Storiesonline.net
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                             What the Fuck?
                                by cmsix

Copyright© 2009 by cmsix


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Description: What? You thought the Mayans were just fucking around when they ended their calendar on December 21, 2012?

Codes: MF Mult
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Chapter 1

Of all the fucking luck this wasn't some of it. I should have known something shitty would happen when I got old enough to realize being born in 1984 was nothing to be proud of. Sure, George Orwell didn't have the date right on the money, but he wasn't so far off after all. Nineteen Eighty-Four wasn't so bad and Ronald Regan offered some hope on the communist front by spending most of them into submission.

Hell, even old Bush the elder didn't make any major fuckups and Bill Clinton provided eight years of comic relief. And then along came W -- he was an idiot, frat boy, fuckup from the word go. He nearly broke the whole fucking country and led to finally breaking the race barrier at the top of the ticket. I think most of the country was just relieved to get over that hump without Jesse Jackson getting in there somewhere.

Here we were in November of 2012. Barak Obamalamadingdong had done an acceptable job during his first four years and he'd been re-elected for four more, but in December we got the word all our astronomical scientists had been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.

NASA had been jacking itself and its budget off trying to get some sucker a ride to Mars, and the damned Mayans had known what was going to happen for thousands of years, even though they only gave us hints.

Apparently the Mayans had known the shit was going to hit the fan on 21st December 2012 AD since way back on 11th August 3114 BC. Somehow they managed to calculate all this thousands of years before the telescope was even a gleam in Galileo's eye.

Of course, since the Catholic Church had a direct line to God back then they'd known for hundreds of years the Mayans weren't good Christians and couldn't possibly have any idea of what was going down.

Here and now on 10 December 2012 it sure looked like those Catholics had misplaced a comma or misspelled a word in one of their Holy translations, or at least their adding machine had slipped a cog somewhere.

Even though they'd given executing Galileo the old schoolboy try way back when, the telescope had caught on anyway. The earth was not the center of the whole universe, and yes Virginia, that pesky twenty-mile diameter asteroid was going to hit Earth pretty damned nearly exactly when the Mayans thought something was going to go horribly wrong.

No matter what they'd claimed they were doing to keep an eye out for approaching space detritus, our people in the know had spent the big bucks on satellite TV and spying on our neighbors and none of the money grubbing bastards had bothered to check on what outer space had next in line for our poor old planet Earth.

No one had noticed the monster fucking rock headed our way at somewhere around one hundred and forty thousand miles per hour. Maybe it was understandable since the poor little thing was only twenty or so miles in diameter. It seemed a little odd though, since once it was pointed out, any damned idiot could spot it easily with a pair of Wal-Mart binoculars. All you had to do was go outside at night and look.

If you said it fast it didn't sound so bad, but you had to say it damned fast since its estimated speed put splashdown on the twenty-first. Eleven days away. Even now they had it located and had a good handle on its speed and direction there was no good estimate of where it would hit.

Even if they'd had a good guess about the point of impact there was not much to be done about it. If it struck the earth intact most living things were done for. Hell, it might even be all living things, but I didn't think so. In fact I didn't think it would kill all humans, but I did think it would kill most of 'em.

Of course the whole world was in a panic and they all wanted to pack up and go somewhere safe, but where? That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. By two days before projected impact it was pretty obvious someone somewhere had an idea where it would hit, but if they did they weren't telling.

My biggest surprise was the lack of violence in the streets and next was the way TV, radio, and other services hung in there. It was just as well the place I worked closed for a week, because I wouldn't have showed up anyway. Finding a place to hole up might be pointless, but I did it anyhow.

Hell, moderate shelter was easy to find where I lived. My home was in tornado alley and there were quite a few storm cellars around. I happened to know of one about eight miles from me and I also knew damned few people could remember it at this late date.

I'd found it on my own while deer hunting when I was sixteen. It was behind an old home place, which had burned down more than thirty years ago. It had been a big old house and they'd had a big shelter. It had been solidly built and had heavy timbers holding up what was basically just an earthen top over a big hole they dug.

Finding it hadn't been an intentional move. I'd been hunting and stepped on the door which promptly fell through. The inside was about twelve by twenty-four and there was really nothing in it. I assumed whoever'd dug it had removed everything when the house burned and they had to move elsewhere.

Whatever the circumstances at the beginning -- here and now it was a big hole in the ground with big timbers keeping it from falling in on itself. Maybe I could have found out more about it, but I didn't try. I practically forgot about it myself until news of our impending doom made me remember.

When I thought of it I went back to take a look and could barely get to it. The dirt road it had been near was no longer being maintained by the county and I had to cut several small trees down to even get near the place. I did it after dark, mostly, because I didn't want anyone following me and showing up after things had gone to shit.

After I found it and replaced the door I did what I could to gather food and other supplies. I didn't try doing anything fancy, but I did gather up bulk food of the type to let me hang on. I wasn't interested in complicated foods and my main staples were cornmeal, flour, and pinto beans. I also bought plenty of ammunition for my Colt Python and my Marlin 336c in 35 Remington.

A couple of days after the news was out I heard something really disturbing on TV. Of course they were making a big deal out of how to survive if worse came to worst and even though I laughed at the if part I did pay attention. When they got to the part about so much shit being thrown into the atmosphere if it struck land somewhere I got nervous.

It was something I hadn't considered, but apparently an earth strike could cause the air to be nearly unbreathable from dust and dirt thrown up. I drove nearly a hundred miles to a fair sized city to visit an army surplus store I remembered.

They'd had lots of old WWII type gas masks there once and when I found the place still open I was happy they had some left. I bought six masks and forty-eight replacement canisters.

The owner waited until I'd paid for my treasure before he told me those masks were only good for certain gases. I shrugged and said maybe they'd help without bothering to mention they'd sure as hell keep dust out of my lungs.

Another surprise was the lack of people rushing to buy up supplies. I didn't know whether I'd need a lot of cached food or not, but I did wonder why there weren't more people out stocking up for at least a few days worth. Business at Wal-Mart was brisk, but there was no mad rush.

One of those short wave radio receivers was near the end of my shopping list. I figured if things got real bad I'd at least want to try finding out if there were others still living somewhere. I wouldn't have any way to talk back to them, but at least I could find out if there were others alive.

My last purchase was parts and pieces to jury rig some type of ventilation for my hideout. I bought enough six inch stove pipe to reach from inside to about three feet above the ground on top of my new place. It took all afternoon to get the hole down through the dirt and the timbers holding up the roof. I put a small twelve-volt fan inside it to move air and then I covered the open end with cotton cloth and then a rain top. It wouldn't keep everything out, but surely it would help.

Twelve volts was all the electricity I could count on and I splurged and bought two large heavy-duty diesel truck type batteries for my pickup. I could leave it running for about an hour at a time to charge them up and then hope they'd furnish some light and run the stove-pipe fan. I even went hog wild and had a super-duty alternator installed on the truck to make sure there'd be plenty of power generated while the truck's motor was running.

The day before doom was supposed to arrive some government agency somewhere let it leak the impact should come just a little before noon for the central time zone. The bad part was it was expected to be in the Gulf of Mexico or somewhere near it. That was going to be damned hard on Houston and Galveston I figured, and the somewhere close part didn't sit all that well with me. Hell, I was only two hundred and fifty miles from the Gulf.

Right after sunset the night before I started packing everything in my house into my truck and moving it to my hole in the ground. Not everything of course, but I took anything I thought I could use right off the bat.

Once everything was inside I spread my sleeping bag on my new high-density foam mattress and sacked out. It was the best night's sleep I'd had since word of the end of the world got around. I even slept until nearly nine since no light could penetrate into my hidey-hole from the outside.

Of course there was nothing to do now, but wait. I had everything I'd planned on storing stored, but it was time for breakfast and I decided to drive back to town and see if anything was open.

It was almost like normal. Pop Blythe's Corner Kitchen downtown was open and going strong and Pop was holding forth inside between times he was frying bacon and scrambling eggs. Today I went for eggs, bacon, bacon, bacon, pancakes, and another order of bacon with my coffee.

Pop was convinced it was all bullshit someone had cooked up and said if the thing did hit he hoped it didn't foul up business for his lunch special today. I wished him luck and headed back out of town and to my hideaway.

As time counted down toward noon I waited outside my shelter. According to the experts, strong vibrations would travel out and shake everything up first. The next thing on the menu was the extra-strong sound wave and then the terrific overpressure.

I was supposed to be far enough away so the overpressure wouldn't be dangerous to my health and especially my eardrums. I was going to stay outside for the first little bit though, because if it was going to shake hell out of the ground I wanted to be out of my hole while it did. I didn't think it would cave in, but how could I know?

I could know by waiting to see, that's how. If the thing didn't cave in during the shaking I was supposed to have at least a few minutes before the sound, pressure, and wind hit. They'd mentioned there'd be a lot of wind. I was hoping for Pop's solution though. I hoped it had all been a bunch of hot air.

At 11:55 central time I got my biggest clue. A streak of light started and at first it looked like something was headed exactly toward me. It wasn't moving quite as fast as a lightning bolt, but it wasn't far behind. After about half a second I could see it wasn't coming directly toward me though. I watched spellbound until it disappeared behind the horizon.

I'd never really known if there'd really been shock and awe in Iraq like old W told us there was, but I knew for sure there was some up here in North East Texas right now, because I was sure as hell shocked and awed. I don't even know how long I stood there wondering whether I should shit or go blind, but it wasn't very long before the ground started shaking for real, and it was nothing like I'd expected.

Tremors were what I'd expected, especially from something which was supposed to hit more than two hundred miles away. What we got was violent jerking. It was as if the ground had jumped out from under my feet. I was on my ass in seconds and it was nearly two full minutes before I even tried to stand up again.

Someone from California might be prepared for something like this, but being born and raised in the upper right hand corner of Texas hadn't let me have even the least clue. I might have laid there for hours if I hadn't felt the wind picking up and if the noise hadn't started in. Finally I came to my senses and got my ass into the shelter once I saw it was still intact. I decided I might as well put on the noise protecting ear gear I'd bought, just in case.

I know you've seen the TV commercial when they say you could have heard a pin drop. This was not one damned thing like that. I couldn't have heard a fucking mountain drop. I've been close enough to a lightning strike before so I could actually feel the sound of thunder, for a half second or so. The sound coming now seemed like an hour or so of that. Even ten feet below ground it nearly knocked me off my feet again.

After about fifteen minutes the noise was about played out and the wind had died down a little, so I climbed the steps and looked outside. God almighty what a mess. Just about an hour ago we had plenty of pine trees in north east Texas, but now I wasn't sure we had any left standing. Well, some of them were still up, sorta, but every damned one I could see was bent over halfway to the ground at least.

Thankfully the ones on the windward side of my pickup were only bent over and touching it instead of laying on it. I'll admit the trees were a danger I never even considered. I mean this wind was only caused by something slamming into the earth. Who'd have thought it could be so powerful.

After a look around I decided I could get the truck turned around and go take a look around town. It was what I intended to do until the ground started shaking again. What the fuck was this, a second outer-space bomb? It couldn't be could it, but the ground did shake violently again.

Earthquake? It had to be, I guess. I'd never heard of any earthquakes around here at all. I thought I remembered there was supposed to be a big fault up in Missouri somewhere, but it wasn't close to here. Then I remembered there'd been two tiny earthquakes out around Dallas a few years ago. Maybe there were some fault lines near me.

I got in the truck, but didn't start it. I might as well see if there was anything on the radio. I did manage to pick up a scratchy signal on AM, but it wasn't anything I could actually make sense of and I forgot about it when I heard a giant explosion.

The explosion wasn't really loud, but the way it kept on rumbling made me think it had been big but probably a long way off. I bit the bullet, cranked my truck, and headed for town.

Damned if the trees weren't in sad shape everywhere, and less than a mile from where I'd been I saw the biggest house in Bivins Texas was practically flattened. It didn't look like much right now, but I knew for a fact it had been one hell of a house for this part of the country. It had been built for one of my uncles and his wife back in 1969 and the damned thing had cost two hundred thousand bucks way back then. After they both died it sold for four million and it was way off in the woods and ten miles from the nearest small town.

It wasn't the only flattened house either. In fact the next six smaller ones I passed were in worse shape. I stopped at each one and couldn't find anyone alive. I found plenty of crushed bodies in the fallen houses, but no one breathing.



