his inventory.... a full sized tanker of av-gas, and another of diesel fuel, enough to fill the tanks at the Jackson hole base to the top with some to spare. He ordered the spare gas be loaded into the small tanker they refueled planes from, and the extra diesel into the five Abrams tanks and five Bradley fighting vehicles they had gotten in the past few weeks.

His complement of personnel was growing at a satisfactory rate, as well... once word got out that his people were accepting volunteers, new people from the surrounding countryside were showing up on an almost daily basis. 

This, in itself, was proving problematic; even with the additional M-16s he'd gotten from the Militia, and the numerous AK-47s they were capturing from dead Chinese, there just weren't enough to go around. 

Jim Archer looked over the map with a smile of satisfaction; the American Militia now had at least twelve major bases, and twice as many smaller camps, stretching from northern California to South Dakota, and were continuing to expand at a geometric rate. For the first time, they were actually starting to run low on rifles and ammunition. He would have to get some more of his people out, checking some of the recaptured American bases for more of the underground stashes that the old US Military had been so fond of. He had their own machine shops producing them, of course, and several others, besides, but supply just wasn't keeping up with demand.

The new 'electric rifles' were coming in handy, as well... although there were barely enough, currently, to deploy ten of these to a platoon, and construction of these were even more limited than the M-16s. Aircraft and armor were in equally short supply; while they hadn't actually lost any, so far, he knew it was only a matter of time. Repairing damaged aircraft and a few of the older tanks seemed to take forever.

They were also limited, currently, in personnel. Even with as many 'veterans' as they had, training a new platoon of recruits took months, and time was a luxury in very short supply.

A knock on his office door brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see Carl Walton.

"Sir, we just had a Chinese chopper crash about four miles from here..."

"Oh? What caused the crash? Did one of ours bring it down?"

"No, sir... that's the weird part. It appears to have just burst into a fireball all by itself. We don't know what happened."

"Odd. Well, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. What happened to the crew?"

"Not sure, Sir... by the time our people found the crash site, they were nowhere to be found. No remains in the wreck, so we don't think they died in the crash. They may have jumped free, and by some miracle survived the landing.... the ground in that area is pretty soft. I'm worried that they might be in this area, looking for us, Sir. I'm thinking we should go to a medium alert.... increase the electronic surveillance in the areas closest to the Cave entrances and send out a few extra patrols, just in case."

Archer nodded, frowning, and reached for the phone.

One of the cameras on the hilltop was the first to pick them up; not hard, considering the burnt-mustard colored uniforms they were wearing. On the opposite side of the hill, a concealed door opened, and six men in Ghillie suits slipped out. They split into two teams of three men each and quietly made their way around the hill from opposite sides. Making their way around the low hill, slowly, in a leapfrog pattern, both teams were soon in sight of the Chinese. Six silenced rifles spoke at once. Three Chinese crewman-pilots dropped in their tracks, never seeing the men who shot them. 

Frank Bergen was, once again, busier than a man with three wives. 

He knew that at least four of the new bases were crying for more rifles, and more ammunition. The ammo wasn't the problem; they never seemed to run out, or even to run low, a situation he never had been able to figure out.

Rifles, on the other hand, were a different story. The armory was scraping the bottom of the barrel, there, and even with the ramped up production, they were consistently behind. He sat down with a map, the GPS co-ordinates of eight of the new bases, and inventory lists for each, and was startled to find that six of the eight had never been checked out for underground storage.

'Well', he thought.... 'time to remedy that situation right now.'

Checking over the listings again, he found that three of the bases had Abrams tanks onsite, and two more had good sized bulldozers. In twenty minutes, he was airborne, with several of his best heavy equipment operators and tank drivers along.

The old Bell Huey they were riding in was surrounded by Cobra and Apache helicopters, as well as three F 16s and two Hawker Harriers. Behind them was a Chinook loaded with five big air compressors, half a dozen empty air tanks, and an assortment of hoses... just in case. The Huey they rode in was not without defenses of its own, either.... in each door was a post mounted M2 Browning, and recently added 'wing' pods carried three Sidewinder missiles on either side. He would take no chances with his people; he'd already lost too many.

Rick Jamison was out on the training grounds, running around the track with a new class of recruits. He had started doing this three months ago, running one circuit of the half mile oval every day, and was now up to five laps a day. He found that he enjoyed the better endurance he was feeling, and he'd already lost about thirteen pounds as a result. He also joined them for calisthenics three days a week, and was feeling stronger... and gaining in respect, both from his original crew and the new recruits. His daily regimen also included an hour at the rifle and pistol ranges, and he was, once again, gaining a reputation as a crack shot.

He knew they had at least two new operations coming up, and while he would, in all likelihood, be staying well back, running the operations over the radio, there was still no reason for him to be so out of shape that he couldn't participate, should the need arise.

Mike O'Connell sat back in his living room, speaking in low tones with half a dozen of the local ranch owners about what they were planning. He knew what they were planning was dangerous, but sitting on their hands, waiting for the Cubans to make the next move was far worse. He outlined what he had in mind, and while a few of the men he had called together frowned at his ideas, others were, at worst, thoughtful about his ideas.

It was Jake Stevens who finally spoke up.

"Damn, Mike.... you're ambitious, I'll give ya that. Problem is, we don't have enough guns.... all we have is, what? Six of those AKs we took off the dead Cubans last week, plus maybe thirty more from your private stash? That ain't near enough to take on a whole camp full o' Cubans.... and they've got the garrison in town, plus that camp twelve miles north of us, and another one, about twenty miles east o'here. Even if we did have the guns, we don't have near enough people to use 'em!"

"I know, Jake.... I know. We have to start gettin' organized, though. Do you want to just sit around, waiting on the next bunch to turn up at your ranch? We only won that last one, last week, because the rest of us were already here, talking about trading with the other farms in the area. You might not get so lucky, the next time. We need to get about forty, fifty people together, start some serious training."




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 20



Dan Jenkins spoke up. "We need a helluva lot more people than we've got here, then."

Mike nodded. "How many ranches and farms are there, around here? Fifteen, twenty?"

"Depends on how far out you wanna look... and are we just countin' ranchers, or do you want to get the hired hands in on this, too?"

"Well, when it comes down to it, we're all Texans, ain't we?"

None of them could argue with that.

Marshall Johnson spoke up for the first time.... he was the oldest man in the room, by far, and most of the others had asked his advice at one time or another.

"Well, gentlemen, the way I see it, we have to figure out three things.... short term goals, long term strategy, and tactics. Our tactics, they might have to change with the changing situation, so we'll leave those for last... our long term strategy is a bit tougher. Do we want to hook up with this 'militia' to the north of us, eventually?"

Mike nodded. "Good question.... because if we do, we may have to adapt our long term strategy to fit in with theirs."

The others nodded in agreement.

Marshall smiled. "We know what kinda goal they're lookin' at... but they're dealing with Chinese, for the most part; and we've got Cubans in this part of the country... so our tactics will have to be different."

Mike nodded.... "I was kinda thinkin' maybe we should start by just keepin' an eye on their patrols, see if we can't get a handle on their patterns. Times, routes, size, what kinda weapons they're carrying.... if we can ambush them, we can add their weapons and ammo to our own supplies."

Dan Jenkins looked up at this... "Well, can we get enough people together to start by just watchin' their garrison? That'd be a huge help, right there. If we know what times they leave, we can start having some of ours watching where they go. We can't follow them, unless our people hang way back... the country's too flat. That means we have to post people around the territory, to see where they go without being obvious about it."

Marshall nodded. "We need folks who can think on their feet. People who know a good spot to set up an ambush when they see it... and that's only if they follow the same route every time."

"We'll need a lot of people just for that, then. How many of the local ranch owners do you know, personally, Marshall?"

Johnson sat back for a minute, counting in his head. "At least fourteen more, not countin' all of you. Joe Danson, his spread's next to mine.... I know he was complainin' a few weeks ago about soldiers crossin' his land, we can count on him, for certain. Jimmy Kent, one of his ranch hands, got shot by a Cuban a few months ago, so he's already pissed off at 'em. Doesn't even call 'em Cubans anymore, just says 'those bastards'."

The others smiled at this. 

"Chet Younger, that farmer to my south, I think we could count on him, too.... he was bitchin' the other day. Seems he was in the middle of his corn harvest.... soldiers showed up, took half a dozen bushels right out of his truck. Pissed me off, too.... it was corn I was there to pick up to feed part of my herd with."

"Ouch... Hey, that reminds me... I heard you've got an extra bull calf this year.... you want to trade him, by any chance? I can give you, oh.... fifteen sacks o' feed grain for him." Jenkins offered. Marshall nodded.

"We can talk about it.... I've got three, actually, all sired by a big sumbitch of a bull, so I know none of 'em are gonna be small. Gonna take a bit more than fifteen sacks. How big was your grapefruit harvest this year?"

"More'n I know what to do with.... I'm squeezin' a ton of 'em for juice.... I could throw in, oh.... five bushels of them, and ten sacks of beans.... I've got pintos and red beans."

"Ok, we'll talk... "

Mike cleared his throat. "Gents, we're gettin' a bit off topic, here."

Marshall nodded. "You're right.... but it wouldn't be a meetin' like this without a little tradin' goin' on."

Mike smiled at this, knowing Marshall was right. "True... hey, if you've got three of them, can you stand to sell another one? My primary bull is gettin' a bit long in the tooth, too."

"Depends on what you're growing in your fields."

"We'll talk... meanwhile back, we need to go over some of our other resources, too."

Jake spoke up. "What do you mean?"

"Well.... who has machine tools, around here? If we're going to start going after these punks, we're gonna need some quiet weapons. A bunch of silencers would come in handy, for one thing... if we could build some to add onto the guns we've got, it would save us a whole bunch of time. We need access to metal cutting lathes and maybe one or two of those 'mill-drills'."

"Well, I know Chet's got a lathe... I needed a new pin for my old baler, he turned out two of 'em in about twenty minutes, pretty as you please. We can ask him about makin' parts for us."

Their meeting devolved from there, but each man was quietly compiling a listing of people who could be counted on, in the back of their minds.

Many, too, were making mental notes.... inform all of their hands that any movement by the Cubans was to be reported at once.

Jeanine and Caleb showed up at the front door at the same time as Billie Jean and Jeff, who was just back from California. Cassie opened the door as they were introducing themselves, and squealed happily as she caught sight of her old friends. Mike Donnelly showed up just as they were stepping inside, and Cassie greeted him with a deep kiss before ushering them all into first the kitchen, then the living room.

"C'Mon in guys!"

BJ smiled as she handed off the big bowl of corn muffins to Cassie, leaving her with both hands for the fettuccini pasta she'd brought for the potluck. They both headed for the big kitchen table, where Cassie and Doris had a big buffalo roast laid out, along with a big bowl of mashed potatoes that Shandra and Mark had brought along, and with a huge chocolate cake for dessert.

Fran and her husband, Mark, were the last ones in, Mark carrying a wooden crate full of bottles of various liquors and soft drinks, and Fran had a large pan of macaroni noodles in a five cheese blend and another of brownies.

Everybody settled in the living room with plates of the various foods, eating and gossiping while an old Bob Seger concert played in the background, Mickey playing bartender. He, too, was recently returned.

Dinner was winding down when Mickey raised a glass. "Ladies and gentlemen... to our fallen friends."

None had to ask who he meant, save for Caleb and Jeanine; several of their friends had been working in the new oilfields, and had been incinerated by the nuke that had gone off to the south of them. Everyone solemnly raised their glasses in silence. It didn't last, though.

Mark Culligan raised an eyebrow, after a long pull at his drink, and asked. "Does anyone know where it came from?"

Jeff shook his head. "Some folks are saying it might have been a leftover from the great war. Some folks think it was the Chinese, but I don't think so. I was talking to Colonel Archer, when he came down to the new base in northern California, and he said no planes or missiles showed up on the radars or the satellite feeds before it happened."

Mark Wellston nodded. "Same thing Frank Bergen said.... He said it was too small to be enemy action.... he thought it might have been one of those 'suitcase nukes', left over from the great war. Pissed him off for fair, too. He lost some of the best oilfield workers and construction people he had down there. It was just blind luck that I was his driver, that day. We were about twenty five miles out from there when it went off."

Mickey nodded. "We lost more than that.... that field of wells was going to supply enough oil to keep us going for an extra fifty years."

Mark Culligan nodded... "Yup.... but we've got two more, just like it.... one's in Oklahoma, the other one is somewhere in South Dakota, from what Mike Frasier was saying. Those two, between them, have enough to keep us supplied for the next forty, maybe fifty years, even if we use more than we are now. By that time, we might be able to send people back to the 'hot zone' and start pumping those wells."

Once the meal was finished, and the leftovers wrapped up, Mickey, both Marks, and Jeff all produced fat doobies, while Cassie and BJ mixed up fresh drinks for everyone there.

Caleb looked at the joint in his hand, musing, "It's funny.... my parents always said the old government had made this stuff illegal."

Mickey nodded. "We learned that in school.... our teachers all said that the old governments were famous for taking power where they had no right to. The founder of our city made sure there were plenty of copies of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights available; nowhere in them were the old governments, federal or state, given the authority to outlaw plant life. Those 'laws' were written to serve corporate greed, nothin' more nor less."

He sat back, after taking a deep hit off the Phillipino doobie in his hand, collecting his thoughts for a moment... but Caleb was the impatient sort and wanted to know what he meant.

"Well..." Mickey continued, after some prodding, "It started with a guy named Harry Anslinger, back in the 1920s or '30s.... Ol' Harry had himself a string of illegal bars, called Speakeasies, in a place called Harlem, in New York. This was back when alcohol was illegal, too. People who should have been going into his bars, mostly black people, weren't.... instead, they were smoking this completely legal weed known as marijuana. Problem is, Harry had an ace in the hole... aside from his illegal businesses, he was also the head of a government agency..... the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. So he shoved a bill through Congress, the Marijuana tax stamp act, I think it was called, that said you couldn't sell it or possess it without a federal tax stamp. Guess how many of those stamps were printed?"

Caleb shook his head.

"None. Nobody could get them, so it stayed illegal, except for a few states that told the feds to stuff it, right up until the great war."

"I don't get it.... how did that serve.... what did you call it? Corporate greed?"

"A lot of people used it as a remedy for pain, and a few other things. Epilepsy, glaucoma, cancer treatments.... that cut into the big drug companies' profits. A lot of other people used it as an alternative to beer, whiskey, that sort of thing... and that cut into the profits of the distilleries and the breweries."

Cassie smiled as she cut in. "Well, I'm just glad the founders of our city had more sense. I like burning a pipeful after a day in the kitchens."

Several of the others nodded their agreement.

Mickey got up to change the DVD, putting in an old Jethro Tull concert, and returned to his seat, and Doris moved to join him.

"We're going to do more than just sit around and talk tonight, aren't we, dear?"

He grinned and replied "I certainly hope so." as he reached for her shirt, pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.

Caleb and Jeanine were both a bit shocked at this turn of events. Particularly when Jeff and BJ moved over to join them, BJ settling beside Caleb, while Jeff sat down with Jeanine.

"Don't look so surprised, hun." BJ told Caleb. "We're all friends here.... we just like being a bit more than friends, sometimes."

Cassie settled next to Shandra, reaching over to kiss her thoroughly, while Mark reached over and started squeezing her full tits.

Jeff settled his hand on Jeanine's thigh, just below the bottom of her skirt, asking "What's the matter, hun.... never been with anyone else?"

"Nuh-nuh-no... Caleb an' me have been sweethearts since we were kids." She didn't know quite what to make of the situation. She was busy watching, fascinated, as Cassie vigorously kissed Shandra, and Mark started tugging at Cassie's shorts. Jeff grinned at her. "Don't worry... you're still his lady... nothin' says you can only have sex with him, right?"

Across the room, Fran had pushed Mark onto his back, and already had his cock in her mouth.

Doris maneuvered around so her head was between Fran's thighs, licking vigorously at her clit, while Mickey did the same for her. In a few short minutes, the entire living room had become a chaotic mass of writhing bodies.

Cassie kissed and licked her way down Shandra's chocolate skin, and Mark took advantage of this, getting up on his knees behind her, slipping his thick cock into her willing pussy and slowly pushing until he was buried in her to the hilt. Her moans soon began to vibrate on Shandra's clit, driving the young woman over the edge to a thunderous orgasm.

Jeff began planting random kisses all over Jeanine's jaw and chin, reaching for one of her small breasts as his own girlfriend took matters into her own hands, along with Caleb's cock, pulling at the zipper of his jeans and fishing out a firm eight inches, her eyes lighting up at the size of it... gobbling it down, ignoring his half-hearted protests even as Jeff gently pushed his girlfriend to her back so he could get his mouth on her hardening clit.

BJ got Caleb good and hard and moved up, quickly straddling him and fitting the head of his cock to her greedy pussy, taking him to the hilt in one thrust before beginning to slowly ride him.... Jeff, meanwhile, was busily licking Jeanine to the first of what would soon be multiple orgasms, before licking his way back up her body. His hardness slid into her almost automatically, and she looked up at him in surprise as he began a steady thrusting into her grasping cunt. Her legs came up to lock together behind him, and she began pushing back at him, urging him to fuck her hard.

Mark pulled out of Cassie, shifting position a little and fitting his still-hard cock to the little rosebud of her rectum and pushing back in, slowly, but she wasn't going for it, and pushed back hard, taking his length in one hard thrust.... he just grinned, and started a hard and fast fucking that soon had her squealing in delight. He couldn't last long, though, at that rate, and soon blasted his cum deep in her bowel. Mike stepped up as he pulled out of her, sliding his own seven inches into her tight pussy, fucking her doggy style hard and fast, pounding her with almost rabbit-like speed. Her small cries as he slammed her echoed across the room as she came again.

Shandra, meanwhile, took advantage of this, sliding up under Cassie until her mouth was in line with Cassie's still gaping pussy, her own cunt inline with her willing mouth, and tried, mostly successfully, to keep a sixty-nine going with her old friend even as her husband butt-fucked the other woman.

Doris, meanwhile, got up and walked over to an end table, reaching into a drawer and coming up with a mass of straps, which she climbed into carefully, buckling the thing about her waist and moving up behind BJ, squirting a small amount of lube onto the head of the attached dildo as she spread her old friend's ass cheeks.

BJ's eyes shot open at this second penetration, growing wider as she looked behind her to realize just who was fucking her backdoor. Doris just smiled back at her and gave another gut wrenching thrust into her bowel.

"Full of surprises tonight, honey?"

"You betcha, babe." Doris replied, as she reached around to fondle BJ's full breasts, beginning a hard, steady pumping into BJ's ass. The younger girl was soon over the edge, cumming almost non-stop from the double fucking she was getting.

