The Apocalypse Connection

by Kyle Kenze

  I looked at Red. “Tell them.”

  She looked back at me, her face bland. “Tell them what?”

  Chapter Three

  We bonded the way humans do. If I wasn't dreaming before, I was dreaming now.

  Casey sidled up behind me, her soft hands going over my eyes. “We need a blindfold.” The verge of her thighs bumped pleasantly against my backside.

  “Why do we need a blindfold?” I asked.

  “Illusion is so often visual,” Madison said. “Seeing is not believing. As long as you can see, you'll doubt. We see so many things in our lives that aren't real. Everything on television, everything on the screen of our computers or our phones.”

  “Everything on that giant movie screen,” Casey said.

  “If you feel it, you'll believe it. So we're going to make you focus on the feeling.” Red's voice, less familiar to me than the other two, startled me. Especially so close to my ear.

  I was surrounded.

  I felt the soft whisper of expensive silk. Casey pulled her hands down and away, but I caught only a glint of light before her long, smooth palms were replaced by the soft caress of doubled fabric. Someone― Red, I thought― knotted it tight at the back of my head, but it wouldn't last long.

  The girls must have had the same thought. They tied a second layer of thicker fabric over the first. Now my world was truly dark. Of course, I could have reached back to unknot the two scarves myself, but where was the fun in that?

  “Stick out your arms from your sides,” Red said.

  I obeyed, and a girl on each arm tugged impatiently on my unbuttoned flannel shirt. It was cooler in the shade of the forest than it was in the meadow, but not too cool. Three pairs of hands tussled playfully over the process of getting me out of my jeans. The scent of them was stronger than when I'd been able to see. There was some truth to the theory that you focused more on your other senses when you were blind.

  A soft hand with steel in its grip closed around the thick shaft of my swelling cock. The hand tugged, and I understood I was supposed to walk forward. It might seem dangerous, padding barefoot and blind through a forest trail, but it was a familiar path by now, and the ability to feel the ground actually made it an easier walk, not a more hazardous one.

  Of course, the walk was made more interesting by the fact I was being led around by my dick like a dog on a short leash.

  “He's drooling on my hand.” Casey giggled.

  I should have known it would be her hand.

  The other two girls walked beside me, their naked hips bumping suggestively into my side. The red heat of my growing desire swelled in my veins, all my veins, not just the twisted snakes of my dick-veins. Something this intense couldn't be a simulation.

  Could it?

  “This is a form of immersive technology more addicting than any drug or any real human relationship. People will become lost in those worlds. They won't want to emerge.”

  I'd heard those words somewhere.

  Maybe I'd even been the one to speak those words.

  Fuck. Was I talking about myself?

  Was I addicted? Was I lost?

  What happened to my Heckler & Koch?

  Did I even notice the moment when somebody had removed it?

  Sloppy work, Major Blount. Pay attention.

  We must have emerged into the meadow. My skin savored the blissful warmth of naked skin under a friendly sun. The scent of some late summer flower tickled my nose, although it wasn't as intense as the nearby scent of aroused females.

  “Sit down, Brock.”

  Six hands guided me into an impromptu throne created by piling up all the sleeping bags. I sank down, and somebody butt-walked over my legs and into my lap to wrap her own legs tightly around my waist. Casey. I knew her by touch, and the silk of her taut skin was rubbing into me everywhere to make sure I knew.

  The other two stepped away without a word. Had they worked out a series of signals? Or did they know exactly what to do by instinct?

  Casey kissed me. Her pussy adjusted itself so my upthrust shaft couldn't help but point itself between her folds. I shifted slightly to make sure the arrowhead was positioned exactly at the entrance. For a moment, we held ourselves together on the edge.

  Raw need surged through my blood when I felt her trembling on top of me. The heat of her quivering pussy-hole fluttered against my leaky crown.

  How had I ever doubted her? Doubted this?