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Chapter 2


When I topped a fairly high hill I pulled off the road to get out and look around. I thought I could see what had caused the last loud explosion like sound since way off in the distance toward Shreveport Louisiana I could see a giant towering plume of black smoke. There was a refinery in Shreveport and from the look of things I guessed it was a flaming diasaster now.

My trip toward town ended about two miles later. Even on this barely used farm to market county road there was a hellacious wreck. It looked like about twenty cars had been blown into a pile with a gasoline tanker truck and they were all still burning. I couldn't get any closer than about a quarter mile before the heat made me turn around. It was obvious most of the gasoline was already consumed because all the cars were burnt out wrecks by now, but there was still too much heat coming off the mess to approach it.

I turned around and headed south down Texas Highway 43, but it was mostly the same song different verse with every house I passed. They were completely demolished. Most of them had tall pines blown onto them and several were burning. I didn't bother going up to them now to look for survivors. I was driving slow and I looked closely at each one, but didn't see a living soul.

Suddenly I noticed the sky was getting dark and it was coming up from the south. Shit, I'd known dust and debris had been blown up into the atmosphere, but I hadn't dreamed it would make it this far so soon. I headed back for my hole in the ground, parked my truck, and got my ass inside just about the time the bottom fell out. At first it was only a pounding rain and suddenly rocks and dirt started falling too. Jesus God, that shit had become airborn at least two hundred miles away.

No doubt about it, I needed to stay inside now. I thanked my own dumb ass for paying attention to building a heavy door when I replaced the only one I had. The one I'd fallen through when I found the place. I did open it a little and peek out every hour or so. It had been completely dark outside before I got back inside and that had been around two PM. It was six now and of course it was still dark outside.

About ten PM I made myself go to bed. I was too excited to get to sleep right away, but finally I drifted off. I woke about six the next morning and ate a can of ranch style beans, cold. I wasn't going to try getting a fire started in my sheet metal stove since I hadn't remembered to look and see if its stovepipe was still in place yesterday when I came inside.

After I'd finished the beans I picked up my flashlight and poked my head out. One look toward my stove pipe showed me it wasn't where it should be and I doubted I could find where it had gone. If the wind had been strong enough to blow the giant pines down it wouldn't have had any trouble sending my stove pipe on a trip of several hundred miles.

The new one I'd put in for ventilation was gone too, but I had the cure for it. I put another joint down in the hole I'd made and slid it in place in what was left. I'd have to try it for the actual stove pipe too, and damned if the trick didn't work again.

I put on some rubber boots and a slicker suit over my clothes and went to my truck. It was still raining, but it wasn't a real turd floater coming down, just a good rain. Of course it had been coming down all night without slacking off, but this wasn't what I'd call a real storm.

After half an hour of trying the whole radio dial, both AM and FM I didn't hear one damned thing. I started the truck and headed out again. I didn't get a hundred yards before I had to get out and lock in the hubs so four wheel drive would work.

When I reached the county road I could take it out of four wheel, but I didn't bother unlocking the hubs. I was sure I'd need it again if I had any chance of getting to town.

When I came to the site of the big wreck this time the fire was out of course and the heat was gone too. I didn't bother getting out to poke around in the wreckage since everything was burnt to a crisp. I managed to get around it on the shoulder by going back into four wheel drive, but I was able to shift out of it again on the other side.

I was still amazed at the havoc the wind from the explosion had caused. Every house I saw was at least partially blown down and I didn't see one live person nor any lights from any of the houses. Of course the electric lines were mostly down, but I'd have thought at least someone was left alive and should have at least some candles going inside their houses.

There were several wrecks blocking the streets in places, but I could get around them and usually without getting off the road surface. In a couple of places I nudged vehicles out of the way, but there was nothing difficult about it.

This small town was mostly a traffic loop around an intersection of US 59 and Texas Highway 77. I started around the loop and where the highways actually intersected I found the biggest mess yet. About half a mile from the intersection there were three car dealerships side by side, or there had been. Now it was mostly one big tangled pile of automobiles.

Up the road another half mile there had been a Wal-Mart Supercenter and though there probably hadn't been a lot of shoppers when the wind hit the parking lot had been swept clear and there were dozens of cars jumbled together on one edge of the lot and it seemed there were thousands of shopping buggies piled in with them.

The building was mostly blown down too. I could see part of the main back wall still standing, but very damned little of it. The rest of the building had seemed to just fall in place. I hoped no one was lying injured in the wreckage and I tried to tell myself they'd have been rescued already if they had been, but finally drove over near it and got out after I made sure my Phython was in its holser and my flashlight was in my hand.

After yelling and calling out and walking around as close as I could I didn't hear anything. I was about to leave when I remembered I'd bought my sheet metal stove here, and it had been near the corner I was parked by. The building's corner was still standing.

It wasn't easy, but I managed to climb over, under, around, and through the mess and get inside the building, kinda. Mostly the roof was just gone. There were broken up sections of the outer wall lying around in lots of places, but manuvering around once inside wasn't so bad.

I checked out the stove section and found one of those triple wall pipe kits which seemed mostly intact. It would do to put my setup in better shape and in fact it would be better than what I'd had in the first place.

I set it near the way I planned to leave and made my way to the pharmacy. A lot of the medicine racks were still standing in the perscription section and it didn't take much climbing to get into it. I poked around a little and found some penecillin pills and then some percodan bulk containers too.

This covered most of my knowledge of perscription medicine. Antibiotic and pain killers. I gathered up the whole supply, bagged them up and headed out. I put the pills in the truck first and came back for the stove pipe.

When I left I went on around the loop and damned if I saw one house standing. The wind must have been ferocious since everything was flattened. Hell, Wal-Mart's building had been concrete block construction and only a little of it had stayed up in that one corner.

When I swung toward what we loosley called downtown I only saw more of the same. Everything was knocked down or mostly so. Pop Blythe's building was just gone. There had been three new banks built in the last ten years of so and they were flat too. I could see where it looked like their vaults were still in place, but everything else had been shaken or blown away.

I went back to Highway 43 and headed home or headed hole - whatever. I still hadn't seen a live person and I didn't all the way back either. I started fucking with the radio again and managed to hit on one of those emergency broadcast things. It was barely coming in, but I did hear enough to know Panama was where the thing had come down. According to the radio it was completely gone now, canal and all, and currently giant tidal waves were working their ways around the earth.

Well, it wasn't much news and it wasn't good news, but it was some news. If that kind of thing had been going on since the strike it probably meant the water wasn't going to reach me. It didn't sound good for the rest of the world though.

The way the sky looked didn't sound so good either. The rain was still coming down at a pretty good rate, but it wasn't a flood and I hadn't seen any leaks in my shelter yet. I didn't know if anyone else was alive, but I knew I was and for the moment I had plenty to eat.

Ain't it funny how you can get to thinking things aren't as bad as you'd thought they might be and then something comes along and reminds you it ain't over yet? Something came along all right and it was another big tremor under my feet. Hell, it was the worst one yet and there was no doubt this was an earthquake, because I didn't hear any explosion. The ground just shook like hell.

It even shook loose some of the damned leaning pine trees. They weren't leaning any longer, they were down on the ground. I was lucky I'd parked my truck out from under the leaners this time because they'd been the first to go.

Well, I'd lived over it even though it had knocked me off my feet again. Fuckit, now I was wet from the ground, but I concentrated on being happy my hole in the ground hadn't caved in this time either. I plugged in the light cord again and went inside.

Everything looked normal in here and I decided to go ahead and build a fire in the stove. It wasn't freezing cold outside, but it was damned sure getting colder and who could even guess about the shape of the weather now. I sure as hell didn't have any idea what was coming next.

It only took a few minutes to get the fire going and I guess it was a good thing, because sleet hitting on the stove pipe's top let me know what had come next with the weather. It made me remember someone had said the weather would get damned cold with all that shit up in the air blocking off the sun.

It was damned sure doing a lot of blocking too. Visibility outside was down to about half a mile and in what was supposed to be broad daylight. There was enough light coming through to see your way around, but there damned sure wasn't any extra. It made me wonder about not seeing a single soul since the damned thing hit.

It didn't take long for the heater to warm up my little hole in the ground and I didn't bother to put more wood on the fire after it started burning down. I had a good bit inside, but there was no telling how long it would have to last and if the sleet turned to snow I didn't want to be out in it trying to gather wood.

I sat around thinking how smart I'd been getting the medicine from Wal-Mart while I'd been there and of course it made me remember I hadn't bothered to try gathering any more food while it was laying around for the taking.

The weather was going to get shitty outside and the main trouble was I didn't know how shitty it was going to get. I knew the whole world, or what was left of it was in the same shape, but it didn't make me feel any better about the shape I was in.

I went back to my truck, unhooked my electric line, and headed back to town. Even if I only gathered up some canned food - any food I could scavange would be better than none. I fired up the truck and headed back to Wal-Mart.

With the sleet coming down I used my wipers and was glad to see ice wasn't building up on the windshield where the wipers didn't wipe. It was a sign it wasn't freezing out yet, but it had felt damned close when I left my hole and headed for my truck.

When I made it to Wal-Mart I parked at the other end this time. It was near the grocery section and though most of it was caved in here the corner was still standing and part of the end wall was too.

It was even easier to make it inside from this end, but as I was making my way toward what was left of the grocery isles I saw a couple of women, or girls, and they were armed. The bad part was they were pointing their guns at me.

"Just what are you after mister?" one of them asked, and a closer look let me see they weren't exactly pointing their guns at me, they just had them heading in my general direction.

"Not a damned thing you want Ma'am. I was going to pick up a little food since I've heard the weather might get bad, but if you'd rather I didn't I'm not going to argue over it with you.

"Damned if you don't sound polite, and there seems to be plenty of food and damned few customers right now, so if you don't intend to try raping us we can probably get along."



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Chapter 3



"Well Ma'am, I'm sure the two of you are pretty as pictures and I'm not a sissy, but my mama didn't hold with raping and she taught me better, God rest her soul. Not only that, but I'd be pretty damned stupid to hurt the only other two people I've seen alive since that damned rock hit Panama and caused all this trouble."

"Hey, how'd you find out where it hit?" she asked.

"I kept fiddling with my pickup's radio until I picked up some kind of broadcast. It went away pretty quick though, and it didn't sound like a regular radio station either."

"It's more than we heard and our car is on its top now after all the wind. How did you manage to keep your truck on its wheels?"

"Just dumb luck mostly. I was off in the woods down past Bivins, and my truck was on the backside of a big hill. It also happened to be too far away from falling trees to get hit too, but it wasn't because I was smart about where I parked it or anything," I said.

"Did your house get blown away?"

"I don't know since I haven't been by to check on it, but from the looks of the others I've seen my guess would be it is in mighty poor shape. What about you?" I asked.

"We were in the storm cellar out in the back yard. It made it through, but our house didn't," she said.

"Have you seen anyone else alive?"

"Not cept you. The wind probably blew most of them away if they lived through their houses falling down on 'em."

"You think so?" I asked.

"It's what happened to daddy. He was in the storm cellar with us when the shaking came, but he thought he just had to go out and take a look after it settled down. I tried to tell him not to, but he wouldn't listen. We heard him holler when the wind got him, but there was nothing we could do. We couldn't even find him after everything was over."

"Well, I'm sorry for your loss," I said.

"He did it his damned self, and even though we'll miss him someday, I'm mostly mad at him right now. He's gone and it leaves us to take care of ourselves. That damned cellar ain't very big either and if it gets cold as some said it would we're going to have a hard time if we don't find a building still standing."

"Well, I'm all by myself and I've got a little more room than it sounds like you have. You're welcome to stay with me if you want to."

"You seem nice enough, but are you going to make us screw you for our living?"

"No. It don't mean I won't wish you would, but I've never been one to force myself on a woman, and besides, I'll have to sleep sometime," I said.

"Don't get me wrong. I never said we wouldn't screw you, we just don't want you to make us do it," she said.

"My name is Jake, by the way."

"I'm Sarah, and my little sister here is Karen. Why don't we gather up some food and go see if we can fit into your cellar," Sarah said.

Damned if it wasn't about the oddest way to meet people I'd ever been involved in. I guess it would have to do though. It seemed like after the asteroid hit I was just going to have to do the best I could. Things seemed to be working out fine for now though.