Doris was getting it, too, as this particular toy had a curved section that fitted into her own pussy, so when she thrust into BJ, both of them felt it.

Jeff fucked hard into Jeanine, but couldn't last long, soon blasting his own cum deep inside of her; as he finished, she pushed him back on his heels, taking his semi hard cock in her mouth to clean him up.... she loved the taste of cum, and got it whenever she got the chance. As soon as he got hard again, though, he pushed her to her knees and fitted his new hard-on to the pink rosebud between her ass cheeks.

She braced herself, knowing this was going to hurt; she'd never had anal sex before. Pushing into her, he realized that she hadn't had a cock in her ass too often, if at all, so after getting the head past the tight opening, he paused for a moment, letting her get used to the sensation.

Jeanine, for her part, only let him put it there after seeing how much the other women in the room seemed to like it... as expected, it hurt, at first, but as Jeff was taking it slow, she had time to get ready for it, and as he began pushing further in, she began to enjoy it. Soon he was giving her his full length at every thrust, and she was pushing back against him, asking for more.

BJ rode Caleb hard and fast, with him thrusting back up at her, feeding her his entire length at each push, when he felt something strange... Mark Culligan had come up behind her and had slipped his cock into her ass and was soon pounding away at her backdoor.

"Oh, God.... fuck meeee.... " she moaned as the two men double teamed her.

Mike sat back with a drink and another doobie, recharging his batteries, and Jeff sat beside him, similarly spent for the moment.

"Hey, Jeff, been meanin' to ask you... what ever happened to that little gal that was livin' with you and BJ, back at the Cave?"

"Missy? She's still there... she took up with Pete Dawson, a couple of months after she got herself straightened out, about a month before BJ and I moved down here. They're doing ok... last I heard, they're expecting their first child in a couple more months. Pete's a decent sort... he'll make a good Dad."

"Damn."

"What's wrong?"

Mike gave a sheepish grin. "I was kinda hopin' to ask her out, myself."

As more of the couples and threesomes, finished and settled to the furnishings and patches of floor, Mickey got up to change the DVD again, this time to an old Rush concert, and stepped behind the bar, fixing more drinks and a big pot of Hawaiian coffee for himself. 

Doris and BJ went to the kitchen, bringing the huge chocolate cake, the pan of brownies, and a stack of small plates and forks out to set on the low coffee table that had gotten pushed over against the wall.

They sat for a while, making small talk and indulging in the rich desserts, before some started looking for their clothes and saying their farewells, citing early workdays in the morning. 

Frank Bergen sat back at the desk in the empty office at the new Cooper base, smiling from ear to ear. He'd been right; this base had an underground storage facility, and it was, once again, nitrogen-preserved. They hadn't found any armor here, but there were small fleets of helicopters and planes, mostly older models of the F-16s, Blackhawks, and Chinooks, and a nice side chamber full of infantry weapons and ammunition. 

What was better, the base commander here, back in the day, must have enjoyed his creature comforts.... they'd found over fifty cases of various whiskeys and scotch.... and all of it preserved in a layer of nitrogen gas that came up almost to the top of the long ramp. Even with five compressors running, it had taken nearly seven hours to pump it all out.

Two of the next three bases were similarly equipped, and the last of the five, as well.

When all four of the inventories were tallied up, they had nearly four hundred thousand of the M-16s and M-4 carbines, along with close to fifty thousand grenade launchers, twenty thousand rocket launchers, and an additional ten thousand silenced sniper rifles in four different calibers. There were also huge stockpiles of ammunition for everything, including the grenade launchers, and cases of smaller ordinance.

That didn't even take into account the armor and the aircraft, including over a hundred of the A-10 ground support planes.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 20



In the short term, at least, his shortage problem was over, though he knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. He knew, too, that Jim Archer and Johnny Corcoran were recruiting as fast as they could, and the training cadre was growing every month. Within two days, he would send twenty truckloads of ordinance out to the various bases, including four for the new base in California.

Back in northern California, Don Anderson watched as the four big panel trucks drove through the gates of the base. He knew where this bunch had come from, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Frank.

Louanne Willis and John Medford had pretty much become an item; even Emily, John's daughter, seemed to approve. The pair of them made a good team, bouncing ideas off of one another and turning them into full blown plans before presenting them to Don.

John had gone through the scout training with George Klein, and had, in fact, gone out on several patrols already; in the last patrol they'd been out on, they'd come back with a wild tale of taking out a small Chinese patrol, just the two of them. Don had been skeptical, at first...

Until the quartermaster had reported that they had come in staggering under the weight of eleven AK-47s and nearly two hundred pounds of other gear,... and that was just the gear they'd loaded into their Humvee.

They'd also brought back a wealth of intelligence, including a crude map showing the locations of four new Chinese camps... even now, he had scout teams out looking for them.

The computer technician sat back, stretching his arms up, and groaned mightily. He'd been at the desk for nearly twenty hours straight, but he thought he'd finally tracked down all of the assorted computer glitches, and maybe the program would run right, now.

Grabbing the phone, he punched in the numbers and waited a moment.

The other end was answered. "Yeah, Mike.... what's wrong now?"

"Not a thing... want to come down and check this new simulator program over? I think it'll work now."

"I think I've heard this song before...."

"Yeah, but this time I really think I've got it. C'mon, Billy, what have you got to lose?"

"Another twenty minutes setting up planting schedules."

"Oh, joy.... C'Mon, you can do those later. This is more important."

"Ok, ok! You're right.... this is just catch up work. I'll be over there in five minutes."

It was closer to twenty minutes; he'd insisted on finishing up the planting rotations for five more fields before leaving, making sure that all of the fields got their full allotment of compost and plowing ahead of the spring planting before printing up the schedule and posting it to the bulletin board.

At the training center, he was surprised to learn that Mike had, indeed, gotten it right this time. He climbed inside the enclosed simulator, selected a Hawker Harrier as his training aircraft, and ran through his pre-flight, checking what types of weapons the 'plane' was equipped with, and checking how everything was running. 

The simulated take-off went smoothly, and he set out on a 'patrol' at a fifty mile range.

"Ok, I'm going to set you up with some Migs first... watch your radar." came through the headset he was wearing.

He was, according to the read-outs, a bit over forty miles out from his base when the Mig-25s pounced; too far to lead them back into the range of the anti-aircraft batteries. He executed a tight turn to face them, unleashing two Sidewinders before going into a steep climb, intending to come down at them from an altitude advantage... but the simulated enemy fighters matched his move.

He looked on in satisfaction as the Sidewinders did their work, flying straight up the tailpipes of the first two of the six fighter planes.

He turned and went into a steep climb, pushing the simulated Harrier to it's limits, then turned almost enough to make himself black out and went into a steep dive, heading straight for the opposing Mig, his 20mm Vulcan roaring, nearly tearing the other plane in half as he ripped through the enemy formation. His threat detection system lit up like a Christmas tree, and the entire simulator pod rocked on it's foundation as his 'plane' took hits from cannon fire and short range rockets alike.

His heads-up display flashed red for several moments, then the words 'Game Over.... thanks for playing!' showed up and the simulation was over.

He was scowling as he exited the simulator pod, and Mike was waiting for him when he got out, stretching to work out a bit of a cramp.

"Just had to toss in that last bit, huh?"

"You bet... you did better than I did, Billy. Now we just need to get five more of these hooked into the same feed, so we can train people a squadron at a time. If we can get five, six people flying together as a cohesive unit, we can make up for lack of big numbers with coordinated attacks."

"Sounds good... how long to set it up?"

"A week, maybe two... depends on how many techs I can get down here at once."

"I'll talk with George Marshall; get you as many people as you need. We need a proper air force down here, and we need it now."

"Can you set this thing up with different programs? We need to get something going for ground support, too.... I hear there's a base east of here, has a shitload of A-10 Warthogs.... tank killers, those things are... might come in handy, sometime in the future."

Mike nodded. "There's three different programs, focused on those... just have to go through them, make sure there aren't any corrupted files. There's another dozen different kinds of files in there, everything from Stealth fighters to choppers, and with enemies ranging from Russian jets and assorted armor to Chinese ground troops. Perfect for training with the A10s."

Within six weeks, the new California base would boast over twenty new pilots. All of them were trained on the F-16s and F-22 Raptors, fifteen had moved on to the Stealth fighters and the helicopters, and five more had gone in the other direction, learning extensively the tactics of ground support in the A-10s. The 30mm cannon in the nose of the A-10 made it the perfect plane for attacking supply convoys; the planes took out the first and last vehicles, and those in the middle could be looted at will by ground troops. Since the Chinese had a nasty habit of running an APC or light tank in the front and rear of their supply convoys, the A-10s would come in handy.... especially considering the twenty more that were even now being brought up from an underground storage facility for flight testing.

Jerry Duncan finally made it back to his cabin in south central Michigan, after taking a circuitous route back from the Dearborn area. Pulling the ancient Ford pickup in to the attached, log walled 'garage', he grabbed out his backpack and briefcase and several boxes of scavenged supplies from the bed of the old beater and almost made it inside before being intercepted by a huge ball of fur.

"Down, Bear! Down, ya overgrown beast!"

The big mixed breed settled down and waited patiently, until his human friend got the door open, and followed him inside, looking on expectantly as he started unloading the box fill of canned goods.

Jerry looked sideways, knowing That Look. He reached over to scratch the big mutt between the ears with a grin.

"Sorry, pup.... no canned food again this trip. I'm afraid you'll just have to put up with A-rab filets."

"Woof!"

"Yes, I got 'em from more than one. Oh, wait... I did find one of these!"

He pulled out a smaller box, opened it up, and tossed the dog a biscuit, which disappeared almost in a single swallow.

The big mutt fixed him with an almost accusatory stare. 

"Sorrr-rry! That old pet store didn't have a whole lot of selection, and it was full of friggin' raiders, besides! Gimme a break, will ya?"

Tires crunched in the gravel and dirt driveway, and he got out the grinder for Bear's 'special' food as he waited. The door opened momentarily, and feminine footsteps sounded behind him as he continued turning the hand crank, turning long strips of meat from the cooler into something close to ground beef.

"Hi, Bear!" Janet exclaimed, giving the dog first acknowledgement. Stepping over to the counter, she picked up the box of dog biscuits. " 'Small dogs'? Really, Jerry?"

"Hey, give me a break, huh? That was the only box in the whole damned store, alright? Hell, it cost me nearly a full mag of 9 millies.... "

"Well.... when you put it that way... I guess Bear-pup and I can forgive ya."

" 'Pup'.... yeah, right... damn dog weighs more'n I do."

"Well, then, you need to feed him less and you more."

"Honey, I ain't eatin' the food he eats."

"Why not?"

"Because that's a chunk I sliced off the ass of an Arab I killed over in Dearborn."

"OMIGOD! You feed the dog human meat?!"

"Well..... 'Human' is open to debate. If you saw them punks doin' what I caught 'em doin', you wouldn't be so quick to call 'em 'human'."

"Ok, I'll bite.... what were they doing?"

"Tryin' to drag a little blonde girl into a van. She couldn't have been more'n nine or ten years old. And the way they had the van set up, I'm willin' to bet it wasn't the first time they did it, either."

"So you stopped them from doin' it again."

He nodded. "Shot all four of them, set fire to their van, the works.... and sent the little girl home. My 'good deed' for the day." he grinned.

"Ok.... I guess I can forgive you for Bear-pup's 'diet', then. I'm not sure it's good for Bear, though. Get anything else good offa them?"

He frowned for a minute. "You're probably right.... it was a spur of the moment thing, though." Then he smiled and nodded, digging into the box again. 

"I'm almost out of venison, and I don't want to give him too much old canned beef stew. I'm only gettin' .... oh, maybe two cans in ten that are any good, anyway."

He paused a moment to think about it and tally up, and then concluded his answer to her.

"Two five gallon gas cans, both full, filled up both of my spare cans from their tank, plus topped off my tank from theirs. Used some of what was left in their tank to spray the inside of the van and set it off. I got these off the dead bodies." he concluded, laying out three identical 9mm pistols, six spare magazines, and four wallets stuffed with bank notes.

"Can I have one of those?" she asked, pointing at the pistols.

"Help yourself. I'd suggest the one in the middle, it appears to be the cleanest of the bunch; take a couple of the spare mags, too."

"Have you still got a cleaning kit?"

He nodded. "Hang on a few minutes. I want to get the beast fed first."

He went back to turning the hand crank, dropping the last strip of meat in the bowl and making sure the teeth of the grinding wheels caught hold, adding in a handful of the dog biscuits, and once again turning the crank.

After feeding the big dog, setting the meat grinder in boiling water, detergent, and alcohol to soak, and washing his own hands thoroughly, several times, he went back out to the truck to get the rest of the boxes.

"Hot zone's getting smaller.... according to the counter, most of Dearborn's clean, now. I found a drugstore that hadn't been completely trashed.... got some oxy and a bunch of amoxicillin there, still in sealed bottles."

"No shit? Geez.... half a dozen oxys are good for a full box of 30/06 rounds."

"I know.... but I won't be needing any of those, either."

He continued unloading the drugstore box, revealing a dozen boxes of bandages, several rolls of bandaging tape, four big bottles of alcohol, and a huge bottle of aspirin. At the bottom of the box was the real prize, though.

"Your Dad's still seeing patients, isn't he?"

"Only a few... he's mostly retired, but some of the folks trust him more than anyone else around town."

"Ok... give him these, then. He can probably use them."

He checked the labels, handing over two big bottles of oxycontin and two more, of the strong antibiotic.

"Tell him he owes me a quarter of beef, the next time someone brings him a side as payment."

She grinned and slipped the bottles into her bag. "You got it.... did you bring back anything else?"

"Got these.... seems the Arabs like their coffee. I think they're bringing it in from northern Africa."

He reached in to the second box, producing four big cans of coffee. Beneath that were his real prizes.

"Found an old hardware store that hadn't been looted too badly, too." Three boxes of 9mm, two more, of .45 ACP, seven boxes of .22LR, and four big plastic jugs of rifle reloading powder joined the coffee on the table. Under that were several big boxes of laundry detergent and a plastic wrapped stack of bars of hand soap.

"Wow. That's enough for.... how many rounds?" She asked, looking over one of the jugs of reloading powder.

"Depends what caliber I'm loading.... I think I could probably get about three, maybe four thousand rounds of .223 out of it."

"Can I get some of those .22s? Dad has an old single shot.... he could use a bunch of them for rabbits in spring."

He grabbed three of the boxes and handed them over without a second thought. Janet's father had been treating him for various ailments for years, and they'd hunted deer and small game together for the past twenty years on Jerry's land.

She smiled as she put them, too, in her bag. "Have you had dinner yet?"

He shook his head. "I was going to stop and get something, but then I got caught up in that mess.... didn't want to stick around for the 'rabs to find the bodies and start lookin' around for who killed them. 'Sides, I had a hungry Bear to feed." he reached over to scratch the dog behind the ears; Bear gave a contented 'woof' and walked over to his pile of old rugs and blankets by the fireplace and stretched out on them.

Janet got out the mixing bowl, throwing in the ingredients for biscuits, and started sifting flour. "Any plans for the weekend?"

"Not really... was thinking of doing some fishing, My freezer's runnin' low, an' I hear they've been gettin' some big perch out of a couple of lakes around here."

She nodded absently as she rolled out the dough, folding it over several times and using the rim of a small glass to cut out the biscuits. He, meanwhile, put the remains of a venison roast in a big steel pan, adding in potatoes, carrots, peas, chopped peppers, and a bit of water, sliding it into the oven section of his big homebuilt woodstove, and adding more blocks of wood from his cut-off bucket to the firebox beneath to re-stoke the fire, knowing the night was only going to get colder. 

Within twenty minutes, the interior of the small kitchen section of the old structure was again toasty warm, and he turned on a few of the fans to distribute the heat to other rooms, including the bathroom and his bedroom.

Janet, meanwhile, slid the big pan of biscuits in on an upper shelf above the roast, and sat back down at the table. Jerry filtered enough water to fill the large percolator, filled the filter basket, and set the battered old coffee pot on the stovetop to perk. After dinner, they settled in the living room, cups of coffee in hand, to relax after what had been a long and productive day.

"Jerry, where do you see us going?"

"My bedroom, hopefully."

She slapped him on the shoulder, playfully. 

"C'Mon, you know what I meant. Where do you see us in the future?"

"Honey, you know I don't like long term plans.... we both could be killed next week. Life might be semi normal, but until we manage to get control back from those Muslim bastards, we'll never be completely free. I can only do so much on my own, and not too many others are hunting them, just yet."

"Did you get any news, while you were out that way?"

"Most of it bad, yes... a farmer's market this side of Ann Arbor got raided by some 'Nation of Islam' punks.... they didn't leave much, more's the pity. I wanted to get a couple of bushels of corn and some brewer's yeast, but that was all gone."

"Cocksuckers."

"Agreed. I was tempted to go after the bastards, but with a two hour head start, they could be anywhere. One little grocery store had some fresh food brought in... I guess some of the old factories are getting started again. I got three big jars of peanut butter, not sure how good it is, but I was willing to take the risk.... especially since one of those Arab rapists was paying for it. It's under the counter in the cupboard. I heard a rumor about an old auto parts store, still has some oil filters, might fit my truck... gotta be careful with that one, though. Could be a set-up for an ambush of some sort."

"A little paranoid, don't you think?"

"No, I'm just very alert. One guy was talking about militia groups starting up, around the country; Wyoming, down south, out in California somewhere.... not sure how much credit to give them, though. Sounded a little too good to be true."

After a brief pause, a moment to think, he continued, "Besides.... being 'a little paranoid' is what's kept me alive out there."

What young Janet didn't know was that scrounging wasn't the only thing her boyfriend was doing... he was also taking his vengeance. Four years earlier, his wife, Rita, had been gang-raped and murdered by Muslims, soldiers of the Caliphate that had invaded this part of the country.

He had sworn, that day, that he would take revenge.... and his thirst for revenge ran very deep, indeed. His body count now ran in the low four thousand range, and without an end in sight.

Not that he'd run out of potential victims any time soon; Muslims had been infiltrating this part of the country since the late 1950s.

Dearborn, Michigan had been host to the largest middle-eastern population in the country. Sleeper cells were as thick as cockroaches, and Homeland Security was so far behind, by the time it was created, that there was no way they could have caught up if someone had handed them a detailed list.

The sleepers had not been idle, either... they had bought up failing businesses all over the area, everything from gas stations and convenience stores to small machine shops and car dealerships, and they had quietly brought in their relatives, by the ones and twos, at times by the planeloads. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was already far too late.

For weapons, they hadn't had to look very hard.... the people who had come in before them had been quietly buying them for decades, using America's own thirst for oil against it, spending enormous amounts transferred over here a little at a time over decades to buy up pretty much whatever they wanted.... and they wanted a Lot. AK-47s were their weapon of choice, of course, but the didn't turn their noses up at any of the others.

