The ground is sloping up, enough to have exposed the trees and plants here to the chaos of the impact.
He began to notice grim reminders of the carnage that had destroyed most of the world. A couple of the taller trees had singed tops, bare of leaves and branches. As they went further in, the contrast became much more stark.
It was clear that the atmospheric fires in the aftermath of the impact had reached down to a uniform line. In the gorge, it was easy to see. Above a certain point, nothing was left alive. The slope that Jack and the women were walking on sloped up a little more steeply, and ahead of them he could see where the division was.
“It’s almost like looking at the tree line on a mountain,” whispered Rebecca. “At least we know that this path will take us all the way up to the surface.”
The walls of the gorge converged on either side and the path the three of them were on led directly up the crease. Jack expected that the river would end in a lake or possibly even just dry to a trickle, but it continued into a cave-like opening at the bottom of the southern cliff.
“Once we get to the surface, we’ll still have to loop around, but it won’t be as bad as it would have if we’d tried to climb straight up.” Jack shielded his eyes and looked up at the sun, which was climbing high in the sky.
“Well, there’s no use wasting time,” said Molly. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
IT took a surprising amount of courage for Jack to lead the group further up the slope, passing across the point where all life came to an end. His heart began to beat a little faster, and the air tasted different.
Am I imagining things, or is there that much of a difference between Eden and the rest of the world?
Reaching the top of the slope provided the answer to his question. There was a tiny ridge that Jack had to pull himself over to reach ground level, and what Jack saw once he’d made it up made him wince with regret.
“Oh wow…” He stared out across a barren landscape, ash, dust, and charred dirt as far as the eye could see. “I forgot that it was this bad…”
Molly and his mom joined him, and the three pulled a little closer into each other. Even though the horizon was empty, and even though it would be possible to see anything coming from miles away, a strong sense of danger permeated the air.
“We can always head back down,” whispered Molly. “Plant some of the seeds right up here and then just wait.”
“We will plant some of the seeds here, but we have to keep going,” he said. “I want to see whatever it was that Eve was trying to tell us about. It could be another hidden paradise, another area left unscathed by the fires.”
Jack took the seed bag out of his pocket. Despite its small size, the seeds within it were tiny enough for hundreds to be held safely. He didn’t have the slightest idea of what any of them were, but it didn’t matter. He crouched down and made a tiny hole in the earth under the ash with his fingers and then dropped one in.
“People will tell stories about you, one day.” Rebecca reached over and fussed his hair. “My son, a modern-day Johnny Appleseed.”
Jack blushed and fought the urge to snap at her.
“I think it’s more than that,” said Molly. “He’s not planting apple seeds in the wilderness. He’s planting life in a wasteland.”
Jack stood up and dusted his hands off.
Whatever I’m doing, let’s just hope that it will be enough. That goes for planting seeds, protecting my loved ones, making sacrifices for the future, and doing things that I shouldn’t.
“Let’s keep moving.”
The gorge ran through the area to the northwest, and so the walked alongside its northern edge on their way forward. It was a surreal experience, with the thriving nature preserve of Eden contrasting in a uniquely sharp manner against the desolate terrain on the surface.
The only upside to being up above was that the actual walking was much, much easier. Without any trees or bushes to have to cut through, the three of them were able to move forward at a fast walk, almost the speed of a job. After about an hour, they reached the other end of Eden and left it behind them as they continued to the northwest.
“I don’t want to have to be away for too long,” said Molly. “Let’s hope Eve’s map was to scale, and we can find this mystery location and get back.”
Jack nodded.
We would never have survived if we hadn’t found Eden to begin with. Whatever we’re looking for might be just as essential.
Behind them, their footsteps stretched off into the distance, little trails in the ash that reminded Jack of the markings felt behind upon walking through fresh snow. He traced a small line in the ash with his free foot and thought of something.
“What’s going to happen when winter comes?” He glanced at his mom, and then at Molly, wondering which of the two was better qualified to answer the question.
“That’s… a really good question.” Molly folded one of her arms up to her chin as she walked alongside him.
“The oceans are higher now,” said Rebecca. “But they must also be warmer, right? The fires would have affected them as well.”
“Yes, it’s interesting.” Molly peered from side to side, as though the answer to Jack’s question might lie on the horizon. “I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if there were no winter this year, at least not one as severe as what we’re used to at this latitude.”
“That would be convenient,” said Jack. “But it’s just a guess, isn’t it?”
“You got anything better?”
Jack smiled and shook his head.
Ahead of them, the ground was filled with tiny fractures, reminiscent of the ones Jack had seen on his first trip out from the emergency shelter. As they pushed forward, the cracks expanded and became more of a threat.
“Here, let’s stay close for this stretch.” Rebecca pushed herself against Jack, linking her arms through his, and Molly did the same on the other side. Jack felt like an A-list celebrity walking down the red carpet with a gorgeous woman on either side, or at least about as much as he could, given the circumstances.