Sarah had a damned good idea right away too. There wasn't room for rolling buggies around with so much of the stock in the floor now, but we found some of those hand-held baskets and started filling them up with meat first thing.

It made good sense since the meat would spoil a hell of a lot faster than canned goods would. We made about twenty trips each to my truck and we'd made a good haul of meat, a lot of eggs, plenty of bread, and several gallons of milk.

We hadn't noticed how much colder it was getting while we were busy, but by now the sleet was sticking on the ground and on my windshield. I started the truck and we just sat where we were while it warmed up a little. I wanted to get it warm enough so most of the ice would melt off the windshield. It was on around four in the afternoon by now and it might as well have been after sunset from the little bit of light we had.

"Do you want to go by your house and pick up anything before we go?" I asked.

"No, we'd have to dig for it and I don't think there's anything worth getting. It'll be easier to find clothes in Wal-Mart later on probably. It sure don't look like anyone else has been out here looking around," Sarah said.

Karen agreed with her so I just took off once the windshield was clear. It seemed funny to be driving around with the lights on up in the afternoon, but I needed them and I had to be careful too, since the sleet already had the roads slick as hell.

Sarah and Karen were underwhelmed when I pulled up to my hole in the ground, but they were surprised and seemed delighted once I led them inside.

"This is a hell of a lot better than it looks from outside," Sarah said.

"Yeh, but it's a lot colder than it was when I left. Let me get a fire going."

"It sure won't hurt a thing. I'll be happy to get out of these clothes if you can get it warm in here. We've had to wear them full time since that damned big rock hit," Karen said.

"I hate to tell you, but a bathtub is something I don't have," I said.

"You're lucky you found us then cause we know right where to find one if you've got enough water to fill it up," Sarah said.

"Water probably won't be a problem with the way it's raining," I said.

"Rainwater won't do for a bath, not for a while anyway. There's a hell of a lot of crap coming down with it. Surely we can find an old well or something somewhere. Even if we have to dip it out with buckets," Karen said.

"Hey, there was a well here one time I know. There was a house here, but it's been a long time since it burned down."

"We can make it until tomorrow anyway. I see you've got some in plastic jugs and we took a lot of milk and stuff from Wal-Mart. Think we should unload some of it?" Sarah asked.

"I guess so. If we don't it'll probably be in solid ice before morning."

We didn't have as far to walk now and it didn't take long. We mostly set the milk by the door except for some we brought in to use now. We even left most of the meat in the truck so it would stay cool, and if it froze overnight it wouldn't hurt anything.

Sarah and Karen claimed the cooking duties and even on the small tin stove they did a damned good job. They had to fry the steaks, but they were good at it and when we ate I thought it was even better than Pop Blythe could have done.

When they asked if I minded them looking around at what I had here already I told them to make themselves at home. Was I ever glad I did? When they discovered my washtub they declared the search for a bathtub over.

"What do you mean?"

"We can wash in this tub. It won't be the best thing, but one can stand in it and the other two can do the washing. Hell, you might even like it," Sarah said.

Hell indeed. I knew I would like it and right now I didn't mind if they had to use up every drop of water I had stored.

They looked at each other for a second and then both of them grinned and started shucking clothes. When I just stood there Sarah spoke up.

"We don't give a damn if you want to stare, but you need to shuck your duds and give us a show too. We've already decided you look good enough for us. Now all we want to do is make sure we're all clean enough for some fun. It's plenty warm in here by now so get naked," she said, and Karen was nodding her head in agreement.

What the hell? I couldn't have asked for a better deal so I started out of my clothes. Sarah had been right though. I had to get out of my things by feel because I couldn't tear my eyes off them.

The clothes they'd been wearing were bulky, for warmth I guess, and as they started dropping my dick started rising. Both of them were bare assed by the time I was down to my drawers and they were watching closely as I dropped those.

"Lookathere Sarah, he's got a really big dick. Did we luck out or what?" Karen said.

"I'll say, and even if he ain't too good with it yet I'm sure the two of us can give him some lessons. I wouldn't be surprised if he's good from the start though. He might be quick on the trigger at first though," Sarah said.

"That won't matter. We can fuck him out of the habit in a day or two surely," Karen said.

"What about it, Jake. Can you make it last?" Sarah said.

"Probably not so much at first. You two are too much of a shock. You're too damned good looking for your own good. I know I can get the hang of it with practice though and it's always come right back for more pretty fast," I said.

"Goody, we can just suck you off a time or two to get started. It won't hurt your feelings will it?" Karen asked.

"Not a bit. Now, let me get hold of some soap and start the fun."

Washing them was fun and inspiring too. When Karen and Sarah were clean they washed me and before you know it we were dry and in bed. They weren't bluffing about sucking my dick either and both of them were damned good at it.

After they'd coaxed a load out of me Karen lay back, spread her legs, and urged me to get aboard. It didn't take much convincing, but it did take some work on my part. Karen was wet and hot, but she was a tighter fit than I'd expected. She was also demanding after I'd reached bottom and started stroking for real.

Her hips were active and her arms pulled me to her tightly. I loved every second of it and she must have too, because she went off just before I did with her hips banging back at me rapidly.

Sarah didn't give me much time to catch my breath either. She rolled me to my back, put my dick in her mouth and started sucking nearly right away. Hell, this was not a bad thing and as her mouth applied the suction her hands teased and caressed my balls and before you know it, presto chango, I was hard again.

Since she was already on top Sarah decided to mount me and fuck down. She did a whale of a job at it too, and before she finished me off she got her cookies too. One of them pulled the covers up over us and we were all asleep within minutes, or at least I was.

When I woke the next morning I was surprised since it was warm in our little pseudo cave. One of them must have stoked up the heater at least a time or two during the night and I wasn't sorry about it. I was also in one hell of a good mood and felt great too.

The next thing I noticed was the sound of eggs being cracked and then came the smell of fried bacon. I opened my eyes to the sight of two naked beauties hovering near the stove. I sighed loudly when I saw them and they turned to see what I was up to.

"I don't give a damn if the whole world had to die for it to happen. I'm so damned happy to be with you two," I said.

"You ain't half bad yourself, and I can tell with a little work you'll be able to hold your own in the covers with no trouble. You did a good job for your first try," Karen said, and then giggled at me.

"I live to serve ma'am."

"Good, get up and have a cup of coffee and then some breakfast. You can do a lot more serving afterwards," Sarah said.

"Got something specific in mind?" I asked.

"We're just hoping we can talk you into going back to town if the road is passable. As you can see we neglected to wash out our panties and T-shirts before we went to bed last night. We need to scrounge up at least a few more things to wear," Karen said, waving toward a line they'd tied up to use for drying clothes.

"You don't have to wait so long. I've got some flannel shirts you should be able to use in here at least."

"You are such a sweetheart. Can you find them for us?" Sarah asked.

"Sure."

I put actions to my words and dug around in my clothes until I at least had them in shirttails. I'll have to say I liked seeing them in the shirts and I was happy to find I could easily reach up under them for a quick feel of a lovely ass.

Coffee was next and when I had a cup I thought of something else we needed. Some type of chairs or stools or something were going to be necessary. If the weather was as cold as I thought it was, we were going to be spending a lot of time in this hole. We wouldn't want to be standing around all the time either.

Breakfast was good and their panties and T-shirts were dry after we'd eaten. They put their clothes back on and I encouraged them to wear the flannel shirts I'd given them since I could tell from the occasional draft it must be really cold outside.

When I finally opened the door I was only slightly surprised to find about ten inches of snow on the ground. I headed for the pickup to start it up and get it warm in advance. I left it warming up and went back inside for another cup of coffee.

We piled back in the truck a little later. It was warm and the snow had melted off all the windows, thankfully. I didn't bother trying to even move until I had it in four-wheel drive and I had no trouble after it was.

I'd assumed they wanted to go back to Wal-Mart, but when we reached town they wanted to see what was left of downtown. The south side of everything was down to near rubble, but the next block over had done better. The buildings were all in rough shape, but the walls backed up to alleys with other buildings behind them and were hanging in there.

Sarah and Karen were happy because there was an old time dry goods store which was mostly still standing. We pulled up in front of it and went inside through the openings where glass doors had been a few days ago.

Alberts had managed to survive the coming of Wal-Mart somehow. They had given up on dress clothes years ago, but still carried Levis jeans and Carhartt work clothes and outdoor wear. Of course we had the place to ourselves.

It took a couple of hours, but we loaded up everything jeanish they had which fit us, even taking a size or two on either side. We didn't bother worrying about the leg lengths and if we could get into the waist we took it. We were happy we found more than we could carry. We took the first load home and came back with the pickup bed empty this time, even unloading all the food we'd found the day before.

The next trip we did even better since we gathered up all the socks we found. Most of them were the white athletic style, but they also had a good stock of wool socks since they usually sold a lot to hunters. I figured we'd done well enough for the day, but Sarah wanted to go into the hometown sporting goods store next door.

It had been owned by an old timer. One of the small towns early residents. He'd made his living out of it and while Wal-Mart had taken most of his trade in the last few years he still carried a good stock.

We had a good bit of trouble getting around inside it since the upper floor had sagged down alarmingly. It wasn't creaking or anything though and we mostly hoped it didn't collapse further while we were inside.

Old Johnny's place was well worth the look, and we decided we had to go and unload again before we started there.

"You know we need to get something to try storing some stuff in. We'll have our place filled completely up before long if we don't," I said.

"Do you think there's a chance in hell we can find some type of trailer or something?" Sarah asked.

"Maybe there's something we can use at the U-Haul place," Karen said.

"They were probably all blown away in the wind," Sarah said.

"Maybe, but I know they always chained them down and had to unlock them if they rented one," Karen said.

We headed toward it and found one mell of a hess when we got there. All the trailers were still there, but not a one was on its wheels. We stopped and looked around though and I found one which didn't look like it had been damaged much, even though it was on its side.

The thing that let us end up salvaging the trailer was the guy's wrecker. It was a small one, but it was parked on the side of his building away from the wind's direction. The wall on its side had stayed up and after digging around in the remains of the office we found the keys. It started right up.

We had to stretch the winch cable over a couple of other trailers to get it hooked where I wanted on the one we were trying for. As I tightened the line it cut down through the other trailer's fiberglass sides, but it did right the one we wanted, and after breaking off the lock we were able to get it hooked to the wrecker's hitch. We took them both back to town with us.

Old Johnny's place turned out to be an even more handy find than the dry goods place. Johnny had some of everything for hunting and fishing and we loaded up everything which wasn't damaged.

He had a good selection of snowmobile type suits and at first I wondered why. Sarah told me hunters bought them to stay warm while sitting around in hunting stands during deer season. Since we now had plenty of room we loaded them all. In fact we took every type of hunting clothing he had, including a lot more warm socks. Hell, I hated to have cold feet.

He also had a small stock of hunting boots and we thought we'd be better off with them than without. Old Johnny carried a nice selection of firearms, and knives too and they all went home with us along with all his ammunition supply and every compound bow, all arrows, and every other item in his archery supplies. I was going to have a hell of a bill if Old Johnny had made it.

By the time we had his fishing rods, reels, and artificial lures packed in it was time to go home. We were mostly packed full by now anyway and there wasn't much left of value. The ammunition had been the biggest bother to load since almost none of it was in cases any longer, just the small boxes with twenty-five or fifty rounds each.

The wrecker didn't do as well on the snowy icy roads as my pickup did so Sarah drove mine and I followed in the wrecker pulling the trailer. We made it with no incident, but not without a lot of slow driving and fucking around trying to get down the abandoned county road. We were happy as hell to get back in our cubbyhole and we left any unpacking or organizing until tomorrow.

"Dammit," Sarah said, as soon as we were inside.

"What's the matter?"

"We rode all over town today and didn't even think about a bathtub."

"Well, tomorrow's another day and I can get by with sponging off tonight," Karen said.

And so we did. It was more foreplay than bathing though and when we were in bed the girls expected me to do my duty again. I'll admit I was able to do a better job this time.

Our night's sleep was more of a nights waking and going back to sleep. I'm sure the wind was nothing like the devastating blast which had torn the whole town to hell, but it howled all night long. It was punctuated by the sound of frozen tree limbs snapping off all through the night too. Still, our heater kept us warm enough and I wasn't tired from the ordeal the next morning.