There had been a small contingent of people known as the Michigan Militia, but after decades of derision and false accusations by liberal politicians and the media, and harassment by law enforcement, they basically stayed home in droves. Their carefully built-up stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, rations, and other survival supplies would be used to protect neighbors, friends, and family, but for the most part, the community at large had shown them nothing but antipathy and insults; false accusations of 'domestic terrorism', among other things, had been the last straw. 

When the war had started, the liberal governor, who had been the first one to accuse them of everything from helping to blow up a federal building to robbing numerous banks to finance their own activities, was told, point blank, that he was on his own when he had asked for their help.

Jerry's great grandfather had been one of those. He had been a prepper, one of the people who were publically sneered at when he had built up a survivalist retreat in the rural part of the state, building a unique home using shipping containers, over five dozen of them, carefully positioned, connected together with short sections of steel tunnels, covered with several feet of concrete and buried under tons of earth and rock. With help from his own grandfather and father, who had both been veterans in their own rights, and had, in fact, been machinists, mechanics, and their own building contractors, he had built up a home that was well over four hundred thousand square feet, had plenty of room for storage of dried and canned foods, generated it's own power by several different means, supplied with it's own water supply, and was sitting under land that was still farmable, for the most part. When the war had started, they had moved in enough of their livestock to keep themselves supplied with a fair amount of meat, dairy products, poultry and even a few rabbits, ducks and small deer, and had quietly waited things out. Several families of friends had joined them, bringing along their own tools, supplies, and skills, and they had basically stayed underground for the next hundred-odd years.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 21



Ed Mason sat back in Murphy's bar, going over what he knew of this new 'militia' movement. He knew, first off, that they were fighting the Cubans here in Texas, which was bad for business. He ran guns for a few Cuban supply sergaents, men who were just as corrupt as he himself was.

He knew that they were most likely cattle ranchers, since the supply of beef was down significantly. The rest were likely farmers and hired hands.... something he'd briefly tried his hand at before figuring out that it was too much like actual work. 

He'd made his living by sucking up to a few of the Cuban military troops, supplying them with stolen stockpiles of whiskey and ripping off a few of the hippie farmers in the area, waiting until their crops of pot plants were close to complete maturity, then moving in with a few friends and uprooting entire gardens and drying them in hidden drying sheds, trading the ill-gotten goods for a few rifles and ammunition, trading those to gangs of punks who specialized in home invasions and stealing some of the few old cars and trucks that were still kept roadworthy.

After all, where you couldn't trade, you could raid.

He'd expanded his operations over the years, adding several moonshine stills and whorehouses to his little empire. The women came from all over the territory, mostly captured by the raiders he supplied with ammunition and other goods. 

The raiders, in turn, kept him supplied with all manner of goods, among them cattle and other livestock rustled from ranchers to the north of his main holdings in the ruins of Dallas and Ft. Worth.

Now, though, it looked like he'd have to get actively involved; or, at least, get some men in place. He needed some boys who had a minimum of tattoos, who could clean up well, put on some shitkicker boots, plaid shirts and blue jeans, and blend in with the other men looking for work at the ranches to the north.

Mark Powell wasn't a rancher, a farmer, or a fighter; he was a prospector, of sorts. He didn't look for silver or gold, though he found a fair bit of that, and he didn't use a metal detector or a shovel. The main tools of his trade were a pair of boltcutters, heavy work gloves, and an aging panel truck.

Mark made his living by going into abandoned towns, generally bypassing the already-looted stores and houses, and looking for old storage facilities. People put the strangest things away in them.

Kitchen utensils? He found 'em by the ton. Appliances? He'd quit taking those, over a year ago.... he still had a warehouse full, at his main base near the ruins of Atlanta. Guns and ammo were particularly prized, as were anything he found that was related to camping, hunting, fishing, and primitive living. He'd long since lost count of how many lockers full of tools he'd found, and not too long ago he'd cracked the door on a locker containing five big barrels of motor oil., still sealed and completely usable. Those he kept for his own use, and some of the wandering traders he dealt with.

Today he was in South Carolina, going through a series of lockers at a place called 'U-Stor-it'. 

Cutting the lock on his sixth locker of the day, he groaned.... another dirty mattress, in front of a bunch of clothes. He was about to turn away when something caught his eye.

The clothing was packed in an orderly fashion, which was a sign all by itself; most of the time it was in garbage bags and old cardboard boxes, usually half rotted.... this stuff, though, was hanging from coathangers on makeshift racks, and much of it appeared to be new... what's more, there was a fair bit of what appeared to be military surplus camo uniforms. Those he knew he could trade for food, fuel, and other things he needed. Many of his customers were hunters, after all.

Digging further in, he found tents, several sleeping bags, and a number of other camping supplies. Those would come in handy, even if he couldn't trade them off. These went straight onto the truck.

Behind all of this he found several big storage tubs and two military footlockers, all of them taped shut at the seams with duct tape. These he dragged out into the fading sunlight.

The storage tubs, he soon found, were full of foil packages of dehydrated foodstuffs, of the sort used by hikers and campers back before the war. There was a good chance that most of that would still be edible. He quickly loaded all eight of these in to the truck as well.

One of these caught his attention.... it was significantly heavier than the rest. Cracking it open, he found reloading die sets and bullet molds in a dozen different calibers.... including .454 Cassull, .50 caliber Desert Eagle, and .650 nitro. That was for an elephant gun.... something he'd never seen before.

Finally, he came to the two footlockers... and they proved to be a treasure trove.

The first was packed with ammunition-hundreds of small boxes of it. Everything from .22 LR to .308 and .30-06 to dozens of boxes of 12 gage shotgun shells.

The second was even better. Who ever had packed it must have been a collector, or an old gun show dealer, because underneath a layer of assorted pistol ammunition were several pistol cases. Aside from four Berretta M-9s, there were half a dozen genuine Colt .45 automatics, a pair of Smith and Wesson .44 magnums, and three Desert Eagle .50 caliber revolvers. At the very bottom he found two double barreled shotguns, cut down to the length of large pistols, and something he considered the Holy Grail.... another revolver, this one chambered for the .454 Cassul cartridge.

He quickly went back through the ammunition he'd stacked to one side; sure enough, there were five boxes of cartridges for it. This one he loaded and stuck in his belt. 

Once everything was loaded into the old panel van, he found that there were two long cases in the very back, that he'd almost missed. Long cases brought two possibilities to mind.... and he was willing to bet these weren't guitars. The first held a pair of good, solid Browning Auto-5s, both chambered for 12 gauge, and the second held the most massive gun he'd ever seen. Closer inspection revealed it was a double rifle.... holy shit, he'd found a frickin' Elephant gun! It was chambered in .650 Nitro, and there was a long double row of shells for it, just below the rifle itself.

He took the extra time to load up both Desert Eagles, the sawed off shotguns, and four of the Colts, arranging them in the console of his truck before heading out... a reasonable precaution considering how unsafe the roads were these days. If he pushed it, he could be back at his warehouse in seven or eight hours.

The ride back, though, was uneventful, for a change. He radioed ahead while he was still ten miles out, letting his employee, Paul Hemmings, know that he'd be pulling in in about ten minutes, and to have the main garage doors open for him. 

"How'd it go, boss? Anything good this time?"

" Oh, a little bit, yeah.... "

Paul knew That tone... considering he was back three days earlier than planned, he must have hit on some good rooms early in the trip.

Mark pulled the truck inside, closing the heavy double doors behind him, and then turning around, backing up to the sorting tables. They had a routine; nothing got opened up until the entire truck was unloaded.

Paul raised an eyebrow at the long gun cases, but held his peace for the moment, helping Mark with the foot lockers, then grabbing the storage tubs, the racks of camoflage, six big tool boxes, half a dozen old milk crates full of car and motorcycle parts, and finally, up against the seats of the truck, two complete Harley-Davidson engines... a Sportster and an older Shovelhead.

"Damn, Boss! Are these for real?"

"You betcha! Found 'em in the third locker I opened.... wish I'd found some frames to go with 'em, though. Hey.... don't we have a few old bike frames here somewhere?"

"Those are Hondas and one Kawasaki.... that's blasphemy."

"Hey, we make do with what we've got. All of those toolboxes are full. We want to get at least ten gallons of fuel for 'em, each one, gas or 'shine, I don't care which. Anything good going on here?"

"Depends on what you call 'good'. Ol' man Jensen brought in a bunch of butter, milk, and about five dozen eggs.... plus a quarter of beef. I swapped him that old .308 rifle and two hundred rounds for it. Most of it is still in the refrigerators. Been selling it off a few steaks at a time. Widow Henderson brought in a pretty nice Beaverskin jacket, wanted a few boxes of assorted groceries, I took pity on her, set her up with a couple of week's worth and two big beef roasts. Should be enough to see her through till her crops come in. Mike Clark brought by sixty gallons of 'shine, just in time... we needed fuel for the generators. I traded him three hundred rounds of 12 gauge double-aught buck and a few thousand of those .22s you found last month. Jimmy dropped by, he ran across an old grocery store that still had some odd stuff. Brought in a couple of cases of coffee and two more, of peanut butter. It's an off brand, but he opened one jar right here, so we could try it. Still good, so I took the rest off him for ten boxes of 9mm and a couple of army camo uniforms. Oh, and Lou Carmichael stopped by this morning.... that new shelving unit will be ready tomorrow afternoon."

"Good.... we need more shelf space. How much room have we got in the gun cabinets right now?"

"Plenty.... I was hopin' you'd find something to fill 'em back up, in fact."

Mark grinned and flipped open the first of the long cases, revealing the old double rifle. "Ask and ye shall receive."

"What the fuck is that?"

"Double rifle.... if I'm right, I think this is English, a dangerous game rifle.... they used these for things like water buffalo an' elephants and so forth, about a couple hundred years ago, on hunting expeditions to places like Africa. I've read about them, but this is the first time I've seen one. It'll stop a charging bull moose in his tracks and drop a full grown bear in one shot. Found these too...." he said, opening the other case to reveal the pair of Brownings.

"Cool.... 12 guages?"

"Yup.... Browning Auto-5s.... five round capacity, great for ducks or deer. Lock 'em up, I'll be back in a minute."

Heading back to the driver's seat, he took along a small box, filling it with the pistols and shotguns he'd left in the console. 

Paul took one look and whistled, long and low. "Not taking any chances, huh?"

Mark shook his head... "All of these came out of one unit up there. The place is a fuckin' treasure chest. There's more in the footlockers, and a shitload of ammo, too.... and there's at least another ninety units up there to check out yet. I want to wait until some of the teams come in, take about four or five trucks up there."

"I can see why... if you could hit just one or two more like this...."

"We'll be fully stocked for a month, yeah. Anyone buying furniture?"

"Not to speak of, no. Missus Harrison bought them two end tables, traded a sheep for 'em, but other than that, we're just sittin' on it. There just isn't anyone moving in to this area to buy it." 

He scratched his chin in thought for a moment and continued. "I called out to the farm, had 'em take the sheep out there. It's breeding age, so I figured you'd want to get a few lambs out of it before turning it into mutton."

"Oh, and Mike Henshaw dropped by.... traded that whole stack of DVDs in, the ones he bought last week... swapped 'em for another bunch. He said he was looking to upgrade that crazy home theater system he's been building, so if you run across anything of that sort, he'd be interested. He's got fifty acres of corn, another hundred of wheat thats close to harvest, and he said he's already harvesting peaches and apples, so he'll have plenty to trade."

"Ok, well... do me a favor. I'm going to lay down for a bit, get a little rest. Get the truck refueled, check the fluids, and keep it down to a dull roar for a few hours, huh?"

"Okay.... when you wake up, I'll have some steaks cookin' on the grill. Baked beans and mashed potatoes?"

"Sounds like a plan.... but give me at least six hours.. Thanks, Paul."

He went back to, and through, his office, to the small apartment behind, jumped through the shower, then stretched out to sleep for a few hours.

Frank Bergen was at the Klamath base, overseeing the emplacement of more defensive armaments when the air raid sirens started going off. A calm voice came through the loudspeakers spaced around the base.

"Enemy aircraft headed this way, two hundred miles out. ETA 30 minutes. Gun and missile crews to station. Pilots, man your planes. Snipers to your posts. This is not a drill. Repeat: this is not a drill. Quick but efficient, people. Be safe. That is all."

"Well, I wanted to see these boys in action... " Frank mused as he watched.

The new base sprang to life as the crews of the radar-sighted guns got to their stations, loading the first rounds of the airburst Flak shells into chambers, belts were loaded into the .50 calibers and the miniguns, and missile batteries were brought online, the smaller, more localized radar units firing up in rapid succession.

He walked over to the outside operator of the long-range radar.

"Report!"

"Sir! Radar shows a pretty substantial group headed this way... at least forty planes, plus what appear to be ground troops, with armor. "

Bergen nodded. "Time to earn your pay, then, Lads. Get the garage on the horn, get the Abrams crews alerted and warm up the engines. Bradley and mobile AA crews to stations, just like we taught you, Jimmy... calm and steady, guy. Calm and steady. Everything is moving along nicely so far. Remind our aircrews to turn on their IFF transponders... we don't want any friendly fire accidents."

He watched as Blackhawk, Apache, and Cobra gunships spooled up, taking to the air quickly, and 'Identify Friend/Foe' transponder links popped up on the radar screens, ensuring that the computer guided missiles and guns wouldn't target them. Harrier ground crews ran off the runways, getting out of the way as the big jets literally jumped straight up in the air, and one by one, a flight of ten of the F117 Stealth fighters joined them in the air. These were followed by ten of the A-10 Warthogs and a dozen F-16s, while a secondary squadron of F-18 pilots went to a standby-alert status, some of the pilots hoping they wouldn't be needed while others hoped there would be a chance they'd get in on the action.

On the shooting platforms built onto the walls, snipers brought out their favorite rifles and laid out spare magazines, rocket launcher crews laid out dozens of LAW rockets, others laid out dozens of grenades for their launchers, and the men and women of Klamath base prepared to defend their new home.

The Stealths got the first shots off, choosing targets and firing off sidewinders as quickly as they could shift between targets. Dozens of missiles left the formation at once, finding targets all down the line of Chinese fighter jets and helicopters. Harriers flew well above the lines, attacking from above, adding their volume of firepower to the mix, confusing the Chinese even further as they flew out of the sun.

One of the A-10 Warthogs got too far ahead of his fellows; he managed to drop his load of cluster bombs, and fired off two Mavericks at an enemy tank, but was targeted by three of the enemy helicopters. His ejection system failed, and the pilot went down with his plane, the big ground support craft turning into a fireball as the five seperate missiles all caught up to him at once. 

The aircraft took it's own vengeance; the wreckage slamming, headlong, into a deuce and a half full of enemy troops.

His cluster bombs did their job, tearing holes in the roughly paved road and tearing into Humvees and foot troops alike, leaving disabled vehicles and screaming wounded in their wake.

The tank that he'd targeted, known to the Chinese as a type 4/mark IV, exploded in a massive fireball, the turret flying thirty feet before landing upside down alongside of a bend in the road.

Minutes later, the foot troops caught up, coming around the bend in the road, only to come under fire from the rifles of snipers, some of which were firing the .50BMG based Barret A8. The big rounds could, and did, in some cases, rip their way through up to three men.... and kept going for half a mile or more.

The Chinese, hearing a mere handful of the big rifles, thought that that was all they were facing, and attempted a wave attack, thinking that some of their number could get through.

Those of the defenders who were holding .308 and .30-06 rifles let them come closer.... and opened fire when the enemy was within three hundred yards. The effect was devastating. Bergen watched as men loaded up their grenade launchers with high explosive rounds and let fly, adding to the chaos.

Bob Sharpe brought the F-16 around in a tight turn, to see that the Hind he'd targeted was headed earthward in a plume of black smoke, He calmly looked around for another target, of which there were many. Then he saw them.... three of the Chinese copies of the Mig-25s were attempting to chase down a solitary F-16.

Jenny was in one of the F-16s.

"Oh, HELL, NO!" He shouted as he kicked in the afterburners, targeting the lead Mig with two sidewinders.

An F-18 joined the fray, targeting the other Migs, even as a Hind chopper flew towards them, two Apache's in hot pursuit of the much larger helicopter.

Bob switched over to his main gun. His personal F-16 was the only one equipped with the inch and three-quarter 'machine cannon'. It didn't have a high rate of fire, and the rounds were so big, he could barely carry two hundred, but the explosive rounds, with a range of close to three quarters of a mile, packed a punch like no other weapon in their airborne arsenal.

And Bob was well within that range before he unleashed the deadly cannon.

Five rounds hit the first of the Chinese jets, causing it to literally disintergrate in mid air.

The F 18 pilot looked on in awe for an instant. "Holy shit! What the hell was that?!?"

Bob chose not to answer him just yet; not over the radio, at least, but turned his attention to the Chinese helicopter. The high explosive rounds hit the windshield squarely, causing it to explode into the cabin of the big chopper, which cost the Chinese pilot any semblance of control.... 

"Thanks, honey!" Came over his headset from the other F16, which was, indeed, being piloted by Jenny. She sent two sidewinders of her own at the distracted and disabled chopper, and it, too, exploded in mid-air.

One of the Migs managed to slip past, and unleashed a barrage of air-to-ground missiles against the snipers on the raised shooting platforms..... five men died instantly, while six more were crippled by shrapnel. Cries of 'Medic!' filled the air, and men and women wearing the red cross armbands were soon far busier than any of them ever wanted to be.

Three of the missile batteries and one of the computer aimed miniguns responded, targeting the enemy plane; it, too, was soon a ball of falling, flaming wreckage, falling from the sky in pieces. Some of those pieces rained down on the ancient American armor, bringing one of the Bradleys to a halt. It wasn't too badly damaged, and, in fact, would be back in service within a week; the Captain in command was merely curious as to what was hitting his APC, and the cameras built into the hull had been disabled by falling debris.

His curiosity nearly got him killed; some of the debris was still falling, and he barely got back inside before a largish chunk of the destroyed jet impacted the backside of the old APC.

Four of the big Abrams tanks lined up, running down the road and the shoulders side by side, the commanders in the turrets calmly calling out targets to the gunners inside. Sabot and heavy armor piercing rounds were soon raining down on the numerous old Chinese tanks; their armor, while thick, wasn't quite thick enough. The Abrams gunners had been taught to target the point where the turret joined the tank hull, or the track, and they were taking full advantage of this.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 21



Three of the remaining enemy APCs turned and ran, a Bradley following them at a distance. When asked over the radio just what the hell he was doing, the commander of the big APC replied that this might be the only chance they got to find the location of the enemy base. One of the Apache pilots thought it was a good point, and followed at a short distance.

