“Maybe, but there’s nothing I can do about it tonight.”
“What will you do tomorrow?” she persisted.
“I’m not sure, but don’t worry, I’ll get them away from the house.”
“Will you bury them?” Sarah asked.
“That’s a lot of work for a one armed man. I can’t think about that tonight,” Jason said, trying to dodge the issue.
“Enough,” said Anne. “You girls settle down and get some sleep. This has been a…a… scary, unpleasant day.”
She was hunting for the words but couldn’t find the right ones to describe how her world had changed with this attack on their house. There had been six months of dealing with her husband’s abandonment and nearly a year of isolation after the power went out. Then Jason showed up and thank God he was here, as the outside world in its worst form came crashing in on their isolated valley. Little did Anne realize there were worse groups out there since law and order had broken down. For now though, this was bad enough. She motioned for Jason to follow her into the kitchen.
“What did you do out there? Those shots at the end, did you shoot them again?” she whispered to him.
Jason whispered back, “I had to finish things. Please don’t press me for the details, but it had to be done.”
Anne thought about that for a moment, turning it over in her mind. Then, just like the first day they met, Jason could see her make a decision—a choice. She was facing something she had never faced before. She was being forced to accept something new, something foreign, but necessary to survive.
“All right, I won’t ask again. In the morning I’ll help you dispose of the bodies. You’re injured and need help but I do not want the girls to have to deal with that. And I want you to teach us how to shoot. Not just be able to shoot a weapon, but to load it, clean it, be familiar with it and to…to…kill with it.”
Jason realized that Anne had crossed some sort of frontier. In that crossing she stepped forward into something new, something she was unsure of, but something that Jason realized he would play a part in. He touched her shoulder gently. “Yes, I will. Now I need to get sit down. I’m ready to collapse.”
Anne could see he was exhausted. “I’ll watch through the night,” she said.
Chapter 10
The next morning, after checking Jason’s wound Anne helped him drag the bodies away from the house and into the woods. She dug a shallow hole into which they dragged the bodies. After covering them with dirt, she gathered some rocks and piled them on top of the graves. They left no marker. Then Anne took the backpacks, now emptied of ammunition, and set them out in the field to the south. If the other attacker wanted to return for them, he would find them long before he came near the farmhouse.
The captured weapons and ammunition, added to what Jason had brought with him, made a sizeable cache. He assigned each of the women an AR15 or one of its variants. They all shot the .223 round, the same as his Ruger carbine. For training, Jason selected the two 30-30 rifles and the .22 from the house. He would use up that ammunition for training, limiting the use of the semi-automatics for actual defense. The 30-30s and a 30-06 would also be used for hunting, again saving the .223 rounds.
Anne’s acceptance of their situation helped convince the girls of the need for firearms training. They were not completely inexperienced with guns, but had done only a little shooting with the 20 gauge shotgun and the .22 rifle—mostly cans on a fence post.
As Jason’s shoulder healed he became more active in instructing the family on with the weapons. He spent each day working with them on the concept of quickly acquiring a target and then hitting it. He rigged the clothesline to hold a chest sized target and had it pulled across the shooting range. The girls would start with their backs to the target and have to turn around and quickly sight and shoot it. As they progressed further into their training, Jason devised ways to add in levels of stress and intensity.
After some discussion with Anne, he set Catherine up. She carried a 30-30 with her back to the target, as usual. This time Anne was moving the target back and forth on the line. As the target began to move, Jason began throwing sticks at Catherine. She reacted in shock.
“What are you doing?” she cried out, offended and confused. Jason continued to throw the sticks which Catherine was trying to dodge.
He yelled at her, “You’re in a fight for your life! No one cares how you feel! They want you dead—or worse! What are you going to do about it, cry?” With the sticks still flying he yelled, “Shoot!” She turned and sought out the targets, her eyes blurred with tears. The rifle fired five times before she hit the two targets.
Then Catherine turned back to Jason, her eyes blazing, “You jerk! What did you do that for?”
Jason didn’t reply, but motioned her to one side and gestured for Sarah to come forward. She hesitated, her eyes wide with dread.
“Mom, what’s Jason doing?” she asked.
Anne only motioned for her to step up. The results were similar, even though Sarah knew it was coming, and her reaction was the same. They repeated the drill for the rest of the afternoon, including Anne, who also found it distasteful. But as the day went on, they became more immune to the sticks, and sometimes stones, flying through the air along with Jason’s shouting at them. They were able to hit their targets more quickly and with fewer shots. At the end of the day, they understood.
“If we have to defend ourselves there will be bullets flying and wood splintering. It will be noisy, furious and scary. You must be able to maintain a sense of calm in the midst of that chaos and make your shots count.” He paced like a drill sergeant, back and forth. “This is serious and you need to be tough to survive it. If enough bad guys come, I can’t do it all on my own, like the last time.” They were all somber as they digested what Jason had said. His rough actions were forgiven, but the fact that he had done that to them in training drove home the seriousness of their preparation.