One look outside let me know we didn't need to go anywhere today since there was about twelve more inches of snow on the ground. We had a big breakfast and spent most of the day feeding the fire and laying on the bed since we hadn't remembered to get any stools yesterday. Mostly we just tried to entertain ourselves by telling our life stories to each other, but just after we ate some lunch Sarah had a brainstorm.

"We need to gather up some of the cattle if we can find them. People raised cows all over around here and they're all just going to die now," she said.

"We might be able to find a few, but what will we feed them? None of them can make it through a winter like this one is shaping up to be without hay at least," I said.



-------

Chapter 4



"This is East Texas. There's bound to be hay everywhere," Sarah said.

"I'm sure there was just a couple of days ago, but after that blast of wind I'm guessing most of it is just scattered dead grass now," I said.

"That's the point though. Most of it probably is, just like most of the buildings are blown down. It doesn't mean all of it is blown away or ruined. We need to at least look around and see if we can find a barn still standing somewhere. Heck, the way they roll it up now we might even find some rolls which were sheltered somehow. You said your pickup was right outside in the open out here and it made it through," Karen said.

"I guess you're both right. We don't have to worry about what happened generally. We have to look for specific things that might be helpful to us.

"I don't think today's the day to get out and drive around though," I said.

"You might be right, but maybe not. In fact we might not be far from a lot of hay. Have you done any driving south of here on the farm to market road?

"I remember daddy telling us there was a big brick barn down here somewhere."

"A brick barn? Why would anyone build a brick barn? I've never heard of it," I said.

"It wasn't built to be a barn. All this area down around here was a giant sawmill in the twenties. They had a brick kiln to dry the lumber. Daddy said his daddy worked at the mill when he was a kid. The kiln was big enough to hold sixteen rail cars of lumber at one time.

"I remember him talking about that big house down here and saying they put a metal roof over the old kiln and made it into a giant barn just after the house was finished. The lake behind the house started as a stream they dammed up to make a mill pond for the sawmill," Sarah said.

"I've never heard anything about all that. I guess we could drive over there and take a look. I think my pickup can still move around even in the deep snow. If we get stuck we might be able to come back and get the wrecker to pull us out."

"We'd better find each one of us one of those snowmobile suits we got in town before we get very far from our little hole in the ground though. Shit, it's cold outside," Karen said.

In the end we decided to wait until tomorrow for the great hay expedition. We did go out and find each of us one of the suits in the trailer. Karen and Sarah picked out an automatic shotgun each and plenty of buckshot while they were at it.

When we got back inside the girls were wound up thinking about what we'd do tomorrow. Ten minutes later they were back in the trailer looking for wool socks and unpacking boots to try on. They kept at it for two hours until they decided we had enough to get by tomorrow and thought they might as well cook something for supper.

It had been pretty damned cold out in the U-haul, but it was worth the time and trouble. We all had new jeans, wool socks, new boots, and even long johns besides the snowmobile suits. When we tried everything on we looked like pictures out of my high school geography book. The ones showing the poor Chinese children dressed up in what looked like quilts with legs and arms sewed on.

We were plenty warm in our little hole though. The heater made sure of it, and our workout on the mattress had our circulation in good shape.

After dressing the next morning I poked my head out our door and damned if it wasn't still snowing and I started the pickup to get it warm for us later. I guess I should have paid more attention to what they'd been saying on TV during the last few days before the big rock hit.

I do remember the Discovery Channel having a show saying this might be something like what they thought happened when the dinosaurs were all killed off millions of years back. Shows like that always pissed me off though. It might be like what could have happened maybe one time a long time ago.

In other words they were taking up air time telling us about somebody's Wild Ass Guess. Right about now I was wishing I'd paid a lot more attention at the time. I did remember there was something about all the dirt and shit being blown up into the atmosphere making it get really cold everywhere and killing off a lot of plants and animals. It was eating on me kinda.

If it was bothering Sarah and Karen they hadn't mentioned it yet. Sarah had bailed off whole hog on gathering some of the roaming live stock if any of it was still around though. She and Karen fixed some breakfast and we headed for the pickup.

It was good and warm by now and most of the snow had melted off around the cab. I had to use the wipers since snow was still coming down pretty strong. Hell, there was already more on the ground here than I'd seen in my whole life to this point.

The ground was now pretty much frozen too, and I had to be damed careful driving. Stopping wasn't going to be like before, so I made sure I traveled as slowly as I could stand. We turned south on Highway 287 when we came to it and we hadn't even gone a mile before we spotted the damned barn Sarah had been talking about.

Now that I saw it I remembered it seemed it had always been there masqurading as an abandoned building. We had to turn around and go back to the driveway for the big house which had been blown down the first day.

The place had always had a remote control gate and it was closed when we got there. It wasn't locked or anything though and I was able to get out and just push it open. There were no tire tracks at all and in fact I had a hell of a time figuring out where the driveway might be since it was covered with snow.

Hell, I didn't need the driveway since it didn't go to the big barn anyway. I cut across the pasture and hoped for the best, but I did it slowly. By the time we made it to the barn there were forty or so cows following us and I was sure they thought we'd come to feed them.

At the barn there were two giant doors. They were a hell of a lot taller than any barn door I'd ever seen and when I went to one I was surprised at how easily it opened. We were all carrying flashlights and we spent the first few minutes looking around with our jaws hanging open.

If you say it fast, sixteen rail cars don't sound like so many, but damn, the place was huge inside. Of course the railroad tracks had been removed at some time earlier, but it was still apparent where they'd been.

The first really amzing thing to me was when I looked at the walls. They weren't any type of brick veneer, that was for sure. They were solid brick and at least five feet thick. Seeing as how the place had been built in the 1920s I figured the mortar had been mixed in wheelbarrows with hoe strokes and I could barely imagine how many people it would have taken to do it that way.

The brick weren't anything like modern brick either. They were made right up in town and said Atlanta Texas on each one of them. There were no holes down through them like modern bricks either. They were solid. Apparently they were hell for sturdy since the Atlanta Brick Company had folded in 1929 and the bricks were damned near a hundred years old.

The whole thing was divided into halves and the one we were in held more hay than the law allowed. It was in big rolls and if they'd started stacking it from the back wall they had half of this section full nearly to the top with the giant rolls.

"I guess we won't have to worry about hay for our new herd of cows," Sarah said.

"Nope. Not if we can find a tractor with a front end loader to unstack it."

"I don't understand why they put it in this barn anyway, though I'm glad they did. Aren't those rolls supposed to be good enough to stay out in the field?" Karen asked.

"Yes, they'll be good for a year outside, but they do better if you keep them in a barn and they retain more food value too."

"Well I'm for that, because food might get scarce if the whole world has gone to shit like things around here."

"It couldn't have could it?" I asked.

"The TV said it was possible the meteorite would mean the end of life on Earth, but it was right at the last," Karen said.

"Well, I hope they were wrong," Sarah said.

"Me too, but just in case we probably should see about finding the tractor they used to move this hay," I said.

"Yep, even if we don't know exactly what to do we've got cows outside already who think we're supposed to," Sarah said.

There was a wall all the way down the center of the length of the building, dividing it into halves. Right near the front wall a man sized opening had been cut through and we went to the other side.

Things over here were even better. There was a hellacious bunch of range cubes on pallets near the back of this side and several pallets of salt and mineral blocks. They also had a tremendous supply of those cardboard tubs with cattle feed made into molasses blocks. I'd seen them before, but I'd never been close to one.

We'd also found the tractor and putting out hay for the stock was going to be simplicity in itself if we could get the damned thing started. The cattle raising supplies and equipment weren't the biggest prize though.

For some reason there was a damned apartment built near the opposite wall and up near the front. I walked over to it and knocked on the door just in case.

I was just as happy there was no answer and I opened the door and walked in. Hell, it was pretty nice in there. It was about twenty-five by forty and if it wasn't a one room apartment for someone to live in and watch over things I don't know what it could have been.

One end was obviously for a bedroom, but without partition walls. The bathroom had an old claw-foot iron tub, a pretty large utility and linen type closet where towels, sheets, and stuff were stored, a normal shitter, and it was walled off from everything else.

The other end had a fairly nice kitchen with a double sink, a butane range and oven and a large double door refrigerator and there was even a chest type freezer plus a washer and dryer.

"Damn, this seems like heaven to me," Sarah said.

"It does look nice and it seems to be vacant for the moment at least. I wonder who was living here and where they went?"

"Well that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question," Karen said.

"Do you think we can go ahead and move in?" Sarah asked.

"We should probably give it a day or two at least in case someone is trying to make it back home. I doubt they are, but a couple of days won't make much difference.

"I guess you're right, but did you know it even has running water," Karen said, turning on the sink's tap.

The water did run for a few seconds, but slowed down fast and Karen shut it back off. It was probably a well, and no doubt the electricity was gone now. Still, we might be able to find a small generator unit to get it going again.

Speak of the devil, I heard some type of engine start up outside just then. We all headed for the door we'd come in intending to see what had come to life, but when we walked outside my heart sank a little.

There was a pickup stopped and probably stuck about half way from the driveway and an older black man was walking toward us. I waved and started toward him.

"Howdy mister. I's James Larry," he said, when we met.

"I'm Jake Calhoun. I hope we haven't disturbed your setup any. To tell the truth we were looking around for a place to live in and we thought whoever might have been living here hadn't made it," I said.

"You might be right about it too. George decided to go and see about his daughter and son-in-law not five minutes before everything went to pieces. If he was still on the road when the big wind come up there's no telling what happened to him," James said, as we walked toward the barn.

"Was George the owner?"



-------

Chapter 5



"Nawsir. He just stayed here and watched things for Mr Scoggins. He's the one owned the cattle, but he's dead now. His whole house fell in on him and kilt his family, every one of 'em. I went by their place first when I finally dug myself out. I come here next to see if George had changed his mind and come back in time. I doubt he lived through the wind if he ain't here. He didn't even have time enough to get to town I don't reckon."

"I've been to town since then and there's a big wreck between here and there. A fuel truck crashed up with a bunch of cars and pickups and they were all burnt to nothing just about," I said.

"Might have got George for sure. He knowed better and done it anyway. I hope it twasn't him, but I wouldn't put money on it. He was hard headed."

"Well if he was in that wreck he's a gonner for real. It took hours for it to cool off enough for me to go around it on the shoulder.

"You said you had to dig yourself out. Do you need to come here to live?" I asked.

"Nawsir. Me and Gertie woulda been just fine if we'd stayed in our house. We just didn't know it. It's near a big hill and the hill kept the wind off the house. We got in our storm cellar though and a durned old pine fell across the door. It took all this time for me to get out from under it."

"Is Gertie your wife? Is she all right?"

"Yessir, she's my wife and she's fine, cept for being mad. I was coming here to get the tractor too. I need it to get the tree offen the cellar door so's she can get back in the house."

"Well I'm ready if you are. Me and my women will follow you and help," I said.

"Powerful nice of you, Mister Jake. Powerful nice."

As soon as I introduced James to Sarah and Karen and told them about Gertie they wanted to rush us up and leave right away.

"Pardon ma'ams, but twon't help a thing to get in a big hurry and Gertie ain't hurt. She's gonna be mad 'bout me bringing company and not giving her time to cook up a meal, but she'll get over it. She's fine in the cellar cause we fixed it up enough to sleep in there during a big storm. She was happy as a clam when I left cause she didn't have to do nothing sides listen around on her radio."

"Can she get any stations?" Sarah asked.

"It's one of them short wave things. She said she can hear it better now that there ain't so many people talkin'. I'd a thought all this mess in the air would foul it up, but she says it ain't.

"Just let me get the tractor started and we can go on over and let her out. She'll make us some coffee if we do," James Larry said, and then went over, started the tractor, and drove it out. I closed both sets of doors after he was outside and then we piled into the pickup and followed him.

His house wasn't far away and was only about a quarter mile off Texas 243. I could see what he meant about the hill protecting his house when we drove up the steep gravel driveway. I could also see the pine tree that had fallen across his cellar door.

He killed the tractor and walked to the cellar and we got out and followed him.

"Is you still alright, Gertie?" he yelled toward the door.

"Yes, but it's time to cook something to eat. Can't you get me outta here now?"

"Yep, and I brought some company with me to help."