Jan Archer got up from the computer desk at the old research factory, stretching and yawning, realizing she'd missed dinner--and lunch, for that matter--again. Jim was out on the rounds, checking up on the progress being made at some of the new Militia bases, and wasn't due home for another two weeks.

He'd made her promise to remember to take breaks for meals, and her stomach was growling; shooting a glance at her watch, she saw that it was only two in the morning. She got up and made her way to the top floor to see what was left in the refrigerators.

In the kitchen, she found she wasn't the only one... George Miller and Tom Townsend were both there, small bowls of alfredo pasta in front of them as they argued over something.

"Damn it, George, I'm telling you, it isn't practical! We tried their prototypes.... the best we were able to get from them was four shots and the fuel cells were drained!"

"So we try changing the power levels somewhat.... or try to reduce the power consumption rates with some form of transformer. Ah, Good morning, missus Archer."

"Morning, Gentlemen... what's the project of the day?" she replied, though she thought she already knew. 

"Plasma rifles, Ma'am..... we've got a dozen different prototypes for them, but none work very well. Power consumption rates are off the scale. A battery for one of those 'electric rifles' barely gets four shots off before it's drained completely."

"What about mounting them on some sort of vehicle, using the charging system to fire them?"

Tom frowned and shook his head. 

"We tried that, on a Humvee equipped with double alternators.... it stalled the engine out."

"So you need something that will yield an extreme amount of voltage, with a minimal input." she replied, scratching at her chin as she made a sandwich for herself, a thoughtful look on her face.

George nodded, smiling slightly. He silently wished his girlfriend understood these problems half as well as this woman did.

Grabbing a mugful of coffee to go with her roast beef, she sat down nearby, chewing without really tasting, thinking the puzzle over.

"Have you gentlemen considered using one of those ignition coil packs, off a car engine? Those generate, what? Thirty five, forty thousand volts?"

Tom's eyes went wide, as he considered the electronics involved. That might just be the missing piece of the puzzle. That would step up the voltage nicely... and considering the battery packs for the laser rifles were seven hundred and fifty volts to start with, he was sure they could come up with something. This lady thought out of the box.

Mark Powell had rested for a week, waiting for more of his traders to return, telling them to take a few days off and rest up. One had found an old gunpowder factory that was back up and running, though nowhere near full capacity. He'd traded almost his entire stock of small arms for plastic buckets full of fresh powders of several types, after extensive testing showed that they did, indeed, burn as advertised. After adding in five cases of assorted rifle and pistol primers, he happily traded them over a hundred pounds of foodstuffs, too.

They also had an impressive reloading operation up and running, and he'd managed to barter a hundredweight of smoked beef for a thousand rounds each of 9mm and .223 rifle ammunition.

Another had run across a small village, made up mostly of women, who had extensive fields of numerous crops, which they canned or dried for their own use and for trading.... he had bought ten boxes full of canned tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberry jam. For these, he had traded three old shotguns and four hundred rounds of shells.... plus several nights of his own 'services'.

Mark knew better than to ask what those might be.

Seth Jones sat back in his living room, eleven others joining him to talk over what they needed to do, and what they needed to do it with. A few of them had reloading equipment, though the variety of die sets was limited; Harry had a small smelter, and four different sizes of bullet molds, not to mention a small forge set up by his own great grandfather. Jim Harper had a small milling machine; if he could get the raw materials, he could make some of the parts for silencers. The Kentucky volunteers were coming together, albeit slowly. Tonight, he had issued them a challenge; find just three people who they thought could be trusted, preferably outdoorsmen, like themselves, and just quietly sound them out, see what they thought of the militia movement in other parts of the country.

If they responded positively, they might be good recruits for their own group; if not, they could be watched, to see if they attempted to go to the Cubans to report to them.

Harry was planning a run to the local junkyard for the next day; his supply of castable lead was running low, and he needed some new alternators to hang off the front of the small four cylinder engine he used as a generator. Jim volunteered to go with him, thinking there might be some good pieces of steel to work with. Both men would carry pairs of pliers and coffee cans, collecting every old wheel weight they could find. One good, five gallon bucket full could keep him casting bullets for a few days.

Two hours in, they ran into an old friend... Ken Lafferty, a friend who did a lot of primitive smelting, rolling out small, thick sheets of steel., along with several sizes of steel ingots. 

Over the course of the next three hours, the three of them settled on an agreement; Ken would smelt the steel and supply the basic shapes and ingots and plates; Jim would do the basic machining, making new bullet molds, reamers for rechambering weapons, and new rifle and pistol barrels and parts. Harry would cast bullets, of course. He and Seth would also run through as many rounds as they had powder for, reloading until they ran out of supplies. 



On the East coast, Mark Powell and his crew, consisting of four old bread trucks, four even larger moving vans, and fourteen men, were hard at work. 

The first five lockers they'd gone through had been filled with crap; nobody cared about old toys and women's sleepwear these days. Soon, though, their hard work started to pay off... one of the bread trucks was soon full of tools, including several small generators and a good quality wire welder, complete with seven rolls of wire.

Over the course of the next three days, they slowly filled all eight trucks with all manner of goods, including two four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, one six-wheeled amphibious thingamabob, and what appeared to be the overflow stock-in-trade of an entire sporting goods store's fishing department. Those lockers alone had filled two of the larger moving vans completely along with part of a bread truck.

Another had been filled, partially, with freeze-dried and dehydrated foodstuffs, while two more were full of case upon case of traps and several dozen more guns, everything from .22 small game rifles to fine, semi-automatic shotguns, and dozens of cases of ammunition. Yet another was full of reloading equipment and supplies, including buckets full of spare brass casings, boxes of rifle and shotgun primers, and plastic jars full of various powder propellants.

Another large locker turned up a decent sized speedboat, set up for fishing, while the one next to it was filled from front to back with hydroponic growing supplies, everything from lights and timers to all manner of dried fertilizers. This one also yielded up four bicycles, including an adult-sized recumbent trike with a small trailer, and half a dozen food dehydrators, still in the boxes.

A subsequent stop, at an old bookstore in an adjacent town, had yielded up a dozen boxes of books, everything from cookbooks to books on gunsmithing and auto mechanics, hunting and fishing, farming techniques to outdoor survival to books on the chemistry of gunpowder and various explosives.... those would come in handy.

It was from one of these that they learned that one massive weapon they'd found, which looked like some sort of percussion-cap cannon, was, in fact, called a 'punt gun', used primarily by market hunters for killing entire flocks of ducks and geese in one shot.

By this point, Mark had a smile on his face that couldn't be removed with a crowbar; his store would be stocked for the next six months, at least, and he knew some of the guys would go through the piles of stock they'd found, taking their pay in trade. 



The punt gun, though, would stay with him. A dozen ducks, or geese, or more, with one shot? He could keep his refrigerated poultry cases full with almost no effort at all. 

When they returned, it was to find another of his wandering traders waiting for their return. Kip Grassley had been over in the Texas panhandle, and had brought back a bit over five hundred pounds of dried and canned beef, six big barrels of high octane gasoline, and two more, filled with forty weight motor oil, all bought from a small group who were hijacking it from Cuban convoys. The ranchers he'd bought these from had informed him that they'd trade for any kind of ammunition he could find, and weapons, anything from sniper rifles to full auto, would bring good prices.

The Cubans, it seemed, had a small refinery back up and running.



Jerry Duncan was, again, out on a scavenging run.... he'd heard of a small town on the western side of the state that was mostly intact. He hoped it was true; he was always looking for more people to trade with. The bed of his truck was nearly full; he'd brought along two small generators that he'd found and managed to get running, along with four big boxes of tools and a few guns he had no use for.

He was still twenty miles out when he ran across the stranger who saved his life, warning him that the next town was basically a trap, and wandering traders and scavengers like himself were the prey.

They turned off at another small town, looking for a safe place to fix a hot meal and trade information. Finding an old Ford dealership on the edge of town, they jimmied the side door, rolling up one of the service doors and pulling Jerry's truck inside, out of sight, before firing up his small camp stove and filling up a small stew pot with freeze-dried chili.

While the chili heated up and the old, battered coffee pot perked, Jerry got out his book of maps and pointed out the areas of the state where he'd found trouble, so far.

Ed Harrison nodded, pointing to the area where he'd found the town full of scammers.

"The sign outside of town says 'Goodwill', but I think that's just part of the scam, to lure you in.... once you're there, and out of your truck, they surround you with armed men. By that point, it's too late to do anything, and they take what you have and run you off, tell you to be glad you're gettin' away with your life. Bastards." he turned his head and spat on the ground.

Jerry nodded.... he'd seen such things before, mostly nearer to Detroit. It seemed there was no shortage of people who wanted something for nothing these days. "What did they take from you?"

"They got my truck, and all of my food.... wasn't much, just a couple of week's supply, but it was all I had. Got a good pistol and my old shotgun, too."

"Well.... we're in the right place to set you up with a new truck.... we should be able to get one of these running in a day or two. I can stake you with some food and other supplies.... don't have any shotguns, but I've got an extra pistol and a decent old .30-06 rifle I can give you."

"Mighty nice of ya... kinda generous."

"You kept me from walking into their trap.... that counts for something, with me. Besides, I can load up on some of these tools here, and spare parts, use 'em for trade goods.... won't miss one .45 and a rifle, and a couple of milk crates full of food."

"I don't suppose you've got any gas to spare, do you?"

"Not really, no, but most of these places protected their gas supplies with a layer of argon gas, to keep it from spoiling.... we can probably get all we need right here."

Over the course of the next three days, they found an old/new full sized pick-up that still had a good engine, and set about making it roadworthy again, no small task, these days. A lower shelf in one of the storage rooms turned up several old batteries that weren't totally dead, and after swapping one out, refilling it with fresh sulfuric acid, and letting it charge from a jump from Jerry's truck, managed to get the old engine running. As Jerry had predicted, the old dealership had a decent supply of fuel, protected by an inert gas, and they happily split every spare gas can in the place, each of them leaving with full fuel tanks and over fifty extra gallons of gas apiece.

The big toolboxes they each loaded into the backs of their trucks were, basically, icing on the cake. Another storage room turned up dozens of spare tires; choosing those that showed the least amount of dry rot, they spent an entire day mounting extra sets of these by hand, a serious chore all by itself. Sitting down for dinner that night, each man felt a good sense of accomplishment at the work they'd done in the past few days.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, the two men said their goodbyes and headed out, Jerry to the northeast, Ed to another road that traveled in a more northerly direction.

Don Anderson sat back in his office, pondering the new stock that had come in over the past few days. Ten thousand M-16s, with a bit over a million rounds of ammunition, would go a long way, and the addition of a thousand grenade launchers and two thousand 9mm pistols didn't hurt either. Bergen had been generous; there were also four truckloads of dehydrated foods and a nice case of scotch to top everything off.

His own men had also been busy; in nearby towns, they'd found three seperate machine shops, none of them very big, and had carefully shipped the assorted mills, lathes, and other machine tools back to Klamath, setting them all up in one of the vacant buildings. One of Bergen's teams were even now working diligently to get the equipment set up and running again. Another building was set up as a smelter, and was already turning out steel in small amounts, using the contents of several nearby junkyards for raw materials. Old, wrecked cars they had in abundance.... they still had towtruck crews out running twelve hour shifts, clearing the old roads and freeways.

Yet another crew was busy building more hanger space; the extra planes from Juniper base were lined up all along the runways, which made him nervous. The new hangers would be a bit on the crude side, basically enormous log cabins, but anything that got the numerous fighters and fighter-bombers out of the weather and concealed from prying eyes was a good thing. Bergen had left behind five enormous, but portable, sawmills, as well, and those were busy day and night, turning massive logs into usable lumber.

The logs came from land they were clearing for farmland, so nothing really went to waste, and much of the bark and sawdust, as well as the roots, were run through grinders and used either as compost or kindling, or as bedding for the numerous animals on the farms.

Ed Norton was busy out on the fringes of the Stevens spread, fixing sections of the barbed wire fences that had been broken by cattle over the previous winter, when he spotted them... four Humvees and two deuce and a halfs, headed towards the western edge of the property. He laid his tools down, reaching for the portable radio.

"Norton to base."

"Go ahead."

"Sir, be advised.... four Hummers and two big trucks, coming from the direction of Dead Oak pass, headed west. Looks like they're headed for Marsh Johnson's place."

"Thank you, Mister Norton.... pack up and head for the eastern bunkhouse for the moment. We'll spread the word."

Within twenty minutes, every man on the Stevens ranch was mobilized; horses were saddled and rifles and shotguns were handed out from the armory, and word had been spread to several other nearby ranches and farms.

Mike O'Connell was there with his own people, waiting behind a ridge in the land for some of the other members of the Guard to join them.

Dan Jenkins was the first to show up; he and his men were all carrying old hunting rifles, many of them scoped. Within half an hour, they were joined by men from half a dozen other local ranches and farms, spread out in a wide semi-circle around the entrance to the Johnson spread.

They began a slow advance across the top of the ridge, nearly a hundred strong, and as they cleared the top, the situation on the other side became apparent.

The vehicles were pulled up in a line at the gates to the Johnson ranch, and the Cubans had apparently already shot the gate guards. Now they were struggling to get the lock off the heavy chain securing the front gate. Just as the old boltcutter did its job, the men of the Guard were spotted, and opened fire.

Cubans fell like bowling pins, although three of them managed to get shots off; one of Jenkin's men took a round in the shoulder, while McConnel's foreman was down with a gutshot.

Three of his ranch hands responded in kind; two Mac 10s and an old Thompson spoke, and several of the men in the green uniforms went down at once.

The man in charge, a seargent, growled and started to draw a pistol; his body was riddled with rounds from four different rifles before he quite got it clear of the holster. The final two soldiers started to raise their hands, but the Texans were beyond caring whether they surrendered or not; both men died with their hands up.

Marshall Johnson pulled up at the front gate of his place to see several of his neighbors cleaning up the bodies of more than a dozen Cuban soldiers, along with three of his own men, who had been on duty at the gate. He calmly spoke into his hand radio, and as they finished policing up the bodies, several of his own men turned up, riding four-wheelers, and jumped in to help.

They left most of the old AK-47s with him, of course, figuring it was proper compensation for the men he'd lost. The bodies would be buried in his compost piles, under layers of manure; next year, he'd have a good bunch of fertilizer as a result.

Jimmy Archer, junior, sat back in the small cove, Debbie Bergen at his side. They had been friends for years, and their friendship had evolved into a lazy, loving relationship over the past few years. They'd laid out their blankets in the same place that BJ, Mickey, Jeff, Doris, and Cassie had used, a few years back.

Jimmy was mixing drinks for the two of them, while Debbie tended to the fire and the hot dogs on the folding grill they'd brought along.

"Babe?"

Jimmy looked up at the questioning tone in her voice. "Hmm?"

"Have you ever thought about, well, leaving the Cave?"

He handed her a cup filled with apple juice and whiskey before answering.

"I've thought about it, yeah.... your dad says there's lots of opportunity out there right now. I was talking about it with him before he left for the Klamath base... he said there's at least a dozen new towns that need good gunsmiths, and he's looking for someone to restart that steel mill they found a few weeks ago, down in Nevada. I studied all of that in school, wanted to know how it was made, so I'm kinda equipped for it by default."

She looked up sharply at this, anxiety clear on her features. She knew Nevada was directly in the path of the radioactivity from the accident they'd had last year.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 21



He caught her look and frowned. "Don't worry, hun.... your dad says it's safe enough, now... most of the radiation got turned around and swept out to sea by that freak wind last fall. We dodged a bullet, there."

What neither of them knew was that the wind in question had, in fact, come straight from a Being who sat a Golden Throne, who had taken a liking to this particular group of His Children; while they weren't particularly religious, and weren't exactly monogamous, they worked hard, they were trying to restore His world to some semblance of normalcy, and very few of them ever called upon Him for any sort of help. They preferred to do things for themselves, and weren't afraid of hard work to achieve such goals as they had, so He didn't mind tipping the scales in their favor once in a while. Keeping a bit of radiation well up in the atmosphere and sweeping it far out to sea took almost no effort at all for Him, so He didn't begrudge them the nanosecond of thought required to see to it.

They ate in companionable silence, finishing off the six hotdogs she'd packed along, and laid back on the blankets they'd brought, enjoying the warmth in the air that was forced down by the multitude of fans near the ceiling of the huge chamber. This was by design; with the fans distributing the heat generated by the hundreds of high intensity discharge lights, the whole chamber simulated a southern Florida lake pretty well, and the scattered citrus fruit trees were in a near constant state of production.

In an average year, they were producing oranges, lemons, grapefruit, kiwifruit, mangoes, and limes for six months.... during the other six, small plows and manure spreaders were run in between the rows, spreading tons of compost and thousands of gallons of water, ensuring that the soil around them didn't wear out. The lighting was cut back to ten hours a day, to simulate winter conditions, and the trees were allowed time to recover a bit. It was a system that had been refined over generations, but it hadn't failed them yet. 

Debbie rolled to her side, laying her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, nuzzling at his neck. He knew what she wanted, of course, but he shook his head. 

"Hang on, Kitten.... I want to give this food time to settle first."

"Ah, you're just bein' lazy!"

"That, too... "

She slapped him lightly on the chest before reaching down, taking hold of him through his pants. Feeling him twitch to life through the rough material, she smiled. "Doesn't feel that lazy to me."

"After what you did to me last night, I'm amazed I can get it up at all."

"Oh, hell, babe, it was only four times."

"Five."

"Ok, five, then... although that last one should hardly count. It barely got hard enough.... and I don't think you shot much of anything, either."

He just smiled and lay back, letting her know, through his silence, that she could do as she wished.... and she did, struggling with the button of his jeans for a moment before fishing out his hardening cock. In moments, her head was between his thighs, swooping down on his six and a half inches, taking him all the way down in one swallow. Her head began to bob as she jacked his shaft with one hand, and he groaned in appreciation, tangling his fingers in her hair.

"Damn, honey, you keep that up, I'm gonna cum in your mouth!"

She gave a muffled grunt and sped up her efforts. It was long moments later that she was rewarded for her actions, streamers of sperm shooting down her throat. She kept going, making sure he stayed hard, then shed her shorts and panties, throwing a leg across his midsection, and positioning his still-hard cock at the tight little rosebud of her ass and sat down, driving the first few inches up her own backdoor. He smiled up at her, reaching under her thin T-shirt, massaging her C-cups as she rode him. Soon he bottomed out in her tight little rectum, and she began inching back up, only to drop back down a little harder, picking up speed as her body grew accustomed to his intruding cock. Soon she was moaning atop him, slamming herself down on his hardness, and he smiled as he felt the moisture seeping from her cunt, soaking his groin. He began fucking back up into her, speeding up the process, and she cried out as she came again, finally halting her own movements, shuddering in pleasure as her climax overtook her. He slammed into her a final time, letting out a loud groan as his balls emptied into her tight ass. She collapsed on top of him, burying her face in the hollow of his neck.