The drills continued with Jason inventing other novel ways to simulate the pressure and noise of a fire fight: pots banged next to the shooter’s ear, pushing and shoving the shooter before telling her to fire. Catherine quickly became a top shot. Her serious demeanor stood her well in learning the skills Jason was hurriedly trying to impart. Like her mother, she realized that she needed this extra ability to not feel terrorized by this new reality.
Sarah did well but didn’t come to the training with the same seriousness. She realized the world was different and more dangerous, but she looked to Jason to protect her and the family while her mother and Catherine worked to shoulder some of that burden for themselves.
Sarah excelled at flirting and getting Jason to acknowledge her attractiveness. It wasn’t long before she had established herself as Jason’s favorite—at least in her mind. Anne and Catherine, understanding her need for attention, went along with it.
Jason kept up the intensity of the training, concentrating on fighting strategies and shooting practice. There were also lessons in loading and unloading the weapons, cleaning and sighting them. During this time, Jason also worked on setting up shooting positions from the second floor of the house. Then there was the back breaking work of hauling the sand from the creek up the hill to the house. The heat of the summer made this task all the more difficult. The black flies especially liked to swarm around them as they sweated under the heavy loads with hands full. The torment drove Jason to substitute bags of dirt for much of the protection.
The barn held plenty of resources in the workshop area; lumber, hand tools, nails, screws, nuts and bolts, so he was able to build sliding panels that closed the shooting holes to keep out the bugs and wind. The holes were concealed on the outside by a grid of lattice and branches nailed to the wall. Branches were strung on wires in front of the lattice to conceal the shooting holes. The wires were held by removable pegs so they could be dropped if the branches caught fire.
Only if you directly observed a muzzle flash would you know exactly where a shot came from. With this cam
ouflage the house took on an organic look, seeming to be growing branches from the upper story. The dirt and sand bags protected each shooter from a direct hit.
The girls had gone back upstairs to sleep after a few days, but they moved themselves into one bedroom for a greater feeling of security. Jason’s days of sleeping in the barn were over after the night attack. Neither the girls nor Anne would consider having him go back there. He slept on the living room couch, which was quite an improvement over the barn’s floor. His sleep was now sounder. The nightmares faded as did dreams of Maggie.
Jason kept working like a madman through the summer to make the house safer. There were only a few complaints from the girls, which Anne handled for him. She was in the best condition of her life and the girls were now stronger as well, their bodies taut with muscles from the work and training.
Over the weeks of work, Jason began to assume more and more leadership with the girls, often taking them to task for doing things poorly or shirking from their fair share of work. Anne did not intervene, allowing him to assume some level of parenting authority. The girls took it reasonably well. Sarah fully accepted Jason’s increased role as the man of the house. As always, Catherine came along more slowly, but her growing admiration for Jason was deeper than Sarah’s flirtatious infatuation.
Chapter 11
The family grew closer as they progressed through the summer, making the house safer, practicing shooting and fighting tactics, and hunting and gathering. Jason often noticed Anne studying him closely as they worked. She warmed to him, growing more comfortable and relaxed as they worked together. She finally told him about Ron, a little chagrined about her bluff when they first met. The circumstances surrounding Ron’s absence were more painful than Jason realized. He was embarrassed to find himself encouraged by Anne’s story; it indicated a more final separation from her husband.
Jason’s attraction to Anne steadily grew over the summer, even as he worked to keep his imagination in check. He knew she was comfortable with him and they had developed a solid partnering relationship, but beyond that, he dared not let himself think too much. Still he reveled in his adoption into the family. His sense of purpose and a need to be useful found ample expression in his new role.
One summer day Anne sent the girls out to gather black berries and raspberries from the bushes that grew along the field’s hedgerows. She helped them pack some food and water as they would be out for at least half the day. Off they went with their pistols on their belts and their rifles slung over their shoulders. Watching them set out, Jason felt proud of their increased self confidence. They were certainly safer for the training, but the remoteness of the valley was their best protection. They had seen no evidence of any larger gangs in the area and Jason concluded that the four attackers had been an isolated group.
Later that morning Jason was down in the workshop assembling some frame pieces for his rooftop shooting station. Anne came in to help wrestle the pieces of wood in place for bolting. Anne and the girls mostly wore jeans, shirts and boots for all the work they were involved in, but occasionally they wore dresses, as a defiant feminine statement it seemed to Jason. It was a delightful change of look which he enjoyed.
Today Anne came down to the workshop in a skirt and tee shirt; not unusual, but not typical when doing shop work. As they worked, Jason realized that Anne was not wearing a bra. During the work, she brushed against him when the opportunity presented. Her breasts swelled against her shirt so their full outline showed. As the work continued, Anne found more opportunities to press ever closer to Jason. The slight touches and brushes he had experienced over the past months, coming accidently, always excited him, but he knew they were completely accidental—without hidden meaning. Now her body touched him with intent. At first she brushed lightly against him, then more intensely. As she pressed against him, Jason heard her breathing becoming heavier. He lost track of his work as his excitement rose.