"Is it George? Is he doing ok?"

"It ain't George and I don't know for sure, but I don't think he made it. Mister Jake said there was a big crash tween here and town and a buncha cars burned up when they crashed into a gasoline truck."

"Lawdy. Thas awful. Who is Mister Jake?"

"I am Miz Gertie. Are you sure you're all right?" I asked.

"I know your voice. You ain't Jake Calhoun is you?"

"Yes ma'am. It's me. I knew your voice too."

"Well at least somebody I knew is still alive. I guess you ain't still mean as you was when you was little is ya?"

"I don't think so. Least ways you won't have to chase me off down Miller Street no more."

"It's good, cause I'm too old for that now."

"Me too."

"Who you brought with you? James said there was some others up there."

"Sarah and Karen. They're sisters and I found them in Wal-Mart."

"Now Jake don't start in on that kinda stuff again. I know they don't sell no girls, letalone sisters, in Wal-Mart."

"I mean I found them there looking around for food after the big wind. I took 'em in and they been trying to teach me some manners."

"Them poor girls. You'll work 'em to death at it. It is good you got two though. I allus knew you'd grow up to be too much for one woman," she said.

I decided to see if we couldn't change the subject by working on the tree across the door. James didn't really need my help though. He maneuvred until he had the hay spear under the trunk then he lifted it and just pushed it around until it was out of the way, leaving the tractor there to hold it in place.

We let him go inside and help Gertie out and when she made it above ground she was a blast from my past.

Gertie had helped mama around the house when we were just kids. While James was about five-eleven and weighed probably one-sixty, Gertie was only a little over five feet and surely weighed two-fifty if she weighed an ounce. She was equipped for a long cold winter for real.

"Well all that's in the past now and I sho miss some of the folks I knowed, but looks like I ain't gonna be the only one now," Gertie said, when she was above ground.

"We'll all miss damned near everyone now, Gertie," I said.

"I won't. They'll be a lot of folks gone, but I don't guess I'll miss many of 'em. Still, I'm glad to see you still up and around and you sho picked up some nice friends. Looks like you'll have two to keep you warm if times really do get hard.

"They's going to too. I could listen real good after that first big wind knocked so many off the air. Did you know Mexico City is just gone?"

"No. We don't even know about Queen City yet. How did you find out so fast?" I asked.

"My radio. I never did like TV and James didn't much either, but I's got a good shortwave radio and James put me up a long wire in a tall pine tree. It got bent over bad, but I guess it didn't fall all the way down.

"I been listening to radio people all over the world, even the ones I can't understand. Bad things happened all over when that thing hit. One man said Panama and the whole canal is just gone now too.

"Somone even said volcanos were starting up all over and another one said the ocean came up and covered Los Angeles all over. Anothern said the Golden Gate is gone too," Gertie said.

"Did you hear anything about New York City?" I asked.

"Not a word, and it's funny. I used to hear folks up there all the time. Now there's nothing from there, or Boston, or even Washington DC. Not a word about nothin' up that way.

"I don't understand it. They're so far from where it hit," I said.

"But they ain't far from the ocean. I just heard two men talking about tidal waves still coming. You know Houston and Galveston didn't last thirty minutes don't you? I heard they were washed away plumb gone.

"Florida must be just as bad, or maybe worse. They woulda got a direct wave right off the bat and then probably more from the other side later."

"I've got one of those radios, but I couldn't make it work. Can you show me how?" I asked.

"Did you put up an antenna wire?" she asked.

"No, but it had one of those antennas that scopes out."

"Yep, and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass every time it jumped either. That little thing comes on 'em ain't worth shit. James, show him how to make an antenna when you go back," Gertie said, and she wasn't asking.

"Now, y'all come on in and talk to me while I'm cooking some dinner. I ain't had a good meal since this all started and we got stuck down in that hole."

I didn't even think about trying to turn her down. She was the best cook I'd ever tasted food from anyway and besides, she knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on than we did.

We all sat at the table while Gertie cooked and we all got the third degree along with plenty of information she had to share. She put James and I both on a mission before we finished our first cup of coffee.

She pointed out, correctly, there were no doubt hundreds of propane tanks near blown down rural homes, and when James told her we were staying where George had been she said gathering up tanks so we could use the propane later should be our next job.

"That dynamo what keeps George's lights going runs on propane so you gonna need plenty. I don't think you can call 'em up to get a refill anymore."

She was right about that part, but it did make me think of checking the place in town. They had giant tanks there and big trucks to deliver the gas with too.

For the here and now though Gertie had a meal ready. We had pork chops, turnip greens, pinto beans, and cornbread. They didn't have a generator here, but there was plenty of cold milk and the butter we spread on the cornbread and mixed into the mashed potatoes was from Gertie and James' cow's milk. It was the best meal since splashdown for sure.

After we'd eaten the girls wouldn't listen to Gertie about getting out of her kitchen and they did all the cleaning up whether she wanted them to or not. James and I had better sense and we took the chance to leave.

"James, what do you think about gathering up the butane tanks?" I asked, once we were safe in another room.

"Won't hurt nothing, but I knows they's two five-hundred gallon ones up where the big house got blowed down. Mayhaps we should take a look up there anyway. They had a big storm cellar of they own."

Damn, that would be a lick and an insult to the dentist who owned the place too if we found them up there stuck like Gertie had been. James said he'd go with me when I asked and after telling Gertie and the girls what we were up to we headed out.

When I drove in the gate this time we went straight on up to what was left of the house. Damnation that was a big concrete slab with nearly nothing on it anymore. One corner of the house was partially standing and we found the dentist, his wife, and their kids all smashed to mush under the part of the roof that had fallen on them.

You can lead a horse to water ... and all that crap, but they hadn't bothered to go into their storm cellar. It was still all neat and tidy. Oh well, we could probably use the month or two worth of food and other supplies there.

We poked around a little more and James showed me the way down to the basement. We had to throw some of the wreckage out of the way, but before long we played our flashlights over the single bowling lane down there and over other things, including the safe type door to what James said had been a gun closet for the first owner.

The people in the house could have come down here and been fine. Shit, the pins on the bowling alley weren't even knocked over. There's no accounting for some people I guess, and there wasn't much point in making fun of them now since they'd paid for their sins.

I tried to open the vault like door, but it wouldn't swing for me. Oh well, there probably wasn't anything worthwhile in there anyway.

Back upstairs James and I looked around behind the house and found the butane tanks. They were behind a low bank, to keep them out of sight I guess. It kept them out of the wind too and they weren't hurt. The small block building with two Generac units inside wasn't hurt either.

"Lookahere James. They had some of those dynamos too."

"Yassir. They bought 'em same time Mr Scoggins put that one in down there for George. I don't think these been used much though. They's supposed to come on when the lights go off, but they probably shut back down cause see there, the wires is pulled out too."

"Do you think we can move those tanks with the tractor?" I asked.

"Probably, but if'n we kin get to town there ain't no need to. We kin borrow the thing the butane place brought 'em out here with. It's just a trailer with a come-along on top. It does a real good job too."



-------

Chapter 6


This new information cut the discussion of moving the tanks short and had James and me in my pickup again, heading for town. I knew exactly which trailer he was talking about and I knew where it had been parked the last time I saw it. We went there.

The propane place was much worse for the wear; however, the empty tanks seemed to still be in order and the trailer we needed was still on its wheels. In fact it was hooked to the tow ball on a two-ton truck which had two giant tanks on its back. These weren't the type of tanks normally put in place for home use it was carrying. They were delivery tanks which the propane place used to deliver fuel. After looking around at the gauges on the tanks I could tell they were both full.

I didn't now and had never known why such large trucks were called two-ton trucks. I happened to know they weighed around eight thousand pounds empty. Still, I knew they were commonly called two-ton trucks. James and I were able to get one of the five-hundred gallon empty propane tanks loaded into the trailer for carrying them and we headed out for my new accommodations -- or George's former place -- or the brick dry kiln -- or whatever we would be calling it next.

We were lucky in that the truck we borrowed happened to have a good supply of fittings, copper tubing, and the flaring tools used to make the connections. It was relatively easy to set the tank and connect it to the one already in place. When we were done we used one of the delivery tanks from the truck to fill the one we'd just set for our use and everything seemed to work fine.

Next we dragged the handy trailer up the hill to the house place and moved the tank there down and set it beside the one we'd just put in place. Another thirty minutes of work had it connected too, and then we filled it from the delivery tanks and we also filled the original tank from the delivery truck. Sarah, Karen, and I would be fixed up for propane and electricity until something went horribly wrong, but I wasn't discounting that possibility.

We drove the delivery truck to James' house and refilled his propane tank while we were at it and then drove it back to town and parked it at the place where we'd taken it from in the first place. We returned to his home then.

Sarah and Karen were sitting around talking to Gertie when we got back. I gathered them up and took off after James, who was heading back to our place on the tractor to feed the cows. We made it before he did, and when he got there I paid careful attention to how he took a roll of hay off the stack and then set it out for the stock.

After he was done he said a roll of hay every other day would probably be all they needed, but I asked if he knew about other cattle that might be stranded with no one to watch over them now. He started naming off the places he knew of and I asked him to hold that thought until tomorrow when we could go and check on the possible owners and think about gathering the cattle and bringing them up to join the ones I was now tending.

Sarah and Karen put together a meal as soon as we were back inside and it was great. If it wasn't quite as good as Gertie had done -- well that would never come out of my mouth. It was one hell of a lot better than I could do. James and I had done the propane deed to make sure the Generac kept generating, but it had also helped us in other ways too. The oven and cook top were gas models also and so was the water heater.

We made use of the water heater right away and we each got a hot bath with plenty of help washing. It was a little cool inside our new digs, but lighting a space heater cured that quickly and we left it going and went to bed where we made plenty of heat on our own for a few minutes. The place was warm and toasty when we woke the next morning.

It let us get moving earlier and we had a good breakfast before long. The girls seemed happy to cook now that they had a proper setup to cook on.

"What are your plans for the day?" Sarah asked me, after I'd eaten.

"I thought I'd see if James would go around with me and try to gather some more cattle. I don't want them all, but we could probably use a few more head here and it'll be best to get them while they're still alive and before they break out of the places they are now. They'll have to find their way out sooner or later or starve. No doubt they'll be much easier to catch now.

"That's a good idea, but I think you should also look around and see if you can't find another four-wheel drive pickup for us to use," she said.

"That's an excellent idea. I'll keep my eyes open for one while we're out today," I said, making it a promise.

After putting on a good coat I headed out to the pickup and started it up. The roll of hay I'd put out yesterday was about half gone and I guessed James had been right about them needing a roll every other day.

When I made it to his house I could see they were already up and about since Gertie was in the kitchen and James was coming back into the house. He told me he had been out gathering eggs and he asked if I wanted to start with some chickens of my own.

"It would probably be a good idea. I guess we could put them in the side where the hay is stored."

"You could, but you'd need a hen house first. I know several folks had one and we might be able to move one of them. We sho-nuff gonna have to furnish all our own eats now," he said.

"Well, there is still plenty of canned food at Wal-Mart and it will just go to ruin there. In fact they had a lot of meat still in the coolers and with the building down it a lot of it might be frozen from the snow and ice now."

"Did it blow the whole place down?" he asked.

"It ruined the building, but a lot of the stuff is still there. It is a little tricky getting in there to get it though."

"I'll bet it's a mess."

"It is for a fact, but there's still plenty of stuff in it that's useful. The biggest trouble is deciding what to take."

"I might want to go up there and take a look around. It'd be nice to just walk in and take what you wanted without having to pay," he said.

"Well, it is, kinda, but then again it's a little spooky with nobody around."

We got into my truck and I headed out under James' directions. He guided me to another place about five miles down the road and when we drove up the house was completely burnt out. We got out to look around and we found a way down into a storm cellar that had been right under the house. We banged on the door but got no answer and it didn't take long to find out why.

Once we made our way into the storm cellar we found two bodies. They weren't burned and there were no marks visible on the bodies. In fact they looked like they had just been sitting around and gone to sleep. I figured it was about what happened. No doubt the fire took all the oxygen from the storm cellar and suffocated them.

"Well, they won't be needing their chickens now," James said.

"Nope, I guess you're right. We might as well check them out."