  Kissing more deeply, we were two puzzle pieces snapping together, and then we were one. Casey bounced easily, not too fast, but not too slow either. Our tongues curled into each other.

  This time, we humans will get it right. We won't give up, we won't surrender to the dark.

  We would come back, and we would make a world, a new and better world, a phoenix world arising fresh from the ashes of the final fire.

  Her internal muscles practiced her favorite tricks on me, squeezing and letting go, rippling up and down the solid length of my shaft. Her clit was tiny but poked into me so fiercely it felt like an insistent pencil jabbing into my groin― a pencil that was capable of a pulse-beat thumping happily along in time to her racing heart.

  The other two crowded in now, their hands massaging into our joined bodies. Their lips planted teasing flickers up and down and everywhere. The distraction was both infinitely delicious and infinitely, well, distracting. If not for those intermittent kisses and random squeezes out of the dark, I might have come too soon.

  Never doubt the three of them knew exactly what they were doing.

  Casey galloped faster and faster, especially after I slumped on my back to surrender my entire body so she could ride me like a stallion. When you throw back your head like that, you expect to see the world upside-down, but the double blindfold hadn't slipped and I saw nothing but the dark. My focus was on the feeling.

  Something soft descended on my face to grip impatiently at my cheeks. Ah. I flicked my tongue up and deep. Each girl had her own flavor, and this was Madison, all Madison.

  Red scooted in from the side, her hand reaching for my hand to guide it between her velvet folds. My fingers twitched, a little clumsy at first. After all, I couldn't see what I was doing, and I had a girl on my dick and another on my lips. But, soon enough, I found a rhythm that made them all moan.

  The taste of Madison. The creamy heat of Red sticky on my fingers. The hot vibrato of Casey's pussy exploding around my shaft.

  My balls readied for the pounce. Casey's contractions squeezed my dick from root to shaft. Her ongoing multiple orgasms wouldn't take no for an answer. Volcanoes wept in envy at the force of my erupting lava.

  Fuck, yes. Oh, fuck yes.

  The knots on my double blindfold had worked loose, and the fabric fell away from my sweaty face as I sat up to catch my breath. My first sight of the three girls in a tight triangle was glorious. They never stopped fingering each other from head to toe. Hard nipples poked into round tits, and hard clits rubbed up against lean thighs. Madison sucked my jizz out of Casey's velvet box like it was her favorite flavor of ice cream.

  Red noticed first how fast I got hard again. She rolled onto her belly and spread her petite thighs to invite me to crawl between them. Her creamy buttocks clapped open to show me a winking, blinking backdoor.

  Fuck, she was tiny back there. Fuck, she'd clamp down so hard on my big shaft.

  Could I even get inside a hole that tight?

  “Come and get it, baby. I'm flexible.” Her pink entrance dilated. “I know how to make it fit.”

  Pre-cum drool was running down my shaft, but I grabbed the jar of coconut oil anyway. We'd need all the grease we could get.

  “Ooh, that's it.” She gasped, partly because my dickhead had just connected with her rear entrance― and partly because Madison had backed up to put her own tight ass within reach of Red's exploring tongue. “Mmmm.”

  The rest of the noises we made couldn't be expressed in mere words. I thrust my dick into her depths, while she thrust her to
ngue into Madison. Somewhere upstream, Madison's tongue was still licking out Casey.

  The scene was too physical to be faked. Nobody could simulate this much reality.

  Or could they?

  Chapter Four

  The blindfold game was a fine distraction, but my doubts always came flooding back. This place wasn't real. I knew it wasn't real.

  And I knew how to prove it.

  If I died, I wouldn't really die. The scene would reset to an earlier time. The game would start again, only I'd have more information about where we were and what stakes we were playing for.

  Really? You honestly think you'll have more information?

  Why wouldn't you have more disinformation?

  I flipped through what I assumed to be my memories. I'd been reset at least once, since I had a distinct memory of hiking all the way to the bunker before I was shot in the heart. Had I learned anything from the experience? Or had I only managed to tangle myself up in even more confusion?