Doctor Vurtel looked over the patient carefully, noting that the stitches were healing well... trained as a pediatrician, he was, nonetheless, a pretty decent combat medic, and there was currently no shortage of patients requiring his attention here at Klamath. He'd taken over a dozen pieces of shrapnel out of the poor kid, and wasn't entirely sure he'd walk again. Within five weeks, the young man would surprise him, telling the nurse to 'get the damned catheter out of his dick so he could take a piss like a normal person.'

He tried; really, he did.... but it was another week before he could build up the strength to walk as far as the bathroom. Until then, he was forced to use a 'urinal bottle', which he hated almost as much as the catheter. A week after that, he was taking short trips down the hallway, and within a month, he was walking to the hospital cafeteria, taking his meals with the staff and visitors.

Doctor Vurtel was amazed by his progress, fueled by his determination to once again be able to do things for himself.

Jordan Brewster surprised himself more than he did the good Doctor.... he was farm-raised, and ordinarily, he'd have followed the Doc's orders to take it easy for the first few months. He knew that he'd had three different surgeries to find all of the shrapnel in his legs and abdomen, after the rocket attack; he felt guilty, knowing that the men to either side of him had died from their wounds. He just couldn't shake off the feeling that his life had been spared for some higher purpose.

Doris and Cassie were left at home alone again, while Mickey was away, delivering another Abrams tank from Juniper to the new base, north of Klamath. They'd just finished canning thirty quarts of strawberry jam, and were planning the next move when BJ showed up. Doris had just left, in fact, going to the Cave to visit Missy.

BJ and Jeff had moved here to Clancy to be closer to their old friends.

Cassie opened the door to see the younger girl on the front porch, holding small baskets full of tomatoes in each hand.

"Hi, Cass! I dropped by to see if you guys could use some extra tomatoes."

"Oh, lord, girl..... we've got too many as it is.... I was just sitting here trying to figure out what we're going to do with them all."

"Ouch.... oh well.... I suppose I could can them.... our garden is overflowing with them."

"Ours, too.... and I don't have enough garlic and onions to make spaghetti sauce out of them all. Do you have any dehydrators? I've been meaning to pick up a couple, but the store hasn't had any, lately."

BJ nodded. "I've got three of them, yeah.... they come in handy when the pot plants are ripe. Jeff planted about thirty plants, killed off nineteen males, and let the females grow.... three of them got pollinated, so we did wind up with some seeds, but mostly what we're getting is clean bud. Must have about eight pounds right now, and the damned fool things are still growing."

She grinned for a second and continued. "I used a bunch of the leftover leaf in some pizza sauce I canned, earlier this month. Crushed it nearly into powder and used it just like any other spice."

Cassie smiled at this. It was an idea she hadn't thought of.... considering how often Mickey liked to make pizza, she should have thought about pizza sauce. Adding a bit of a buzz to it would just be icing on the cake.

"Could I borrow one of those dehydrators? I'd like to dry out about two bushels of these tomatoes, and maybe a bunch of garlic and onions, too, if I can find any at the store.... and some of the pot we've got growing in the basement."

"Sure.... I've got a ton of bay leaves and cilantro, too.... way more than I can use."

"Oh, perfect.... can I trade you some peppers for them? We've got green and red bells and yellow banana peppers..... and speaking of pot, you want to burn one?"

"Why not.... I don't have a whole lot to do right now, with Jeff down at Belden base, training their new shooters.... and I can always use some peppers, now that you mention it"

"I know what you mean.... Mickey's hauling a tank down from Juniper to Klamath, so Doris and I have kinda been left to our own devices. She's gone to the Cave right now, so I've just been sitting here figuring out what's next for canning."

"Boring...."

"I know, right?" Cassie replied, while digging through the sidetable drawer, finally coming up with a tightly rolled joint and an old Zippo. Reaching for the remote control, she turned the television and DVD player on. 

"What are you watching?" BJ asked, sitting on the couch next to her old friend and accepting the burning doobie.

"A film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.... Doris found it at the store yesterday.... three parts. About two and a half or three hours per disc.... I read the book in school, but I never knew they made a movie out of it."

"I didn't read that one.... that was Ayn Rand, right? The woman who wrote that book about the architect?"

Cassie nodded, passing back the joint again. "The Fountainhead.... yeah, that's her.... We've got that one, too, but it's a lot older.... it's in black and white. Some guy named Gary Cooper starred in it. They left a lot of the book out of the movie."

"Which part are you watching?"

"This is the first disc.... I was about to start it up when you came over... want to see it with me?"

"Sure... with Jeff gone, I'm bored as hell... the house is too quiet..... and Caleb and Jeanine haven't been over for a few days. They're still getting set up. I think we made 'em a bit nervous, last time they were over."

"Oh, well... Doris is off, visiting friends back at the Cave, and I'm alone for the night.... and Mickey won't be back for a couple of days. I was going to heat up some venison stew and watch movies tonight... want to spend the night here? I could use the company."

"Sure.... I don't have any plans for the night.... hang on. Get the stew going, give me a few minutes to run over to the house and grab those dehydrators, and the spices, and I'll be back by the time it's ready."

Thirty minutes later, they were once again seated on the couch, bowls of stew in their laps, while the aroma of drying tomatoes and burning marijuana permeated the small house. By the time they'd finished dinner, both were feeling the effects of the potent smoke, compounded by full bellies, and were getting a bit sleepy. While the movie played on, they became more entangled together, and BJ was soon nuzzling Cassie's neck.

"Oh, my.... feeling a bit horny, are we?"

BJ smiled.... "Always, hun... Jeff's been gone over a week, and I'm tired of having only my fingers for company."

Cassie kissed her firmly, accepting the younger woman's tongue for a long moment. "Don't worry, dear... momma will take care of you... let's finish watching this part, and we can head for the bedroom. I've got a surprise for you."

BJ arched an eyebrow. "Really? And just what might that be?"

Cassie just smiled and turned back to the movie.

Soon she and the buxom young redhead were down the hall in the master bedroom, slowly undressing each other, stopping at certain spots to tongue each other's breasts, and soon after that, Cassie was pushing her young friend back, diving face first between her thighs. She licked slowly, tentativley, at first, nibbling lightly at BJ's clit as she sawed two fingers in and out of the girl's tight little pussy.

BJ was already moaning when Cassie seemed to realize she was missing out on half the fun, getting up for a moment to move into a 69 position before putting her tongue back in play.

BJ knew what she wanted, and was happy to oblige, drilling her own tongue up into Cassie's open pussylips, fluttering it up and down between them for long moments before turning her attentions to her clit. Cassie moaned appreciatively, the vibrations sending the younger woman over the edge into an explosive orgasm, flooding her cheeks with her juices.

BJ wasn't finished with her, though, not by a long shot, as she drove three fingers into her old friend's tight hole, still tonguing her clit as another orgasm overtook her. Her other hand was busy as well, driving her middle finger into Cassie's anus, feeling the blonde stiffen for a moment as the finger slid in as far as it could reach. Cassie came again, hard, and returned the favor, driving a finger into BJ's rectum even as she bent the two fingers in her pussy up, seeking and finding her G-spot, massaging the spongy tissue until the younger woman came again... and again.

Cassie got up for a minute, and BJ thought she was taking a break..... until the older woman turned, a long purple thing sticking out from between her thighs. She raised an eyebrow at this.

Cassie smiled and nodded. "It's called a 'feeldoe'.... one end sticks up into my pussy.... the other, well..... I'll show you, honey."

With that, she reached over, pushing BJ up on her knees, and pushed the head into her, doggy style. Soon, she was thrusting away at her young girlfriend, feeling the push back deep inside her own cunt. BJ began to moan as the purple dildo slammed into her, sliding her fingers across her clit as Cassie fucked her hard with the new toy. She pushed back against her old lover, who felt every movement herself.

"OH Yeah! Fuck me, baby.... harder! Oh God, that's good!"

Cassie reached around, squeezing her tits as she plowed the redhead, smiling and panting as her own orgasm built. 

"Yeah it is... you should feel it from this side!" she moaned out as she bent forward, nuzzling at the back of the younger woman's neck, even as she continued fucking her, feeling every push deep in her own pussy. Soon the both of them were cumming hard, their moans and small cries of ecstacy echoing off the bedroom walls. They continued for long moments, until Cassie could no longer keep going, and collapsed on the bed.

BJ, though, would not be denied, and she waited until Cassie was flat on her back before straddling her, fitting the head to her tight little ass, and sat down firmly, taking every inch of the big purple dick up her ass in one smooth motion. She began to ride her old friend, and Cassie groaned anew as the other end of the sex toy rubbed against the walls of her grasping cunt.

"Goddamn, girl, you're going to make me cum agai....OH! That's it! Harder, babe, harder!" She squealed as yet another hard orgasm overtook her.

BJ continued to ride her old friend, even as another orgasm took hold of her, and soon she was all but squirting her juices over Cassie's groin. Finally she couldn't take anymore and fell to the mattress beside her friend.

"Oh, God that was good!"

Cassie didn't answer her with words, just rolled onto her side and kissed her old friend hard, bringing her hand up and taking ahold of her right breast, massaging it lightly and thumbing her nipple.

BJ grinned and took hold of the purple dildo, pulling it gently from Cassie's pussy and inserting the short end into her own, rolling over on top of the older woman and settling between her thighs, reaching between them and fitting the head between her open cuntlips, sliding into her slowly. 

Cassie hissed softly in pleasure, spreading her legs further, and accepted the long purple shaft into her pussy, raising her ass off the mattress and pushing back hard against BJ's hips.... BJ, for her part, began a slow, rhythmic stroking into the older girl, feeling for herself how the short end of the shaft rubbed against the walls of her own cunt. She moaned appreciatively as the shorter end rubbed against her insides, picking up her pace, eliciting a small cry from Cassie as she began hammering the big purple dick into her old girlfriend. Cassie reached up, grabbing her right nipple between her teeth, sucking hard, driving BJ over the edge yet again. BJ kept going for long minutes, but soon, she couldn't keep going anymore, and she pulled out of her old friend with a slurping, popping noise, collapsing beside her on the bed.

They woke up five hours later, BJ first, realizing that the big fake cock was still inside her; her stirring woke up Cassie, who smiled and reached for her, hugging her tightly as she whispered ''Morning, lover."

BJ kissed her just below the ear. "Morning, babe.... ready for some breakfast?"

"Sure.... pancakes and sausage sound good?"

"That'll work. I'll get the coffee going."

Within twenty minutes, they were again seated in front of the TV, watching the second part of the movie, seeing Dagny Taggart's search for the motor invented by a young engineer known as John Galt, and her budding relationship with Hank Rearden.

By the end of the third disc, all of their questions about the first two parts had been answered; neither one could help wondering, though, whether the scenario played out in the movie might have really happened here, had the world not become embroiled in nuclear war. From all accounts, the country had been headed towards just such a mess before the war had broken out.

Doris knocked on the door to the apartment occupied by Missy and Pete, and was greeted by the young woman she and her two lovers had taken in, more than a year ago. Missy was only six months along in her pregnancy, so her 'baby bump' wasn't too pronounced, just yet.

"Hey, sweetie!"

"Doris! How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, dear.... Cassie and Mickey send their love.... I had to come down here, pick up a few things from the store, so I thought I'd drop by, see how you an' Pete are doing."

"We're ok... just waiting for junior, here, to make his appearance." She replied, rubbing her distended stomach.

"You're sure, then? It's a boy?"

Missy nodded. "That's what Doc McKenna says, yeah.... he had me in for an ultrasound last week. If he kicks me anymore, I'm gonna have him signed up for soccer by the time he's five."

Doris grinned. "Well, at least that way you'll have a way to get him out of the house sometimes... everyone I know who has kids, it's always the same story.... once the kids come along, the sex life is shot to hell."

Missy smiled. "Not here.... Pete is almost afraid to touch me, I think he's afraid of forcing me into labor.... I pretty much have to climb on top of him.... and I'm always horny, these days."

"Ouch.... oh well, what can you do, huh? Hey, you want to go shopping with me? There's a few things I need to pick up.... the store in Clancy doesn't have 'em right now, and I'm not willing to wait for some picker to find them."

"Sure.... just let me grab my passbook and whatnot."

The two women chatted amiably as they made their way down to the general store warehouse in the Cave, where Doris picked out three big food dehydrators and a few small bottles of assorted spices, and Missy grabbed a few steaks and a small buffalo roast for dinner that night, along with a fresh gallon of milk, a pound of butter, and a quart of sour cream. Another stop at the dispensary got her a bottle of well aged whiskey, a case of the new soda pop they were now making at the old factory, and a couple of ounces of the various types of marijuana that were currently ripe. The grocery department had a new kind of fruit, too... pomegranates.

Doris raised an eyebrow at this, and Missy smiled. "Someone found a small jar of seeds for them, on the back of one of the shelves in one of the warehouses..... I guess that was seven, eight years ago. They planted a bunch of them, in a fallow field, and they've been growing like crazy ever since. This is the first harvest. Makes pretty good juice, too. Not very good for mixing cocktails with, but the doc says it's loaded with vitamins."




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 22



Well, folks, this is my most ambitious chapter to date. I know this has been a long time coming, (sorry) but editing, proofing, rewriting, and the sheer size has slowed things down a bit. Needless to say, the muse has been giving me a workout, and I hope it was worth the wait. As always, I refuse to be politically correct, so if any of my conservative libertarian views offend you, complain to someone else... I don't want to hear about it. I'll take constructive criticism any time, but complaining just to nitpick is a waste of time. I hope you enjoy it.

*****

"Caleb, do you really want to stay here?" Jeanine asked.

"Baby, you know I do... this place is a helluva lot more interesting than Kansas."

"Well, yeah, but it takes some getting used to."

He smiled. "You mean the party we went to at Mickey's place?"

"Well... yeah, a little bit... I wasn't real ready for that."

"Well... we don't have to go to any more of those, if you don't want to."

He smirked, and continued. "I notice you loved it when that guy Jeff gave it to you up the butt, though."

She realized he was teasing; two could play that game.

"Yeah... he's got a nice thick one!"

He frowned at her for a second.

She got a serious look on her face again... "Besides, it isn't so much the party that worries me... did you see his scars? You know those were from bullets, right?"

He nodded. "Sometimes freedom ain't free, dear. Some folks have to be willing to protect that freedom... or, in this case, to take it back. I was talking to Mark Culligan the other day about it... he said the Militia's been pretty busy, over the past few years. They've been finding these Chinese camps and destroying them, one by one, since they 'came out'. He never did say exactly what they 'came out' of, but from what I gather, it's some kind of hidden city. These people are willing to risk their lives to make this a free country again. I want to help."

She nodded, but the look of worry didn't leave her face. "I know you do, honey, but I can't stand the thought of losing you."

"Well, don't go borrowin' trouble. I ain't dead yet. Besides, right now, it's just training... Jeff said that they won't allow me to deploy with the troops until they're certain I'm properly trained, and both the shooting instructor and the senior drill instructor say I'm ready, and that'll be at least another four months... unless I go for scout training. If I go that route, I'll be going through at least another six months, and possibly as much as a year. Besides, Mister Reynolds says all of our little group are more valuable as farmers... we already know how the big farm equipment works. The only reason I'm on the wood harvesting crew right now is because they already had the fields planted when we got here, and the road repair crews are pretty much full. Won't be much to do in the fields until harvest time... the younger kids and some of the older folks take care of the weeding. There's only four fields lying fallow right now, and all of them have already gotten their loads of manure and compost for the summer... we won't be adding any more until early fall."

"Well, if we're stayin', we need to find something else to do... the credits are going out faster than they're coming in."

"I know... Mickey said that would happen, until we get ourselves established. You've got pretty much everything you need for the kitchen... what else do we really need?"

Then a few thoughts occurred to him, and he answered his own question.

"I need to get some more tools together... can't do much with that little tool box I've got now. I want to get a set up like they have, too... that 'stereo' of his is amazing."

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to get one of those 'vacuum cleaners'... Doris says theirs saves her so much time. We need a few more dishes and silverware. I've got most of the pots and pans I need for now."

"I thought you said we had all the kitchen stuff?"

"Well, yeah, if it's just you and me... but if we have people over..."

He grinned and took her in his arms. "Sounds like you want to have a few 'parties' of our own."

She smiled, giving his crotch a squeeze. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

He nodded, giving her a quick kiss. "Yeah... but we need to be more careful... what'll we do if you get pregnant? Especially if the kid doesn't look like me? Try to figure out who the daddy is?"

She laughed at that. "If she looks like you, that'd be a shame... I'd hope she'd look more like me."

He frowned at her for a second, but couldn't hold it. 

She smiled again and said "Relax, honey... Doris is taking me to her doctor this afternoon to get a 'happy shot'."

He cocked an eyebrow at this.

"It's a birth control shot... it'll keep me safe for the next six months."

"Well, if this is my last chance..." he reached between them, trying to unbutton her shorts.

She smiled and let him pull them down, while she did the same to his jeans, and soon he had her hoisted onto the kitchen counter. He kissed her neck while insinuating a hand between her legs. Running a single finger up and down her already-moistening pussy lips, he felt, blindly, for her clit, rubbing the little nub as it peeked out from behind it's little hood of flesh.

She, meanwhile, got his jeans and shorts down far enough to get her hands on his already stiffening cock and started stroking him lightly, tossing her head back as he nibbled lightly at her neck, her breath quickening as his two fingers entered her quim and found her G-spot. Soon she was kissing him hungrily as she reached between them, pulling his hand away and positioning the head of his strong eight inches at the mouth of her hungry cunt.

He slid into her slowly, teasing her as he began pistoning in and out of her tight little pussy in slow motion, knowing that she preferred it hard and fast.

"Would you quit playing with me!" she nearly shrieked, knowing full well what he was doing.

He just smiled, continuing to inch his way in and out of her.

Finally, frustrated by his slow movements, she tried to buck her hips back against back against him... but he had a firm grip on her hips, and just smiled again, continuing his slow motion fucking.

"Damn it, either give it to me right or let me up, so's I can find someone who will!"

He frowned at this. "What's the matter, babe, you don't want it to last? "

He continued with their earlier, more mundane conversation. It was part of the game.

"Anyway... My team's been bringing in a lot of wood, so we should all be getting a bonus in our accounts soon. Mike Gordon said you could probably pick up some extra, watching kids at the daycare, too."

All along, he kept up his slow thrusting, which he knew was driving her crazy.

"Ohhhh, you're going to pay for this!"

He just smiled, speeding up just enough for her to notice the difference.