Outside it didn't take James a second to go right to the henhouse and the chickens set up a racket when they heard James opening the door. No doubt they had missed a meal or two. James took a basket from near the door and gathered the eggs first and then he told me where to find the food for the chickens and I fed them. The well still had enough water pressure to fill their water troughs too, but I could tell it would be gone before long.

"He's got some good hens here, but there ain't much chance of moving this old henhouse. You might want to come back and catch the hens later though if we find a good house for them somewhere.

"He had a good milch cow too. I'd better take a look at her," he said.

I watched while James went to check on the cow and he found her quickly. He decided to milk her and just let the milk run on the ground. He said she'd dry up if she didn't get milked pretty fast. I asked him to let me try my hand at it and he gladly agreed. I had a slow start but with James' help I finally got going and I kept it up for nearly half an hour. James took over then and I noticed he got a lot more milk out of her a lot faster than I had.

James decided he wanted to take the cow home and I backed my truck around and hooked the stock trailer on the place. We loaded the cow into it and then headed back for James' house where we put the cow in a pen.

"I know you ain't bringing that cow here hoping I'll milk it," Gertie said, yelling it from the back door.

"No. I know you won't, but I'll have more time on my hands now that there's nothing much to do with everybody dead and all."

"Well, it won't hurt nothing to have the milk, and I can churn the butter if you get me a churn," she said.

"I'll hold you to that," James said.

James had me back the trailer out of the way and then he unhooked it. He told me there might be something else I wanted to pull at the next place. He was right too.

Our next visit was to a newer house. It was frame construction, but I could tell it had only been in place a few years. The good part was it was beside a hill which had shielded it from the worst of the wind's force. It hadn't let it stay intact since it was obvious most of the shingles on the southern side were blow off. It had done some good though because there was no massive structural damage from wind.

The bad part was there was massive structural damage from a pine tree which hadn't stood up to the wind. It was a rather large pine with about a thirty-six inch diameter and it had come completely over and fallen across one corner of the house, flattening the part it fell on.

James and I got out and began yelling right away. We got no response and when we examined the house more closely we saw why. The part that had been flattened was where the kitchen was and the occupants had been at the table, eating their lunch no doubt.

The woman had been crushed along with the stove and the man, her husband I supposed, had been done for at the table. At least he got to go out with a good meal. No matter how they went out they were gone.

The newness of the house and barn let me know they hadn't been born and raised here like most of the residents. The other construction didn't match what I was used to seeing either. The barn looked like it had been built by professional carpenters instead of thrown together by the resident. It was a pole-barn, sorta, but not really like most of the others I'd seen around. The construction was a little odd for the normal way of doing things. Its roof was put on manufactured trusses instead of being stick-built.

The roofing was of the same ubiquitous corrugated iron as most outbuildings out in the country but the whole building was more sturdy and it was basically intact. Most of the roofing was still in place.

Another remarkable feature was the hen-house. It was built of sheet metal too, but hadn't been made with on-site methods. It was actually about a twelve by twenty-four trailer. Sort of like a mobile home for chickens I guess you'd say. There was still a hitch on one end and the axles were still under it. The wheels had been removed to get it lower to the ground though.

James and I looked inside and the hens were mostly sitting around in their nests. James picked up a basket from by the door outside and gathered the eggs and then we fed and watered the hens. This got them up and moving around.

"Mr Jones was proud of this chicken house. He alus went on and on about how nice it looked and how cheap it had been to buy. He liked the way you could just turn on the hose and it would fill all the water troughs by its own self too. I guess it is a nice one, and it'll be handy for you cause I knows where he stored the wheels. If the tires still got air in 'em we can just put them on and drag it up to where you stays now," James said.

Damned if it didn't look like he was exactly right. In normal times I'd have had to put wide load banners on the thing, but that kind of shit didn't matter now. I'd be happy to get a ticket pulling it down the road because that would mean there were still a few cops around, but I knew there weren't. Even if there had been they wouldn't be out in no-where Cass County Texas stopping people moving chicken houses.

It took James and I nearly an hour to close all the little ventilation door panels all over the thing, but it would be worth it. Hell, if I went slow enough and was careful I'd be in business for fresh eggs in no time.

It took some fucking around to mount the tires on the axels, but it wasn't onerous and it didn't take over half an hour. Soon enough we had it hitched to my pickup and were heading back to the brick barn I lived in now.

Sarah and Karen were mightily surprised when we came up with the chickens in tow. Of course they were inside the house fooling around, but they were excited when I called them out to look the new hen-house over.

It took a little fooling around to get it backed into the spot where they wanted it and then there was more trouble taking the wheels back off and placing concrete blocks under it to level it out and make the floor solid enough to walk on, but two hours later we even had a water hose attached and would be able to water the chickens with no trouble. I'd even brought along the six bags of hen-scratch for feeding them Mr Jones had stacked in his barn and James promptly handed over the eggs he'd collected this morning.

Mostly, I felt sorry for the rooster. He had a harem and a half, but he was cooped up in there with them full time. Even though he had his own little nesting spot it still looked like he was at their beck and call full time. I wondered what kind of honey-do jobs they thought up for him.

I considered the day well spent so far, but I did ask James if he knew of any cattle we could scare up.

"I knows where some more is for sure, but it might be hard to move 'em. Might not be too though. Mr Jones, where we just got the hen-house. He had about fifty head, and they'd probably follow along behind your truck if we was to throw out some cubes behind it. I'm not sure they'd come all the way up here this far though, but they might. Do you want to try it?" James asked.

"It's a little late in the afternoon by now isn't it? I'd hate to get started moving them and then not get done before dark."

"You's probably right. It seems to get dark earlier now and it would be a mess to have the cows strung out over the road when the sun went down. Let's save it for tomorrow morning. I'll be ready when you gets to my house," he said, and so I took him home and went back to the girls for supper. Or, hopefully for supper anyway.



-------

Chapter 7


Sarah and Karen canceled the trip for more cows the next morning. They wanted to go back to our hole in the ground and gather up everything we'd already gathered up so we could move it to our new residence. It sounded like a good idea to me and we headed that way as soon as we were dressed and had eaten breakfast.

When we arrived I hooked the U-haul we had taken and backed it close to the door of the cellar. They said they'd do the packing and told me to go ahead and get James to fetch more cows.

"Aren't you worried about being here alone?"

"No. Remember, we've got most of the guns in here. We'll both load up a shotgun right off the bat. I doubt anyone will come straggling around and if they do we'll blow their asses to pieces unless they mind their manners," Sarah said.

"It made sense to me and I rustled my leaves toward James' house.

James and Gertie were inside the house and sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when I made it. They invited me in for a few cups and I didn't mind if I did. James had an idea about where we should start, but getting it out of him required Gertie's help.

He thought we should move his cows over with the others first thing. He said his were more inclined to follow the pickup if he just stayed in the back and threw out a few range cubes along the way. He said it would be better to keep all the cows together since it would be easier to take care of them that way. He did intend to keep the milch cow at his place so he would be close enough to milk it and tend to it.

"Y'all can have all the milk, cream, and butter you want, but it'll just be easier to keep the cow close."

It made sense to me and we got started. James had a half used bag of range cubes and he put it into the back of my pickup. Opening the gate to his pen he crawled into the back of my pickup and then told me to head back to my place slowly. As soon as he had his stock's attention I did it, creeping along at first until he told me to speed up some.

Thirty minutes later we had the cows in among the others and James was back in the cab with me after putting a fresh sack of range cubes in the back. He gave me directions to another place down the road and when we pulled up we started yelling to see if we could hear anyone alive. We didn't. The house was completely blown down and we looked through it. We found a man, woman, and two younger boys in the remains, but they were all crushed from the falling debris.

James knew the place pretty well and he wanted to examine some of the equipment around it first. The barn was only about halfway blown down and I guessed it was because it was just north of a small hill. It was still intact enough for us to look around inside it and we found the equipment in good shape. There was a large tractor with a front-end loader attached. It had a bucket on it now, but it was apparent it could be changed easily. One nice feature was it ran on propane fuel.

"We may as well take this along with us, or come back and get it later," James said, and I agreed.

James found the gate to the large pasture and I drove the truck in with him in the back. It didn't take long to get the attention of the white-faced cows and soon they were running along behind us while James threw out little handfuls of range cubes along the way. We weren't quite the pied pipers, but we were doing an equally good job. Especially since it was obvious these cattle had been given nothing since the day our world mostly ended.

We had almost no trouble getting them up with the others and then James started the tractor and put out another roll of hay for the increased group. When he made it back into the cab he said I'd probably have to put out a roll nearly every day now. We headed back to the same place to get the tractor.

When we arrived James spied another piece of handy equipment leaning against a wall of the mostly demolished barn.

"If'n we take that post hole digger for the back of the tractor we can build pens easier and we could also build a hog pen. He's got quite a few hogs here and I knows where lots of other'ns is," he said.

"That damned thing looks heavy. Do you think you can put it in my pickup with the front end loader?" I asked him.

"I kin do better than that. He's got him a one-ton flatbed around here somewhere and it had four-wheel drive too. We could put the digger on the back of it and some of the other small stuff too. We might as well try to get his bush-hog on it too. It'll be handy if spring ever comes again," he said.

I started wondering if spring ever would come again when he said it. It had already snowed mostly full time since the shit fell down out of the sky and hit earth. It was more snow than I'd seen around her during my whole life put together.

Anyway, we looked around and found the truck James was talking about. We had to use the front-end loader to lift its fallen down shelter off it, but we got it out without much problem. I pulled it on down to the remains of the barn door after we got it started and James drove the tractor back inside the barn and used the front-end loader and a short length of chain to grab the digger and put it on the back of the truck.

It took a good bit more fucking around to lift the bush-hog with a rigged up chain sling, but we got that done too. I drove the flatbed and James drove the tractor and we headed out for the brick barn I was now calling home.

The flatbed had a lot better ride than my pickup and I was thinking about taking it over if James didn't want it. On second though it wouldn't be as handy to put things in the back as my pickup was. Maybe if I build a stake bed for it I could get more use out of it.

When James got back with the tractor he pulled it around to where we'd put the propane bulk tanks and he rigged up a wet hose to one of the regulators and filled the tractor with fuel. After he was done he pulled it inside and parked it beside the other one.

"You know, Jake, we probably better get us some heavier equipment too. A small dozer or something and a heavier front-end loader. We's probably gonna have to do everything we need done from her on out," James said.

"You've got a real point there, James."

"We might ought to go take a look around the sawmill too. They's lots of lumber stored there what ain't been shipped yet and we's gonna need some of it. For one thing, one of us needs to build a hog pen for sho."

"Well I've got time on my hands if you want to go take a look at the sawmill," I said.

"Let's unload this flatbed and then go back and get your pickup first. Then it's probably about time for us to go check on Gertie and see if she ain't fixed something for lunch," he said.

I told him about checking on the girls too and we headed there first. They were finished loading the U-haul and we hooked it to the truck and pulled it down and backed it into the brick barn before unhooking it. We left there and went back to fetch the pickup and the girls drove it back while James and I went in the flatbed. We went straight into the house when we made it back to James and Gertie's place.

"I's gettin' worried 'bout y'all. Lunch is nearly ready so go wash yo hands and come get to the table," Gertie said, and we rushed to do it.

Gertie had done a great job with lunch and we all ate our fill, with her encouraging us to eat more all the time. She fussed the whole time, but Sarah and Karen cleaned up everything after we were done.

Karen quizzed us about what we'd been up to this morning and after we gave her the details she laid out a plan for the afternoon.

Sarah and Karen wanted to go to Wal-Mart and dig around until we found a big flat-panel type television. I was dumb enough to ask what for and then she told me about finding a DVD player and all the DVDs Wal-Mart had for sale. All I could do was say ok, and then Gertie asked us to get her a setup too, so we agreed.

The girls decided we'd need to take both trucks -- my original pickup and the new one we'd scrounged up today. They said they might just try to gather up more canned food and other things while they were there. Hell, it suited me fine, but I decided to go back by the barn and pick up my sidearm before we went.

"You should have been wearing it all along," Karen said, and I decided she was probably right.

It didn't take us long to get moving and it seemed like it was even shorter before we were in town. We made a circle around the whole Wal-Mart store first to see if it looked like anyone else was there shopping and it didn't, so I backed the flat-bed up to the loading dock at the back of the store and we headed inside.