There were a few cracks that the three of them hopped over as a group, but nothing that posed too much of a risk. Jack pulled a little ahead of the formation as they went over the last of the big fissures, and the side of his mom’s breast rubbed against his shoulder when he stopped short.
“There we go,” said Jack. “We can take it easy from here.”
The day dragged on, and the three of them marched forward. Jack carried with him the paper map from the old emergency shelter, but it was essentially useless against the new landscape. The sun began to dip in the sky as the afternoon passed, and noting the direction of its drop was a lot more useful than any amount of looking at the map.
“Look at that.” Molly had been walking a little in front of Jack, and she suddenly froze in place. She pointed to a large mound on the horizon. Jack squinted at it and tried to see what she was talking about.
“Is that… smoke?”
Molly nodded.
“Smoke and something else,” she said. “Can you see the thin orange tendril on the left side of it? That’s lava.”
Jack couldn’t quite make out that much detail, but even without seeing it, he was worried.
“A volcano, and it’s almost in our backyard,” said Jack. “I guess it’s a good thing that we know about it now.”
“We’ll be fine at the distance we’re at, sweetie.” His mom rubbed his shoulder affectionately.
“Well, unless it has a major eruption,” said Molly. “But in that case, we’d be in trouble, anyway. It would just take longer for us to know it.”
The three of them continued forward for a while longer, sticking to their northwest line and passing the mountainous volcano with a wide birth. The sun began to set over the horizon, and Jack finally gave into his exhaustion.
“We should set up camp here,” he said. “No use killing ourselves.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing.�
�� Molly winced and unshouldered her pack in a single, swift movement. “My body is killing me.”
Each of them began packing a section of what they would need for the night, with Jack working on the tent and Molly and his mother getting out the food. Jack had remembered the fire kit, but now that he was back on the surface, even the mere thought of trying to put it to use seemed ridiculous.
What are we going to burn? Our backpacks? There’s no wood left, nothing.
He had just slipped the last of the flexible rods into the pop tent when his mom called out to him.
“Alright, dinner is served,” she said. “It’s nothing fancy, but it will keep us going.”
Jack wiped ash from his hands and accepted an assortment of dried fruit and energy bars from her. He much preferred the fruit, but they’d been running low on the original supplies they’d taken from the shelter, which gave the bars a certain prestige.
“I hope we get there tomorrow,” said Molly. “The ash is making me miss our simple little camp and the river.”
She dusted her hands off on each other and leaned forward.
“Whether it’s tomorrow or the next day, we’ll eventually head back,” said Rebecca. “But we came out here for a reason.”
Jack nodded. He stood up and took out the seed pouch. Every mile or so along the way, he’d been stopping to plant a couple of them. It was a little discouraging, given the landscape. The thought of one of the seeds becoming anything other than lost in the ash was almost too fantastic to believe.
If they aren’t planted, they’ll never even get a chance at growing.
Jack cleared a small patch of ash to the left of their campsite and dug a few holes for the seeds. He dropped them in, refilled them, and then poured a couple of drops of water from his bottle over them. His mom came up to him from the side and draped one of her arms around his shoulder.
“It’s a good thing that you’re doing, sweetie,” she whispered. “Even if it’s hard, and even if you have doubts about it. It’s what the world needs right now.”
Jack stood up and faced her, the distance between them being more than a little underneath what was typically appropriate for a mother and son.
What else does the world need? How hard will it be for me, for us, to accept and do those things?
There was still enough light being scattered on the horizon for Jack to see the motherly affection in Rebecca’s face. There was something else mixed with it, however. Something uncontrolled, a forbidden yearning that was all but suppressed.
“We should turn in for the night,” said Molly. “The wind is starting to pick up.”
True to her words, ash began swirling around the campsite, slowly filling the air and making the surface increasingly inhospitable. Jack and his mom hurried over to the tent, which Molly was already inside of, and climbed into it.
“Oh, jeez!” Jack felt his mom’s elbow bang into his back as he accidentally fell forward onto Molly. “I forgot how close of a fit this thing is with all three of us.”
“Yes. It’s going to be a very tight sleeping arrangement for tonight.” Rebecca sounded far off as she answered him. She zippered up the door and then settled in.
“Our clothes are completely covered in ash,” said Molly. “I… hate to have to suggest this, but maybe we should take them off?”
Her words made the entire tent feel a little hotter than it already was. Jack tried to slide forward and ended up sandwiching himself in between the two women, his cock hardening as he realized that there was no open space for him to move to.
“As long as we are careful about it, it should be okay.” Rebecca reached down and pulled her t-shirt up and over her head. “No funny business, young man.”
None of this is funny. None of what happened before, none of the lines we crossed, were funny. But it did happen.
Jack pulled his own shirt off, along with his jeans, and set them into the pile they had set up by the tent’s door. He kept on only his boxers, and the women stopped at their bra and panties. The tent suddenly felt even more cramped, now that it was impossible to ignore even the tiniest bit of skin to skin contact.
“Maybe I should be in the middle, instead of you, Jack?” Molly’s question was laden with suspicious undertones, and Jack fully understood where she was coming from.