"Damn it, you can go faster than that! OOOoooohhh! Harder, honey! I'm almost... " She was forced to quit talking as her first orgasm overtook her, shuddering as her pussy clenched down on his hardness. Her arms tightened around his neck and she buried her face in his throat, her moans reverberating in his skull.

He grinned and sped up again. He was starting to feel a bit of urgency in his balls, too.

He began to grunt as his balls slammed into the small bit of her pussy that rested beyond the counter's edge.

She groaned as she came again, drenching him in her juices, her arms wrapped around his neck as her feet locked together, behind his ass.

Finally, with a grunting moan, he lost control, shooting ribbons of cum into her deepest recesses, holding tight to her as his orgasm triggered hers, holding tightly to her hips as he lifted her and carried her to the living room couch, where he turned and sat, her in his lap, his member still buried inside her. She spread her legs as he set them down, still feeling small aftershocks from her own orgasm, then shifted around until her knees were under her and his shriveled cock finally pulled out of her. Realizing what she was missing, she nearly jumped off him, backwards, narrowly missing banging her foot on the coffee table as she swooped down, taking his now limp dick in her mouth, cleaning up their combined juices.

John Davidson, Jim Fulton, and big Mike slowly made their way south, stopping several times to trade along the way, mostly for fresh meat and small bottles of milk to go with their coffee, finding a small village in Ohio that still had electricity from three big windmills, a water wheel in the nearby river, and a large bank of solar panels and collecting four big blocks of ice for their coolers, and soon had all manner of goods in the three trucks.

Crossing into Kentucky, they soon found that moonshiners were as thick as fleas in this area; looking for one specific man was looking for a needle in a haystack. 

Wandering traders weren't all that uncommon in this area; three men in military trucks, on the other hand, were unusual, to say the least... so it wasn't unusual for the women and children to stay hidden, at first, whenever they rolled into a new town, while the men generally eyed them with a fair amount of suspicion. 

In a small town called Kent, according to the sign outside of town, they pulled in on what was clearly a 'market day'. In a large parking lot in the middle of town, there were tables set up in a haphazard fashion, people trading their excess produce from small farms all over the area. One man had six bushels of corn, and had just, in fact, traded off one for a big bucketful of tomatoes; an older woman, at the table next to him, had dozens of small jars full of strawberry and blueberry preserves. Just a little ways further down the line was a young man with dozens of small jars filled with a clear liquid; John had a feeling he wasn't selling water. Other tables held tools, kitchen utensils, one man was trading a bunch of DVDs, and another had small bundles of firewood, samples of what he had available.

The three traders pulled into the parking lot slowly, careful not to hit anyone, and pulled to one side, so they could open the liftgates and drop the tailgates and trade straight out of the backs of the three old trucks. Five men walked over as they were getting out, all armed in one way or another, to ask why they were here.

"Afternoon, gents... not to worry, we're just traders; it looks like we came here on the right day." John replied to the obvious question.

"Well, sir, as long as you're friendly about it, you're more than welcome." The oldest man in the group said. He was clearly the one in charge, probably some sort of village elder. "What have you got to trade?"

John smiled and replied "Depends on what you need. We have a fair supply of ammunition, a couple of generators, a few boxes of tools, a couple of alternators for Fords... new in the box, those are, got 'em up in Michigan yesterday. We could use some fuel, if anyone has any."

The younger man with the jars of moonshine perked up at the mention of 'ammunition', speaking up for the first time.

"Depends on what them trucks of yours run on... what kind of ammo do you have?"

John looked over at him. "These are 'flex-fuel' trucks... we can run 'em on just about anything, but they've been runnin' on 'shine for the past couple of thousand miles. We've got all kinds of ammo, but mostly .22s, .223s, .270s, .308s, .410 and 12 gauge shotgun shells, and 9mm and .45 pistol rounds. Got some kitchen stuff, too... a couple of good coffee makers, some food dehydrators, and a couple of pressure cookers. A few dozen jars of honey, got that in southern Ohio, yesterday, along with about fifty beeswax candles. Got a few cans of Hawaiian coffee, too, but those'll cost ya." he concluded with a grin.

The younger man smiled. "I can set you up with some 'shine, and I can always use more ammo... I'll swap ya... fifty gallons for three hundred rounds each of .308, .22, and 12 gauge, either double-aught buck or slug loads, if you've got 'em."

John knew he'd have to bargain a bit, or he'd look like a soft touch.

"Make it seventy-five gallons, you've got a deal."

Seth Jones thought over the stranger's offer for a few minutes, and frowned. That would take up almost his entire stock, and he still needed to get some food stores for the winter. He could do without some of the ammo, and if it meant trading less of his moonshine, he could live with it.

"Tell ya what... cut the ammo in half, and throw in a can of that coffee, and three jars of honey, and I'll swap ya sixty gallons... seventy five is just about all that I've got, and I still want to get a few things here."

John looked over to big Mike and Jim and nodded. Both started digging around in the backs of two of the trucks, shifting boxes and crates aside and bringing out ammo cans, checking the contents and setting some aside, while shoving others back into the trucks.

Jim came over with a small cardboard box, full of 12 guage shotgun shells, while big Mike brought out the .22s and .308s. Seth looked them over and did a classic double-take.

"Factory loads?! Where the hell did you find those?"

Mike grinned... "We find 'em all over the place, but generally in places you wouldn't expect to find them... these," he said, pointing at the assortment of shotgun shells, "came out of a couple of different places, mostly hidden away in the stockrooms of old hardware stores and a few of the old department stores. These," indicating the .22s, "came from another trader... he said he found 'em in an old storage locker. These here," pointing to the .308s, "we've been carrying the longest... the armory in our city reloads them. Same thing goes for our .223s, for that matter."

Seth smiled slightly. "How much do you trust your armory, though?"

John got a serious look on his face. "With my life... and it's come down to that, once or twice."

Seth saw the look on his face and nodded. "Ok... I can live with that. We have a deal, then?"

John held out his hand. "Just tell us where to pick up the rest of the 'shine."

Seth shook his hand, then nodded toward the other side of the parking lot, and started walking over to his ancient Chevy. Unlocking the two padlocks on the tailgate, he reached into the back, hauling out two milk crates, each holding four one gallon jugs and setting them on the ground, followed by two more, and two more, until there were sixty gallons lined up behind the old truck.

John and Mike began carrying the fresh 'fuel' to the three big trucks, while Jim got out funnels and began refueling each one in turn.

While they were doing this, Seth caught a look at something in one of the Hummers, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. 

"Holy ol' Lucifer! is that what I think it is?"

John caught the direction of his gaze and grinned, nodding. 

"Yeah... if you think it's a minigun. Fires .223s."

"Hot damn! Tell ya what... if y'all can wait a week, I'll give ya three hundred gallons for that!"

Big Mike frowned, but it was Jim who answered him, shaking his head. "Sorry... that one isn't for sale... it's Mike's favorite toy. He had our R&D crew build it,... a downscaled version of the big Vulcans they used to use on some of the planes. A two second burst from that thing can ruin your whole day."

Seth took one look at the big man and nodded with a rueful grin. "I can see why. I'm guessin' it comes in handy with some of the punks that are on the roads these days. Or the soldiers, for that matter."

Mike nodded... "You betcha... but it eats up a lot of ammo. It fits me, though."

Seth nodded. At 5'10" he was one of the bigger men in his community, but Mike made him look like a dwarf. He guessed the bigger man at 6'9", at least.

John eyed Seth curiously... this was the fourth town they'd stopped in, but the first time anyone had asked about the big weapon; as such, it was the first thing remotely resembling a lead they'd had... and the thin reference to 'soldiers' bolstered the possibility.

After all, a .223 minigun was hardly suited to hunting deer.

Trying to continue to sound casual, he asked, "You have much trouble with the soldiers, around here?"

Seth gave a somewhat guarded nod, looking to see if anyone nearby was listening to their exchange, then continued in a low voice. "Some, yeah... they mostly stick to their own base, though. 'Bout a year ago, they tried takin' a bunch of young kids, took 'em to a 're-education' camp, for brainwashin'... we took 'em back and set their camp on fire. Ain't had much trouble from them since then, but their main base just got re-inforced."

John nodded, then replied in an equally low voice. "Sounds to me like you folks need to get a bit more organized."

Seth got a bit more guarded, but nodded slightly. "Kinda hard to do... not enough people around here, and most are more concerned with growin' enough food to survive on."

John looked around and nodded, answering, "You need to look further out. Get some other towns hereabouts involved. Recruit from every small town within twenty, thirty, forty miles."

Seth nodded. "Sounds like experience talkin'."

John nodded, smiling. "Let's just say I was young once... and I've been trading all over the country. Seen a lot in the past few years." It was his turn to play it close to the vest.

Seth was thinking at top speed. If these guys came from the western states, it was possible they were connected to that militia out that way, or might know someone who was.

Jim was off negotiating with the older woman with all the preserves for a pair of food dehydrators, finally settling on ten jars of each, the strawberry and the blueberry jams, plus five big jars of venison jerkey strips.

Big Mike was talking with an older man about what he had to trade for an older Remington 870 pump shotgun and a few cases of shells. He wanted an even mix of bird shot, for ducks and geese and small game, and buckshot and slugs for Deer and other medium-large game. He was trying to trade a side of beef, but they had no way to keep it cool, even if it were completely butchered into steaks and roasts.

The older man rubbed at his chin in thought. He couldn't really afford to let this chance slip away; his old shotgun was about worn out, and besides, it was a break open single shot... he had a big lawn mower, that he used to cut fields to gather fodder for his bull and six cows, but even if he could afford to give that up, he knew these men had no way to haul it away. He was still racking his brain when it hit him... his son, who had passed a year ago from a heart attack, had left a couple of old Harley engines in the back of his garage. 

"Young man, I don't have anything with me that could cover this shotgun, let alone the ammunition, that much is clear; what I Do have, back in my garage, is a couple of old Harley engines. They belonged to my son, who never had the parts to build full bikes out of them. He died last year, and I don't have much use for them. If you could take a break, run over there and look them over, I'd be willing to trade them for that shotgun and some ammo."

Mike nodded and went over to let Jim and John know where he was going, then jumped in the man's old Dodge Ram pick-up and took off to his home. Once there, the both of them had to do a bit of digging, but when they finally got to them, it was all he could do to keep his poker face intact.

The first one was an ancient Panhead, it looked like an early fifties model, and the second was an even older Knucklehead, a very rare and collectible engine. Even if both were seized up, either one of them were worth two of the old shotguns and every round of ammo they were carrying... and then some.

"Well, what do you think? These two engines for the shotgun and enough shells so's I can be huntin' for the next few years?"




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 22



Mike was beside himself, trying to keep from shouting 'YES!' He wanted to, he had to admit to himself, but he couldn't take advantage of the old gentleman.

"Well, Sir, I'd like to take you up on that, but..."

George Watson thought to himself 'Here it comes... at least let me down gently, young man'.

Mike nodded to himself. "For both of these engines, I'll give you the twelve gage, a .410 with five hundred shells, and a silenced Remington .270 caliber rifle, scoped, with another three hundred rounds for that. I've got about a dozen traps, too, enough for one good trap line, that I'll throw in, too... you can trade the furs and make meals of the meat. Even then, I think I'll be getting the better end of the deal."

George's face lit up in a broad smile as he realized he was dealing with a good hearted man with a conscience. "Thank you, young man, for being honest with me. Most folks would have taken the deal I offered and not said a word. I appreciate that... Tell ya what, I've got a couple of milk crates back there, full of odds and ends, that I'm not doing anything with. I'll throw those in for free."

They quickly loaded up the whole lot, which included transmissions for both engines, a tombstone shaped tail light, and one 'coffin' gas tank, then George insisted on making a couple of sandwiches for them both and pouring two tall glasses of apple juice. By the time they'd eaten and headed back, the afternoon was half over, and some of the people there had already started to pack up and leave. Mike showed John the two big engines, and told him to help them load everything he'd promised into the older man's truck, they concluded the swap, and once they were alone, John went over what he'd learned from the younger moonshiner, and what he suspected, and Mike agreed that it might be a good idea to stay here overnight. John had already located an empty house to spend the night in, and after moving the trucks there, and parking one inside the garage, backing one up to the door, so it couldn't be gotten into, then backing the third one up to that, they walked to the town diner to have an evening meal, which John had already found would barter for their meals.

Two cans of coffee got them three meals of venison stew, along with all the cornbread and butter they could eat, and their choice of a variety of fruit juices, milk, or coffee, and as they were eating, four young women came in, to sit with them at the table next to theirs. Over after dinner coffee and pie, all four of the young women managed to invite themselves over for the evening, not that it took much persuading, and soon they were sitting in the living room of the old house.

Donna, an attractive young brunette, sat with Jim, while Sherry settled down on the loveseat with John... Mike, of course, sat with Elaine and Melinda, two blonde sisters who, while they'd been born two years apart, could easily be mistaken for twins.

Within twenty minutes of small talk, all four of the younger women made themselves clear... they were related to half the men in the county, and they didn't want babies born with half a brain, too many fingers, or no voice... and by the way their hands were moving in the laps of the traders, it was a bit obvious who they DID want babies from.

Donna made the first real move, slipping out of her sweater and shifting around to straddle Jim. She reached down to kiss him, long and hard, while her hand reached for his, bringing it to one of her full breasts.

Sherry followed suit with John, who weakly protested that he had a girlfriend back home. She smiled and replied that she didn't see his girl anywhere nearby, and he finally conceded defeat, running one hand up underneath her short skirt and finding out that she shaved. That was the last straw; he had a weakness for bald eagles. He moved around until he was laying back on the two-seat couch and pulled her along, positioning her so he could put his lips and tongue to work on her.

Elaine quietly asked Mike if he was big everywhere, and he just smiled, flexing the hard cock in the military fatigue pants that he wore, startling her when it moved against her ass. Melinda, meanwhile, shed her thin tee shirt and got his hands busy with her nice pair of 34Ds. Elaine, not one to be upstaged, reached down to unbutton his pants and gasped as she got ahold of him; he was bigger than anything she'd had up until this point. She slid down to her knees in front of him, determined to see if she could get him all the way into her mouth.

Melinda, not to be outdone, slid out of her shorts, nearly standing on the small couch and presenting her pussy to his mouth. 'Dee-lighted!' he thought, as his tongue started tracing her already-unfurling labia. 

Donna, meanwhile, reached between them to unzip Jim's jeans and fished around inside for his hardening cock; once she located it, she started jacking him off slowly, while he, in turn, reached under her skirt, pulling her panties aside so he could get his fingers into her, sawing two of his digits in and out of her as she responded by becoming juicier by the second, her breath coming in little gasps.

Sherry moved around until she was in a 69 position with John. engulfing his hardness with one swallow, and began bobbing her head, licking and sucking as she took more and pulled back.

Jim almost missed it; the screech of metal being torn. "Oh, HELL, NO!" he shouted, throwing the woman off of him and buttoning his pants as he ran through the house to the side door, grabbing the M4 carbine from beside the door as he ran outside. 

In the darkness between the houses were four young men, attempting to break into the backs of the Hummers while they were distracted by the free pussy inside. Illuminated by the flashlight attached to the barrel of the carbine, two of them reached for pistols in their belts.

A quick three round burst took one in the chest, and the other one's hand all but flew away from his gun, raising his hands, as lights came on inside the houses nearby.

Within moments, several of the older townspeople had gathered, some carrying lanterns, some of them armed, while John and Mike came outside, followed by the four young women.

Melinda ran to the one on the ground, but it was already too late. Turning to Jim with tears in her eyes, she moaned out "Oh my God! You didn't have to kill him! He just wanted some of your goods!"

An older man stepped forward out of the crowd. "What happened here?"

Another answered before Jim could say anything. "Isn't it obvious? Tony, Dave, Joey, and Carl, here, sent their girlfriends to distract these men, then tried to break into their trucks and steal their tradin' goods."

The three crowbars and the tire iron on the ground bore this out.

Jim nodded. "This one, here," Nodding towards the dead body, "Had his pistol half out of his belt. The rest kept their hands away from their guns... that's why they're still alive."

The older man looked over the scene carefully and nodded. The stranger had obviously had no choice. In fact, he'd shown remarkable restraint. "George, would you be so kind as to put these three in a jail cell?"

Melinda rallied at this point. "What about him? He killed Carl!" she shrieked.

The older man turned towards her, eyeing her coldly. "I'd have killed all four of them. I couldn't put a man in jail for defending his life and his property."

Besides, he thought... didn't want their little town getting THAT kind of reputation. They relied on outside traders for all manner of goods.

The townsfolk started to disperse. Before the older man stepped away, John stopped him with a look. "You can take these four sluts with you... I think it's safe to say we're no longer interested in their 'services'."

Mark Willis nodded, looking sharply at the four young women, who had long since hung their heads.

John and his crew went back inside, quickly packing up and getting ready to leave... they didn't want to give the townspeople time to change their minds.

Jim turned at a knock at the front door of the small house.

Seth Jones had seen the weapon that Jim had been carrying when the townspeople had shown up, after the shooting. He was hoping they wouldn't hold it against him; he'd stayed in town tonight in hopes of learning more about the militia group out west.

Jim swung the door open, a little surprised to see the young moonshiner they'd met earlier in the day.

"Yes? Seth, right?"

"Yes Sir... I wanted to come by to let you know, there won't be any more funny business... the whole town is pretty embarrassed by what that bunch tried to do, and they're hopin' that you won't hold it against 'em. There's guards, now, watchin', just in case anyone else gets any funny ideas. This here town can't survive long without traders like you gents; if they got that sort of reputation, they wouldn't last long."

Jim studied the younger man intensely, but could find no trace of deception. He nodded, noting the many times the younger man had spoken of the townsfolk as separate from himself.

"You speak of these folks as if you're not one of them."

"Well, Sir, actually, I'm not... I live in the hill country, about thirty miles east o' here. I come into town a few times a month, to sell my 'shine and pick up a few things for me and my family. It was just a lucky break that I was here when y'all showed up. I'm stayin' in town tonight because I don't like traveling at night."

Jim nodded. It wasn't the first time he'd run into this situation. 

"I get the feeling you've got something else on your mind, though."

Seth nodded... this guy was quick. Not someone to play poker with.

"Yes, Sir, there is. I was wondering... the way you were talkin' earlier, and the weapons you guys are carryin'... do you... uhhh... do you know someone in that there militia, out west?"

Unseen by Seth, the others looked up sharply at this. Jim managed to keep his face neutral. "We've... had contact with them, once or twice. We've traded out that way a few times."

Seth's face fell for a moment. He got the idea that it might be months or even years before these men made it back out that way, and back out here.

"Damn... I was kinda hopin' you could help me contact them."

Jim raised an eyebrow, feigning simple curiosity. "Oh? Why do you want to do that?"