It didn't take the girls long to find out that most of the televisions which had been out on display had seen better days. Their next trick was searching around in the back for models that were still boxed up and they found them right away. We fished out four fifty-inch Vizios and loaded them onto the flat bed. The girls left me to tie them down and headed back inside to see about our new DVD collection.

I had just finished my job and headed back into the store when I heard a gunshot and I started running toward the TV section, pulling my Glock as I went. I felt better when I heard Sarah yelling for me and telling me they were all right. I found them about thirty seconds later. They were standing over an older man and seemed to be comforting a younger girl who seemed to be about sixteen or seventeen.

They introduced me to Ginny as soon as I came up and told me, Frank, the dead guy, had tried to kidnap them, not realizing they were armed and dangerous. I saw that he must have been pointing what looked like a 25 automatic at them.

We spent the next several minutes consoling Ginny while she told her tale. Her parents had been killed the first day and she had been captured by Frank later that afternoon. He had been abusing her since then and she was ever so glad he was dead. Looking at the big shiner she had I was pretty glad he was dead myself.

The girls invited her to come and live with us, and she agreed even before they told her I wouldn't pressure her for sex. When they did she showed she had a more sanguine attitude about things than I'd have expected.

"Oh, I know now I'm going to have to give it up to someone to keep myself alive during this. I could have wished for someone with a little more tact than Frank though. Besides, he was only interested in going around and stealing what he could."

"Well, we have been known to take things without paying for them ourselves," Sarah said.

"Oh, I don't mean like this, in a store. Frank liked to go through houses and steal things. I mean I guess it didn't matter because the people were mostly dead. But he did kill one young boy who was at home with his dead mother and father and I just hated that," she said.

"I'm glad I killed him then," Sarah said, and then nodded her head as if agreeing with herself.



-------

Chapter 8


Ginny fell right in with Sarah and Karen on the DVD collection detail. Sarah worked at it a few minutes and then decided it would be easier to just take them all and sort them out later. She sent me to clear a path for buggies between where we were and the truck and then all three of them went to gather some buggies.

As I went through the small warehouse portion near the back of the building I noticed a huge stack of plastic totes. They were for carrying small items and had fold-over lids to make them easy to stack and to keep items from being lost out the top. When Sarah came back with the first buggy load of DVDs I showed her the totes and she decided to use them to store and carry what they were gleaning from the destroyed Wal-Mart. While she was packing her buggy load into totes I went in search of some nylon hay-rope.

I was looking for the ubiquitous quarter-inch rope that normally came in hanks of one-hundred feet. It was excellent for tying things, especially since when using it with a hay-knot it could be easily tightened around anything it was holding. By the time I found and gathered up several hanks of the rope the girls had already loaded six of the totes with DVDs and other small items they'd decided on. I moved the loaded totes onto the flat bed of the truck and then waited.

The bed portion of the truck was eight feet wide and twelve feet long. I was big enough to carry plenty in one trip, but still small enough to leave the truck easy to maneuver. I was especially happy to have noticed the totes. There were literally hundreds of them in the big storage section and it would make sorting and storing the things we took easy.

Now that the preparations were made I headed back out into the store to do some shopping of my own. The girls and I spent four hours gathering up things we thought might come in handy sooner or later and the totes made it all easy to load and tie down. The lids of one tote had little ridges on them and when they were closed up the ridges on the top of one tote held the bottom of one placed on top of it in place.

I was able to stack the totes neatly onto the flat bed. They were stable enough to be stacked five high, and five would ride side by side across the bed. The bed was long enough to set five rows of totes on it and we left with one hundred and twenty-five filled totes. I was easily able to tie them in place with the nylon hay-rope and I had a good tight load when we left.

The girls already had the next load in mind before we left with this one. Wal-Mart carried a cheap line of office stuff now. I didn't think the chairs they had would last long, but they would last a while and we were going to need some of them. The desks they had looked even shittier and I hoped we could find some more useable models elsewhere. Besides, I wanted some which were already assembled, because the Wal-Mart models came in so many pieces to allow them to be packed into smaller boxes.

WE weren't able to pack as many totes into the pickup bed of my original truck, but it allowed us to stack in other things which didn't fit into the totes. The girls piled it high with food they'd collected and we were set up with enough lunch meat for months. They also took most of the cut meat from the butcher department and I could see that bacon was going to be a mainstay of our meals for quite a while. I was also happy to see they gathered up plenty of flour, cornmeal, and milk. I already knew they could make biscuits and cornbread.

They hauled off a lot of things from the bread aisle too, but I worried it might not stay good long enough for us to eat it all. No matter, we would have it as long as it lasted. Of course when it was gone we'd be through with bakery bread. We'd just have to make do.

We went back to James and Gertie's house first and the girls gave Gertie her choice of anything she wanted, but she didn't take much. She was more anxious for the television than anything, and while James and I set it up Gertie went through the DVDs we had gathered up and selected several to watch. Of course there were multiple copies of every one so it was find for her to take one of each. We got it going with a movie and then left to head home and really unload.

Back at the brick barn I pulled the flat bed on inside and then the pickup. I left the rear of the pickup close to the doorway through to the other side for easy unloading. We packed everything from the pickup into the actual house portion and then the girls started going though it. They were worried when there wasn't even nearly enough room for all the things that needed refrigeration in the refrigerator.

"Just put any extra in totes and I'll stack them outside for the time being. I'll cover them with snow and it should keep them cold enough while the totes will probably keep most of the critters out of the food.

Soon enough I was assembling a television and DVD player for our use and the girls were sorting through the DVDs. I figured they would get tired of movies before they watched all they had, but I knew we needed to go downtown to the video rental place and make a run there too. After all, it was all the movies we'd ever get to watch since I thought it would be a long time before any new ones were coming out.

The gathering was over for the day though. The girls headed for the head and gave Ginny a bubble bath. They marched her out for my approval later and she was still naked and wet. I approved, and they could all see it since my dick made a big lump in my pants. Ginny giggled over it and the other two just settled for lewd remarks.

Sarah took the trouble to stop my viewing of a Star Trek movie and put on a romantic tearjerker. I had to suffer through it, but they made up for it by sitting close to me on the couch and putting Ginny in my lap. She had put on a bra and a pair of panties, but they were miniscule and she wiggled her nicer than I'd expected ass in my lap for the whole movie. As soon as it was over I put them to bed with a dick between their legs and after finishing off Sarah, the last in line, I fell asleep myself.

Come to think of it the asteroid hadn't really done me any disservice. I know it had killed a lot of people, but since I hadn't really had any close friends or relatives when it came down it didn't have a chance to really put me out.

Since that day in fact my stock had been going up. I now had three women who were more than willing to lay back and spread 'em for my enjoyment and they were good helpers otherwise too. The brick barn wasn't a showplace or a mansion by any means, but it had all the comforts of home and it was well set up for what I thought was coming.

I drifted off to sleep that night with pleasant dreams in my head and I had sweet dreams for sure. No doubt they were helped along by the gentle caressing Ginny was doing on my greasy dick during the night.

Of course I woke with my dick as hard as steel. It didn't have more fucking on its little head though. It wanted to piss in the worst way. I only disturbed Sarah on the way out of bed and she seemed to go right back to sleep when I told her to. At least I got to bleed my lizard in peace and after splashing a little water on my face I got dressed and started a pot of coffee.

Soon enough the girls were up and all wearing bras and thongs this morning and they even started cooking breakfast. After we'd finished eating I went outside to see about putting out a roll of hay for our stock and James drove up just as I got the tractor back inside.

"You ready to go take a look around up at the sawmill?" he asked, after he got out of his truck.

"Might as well. We've got plenty of stuff to eat for now, but a hog pen sounds like it should be next on the agenda to me and they should have plenty of materials up there to get it done.

After getting us both a cup of coffee from the girls and telling them where we were headed we took off. The girls had reminded me to put on my sidearm and take a shotgun and extra shells, but I didn't really see the need. I did it to settle their nerves.

James and I took it slow and we went in the flatbed I'd just taken control of. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary until we approached the spot of the big crash and fire. There were four men moving the wrecks around and they seemed to be blocking the road with the remains.

I stopped the truck about a half mile from them and then one of them came our way about twenty feet and started motioning for us to come up. I wasn't about to and James didn't think it was a good idea either. We finally turned around and headed back to the barn.

"I wonder what they are up to," I said, and James had an idea.

"Ain't no police left and if a bunch of folks get together they might think they can take over. It looks like what they're doing right now. They's out trying to block off the road and I'll bet they got others doing the same thing on other roads," he said.

"That might not be so good for us. They probably don't give a shit about the lumber in the sawmill, but we need some and I don't want them blocking us off from it."

"They's a way to cut through on county roads and come in from the East, like coming in from the Shreveport Highway," James said.

"I guess we'd better try that way and see if they have others blocking the road then. First though, I think we need to go back to the barn and let me get a rifle to take along with us.



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Chapter 9

At first the thought of having a gunfight seemed a little far-fetched, but after considering it a few minutes I knew it wasn't. Most of the people in the United States and no doubt in the rest of the world were dead. Out of my small town of five thousand there were less than a dozen people left alive so far. There was no doubt we were back to basics and basics meant no functioning police participation. Even if some of the actual policemen were still alive there was no one to make them act like police any longer since there was no higher authority.

We were down to looking out for ourselves or not getting looked after. The men building a roadblock to cut people off from town were proof enough of that for me. They were up to no good and I wasn't going to put up with it. James and I headed back to the barn.

The girls were tending to the chickens when we got there and of course they were curious about why we were back so soon. When I told them what we'd seen they were pissed about it.

"Those bastards can't take control of the town," Sarah said.

"I know they can't, but someone has to stop them and I'm about to."

"We'll go too. We can back you up," Sarah said.

"That'll be fine, but I don't want to get close enough yet to need backup. It's why I came back. I want to get one of the rifles we took and sight it in," I said.

"Now you're using your big head. You'll need to put one of those scopes we found on it, though. I'll dig them out while you get the rifle you want. We can put up a target outside and you can sight it in before we leave."

I already had in mind the rifle I wanted for this job. I'd found a Browning X-Bolt Stainless Stalker in 7mm Remington Magnum. I looked through the scopes Sarah brought out and found a four to twelve variable. It took a little digging around to find the proper rings and mounts for it, but within an hour I had it mounted and had marked off a three hundred yard firing range for testing.

I started at about fifty yards of course, but once I had it hitting at fifty yards it was mostly just adjusting the elevation until it was right on at three hundred yards. It was a little high at two hundred yards and a little higher at one hundred yards, but it was acceptable.

At first I wanted to go in my pickup, but the girls changed my thinking, especially since the flatbed would do just as well and it had the advantage of a crew cab so we could all ride without being crowded. They even found me a couple of blankets and pillows for use as a firing platform on the flatbed.

We had a pleasant ride following James' directions from Bivins to Smyrna and then on to Highway 77. We turned left and headed west on Highway 77, but within three miles we pulled to a stop about half a mile from where another roadblock was being put into place. They didn't have a handy wreck here to get started so they were just parking cars across the highway.

I pulled to within five hundred yards of the main object of our affection, turned the truck around, and got onto the flatbed, spread out my blankets, and put down two pillows. Sarah took over the driving and Ginny opened up the window in the back glass for communication.

The men working on the roadblock didn't take it lying down, though. One of them jumped on a motorcycle with a shotgun in hand and headed toward us. I let him come ahead, but he slowed down and fired at us one handed about a hundred yards before he reached us. The pieces of shot that reached us weren't even an annoyance, but I knew the next shot would have a better chance. I cut loose and it hit him center of mass. He left the motorcycle and bounced several times before he came to rest. The motorcycle came up within about ten yards before it veered rider less out of the way.

I called for Sarah to start backing toward them then and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough we started receiving fire from a rifle. I returned it and apparently the time spent sighting my rifle in was worth the cost. I got a good hit on my second shot. Someone else picked up the rifle then and I managed to get him before he fired the first time.

The next one to go for the rifle fucked up and exposed his leg while he was doing it. I put a round in him and he lost interest in the gun then. Suddenly a young guy walked out with his hands up, just like in the cowboy movies.

"Come on up here if you want to talk," I said, shouting it.

He walked up to the back of the truck and the girls were out with shotguns covering him in no time. Ginny frisked him and he wasn't carrying a weapon.