  Think.

  Maybe I'd been reset twice. The first time, I'd been pulled out of the simulation for a debriefing with General Angleton, followed up by a meeting with a civilian in a suit who came complete with a phalanx of Secret Service men.

  Angleton seemed like Angleton, but the civilian hadn't seemed all that much like the actual Vice-President. He seemed more like a robot. But maybe all politicians did.

  Three energetic girls worked to keep me in the here and now. It was a long time before the double blindfold came off. We fucked ourselves limp and slept before we stumbled back to the pool to bathe. The sun was already low in the west. Another perfect day was slipping away to join an unbroken chain of perfect days.

  This world wasn't real. Anything that's too good to be true isn't. And yet it felt so real.

  We washed up quickly in an ice-cold pond that goose-pimpled our arms. The three of them walked me back to the camp with their arms tangled around me and around each other. The fire was blazing again, and the silver pot of coffee was bubbling.

  What would happen when we ran out of coffee? Had any advanced civilization operated without a source of caffeine? The Aztecs, maybe, but they had chocolate. Theobromine is caffeine-adjacent.

  Hmm. It wasn't a trivial problem.

  Stone Age humans spent a lot of time napping. Most meat-eating predators did. To create a higher civilization, you needed more than clean water, a fresh kill, and a comfortable cave where you could nap unmolested by bears. You needed a stimulant. Without coffee, humanity snoozed life away in primitive villages for hundreds of thousands of years.

  If this was the real world, we needed to get at those precious supplies stockpiled in Saunderson's bunker. If this was a fake, we needed to find out what kind of fake.

  Was it a reality television hoax, complete with Hollywood fame and fortune out there waiting for us? Then, the sooner we fought our way back, the sooner we'd collect cool prizes.

  Was it an experimental Air Force test project, and I was the lab rat? Then, the sooner I fought my way out, the sooner I could get back to my real life.

  On the other hand, what if it was a virtual reality created in the aftermath of nuclear devastation? Even then, I needed to know the ugly truth. I couldn't keep doubting everything I saw. I needed to know the importance of what I was doing and the value of what we were rebuilding.

  Sex was a beautiful distraction. And I could allow myself to be distracted for only so long.

  “The three of you made a real effort to fuck my brains out,” I said. “But guess what. My brains are still here. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate everything you're doing to ground me in this reality...” I put down the coffee mug.

  Stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Casey asked.

  I quietly took off the Heckler & Koch. Barefoot, with my shirt unbuttoned, I began walking.

  “Brock!” Madison called.

  “I'll be back.” Already, I was at the edge of the meadow. The sky looked so big, but our little world here was really quite small.

  “Brock.”

  “Brock!”

  “What the actual fuck, Brock?”

  Their voices were already fading behind me. I kept walking, and I didn't look back.

  This, I had to do alone. Even if no one else believed me, I already knew I couldn't die. I'd been shot through the heart and then I woke up whole. I had that memory. Two memories. I'd been reset twice.

  It was time to force another reset. And another. As many as I needed to bring myself face to face with the general again.

  And so I descended into the valley, moving fast in search of death and answers.

  ←↑→

  An hour or so in, I still hadn't picked up the track of the lion. I stopped walking and held my breath to listen, something I did at intervals. Breathing deep and silently, I held my mouth a little open to taste the air molecules on my tongue.

  No lion.

  The forest was a garden of Eden― a dream-like space with dappled sunlight falling through the trees. An old moss-covered log hosted a shifting shadow. I took another look, and the shadow resolved into a fat bird bathing in a sunbeam, his wings spread apart from his plump body. He didn't hear me coming. Grouse was a game bird, good eating and normally shy, but already this one must be adapting to the disappearance of humanity.

  I paused to keep from flushing him. Why spoil his moment? The way he kept puffing his chest hinted at the existence of an unseen female.

  The charming moment was broken by the crack of a semi-automatic.