"Well, Sir, it sounds like they got their shit together... I was hopin' they could help us, gettin' organized, an' all. After all, who's the best teacher? Somebody who's already been there an' done that."

Jim nodded silently, rubbing his chin for a moment. The younger man was making good sense, and was smart enough to recognize his own weaknesses. Impressive.

"Well... I won't make any promises, mind you... but we're going to be headed back that way, soon enough. I'll see what I can do. I know they've got their hands full, out that way, with the Chinese, but the men I've talked to, they pretty much welcome any help they can get."

Seth grinned... it was the best thing he'd heard in a while.

"Fair enough... I couldn't ask for much more than that."

"Of course, the next question is, if you can recruit enough people, have you got enough guns for them?"

Seth nodded, grinning. "This here's Kentucky, guy... for every gun that the government confiscated, there was three more hidden away, in root cellars an' such. We mostly have the guns, and what we don't have, we been takin' offa dead Cubans. Our biggest problem is ammo, reloading gear, and army stuff... grenades, rockets, dynamite, things like that. The few hand grenades we've been takin' offa dead Cubans, well... about one in five actually work the way they're supposed to."

John nodded, rubbing at his chin. He knew there had to be at least a few dozen old military bases between here and Wyoming, every one of them a potential source of supplies, and expanding out this way wouldn't take long. The Chinese, and the Cubans, for that matter, had, in large part, made the same mistake that so many politicians had made in the years before the great war; they ignored much of the heart of the country. If what he'd learned in school was accurate, they'd even had a term for it... 'fly-over' country. Rapid expansion out this way could backfire on them, it was true, but he was fairly certain that the risk had the potential to be well worth the reward. There were, literally, millions of people in small towns just like this one, relatively untouched by the radiation; many of these, he knew, would be willing to fight, given the proper incentive.

The younger man took his leave, leaving John, Jim, and Mike a fair bit to think about. Mike settled on the couch to take the first watch, allowing the other two a chance to get some sleep. It had been an eventful evening.

Later that day, Mike Philips, who had taken over the Mayoral duties of Johnny Corcoran back at the Cave, sat back, looking over the notes he'd taken during John's satellite phone call. Studying the map on the wall in the control room, he could see the military bases between here and Kentucky; more than half had been nuked, but that still left five that should be intact. There were also hundreds of small towns between here and there that had been far enough away from the major cities that they likely hadn't been hit by too much of the fallout. That equated to millions of potential survivors, some of which, he knew, could be persuaded to fight.

Particularly if they were currently under the thumb of foreign soldiers.

Doris was working in the garden, pulling a few weeds and errant bits of grass, when Mickey pulled up. She turned to see who it was, nearly shouting with joy at their boyfriend's return.

He smiled as he got out of his truck, calling out to her with an unnecessary "Honey, I'm home!"

She ran into his arms, clearly glad to see him, but pulled back in concern when she ran into him and he winced a little in pain, looking hard at him.

"What happened? Are you ok?"

He nodded. "Sorry, babe... just a little sore from all that time behind the wheel. I guess I'm not gettin' any younger."

"Mmmm... none of us are, dear. Why don't you go get under some hot water in the shower for a bit, that'll work out the kinks, and I'll get you some dinner going. BJ brought over a whole bunch of cilantro and bay leaves, and I got some garlic, a big block of parmesan, and some of that 'italian sausage' you like so much from the store. I was going to make some pasta Alfredo with it... what do you think?"

"I think you're making me hungry, babe. Sounds like a good plan. I'll be out of the shower in twenty minutes."

Jeff Gelder and his team were back in Sturgis, making their reports. Jeff pointed to a spot on the old roadmap, indicating the spot where the Chinese were setting up their base.

"It isn't on the map, but the signs outside of town say it's called 'Hastings'. The Chinese are set up in a row of houses, storefronts, and other old buildings on the main drag through town, which is called Austin road... we have the GPS coordinates. We also have a list of street addresses of the houses and buildings they're set up in. "

He paused here, digging through his pack and coming up with an old notebook that he had carried with him, idly noting that this one was about finished; time to draw a new one from the company stores. Flipping it open to a crude map he'd drawn, he continued.

"Here, here, and here," He said, as he pointed out several specific buildings, which were each marked with big letter 'W's, "are garages, being used to warehouse their extra supplies... weapons, ammo, rations, fuel supplies, the works. The rest of these houses are being used as barracks, 6, 8 soldiers in each one. Down at this end are three houses full of their officers, with the one on the end housing, I think, the officer in command. "

Frank McGuire nodded, stroking his chin as he studied the maps and the pages of notes. Jeff and his team had done their usual thorough and detailed job, and had brought back plenty of intelligence for his planning team to work with... and they'd have to get to planning soon, before this Chinese base got too well established. This one would likely be mostly spec ops work, given the way the Chinese were spread out. One or two men going into each house late at night, catching them asleep and either cutting their throats or shooting them with silenced pistols.

"Any prisoners? While we're on the subject, did you see any sign of a comm shack, or any kind of offices?"

Jeff shook his head. "No sir... and we watched them for two days. That's the problem with them using individual houses... no mess hall, no outside latrine, none of the things we're used to seeing at one of their bases. This one is going to be tricky."

McGuire nodded, but then grinned. "Agreed... but if there's one thing our people are good at, they can do tricky. How many troops would you say are there, total?"

"If they've continued at the rate of expansion they were at a few days ago... hundred and a quarter, maybe as high as two hundred. It might be a good idea to call Wyoming, see if Mike Phillips can loan us a few hundred scouts."

"Just what I was thinking... go ahead, make the call, ask for... oh... make it five hundred. Silenced weapons, full camo gear, full field loads, night vision gear, the works. At least a hundred of them should be snipers, too, come to think of it. I don't want any of these bastards getting away... We need to send a message, here."

Jeff grinned... "I think I know a better way to send that 'message', Sir."

It took nearly a week to set up the entire operation, and Frank Bergen was more than happy to include the extra machinery once Jeff filled him in on the details of what he needed them for.

Everything went off smoothly, and soon, they were back in Sturgis, dumping the dead bodies of a hundred and twenty five dead Chinese at the site McGuire had designated as a composting pile. It took a full day and part of a second to run them all through the industrial wood chipper; It might have been two, had they included the heads.

Those, they had left behind, neatly stacked in the center of Austin Road, right in front of the house formerly used by their commander. His head was at the very top of the stack, still wearing his uniform cap.

Just to drive the point home, each head had it's former body's private parts sticking out of it's mouth.

After Jeff made his final report, McGuire waited until the younger man had left, and placed a call to the Cave's main accounting office, telling the Head accountant to add five thousand credits to the accounts of each person involved in the successful operation, and double that amount to the officer in charge, Jeff Gelder. 

Bob Sharpe climbed into the shower, exhausted from three days of sorties against the Chinese. They seemed to be building bases as fast as the militia was destroying them; he and his fellow pilots were busier than usual. He sighed deeply as the hot water sprayed across his back, feeling tense muscles start to unkink. He didn't notice the slim arm that reached through the shower curtain, testing the temperature of the water. Jenny climbed in with him, switching the showerhead to a 'pulse' pattern, taking it from it's hook and playing the stream across his back.

"Oh, God, that feels good! You're an Angel, babe."

She smiled... "Really? Last night you were calling me your little devil!" she replied, as she continued the impromptu water massage with one hand, reaching up to knead his shoulder with the other.

He dropped one hand from the wall and groped blindly behind himself, seeking and finding one of her thighs, following it up to the folds between her legs, running two fingers across the unfurling labia, finding her clit and stroking it lightly. She opened her legs slightly, and his middle finger slid into her juicy hole, looking for, and finding, the spongy bit of tissue he knew was there, massaging her G-spot lightly, which he knew would drive her over the top.




Dan and the Bottle Ch. 22



She finally couldn't take it any longer, and hung the showerhead back on the hook.

She reached her arms around him, hugging him from behind briefly before reaching for his already hard cock, and he smiled as she began stroking it lightly.

"Feels like someone's horny again." he grinned as he turned to face her. Grabbing her by the hips, he held her off the ground, back against the tiles, then let her slide down a little at a time, impaling her on his shaft as she came down, thrusting into her as she stayed pinned against the wall of the shower stall. She wrapped her legs around his midsection as his hips began moving faster, attempting to match his movements, though the awkward position afforded her little leverage to do so, moaning almost nonstop as her orgasm built. They finally came together, both shuddering as their respective juices flowed, and they stayed in that position for long moments, until the hot water started to run low, kissing furiously in the afterglow of their respective orgasms.

A week later, a small, strange convoy rolled into Kent. It was led by four men on motorcycles, followed by two big Army trucks, with two Hummers bringing up the rear. The twenty-five men and women walked, en masse, into the same diner where the four traders had been served a week before, and the owner of the restaurant came out, talking with the leaders of the group briefly before telling the waitresses to 'give them whatever they want'. Once back in her office, she made a quick phone call to her cousin Seth, telling him to get his skinny ass to town NOW.

His wish to contact the Wyoming Militia, it seemed, had been granted.

Meanwhile, three of the strangers brought in the agreed-upon barter.

She smiled as she restocked her shelves with ten cans of coffee and ten pounds of salt and sugar, and locked four hundred rounds of .308 and ten times that number of .22s in her safe.

Seth Jones smiled to himself as he hung up the phone... he'd been fairly certain that the three traders had been somehow connected to the militia group out west... he'd never thought he'd get a reaction this quick, though. All but running to his old truck, he cranked it up and tore out of the front yard like his ass was on fire, barely stopping long enough to load up the ten gallons of moonshine for his cousin Marie. He pulled into town just thirty five minutes later, and nearly shit himself when he saw the line of Hummers, deuce and a half's, and ancient Harleys, all painted in a strange, random tiger striped pattern. He stopped to talk to Marie, who had stalled the Militia members as long as she could with food, freshly made coffee, and homemade pies. She nodded in the direction of one table in particular, indicating the man who seemed to be in charge, and he kissed her on the cheek, gave her asscheek a squeeze, and told her to have someone go out to his truck for the requested 'shine, and walked over.

"I understand you folks might be lookin' for me."

One man looked over at him, eyeing him up and down. He had a goatee and hair in a shade of black that would make coal dust look like dandruff, and the t-shirt he wore did nothing to hide the corded muscles in his arms. He assessed Seth in a quick look, and wondered if this was the right guy to talk to... Seth was thin to the point of appearing bony, and appeared to be barely out of his teens, although he was actually in his mid twenties.

"Depends. We were told that a young man named Seth was asking about us."

Seth nodded once. "Yes Sir, that'd be me... if you mean what I think you mean." He took a quick look around the diner, but it was all but deserted. "Last week, a group of traders hit town, and their leader said he'd do what he could to contact that there militia group out west, try to put me in contact with them... might that be you folks?" He asked, keeping his voice low.

Sam Martin smiled coyly... "Now why would you want to contact a militia group, operating nearly a thousand miles away from here?"

He knew the answer he was looking for... 'Let's see if this kid answers correctly'. he thought to himself.

Seth nodded again, once. "Well, Sir, Me and a few friends are trying to start up a group like that... we need help in trainin', how to set up the... what do they call it, the command chain, hell, we need help that we probably don't know that we need."

A ghost of a smile crossed Sam's face, and his mental evaluation of this kid went up a notch. He knew enough to know that he didn't know everything... that was a good starting point. He wasn't some cocky kid who just wanted to play at being a soldier. His arms, while not exactly bulging with muscle, appeared to show a wiry strength, common to people who did a lot of hard work but never got quite enough protein in their diets. 

"How many in your group, currently?"

Seth scratched at his chin in thought for a minute before answering. "We started with about twenty people... but each of them has brought in a few more... right now, I'd guess we've got close to sixty."

Sam snorted at such a low number... it was hardly worth their time. "You intend to keep recruiting, I hope?"

Seth nodded. "Yes, Sir... I know it ain't much to work with, but we gotta start somewhere, right?"

Sam nodded, stroking his beard with one hand, reaching for his coffee cup with the other. The kid had a point. "Well, yeah, that's true... but to start a really proper sized group, you'll need at least a hundred people, and eventually, you're going to need more military equipment. Grandpa's old shotgun and your daddy's deer rifle will only take you so far... and you need a steady supply of ammunition, so's you've got some for training."

Seth grinned at this. "You're right... we took a bunch of AK's from a Cuban camp a while back, when we took back a bunch of kids that they took, tryin' to brainwash 'em, I expect. We didn't give 'em the chance... had the kids back the same day, took all the weapons they had there, and burned their camp to the ground."

"What did you do with the Cubans?"

The grim look in his eyes answered before he did. "We killed them all and burned their bodies."

Sam nodded in approval... he liked the way this kid thought. His level of respect ticked up another notch.

"Did you gather any intel before you set the place on fire?"

"What do you mean?" The younger man looked genuinely puzzled.

"The Chinese we've been fighting, out west, always have a communications shack. The paperwork there, the maps and such, contain information that you can use against them... and you'd be surprised how often you'll find things like inventories, lists of informers, that sort of thing. The maps will tell you where to look for targets, and the lists of informers will tip you off on who you can't trust. Good things to know, when you're recruiting blind."

Seth's eyes grew distant as he thought over the stranger's words... and realized he was right. Knowing who could not be trusted ahead of time would give them a huge advantage, and knowing where all the Cuban encampments were would save a lot of time.

Sam smiled as he saw his words sink in. 

"Well, young man, if you want our help, you'll have it, but there are a few things that we'll expect from you."

"Like...?"

Sam held up a hand, his forefinger pointing straight up.

"One... a place to set up camp for me and my crew. Preferably an empty building, big enough for everybody you see here."

He extended another finger. 

"Two... a second place, big enough to hold classes in for as many people as you want us teaching at one time... that needn't be too big, we prefer to keep the classes small, so each person gets the attention they deserve."

He extended a third finger.

"Three... an area, outside, to set up a target range, so we can assess the skills of everyone involved. We can't fix things until we know what's broken."

He extended a fourth finger.

"Four... We need a small building to set up shop in, preferably someplace easily defended; we need to be able to set up our radio equipment, so it has to be wired up in such a way that we can hook up a small generator and be in business in a few hours. A small building with half a dozen offices and a conference room or two would be ideal."

He extended his thumb.

"And finally, a place where we can stash the vehicles, where the Cubans aren't liable to find them... preferably someplace with a few attached stock rooms, so we can lock up the extra supplies we brought along."

Seth nodded, his mind racing as he thought of, and discarded, various ideas. "Only one place I can think of, that fits all of those... the old high school."

"You don't use it to teach your kids?"

Seth shook his head... "Naaahhh... no teachers. Besides, most folks around here prefer to homeschool 'em. We tried them history books, from back just before the war, but the elders said most of 'em were full of... how did that one say it? Oh, yeah... 'liberal socialist claptrap'. All kinds of nonsense about how America brought all the problems on itself, and taxes had never been high enough, and people who were in business just to make money were evil... we burned 'em in our fireplaces to keep warm. 'Bout the onliest thing they was good for." He scratched his chin in thought for a moment, and added "Our ancestors had enough real histories, and books and whatnot written by the founders of the country, to keep the kids educated."

Sam smiled... this community was going to fit in just fine.

"Ok... next thing... are there any old military bases in the area?"

Seth nodded. "There was an old National Guard base, about fifty miles south of here, but it got hit pretty hard, back during the war. No nukes, just regular bombs, but they didn't leave much standing. It's been pretty well picked over by the Cubans."

Sam frowned at this, though he knew there was always a fair chance that they might have missed what could be right under their feet. It could wait, for now. He and his team had brought along enough spare gear to get the ball rolling, and flying or trucking in a few more tons would only be a matter of a few days, but if they could find what they needed locally, it would save a lot of time.

"Ok... next item on the list... is there an old airfield anywhere nearby? Someplace we could land some helicopters, maybe a few jets?"

Seth thought long and hard before answering this one. 

"Jets, I ain't so sure about... there's an old shopping mall, about five miles west o'here, that has a big parking lot. That could probably take care of the helicopters... and it has an underground parking garage, so you'd have a place to hide them." He seemed to think it over for a few seconds, then continued. "There used to be an old airstrip, in the next county, but it was just for small planes... Cessna's and such."

Sam nodded... a shopping mall would be a good place for a heliport, in truth... it would have loading docks, so materials could be unloaded from Chinooks or Hueys and loaded directly into trucks. An underground parking structure, if the door was tall enough, would make an ideal hanger, and there would be plenty of room to warehouse any excess gear that had to be stored overnight, if they didn't have enough room on the trucks.

"Alright, then... let's you and I take a ride, you can show me this high school. If it's suitable, we'll come back for the rest of my team, and we can get started setting up."

Seth nodded, not entirely certain he could trust this man. He stopped at his own truck first, strapping on his gun belt, the old Army issued Colt .45ACP, feeling a little reassured when the burly stranger nodded approvingly.

"Good idea... if the building is supposed to be empty, you never know what you'll find there."

Seth nodded, though he was thinking more of having to defend himself from the man before him.

Sam knew perfectly well the true reason the younger man had grabbed the belt, with the pistol, hunting knife, and spare magazines, but he chose to remain silent, rather than take offense. After all, it was a precaution he'd have taken himself.

In ten minutes, they pulled into the driveway of the old school building, and around to the back, where there was not only another parking area, but an area with two large roll-up garage doors as well. He looked over at Seth, the question clearly on his face.

"Auto shop class rooms... they had to have enough space for about fifteen cars, so they're pretty big. Should be plenty of room for the trucks you brought out with you."

Sam pulled up to one of the doors, looking it over carefully. It appeared to be a good, solid, heavy steel door. They both jumped out, walking over to one of the regular entry doors, jimmying the door and walking inside, Sam turning on his flashlight. 

Inside were several old hoists and a few other large tools, including what appeared to be an old alignment rack and a good sized air compressor. 

They rolled up one of the main doors, allowing in a flood of light, exposing the rest of the shoproom, which was, indeed, big enough to store the Hummers, the bigger trucks, and the bikes, with room enough left over to work in. The old tool cage, of course, was empty, but that wasn't a big problem; they had plenty of tools of their own.

In one corner of the shop, an old car sat, more rust than anything, which would have to be cleared out, but that wasn't a big deal. If the Hummer couldn't tow it, one of the big trucks could pull it out. In another corner was an electrical box on the wall, which would make a good hook up point for one of the temporary generators.

Exploring the rest of the big, L-shaped building, revealed, among other things, a fair sized gymnasium, an auditorium, plenty of classrooms, and a large lunchroom with an attached kitchen. The school library was almost intact, although many of the books were in sad shape. Still, it would make a decent starting point. It would make a perfect base, and a good place to teach the Northern Kentucky Militia the basics in relative comfort, before taking them out into the field for the practical training... and the nearby football field would be a good place for short range shooting lessons.