The last time the three of us shared this tent, a lot of things happened that probably shouldn’t have.
“I’m not sure if I can switch without messing up the bedroll,” said Jack. “I think we should just try to find a comfortable way to lie down, and get some sleep.”
It was much easier said than done, as Jack soon realized. The sleeping bags were tricky to slip into, and after a couple of failed attempts that pushed at the outer skin of the tent, the three of them gave up. Instead of each being inside one, they unzipped them and used them as individual blankets.
“There we go,” whispered Rebecca. “Good night, Jack. Good night, Molly.”
Jack could feel his mom’s breath against his neck, hot and illicit. Her lips were so close to touching his skin that he had to focus on being still to keep it from happening.
“Goodnight,” he whispered.
“Goodnight.”
The air was still, but Jack’s excitement raged on the inside. He could feel every movement that either of the two women made, the speed of their breathing, and the heat of their bodies. It was too much information, and his cock hardened and ached as dirty ideas raced through his head.
He slowly rolled over to one side, not realizing until too late that it would push his crotch into close contact with his mom instead of Molly.
It doesn’t matter. Nothing can happen with all three of us in the tent together, right? Not anymore, with the new boundaries drawn.
Rebecca inhaled sharply but said nothing as Jack’s hard on probed against her soft, panty clad butt. Jack was in heaven, the sensation of feeling his mother’s soft flesh on his rod overwhelming his mind with off limits pleasure.
Jack let one of his arms drape over her, pulling her in a little more closely and merging the heat of their bodies underneath the sleeping bags. He wasn’t sure if Molly had already fallen asleep, or if she was just holding back her frustration.
I’m not doing anything wrong. Mom is here, and so is Molly. I’ll probably cuddle with both of them before the night is through.
Jack slowly moved his face in towards his mom’s neck. She smelled nice, like dried flowers, or tea leaves. His hips moved forward against her of their own volition, grinding his hard cock against her butt and thighs.
Rebecca’s hand reached back and squeezed his leg. Jack knew exactly what it meant.
She’s telling me to stop. Just like she did a week ago, and I did stop. And I will this time too, in just a minute…
Jack felt like he was dipping a toe into a realm of forbidden pleasure that he had almost forgotten about. His mom’s body was soft and perfect, everything he could want in a woman. He slid the hand he had draped over her across her side and stomach until it was cupping the bottom of one of her breasts.
Molly moved on the other side of him, and Jack froze. His heart pounded in the silence, and he began to feel a strange guilt in the pit of his stomach.
I feel guilty because I’m doing something wrong, both to Molly and to my mom.
Jack’s hips moved forward again. The motion caused his cock to pop out through the flap or his boxers and glide against the bare flesh of one of his mom’s exposed legs. She tensed up again, and Jack thought that he felt her push back.
And just like that, it was as though a starting pistol for a race had gone off. Jack groped at his mom’s breasts and began dry humping her, completely forgetting about Molly on the other side of him. His dick was achingly hard, and the only thing he wanted to do with it was ram it inside of her.
Rebecca was clearly awake. She moved to create space in between her son’s cock and her butt, but Jack immediately moved forward and closed the gap. He kissed her on the neck and
let one of his hands slide her panties aside, positioning his cock against his mom’s hot, moist, entrance.
“Honey, stop it.” Rebecca’s voice was the merest of whispers, but she might as well have been reprimanding him with shouts. “I’m your mother, for god’s sake. We aren’t doing things like this anymore.”
“Mom…” Jack felt emotion quiver into his voice and tried to stop grinding his cockhead against her pussy. “It’s really hard. I’m not sure if I can stop…”
Rebecca was sure. She sat up, breaking from the illicit embrace and messing with the equilibrium of the tent. She crawled over to the tent’s flap, unzipped it, and slipped outside. Jack felt shame wash over him as he leaned back onto elbows.
That was really, really, dumb…
“What…” Molly was stirring from her sleep. Jack rolled over in the tent to face her, realizing that it was what he should have done in the first place.
“Hey, sorry,” he whispered. “My mom had to, uh, go to the bathroom.”
“The ash storm has died down?”
Jack sighed.
“Yeah, I think so.”
His cock was still rock hard, but even the thought of having Molly help him out, with his mother so close by, made Jack feel uncomfortable. He rolled over onto his stomach, trapping the source of his problems flat against his stomach, and closed his eyes.
I need to stay in control, for everyone’s sake.
CHAPTER 6
The morning arrived without any fanfare. Jack was the first to wake up, and he could both hear and feel Molly and his mom sleeping on either side of him. His cock was just as hard as it had been the night before, if not even more so. He was sure that he’d been dreaming about sex, but the details of the situation and the woman escaped him.
I should get up now, and give them some extra time to sleep in.
He sat up in the tent and slipped over to the door, grabbing his clothes from where they were piled as he did. Jack’s cock bounced around comically as he stood up outside the tent, mocking both him and his horniness. He smiled and quickly began getting dressed.
After the Fall: Human Underground (Taboo Erotica) (Eden Harem Book 3) Page 4