"Please Mister. Don't kill me. I didn't want to come out here and do this anyway, but they made me. They've got my girlfriend and are holding her hostage."

"Get in and tell us where on the way," I said.

His name was Jimmy and he told us all about it on the way. He showed us to a house that wasn't destroyed by the wind, but it had been damaged. He said Carl was holding his girlfriend hostage and he also said Carl was the mastermind of the road blocking operation.

When we pulled up to the house Jimmy went up to knock on the door while I went right behind him, Glock in hand. As soon as Carl came over to unlock the door I hit it running with the Glock in my fist and I felt the door hit Carl and knock him out of the way. I had the Glock on him before he knew what had happened. I sent Jimmy to check on his girlfriend while I held Carl at gunpoint.

As might have been expected, Jimmy came back a few minutes later with blood in his eye.

"Carl, you bastard. You tried to rape Jane. I'm going to beat your ass," Jimmy said, but I cut in on him.

"There's no need to beat his ass, Jimmy. I'll just kill him and we can be on our way. If they keep on trying to block off the roads we'll just take care of them like we did today. They might have some guns, but it was pretty obvious none of them knew how to shoot," I said, and then I dotted Carl's eye with the Glock.

The girls were out of the truck with shotguns in hand by now. They came rushing into the house after I fired and when they saw everything was under control I sicced them on Jimmy and Jane. I figured they'd be better at meeting and greeting than I ever could be.

We finally ended up in the living room and Sarah had some questions for Jimmy and Jane. She got some good information too. There was another young girl with one of the groups. They were supposed to come back around five in the afternoon. Jimmy said they rarely came back with guns at the ready and so we decided to stay and welcome them home.

The first bunch that returned was the one that had been out blocking Highway 43, the one we needed to use to get to town. Jimmy and Jane both said they were all a pack of assholes, so we weren't too kind to them. We sent Jimmy off to hide their truck after it pulled into the drive and the four men got out.

Two of them didn't want to cooperate, but after the girls cashed in their chips with buckshot at close range the other two were more mannerly as we made them haul the two corpses into the back yard and then tied them up in the kitchen. They took offence at having the socks we took off Carl's feet stuffed into their mouths as gags, but actually, they weren't in a position to argue.

The other returning party was slimmer in numbers. There were only two men and the one young girl. The men were much quicker to see the disadvantage they were at, and they surrendered right away. We tied them up, but didn't bother with gags since no more arrivals were expected. Carol seemed glad to see someone who acted like they had good sense running things now.

I had a little talk with the last two men and told them I didn't approve of the way they were trying to run things. One of them actually looked remorseful, but the other one gave me a cussing and vowed to hunt me down and kill me later. Sarah was standing across the kitchen from him and I'll swear the buckshot nearly tore him in half.

We had a little talk with the other two then, and since they didn't make any threats we left them to try and get out of the ropes we had them tied with. We let Jane and Carol take what they said was theirs and we all managed to stuff ourselves back into the flatbed's cab and we headed for the barn.



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Chapter 10


I considered it a good days work. We took our new members to the barn and let the girls, Jane, and Carol, unload their things. I hinted the girls might want to get some food started, but James vetoed that notion right away.

"Gertie been cooking all day hoping y'all'll come eat supper with us and she'll skin me if'n I don't bring you to supper, specially since you got some mo folks now," he said.

We all washed up just a little and then headed back for the flatbed. I didn't fail to notice Carol was ushered into the seat right beside me up front while Sarah, Ginny, and Karen joined us up front. It made the fit a little tight and Carol wasn't a bit shy about pressing her flesh up against me. I'll admit it gave me a few ideas, but they were mostly just daydreams. Carol was by far the youngest of all of us and I was nearly ashamed of myself for what I'd been thinking.

Carol changed my attitude her own self. As always, when riding in the front seat of a pickup-style truck with a floor shift, my hand looked suspiciously like it was ready to slip down off the gearshift knob and come to rest on the nearest female knee. As I moved the lever into the highest gear for safe traveling, Carol reached up and pulled it down into her lap.

I don't guess it was a terribly enticing invitation since Carol, like all of us, was wearing plenty of fairly thick clothing. Still, the move was unambiguously provocative and it perked up my spirits considerably. Sarah, Ginny, and Karen couldn't help seeing what was going on and they seemed to cover things nicely by starting a conversation to keep everyone talking during our short trip.

Gertie was out the back door as soon as we drove up.

"Y'all get on in this house right now. It's cold outside and I've got a hot supper waiting on you," she said, as I stopped the truck near the back door.

We had to give her the whole story while she served the meal and fussed at Sarah, Karen, Ginny, and Carol for trying to help her. She made on over the danger Jane and Jimmy had been in and she told us we probably should have gone ahead and killed the two men we left tied up. By now I agreed with her.

One of the main things about Gertie was she could cook like nobody's business. We had a big roast with creamed potatoes, corn bread, green beans, and candied yams -- and it was only the main course. There was a big peach cobbler along with two apple pies and one pecan pie. It reminded me of Thanksgiving dinner at Nancy Palmer's home -- my maternal Grandmother.

Just like on those occasions I was so full all I wanted to do was sit around, watch football, and go to sleep in a comfortable chair. It wasn't to be though, since there were no football games to watch.

Quite a lot of business was transacted while I was in a near stupor though. Gertie invited Jane and Jimmy to take up residence in one of their spare bedrooms and Jane agreed right away. Of course Jimmy agreed since Jane was obviously going to stay with Gertie. James didn't enter into the conversation any more than I did, but in the end I thought things were going to work out fine.

Of Course Gertie offered Carol a bedroom of her own, but she dodged that bullet and said she was afraid to be parted from me since I had saved her from a fate worse than death.

We all mounted up in the flatbed about four PM and drove back to the barn. On the way to the barn I noticed there was still some hay left off the last roll I'd put out so I put off til tomorrow putting another one out. I opened the big door and drove the flatbed into the barn and then shut the door behind us.

Carol was surprised with our setup and delighted when she discovered we had hot and cold running water and that she could have a shower. Of course all the rest of the women attended her and I was left to entertain myself with the DVD again, until they were done at least.

I managed to get nearly through watching the rest of my Star Trek movie before Sarah came out of the bathroom, nearly still wet, and dressed in the tiniest bra I'd ever seen with an even skimpier pair of thong panties. She commandeered the TV and put on another tearjerker before the rest even showed their faces along with all their other parts.

They were all wearing bras and panties, but they were all tiny and nearly transparent. Carol was the last to show and I was surprised to see she looked more mature than I'd estimated. Her breasts were firm looking little handfuls and her hips had definitely widened with womanhood. Her legs were delightfully shapely and as the others joined me on the couch she settled into my lap and began squirming right away.

I was trying to keep my hands to myself, but Carol got enough of my standoffishness in minutes and turned her head around to latch her lips onto mine. Even an old codger like me could take a hint, especially since my hardon was already poking up against her thong-clad ass.

When I raised a hand to fondle one of her breasts in the bra she sighed and then pulled the tiny bra out of the way to aid my discoveries. I found a stiff nipple right away and soon moved my hand over to examine the other one. I'd already had a hint since I was one man cooped up in the giant brick barn with three beautiful women/girls.

Sarah and Karen acted as if nothing was going on besides the movie but it didn't take Carol long to get way beyond what was on TV. She had already maneuvered around until my dick was sticking straight up from the fly of my boxers and right between her legs with only the thong's panel blocking my entrance to her hot and wet cooter.

Our kissing was getting hotter and heavier by the second and before I realized what was going on Carol used her hand to push the thong's panel out of the way and just after that her hand was pressing the bottom of my stiff stalk up against her now slippery lips.

What the hell? I was sure I liked pussy as much as any man and I wasn't about to turn a shot down. When I felt the greasy slit pressing against the top of my dickhead I cocked my hips and used my small head to push my way inside. It was a glorious feeling and in seconds, with Carol and I both wiggling around, I had it all the way up her and she was squeezing it with her insides on every trip up and back.

I'd also given up on the sneak attack for her titties and now had a big hand covering and playing with one each. Apparently the situation wasn't exactly to Carol's liking and she stood up off me, pulled one of my hands until I stood, and then she led me into the bedroom where she shucked what little she had on and lay in the center of the bed.

I might be a little slow in my old age, but I dropped my boxers and climbed on the bed between her wide spread thighs and latched my mouth onto a nipple while she used a hand to guide me to the glory hole. After I'd shoved it all the way up her we were both happy about it for a few seconds then I pulled back to take a full stroke and her legs came up around my ass for a better hold and for a few minutes I wasn't sure who was fucking whom. I just knew a good fuck was in progress and I did my bests to hold up my end.

It seemed to me the closer I came to coming the hotter Carol got. Her hands and fingernails were raking my back by now and her heels were bouncing off my ass as if spurring me on. The girl was a live wire with a hot pussy hooked to it and she was slamming her mons against my dick with every thrust.

"I'm so glad you got me today. Those other bastards wouldn't even look for any birth control pills and my last period was over about ten days ago. I was sure I'd be knocked up in another few days and now I know I've got a good man to take care of me and my baby," Carol said, as she got hotter and even more into the fuck.

No matter what she said I couldn't get any hotter, but her utterance did put a new twist to the way my balls were feeling, as if they knew their real duty was about to be accomplished. When I let go I was sure of it since it seemed like I was going to come for days.

It wasn't the only result of the talking to she gave me either. My dick didn't sag a bit after I let go and I wanted to push the come up her higher than before. I gave it my all while she kissed and petted around my face and neck.

"Oh God, that's it. Rare back and pole me to the mattress. Push those baby seeds on up in me. I'm so glad to have a real man doing it to me. Fuck me harder," she said, and I did what I could to help her out.

When I was well and truly spent I rolled out from between her thighs and she showed me she knew something about conceiving even if it was apparent she never had before. She yanked a pillow from the head of the bed and put it under her ass while she pulled her feet up and raised her knees to cock her hips and pussy mouth up so the little wigglers couldn't run out.

After I had my wind back I kissed around her face and throat to show her I really cared and just then Karen walked in to check on us.

"Why you wicked little witch. We got you on just the right day didn't we?" Karen asked Carol.

"Yes, and I'm so happy I could just shit. I think our man had done the deed right on time." Carol said.

"It looks like you must have egged him on telling him about it too. He looks like he gave his all to get the job done." Karen said, and then turned her head to call Sarah into the room too.

It only took seconds for Sarah to come in and notice what was going on and soon I was kissed and petted a little from all three of them and then eased over to the side of the bed so Karen and Sarah could settle on either side of Carol to pet on her and congratulate her on a job well done, as if they were sure I'd knocked her up with one try.

Although it was almost as if I were an after thought now they still revved my motor up again when the two of them shucked their clothes and seemed to be squirming around as if they were hot and bothered too.

In fact, when I had my breath back I snuck over close to Sarah and latched onto one of her nipples. My sneak attack was well received and Sarah rolled to her back and spread her legs inviting me between them.

"Come on Jake, pump me up too. The time isn't just right, but I can pretend and it won't hurt a thing for you to practice on me and Karen too. We'll be in shape before you know it and you can go ahead and keep up your efforts to repopulate the world.

"We've got a good place here to start raising babies and from the size of the nuts you've got swinging I think we've found a good stud. In fact I think we need to be on the lookout for more brood women for you." Sarah said, just as I eased my dick up her.

Karen was kissing all over my back and neck while I pumped in Sarah and she even slipped a finger up my ass for a minor prostate massage when I let go. I'm sure I put more come into the out basket because of it since I was well and truly wrung out from the effort.

No matter if the time was close for Sarah or not, she copied Carol's actions by putting a pillow under her ass and raising her knees too. Her antics were nearly enough to get my dick rising again and when Karen took matter in mouth I was on the rise again for real.

The end wasn't soon, but it came quickly enough and I made a come deposit in Karen too before long. I was spent for real afterwards and I settled down among 'em and was asleep while they were still talking about baby clothes and trying to decide whether to search the still standing stores for cribs or to start looking into houses that were now vacant.

Just as I dropped off to sleep I was imagining looking around through houses to see if there were any cribs and baby accessories to be gathered up.


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Incomplete and Inactive
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Posted:  2009-04-14
Last Modified: 2009-07-27 / 09:15:13 am
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