Sam turned to Seth as they made their way back to the truck and clapped him on the shoulder. "This is perfect. Give my team a week and we'll have the place up and running. While we're getting set up, I want you to start recruiting... but be careful how you go about it. We'll move in here, get power running to a few classrooms, the kitchen, the lunchroom, and a few others... we're going to need a few things. Mattresses, first off... something so that my team can set up a few rooms as temporary barracks. Are there any old furniture stores around here?"

Seth nodded, surprised at how fast the man's mind was working.

"Good... we'll need a source for a few things... furniture for the areas my team will be using as living quarters, for one. We've brought along about six month's worth of food with us, mostly canned and dried stuff, but we'll want to supplement that with fresh stuff, often enough. How often is that 'farmer's market' held?"

"A couple of times a month. I think there's gonna be another one next week. Best things for tradin' are guns and ammo, food, candles, lamp oil, that sorta thing."

Sam nodded and turned back to the doors. "Ok, good enough... let's get back to the diner, I'll collect the team and we'll go to work. You, meanwhile, start talking to the people you think need training the most, get a list together, we'll go over it in a week."

He paused for a moment... something was digging at the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it... then it hit him. 

"That seems like an awful big school for such a small town."

Seth nodded. "It was the school for five different towns, actually... but it hasn't been used in years". 

Jerry Duncan pulled in to the lean-to garage at his shelter, tired, but feeling good to be back home. He was barely out of the truck when Bear came rushing to greet him. 

"Whoa, down, boy! Yes, I've got food for you, but you have to let me unload first."

Bear cocked his head to one side, as though he was trying to puzzle out the words. 'Food' he understood... the rest was just so much noise to him.

The guns and ammunition were the first things to be unloaded, of course. Second came the big cooler and the several boxes of canned and dried foods he'd picked up along the way. Finally, he reached in and dragged out the carcass of the deer he'd hit just a few miles back. A hundred pounds of fresh venison was exactly what he needed, and he'd had to run off the road to run down the young buck. The furry body still bore the marks where the grill guard had hit it.

He carried the field-dressed body inside, through the kitchen, to his 'cool room', hanging the big deer by it's back legs from a hook in the ceiling. Skinning it could wait, for the moment, though he did take the time to peel back the skin, exposing the ribs, and slice off one big slab of meat to feed himself, Bear, and whoever else might just pop in; then he slid a bucket under the hanging corpse to catch the excess blood before closing the door and walking back to the kitchen.

He was just getting things set up in the kitchen when tires crunched in the gravel driveway. He looked out to see Janet just climbing off her ATV, a big smile on her face at his return.

"Hi, Honey!" she exclaimed as she ran up behind him.

He turned away from the counter, where he'd been slicing the big slab into smaller cuts, and slid his arms around her.

"Hi, babe... how's everything been while I've been gone?"

"Ok... Bear's been a good boy, except for tangling with a raccoon yesterday. Dad shot the 'coon before it could bite him, skinned it... no sign of rabies, so we made stew out of it. Other than that it's been pretty quiet around here. Bring back anything good this time?"

He nodded, reaching into the first old wooden crate on the table. The first thing he pulled out were the three big jars of the light grey ointment.

"I found an old man with a chemistry set... he said these are a strong antibiotic... have your dad test them, just to make sure. If they check out alright, I want one for myself, he can have the other two."

The next item he pulled out was a gallon jug of clear liquid. He smirked at this. "I don't know how good of a chemist he is, but the old fart is a hell of a moonshiner... I got twenty gallons from him... most of it got mixed in with the gas in my tank, but I held back three gallons for drinkin'... take one home with you for your dad, fill up your 'wheeler with one, and I'll keep the other here for us."

The next thing out of the box was the long bandolier of grenade launcher shells. He hadn't even counted these, yet; doing so, now, he found there were twenty of them. Taking time to examine them closely, he learned that they were an equal mix of high explosives and incendiaries... he grinned. 'Serious fun', he thought, setting them aside. Janet looked at them, fascinated, as he set them aside, next to the black rifle/launcher combo they were for. 

He reached in with both hands, picking up the two cans of coffee. Setting these on the counter, he saw her puzzled look. He smiled and answered her unasked question.

"Hawaiian coffee. Strong stuff. We'll have some, after dinner."

"Where the hell did you find Hawaiian coffee?"

"Ran into a group of 'prepper-traders'... They've been growing it in their bunker since back before the war. They gave me these for free, when we were done trading. We had breakfast together, and they made a pot of this... damned good coffee."

Next he pulled out a big plastic bag full of a leafy green substance. "Got this from a farmer down in Ohio... We'll smoke a little after dinner."

She eyed the strips of meat he had on the cutting board warily. "What are we having?"




Dan and the Bottle



"So you're here to help to put things right."

"Exactly. I can't go too far, of course, but I can do enough to ensure that you are happier when I leave than you were before I got here." 'And keep you from carrying out your thoughts of suicide' he added in his own thoughts, without voicing them. "You got a bit of what you might call a 'raw deal'.... I'm here to sort of 'reshuffle the deck', as it were."

Dan rubbed his chin, thinking it over, then nodded. "Cool. Ok.... hmmm.... can you get me something, while I'm thinking about it?"

"As long as it doesn't involve stealing something that will be missed.... I can't give you the British Crown Jewels, or anything like that."

"No, that isn't what I had in mind. I was thinking about a pound of Hawaiian marijuana.... thoroughly cleaned, a limited number of seeds, no stems, all clean bud, ready to roll and smoke."

"That, I can do.... " He blinked, and a large freezer bag sat on the table before them, filled nearly to the top with a green/red substance. 

"Excellent. Ok, I'm going to roll up a doobie and step outside for a smoke. Uhhh.... do you... errr... "

"Partake? I'd be delighted. It's been many years since I had a good buzz on."

Dan fetched his rolling machine and a pack of papers from under his bed and rolled several cigarette sized joints, stashed the roller, papers, and the big bag of pot under his bed, and the two of them stepped out the back door and went into the garage. 

DJ looked around the garage, appalled. There were storage tubs and boxes everywhere, all filled with women's clothing and other junk. His head swiveled around to Dan.... "How do you move in here?"

"I don't. I have power tools in here I haven't been able to use in the past ten years. My idiot of a sister piled all this crap up in here as soon as this garage was built. I never could use it.... not once." He replied as he lit up the first doobie. They passed the joint back and forth until it was too small to hit anymore, then Dan put it in a nearby ashtray to go out. "While we're in here, can you do something with all this crap? I don't want it totally cleaned out, mind you.... just get rid of the junk of my sister's and give me room to move in here again. You can see, in my mind, what all in here is mine." 

Three seconds later, the difference was like night and day. The garage was clean, and what's more, it was organized.... and all of his small, benchtop tools had been replaced with full sized versions. He could now do some of the big woodworking projects he'd only dreamed about before. The inside of the garage was also bigger than it had been; it appeared to be three or four times bigger on the inside than it was outside. The dust collection system was also fully installed; all the machines were connected, and the entire building was wired exactly as he'd specified, a plan that had been overruled by his mother, after the idiot of a neighbor who had wired the place had objected to the extra work required to do it properly. 

They walked back inside, only to find his mother and sister awake, both of them squacking at him about his rent, which he'd already paid once this month. 

"I paid you last week. Just because you've dumped all your money into slot machines and bingo halls doesn't entitle you to reach into my wallet a second time."

"Now you listen here, Young Man!..." His mother started, trying her level best to convey a bit of righteous indignation.

"No, you listen! You've been taking MY ATM card to that Goddamn casino for months, stealing MY money to feed those Goddamn slot machines, and every time you whip out MY card, it costs ME an extra six fifty in service charges! In the past few months, you've WASTED enough of MY money to put a brand new set of tires on MY truck! NO FUCKING MORE, IS THAT CLEAR!?" 

His mother rallied, at this point. "Why you ungrateful punk.... I put a roof over your head, I put food on the table, I wash your clothes..."

"And you take the bulk of my bank account every month! I don't want to hear another word out of either one of you! Sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and think long and hard about what you're going to do for gambling money when I move the fuck out of here, because I'm heading to Wyoming today to look for some land!" And with that, he turned his back on the pair of them and walked out to the family room, where his laptop was set up, logged onto the internet, and started looking up real estate agents in the western states. Finding one who dealt in large parcels of land, he sent them a quick E-Mail, explaining exactly what he wanted, supplying his cellphone number and giving the best time to call him. 

Within three days, he would sign the final papers on just a shade over forty square miles of land, including a large forested area and a five square mile lake. Within a week, DJ would build for him a survivalist's bunker under much of that land, complete with underground farmland, orchards, and vineyards, a fair sized underground lake, over sixty multi-level buildings set up for everything from garages and aircraft hangers to a full service hospital to hundreds of thousands of square feet of storage capacity to living quarters for well over four thousand people. There were even areas for animal pens, pastures, and a massive underground forest, all powered by a self sustaining energy source that would never fail, and several wells that provided clean water. Another week, and a lot of thought, saw the shelter stocked with every kind of supply any of the new residents could think of, a full complement of farm animals of every variety, and both the forest and the lake thoroughly stocked with fish and wild game. Another wish saw all of Dan's vehicles and possessions moved out to the new underground home.

During this time, he'd been E-Mailing back and forth with Barbara, letting her know that he'd be back from his out of town trip in a few days, and that he wanted to meet her for coffee as soon as he got back. He also, more discreetly, advertised on several survivalist and militia websites for people willing to leave their former lives behind and move into a self sustaining, completely self sufficient community that would shelter them from anything, up to and including a full scale, world wide nuclear war. There was no shortage of takers. By the time he managed to talk Barb into joining him, his community had grown to over two thousand people, including everything from doctors and dentists to machinists and mechanics, and no shortage of former military from every branch of service. 

Another wish saw the 'Cave', as they took to calling it, equipped with enough military equipment to wage a small war.... everything from rifles and pistols to Patton and Abrams tanks, F14, F16, F15, and F22 fighter jets, World War II Mustangs, Lightnings, and Thunderbolts, and Cobra, Apache and Blackhawk attack helicopters.... and saw Dan fully trained in how to fly all of them. 

Barb looked around the large entry hall to Dan's suite of rooms, which was about the size of a three bedroom house, impressed with the attention to detail and the amount of thought that had gone into it. She would never have thought that this unassuming man, who had shown an interest in her, of all people, could have such a massive, well built 'home' as this. She decided, right then and there, that if there were the slightest spark between them, he would be hers..... she'd already seen what a good man he was, and had no doubts about his character.

She'd been off, exploring the 'cave', as he called it, and had gotten a bit lost, though she'd found the underground forest and the attached underground lake, where she'd watched, breathless, as a small herd of deer had come down to the water's edge to drink. She'd also found the hanger, where nearly a hundred planes sat, waiting, including the private jet he'd flown her here in; the motor pool, where everyone parked thier cars, including the short line that made up Dan's 'collection', finally finding someone who could direct her back to his quarters. 

He was in the living room, cleaning seeds from a huge bag of pot. She smiled, remembering that she hadn't believed him when he told her it had come from one of the small islands of Hawaii... until he'd fired up a doobie and let her taste for herself. She didn't doubt his word after that. He'd been a perfect gentleman the entire time she was here, putting her luggage in one of his spare bedrooms, never trying to put the move on her, kissing her lightly before he dragged himself to bed that first night, telling her without words that the first move was hers. He'd prepared dinner hours ago, a slow-cooker creation of chicken breasts, rice, and several types of creamy soup, simmered all day, and now that they'd eaten, was rolling up several doobies for after dinner. 

She came into the room, walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him, lightly, on the cheek, neck, and ear, before breathing out the words "Thank you, Dan."

He set down the roller, having finished the third doobie, turned so that his lips met hers for a brief instant, and lifted an eyebrow. "What for, hun?"

"For bringing me here.... I was in that 'lakehouse' room, earlier, and it was so beautiful.... watching the deer come down to drink, hearing the robins in the trees, I almost thought I was outside.... it was.... just... magical."

He turned a bit more, wrapping his arms around her waist, drawing her gently into his lap, and kissed her lightly on the lips again. "Honey, I'm just glad you were willing to take the chance and come out here with me. Most women might have been afraid I was going to hold them prisoner, as my sex slave or something." He grinned up at her.

She gave him a gentle smile, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gave him a light kiss. "You won't have to hold me prisoner." she replied in a soft voice.

He kissed her back, softly, and her lips parted, a bit of a spark going off between them as their tongues touched for the first time, and their kisses got more urgent, then she started tugging at his shirt, pulling it off him before reaching for the buttons of her own, never pulling her gaze from his dark blue eyes. After her blouse came off, he reached behind her, unhooking the cream colored lace bra that contrasted nicely with her mocha skin, then burying his face between her nice DD cup tits, kissing each one in turn, savoring her dark chocolate nipples. She squirmed on his lap, feeling his hard on growing beneath her, holding the back of his head while moaning as he lapped and sucked at her breast, feeling his hand caressing and fondling it's way up her inner thigh, thankful that she'd taken her panties off after coming back from her walk around the complex. 

He slid his hand slowly up her inner thigh, under her skirt, finally contacting her smooth shaven slit, feeling her spread her legs slightly to allow him easier access even as she started working at the button and zipper of his jeans. He rubbed her pussy lips gently, feeling them spread at his touch, even as her clit hardened and poked out from behind it's protective hood; he rubbed it gently, eliciting a gasp from her, and she broke the kiss to smile into his eyes.

"I was right..... white boy wants a taste of some brown suga!"

He grinned back at her, nodding.... 

"Yup... and I'm going to taste you right now." he replied, lifting her easily and laying her on the couch beside him, unbuttoning her short skirt and pulling it off before diving between her thighs face first, his tongue tracing the open lips of her already dripping pussy. He swirled his tongue around her clit, making her gasp, both at his tenderness and his skill, and her orgasm hit her hard, leaving her panting for breath, cumming in his mouth again and again. Finally, he slithered his way up her body, shucking his jeans and underwear as he went, moving into position before whispering in her ear, "Babe, do you need me to wear a rubber?"

"No! I want to feel you cum inside me.... don't worry, I'm on the shot... should be good for the next 2 months." She reached for his cock as she said this, lining the head up with her hot, slick entrance, and he slid the first two inches inside her, then pressed steadily inward until he was in to the hilt, pausing to allow her body to adjust to his intrusion. She wasn't having it that way, though, and started slowly bucking her hips against him, urging him to fuck her hard, and he was happy to comply.

Their bodies soon caught a rhythm, and for long moments the only sounds from them were grunts and moans and flesh slapping flesh, until neither could stand it any longer and they came together in a burst of ecstasy that left both of them breathless, kissing each other furiously even as they caught their breath. He slowly sat up, holding both of her hands and pulling her forward until their positions were reversed, him on his back with her laying atop him, with his cock still buried inside her. 

She sighed, deepy, content for the moment to lay there with her head on his broad chest, him idly stroking her back and kissing the top of her head as they lay back, enjoying the afterglow of their first lovemaking. 

"MMMmmmm.... oh, Lord... I've never felt like this. You know I might not want to leave here, Baby."

He grinned, palming her chin and bringing her eyes up to meet his. "Then don't, sweetheart."

"I have to; I have a job, and bills to pay, and...."

"We can take care of all of that tomorrow. You can just move in here."

She sat bolt upright at that. "You can't be serious!"

"Hell, yes, I'm serious.... I'll fly you home, get your stuff in order, then fly you back, and you can be my live in lover."

She gave him a skeptical look... "Just like that, huh?"

"What all do you have to take care of, hun?"

"Well... I have to finish paying off my car.... "

"No big deal."

"It is for me.... I want to do it myself."

"Ok... so I'll pick up the note, you can pay me."

She stared down at him, jaw nearly hitting her chest. "Are you kidding?!"

He nodded solemnly..... "Absolutely not, babe.... you can work here." 

"As what? Your private ho?"

"Hell, no! Honey, there are dozens of 'jobs' in here.... we need some folks to teach the kids--we homeschool them; take care of the animals and the farms, sell the cars that John is restoring, take care of keeping the inventories in the warehouses updated, hell, there's a hundred ways to earn your keep in this place.... and of course, you could get quite a bit done.... as my wife." These last few words came out softly, but had enough impact to hit her like a physical blow.

"Do you mean..."

"Hell, Yes! Honey, I knew, from the first time I read what you wrote in your profile on the site, that I had to meet you; I had to get to know you.... because you're the perfect woman for me. Now that we've spent time together..."

"And had sex!" She interjected with a grin.

"And made love, yes. It wasn't just physical, m'dear. Not for me." Dan replied, drawing her face to his for a long, slow kiss, nibbling lightly at her lips for long moments. "I've fallen in love with you, Barb.... and now that we've found each other, I don't ever want to let you go." He finished, in a much softer tone.

She buried her head in his chest, looking downward, and wept.... he could feel her tears running from her eyes to his chest. He gently palmed her chin once again, drawing her up to meet his eyes, and kissed her slowly, gently, her response getting a bit more urgent, the muscles of her pussy grasping his hardening cock and releasing it, then she sat up and began to ride him, lifting almost completely off before plunging back down, drawing his hands to her bouncing breasts, which he fondled and squeezed, a bit roughly, as she threw back her head, moaning uncontrollably. 

"MMM.... gonna cum, babe!" he murmured, and she jumped off of him, quickly taking his cockhead in her mouth, swirling her tongue around the crown as she jacked him off, taking his load and swallowing as fast as she could. As he slowed, she deep throated him, working the muscles of her throat to get the last few drops. 

She slowly licked his shrinking member clean, making sure not to miss a drop, then sat up, licking her lips, and reaching for her glass of pop on the coffee table, rinsing her mouth before kissing him again. "I love you too, baby.... and I want to be your wife."

The next day, the two of them got in his Chevelle and drove back to Detroit, where he made good on his promise, paying off her small Ford and stopping to get the oil changed and the fluids topped off before heading to her apartment. Once there, she told her sisters, identical twins a few years younger than her, about their plans, and after a bit of a long discussion, they decided to move out there with her. It took an extra day to rent a truck, which one of the twins could handle, and load up what few furniture pieces they would be taking, along with their clothes and other possessions, and Dan wound up buying another full sized pick up, which the other twin sister would drive, which was quickly loaded up with the last of their possessions, and their small caravan headed west, out of town. 

When they arrived, Tom Jennings was waiting for them, concern etched on his face. Dan immediately asked what was wrong, and Jennings told him that the Sheriff had been out, nosing around, asking pointed questions about who owned the land, and how one person managed to pay property taxes on forty square miles of land. He'd also been asking about machine guns. 

Dan reached out with his mind, as DJ had taught him, and asked 'DJ, are you busy?'

DJ replied almost instantly, stepping up out of the darkness. "Hi, Dan.... you had a safe trip, I hope?"