  Whoever was out there wasn't shooting at me. They probably didn't even see me.

  They were after the grouse.

  But I didn't have wings, and I couldn't fly.

  Chapter Five

  The bird went up as I dropped as flat as a run-over cat. The forest echoed with silence in the aftermath of the shots.

  The grouse was two counties off by now.

  Eventually, I heard the murmur of indistinct voices moving away.

  I held my position for several minutes. Any small movement might catch their eye, and I already knew they didn't hold their fire until they were certain of what they had in their sights.

  So I waited. And I waited.

  The forest was still.

  In time, I trusted that stillness enough to push myself up from the ground. Only after I got to my feet did I realize what I'd done.

  Hell.

  My body's survival instincts were too strong. I'd saved myself instead of grabbing a golden ticket to another reset.

  Every time I reset, I'd get more evidence of what was happening to me. Every time I reset, I'd get closer to the truth.

  Except my body didn't trust the process. My body still believed in death.

  My right bicep throbbed. A bright gush of blood was seeping through my flannel shirt. Lovely. I'd been shot. Nothing serious, just a graze, but it was a nuisance that would have to be dealt with.

  Who were those guys? I hadn't seen enough.

  Now that I was aware of my wound, the smell of my own blood seemed overwhelming. Predators evolved to detect the smallest scent of weakness. I might not have to hunt down that lion. It might come hunting for me.

  Did I still want to find that lion? Was I still seeking death and answers?

  Apparently not. Those human hunters weren't that far away. I could have tracked them. Stalked them. Given them another shot at me.

  Instead, I carefully circled around to where I thought they'd been standing to fire on the grouse. It took a moment to locate because they'd picked up their shells and smoothed over their footprints. Only bent grass and a few snapped branches told me I'd found the right spot.

  Interesting. They were making an effort to mask the evidence of their presence in the forest.

  I listened but still heard nothing.

  Where did they come from? Why were they being so secretive? How many other people might be out here?

  What if they were more than harmless hunters? What if they
were hostile?

  My girls were armed, but leaving them alone hadn't been my best idea. Fuck. Maybe I had gone a little crazy there for a while. Madison was right. Denial could make a man do and believe the craziest things.

  Death wasn't a choice. If it came, it came, but I wouldn't welcome its embrace. It was time to trust my body's intelligence. I was here, and here I would remain.

  You couldn't logic your way out of the end of the world.

  ←↑→

  The girls heard the shotguns go off from a long distance. All three of them were wearing their weapons when I walked back into camp.

  Casey squealed at the sight of my bloody arm. “Brock!”

  “I'm fine,” I said. “It's a graze.”

  They fussed over me to get my shirt off. Torn flannel pulled out of my wound, sending a fresh rivulet of blood down my arm. Red tilted the silver flask of single malt in my direction. I swallowed the equivalent of a shot and no more. I didn't object to blurring the edges of the pain, but I didn't want to risk losing my sharpness.

  “What happened?” Casey asked.

  “Give him a minute.” Calm, competent Madison was already closing me up with liquid stitches from our small medical kit. “Let him breathe.”

  “I ran into some guys with shotguns,” I said.

  “How many?” Red asked.

  “At least two. Maybe three. Didn't really get a good look. Had to keep my head down.”

  “Why did they shoot you?” Casey asked. “How did you get away?”

  “As far as I know, they didn't see me. They were after grouse.”

  “What's grouse?”

  “A bird,” Madison said. “Tastes like chicken.”

  “Doesn't everything that doesn't taste like chicken taste like chicken?” Casey asked.

  “So it was an accident.” Red studied the bandage Madison was applying to my arm. “They might not even know you're out there or that any of us are out there.”

  “That's two different issues. I do believe they shot me by accident. But they're making a lot of effort to stay out of sight for guys who are unaware that anybody else is out here.” I described how they'd cleaned up their shells and smoothed their footprints. “Littering doesn't seem to be something you'd worry about after the fall of civilization. They're hiding.”