He stopped and turned to her and she pressed against him. Jason had never before embraced Anne and now she was pressing up close against him, not holding back. His body tingled with thousands of electric shocks at her touch. He trembled; she felt the pressure of him through his pants. She looked directly up at him and pulled his head down to her. They kissed, tentative for a moment, and then fiercely. The months of tension, of holding himself back were loosed in the energy of their kiss. Anne responded with an intensity of her own. She had held her growing desire for Jason in check for so long. Now she exhilarated in the rush of releasing it. Jason reached under her shirt and ran his hands over her strong back. She pulled him tighter to her.
Their lips parted, “Are you sure?” Jason asked.
In answer, Anne quickly took him over to the corner of the floor where Jason had kept his mattress and dragged him down. She lay back as he pushed up her shirt, sighing deeply as he stroked her breasts. Anne pulled his shirt over his head and tore open his belt buckle, hurriedly trying to get his pants unzipped. Her breathing was labored, her body eager for him.
“Let me take my boots off,” he said.
“Hurry,” she replied as she tried to push his pants down, her breath now coming in gasps. He slid her skirt up and she pulled him on to her. They both let out gasps. Jason pressed in gently as Anne opened to him. She moved her hips, adjusting herself to his rhythm. In only a few short minutes, a deep rumble came from the back of his throat and he thrust harder and sharper. Anne responded to his excitement. Then she wrapped her legs over him, pulling him tighter to her as his whole body shuddered in release.
“Yeeesss!” She called out.
The aftermath of what felt like a tsunami had them panting and gently moving together.
Jason rolled off to one side and let out a long sigh. Anne kissed him long and full. “It was wonderful, to feel you bursting inside me.”
They lay together silently for some time. Jason marveled at his good fortune to find this woman. He bent over Anne, kissing her face and breasts. Anne could feel her abdomen tingling again. She wrapped a leg over him and pulled him on to her. They joined again, this time longer, savoring each other and the delicious feelings, long dormant and now let loose.
After, Anne lay in his arms with a satisfied smile. He studied her; she was so beautiful, not delicate and slim like Maggie, but a solid, beautiful woman. And now one who showed him so much passion.
Anne looked at him. She could read a question forming that he didn’t want to ask, for fear of breaking the moment’s spell. “After the power went out I didn’t want to accept that it would change our lives—our society,” she said in a soft voice. “I kept telling myself the power would come back on and Ron would come back to us. When you arrived, I was confronted by the fact that things had changed, maybe forever. I still wanted to hope that it hadn’t, that maybe everything would become normal again. But it hasn’t. And after the attack, I realized that I had to deal with this new reality—to accept it—if the girls and I were going to survive. You gave me the courage to do that.”
She didn’t know if she was making sense, but Jason continued to look at her affectionately. “You lost your wife and I know it must have been traumatic,” Anne continued. “You didn’t pressure me for affection. That gave me time to come to terms with the changes in our lives. Time to accept these changes. You waited for me to come to you…and now I have.”
“Anne,” he said softly, “Early on I knew I could fall in love with you. I tried not to think about it, to build up any expectations. I didn’t want to ruin our tenuous relationship. I tried to be satisfied with being an adopted member of the family, like an uncle. But in spite of myself, I fell in love. And now you’ve returned that to me. I never expected all this when I set out. I just wanted to survive while the world was going crazy.”
Jason got choked up as he finished and Anne’s eyes filled with tears as she listened. She kissed him long and full and pulled him back down to her. Their bodies melted together in a long embrace, drinking in one another through their
physical contact. Work put aside for the day, they went up to the house afterward and made themselves something to eat.
Chapter 12
Anne planned to talk with the girls when they came home. “I’m going to tell them that we are now a couple,” she explained. “We have to face the reality that our spouses are gone and we have to move on with our lives. This may not be easy, but I’m not going to sneak around with my girls, and you certainly are not going to sleep on the couch anymore.”
“I rather like the couch, now that I’ve gotten use to it,” Jason replied.
“I think you’ll find my bed more pleasant than the couch,” she said with a wink.
The girls came back loaded with berries that were divided up for eating fresh and cooking into a sauce, sweetened with honey, for canning. Anne talked with the girls while they cooked.
“You know your dad has been gone now for two years.”
“Yes,” said Catherine.
“And you know Jason’s wife died in a plane crash when the power went out,” she continued. “We’ve talked about losing our spouses and how we are now working together to make it in this new world.”
“I hate the new world,” Sarah said.
“But you have learned to adjust to it,” Anne replied. “And, admit it, some of it has been okay, especially since Jason joined us.”
“If you count shooting and killing okay,” Sarah shot back.
“I didn’t say it was all good, but we have done more than survive, we are beginning to live again. You girls are so much more self-sufficient and able to take care of yourselves. I can see you’re stronger and more assured. Yes, it’s tough and hard and, yes, your father left us to fend for ourselves. We can’t undo that, just like Jason can’t undo losing his wife. But the important thing for me is to see you girls not only survive but thrive.”
“What’s your point, Mom?” Catherine asked. “Are things ever going to return to normal?”
After the Fall (Book 1): Jason's Tale Page 13
