After the Fall: The Complete Collection (Taboo Erotica)

by Anya Merchant

  Of all the things I need right now, embarrassing thoughts are at the bottom of the list.

  He slowly began pulling himself to his feet. The heavy steel shelter door was behind him, no worse for wear from the quake. The entrance room of the bunker was larger than he had realized, with another set of doors that led off into…

  Into what? I never spent very much time down here, or anytime down here, really.

  “I guess dad was right to be so paranoid,” said Jack. “This place, this shelter, may have just saved our lives.”

  Rebecca let out a sigh and pulled herself to her feet. Her hair was in a tangle, as though she had just climbed out of bed or stepped off a roller coaster. She straightened her gown and managed a quick smile for Jack before stepping over to him and cupping one of his cheeks in her hand.

  “We’re alive, and that’s all that matters,” she said. “I was so worried…”

  Jack felt his cheeks begin to heat up. It felt strange, and even though he knew he was too old to relish in his mother’s physical affection, at that moment, there was nothing he wanted more.

  “We’re okay,” he said, walking over to the door at the far end of the tiny room. “And I’m willing to bet that this door leads to another exit, in case we can’t get the one we came in through open.”

  That must be where it leads. I know dad spent a lot of time and money setting this up, he would have thought things all the way through.

  There was another combination lock on the handle of the second door, and after putting in the combination again, his father’s birthday, he turned it and pulled it open.

  “Jack, hold on,” said his mom. “Maybe we should just-“

  “What the…”

  Jack was stunned by what he found on the other side of the door. In all the time that his father had spent constructing the bomb shelter, the extent of what he’d seen consisted of the small hallway that the main stairs down led down into. He had never seen the door in the back, much less what was behind it.

  “This is incredible,” whispered Rebecca. “All this time, and all of that money that I thought he was wasting on alcohol. This is where it ended up.”

  I can’t believe it either.

  The main room of the shelter was about the size of a large bedchamber, except with walls composed of thick, shiny metal. A carpet covered the entire room, but Jack could feel the hard, solid floor underneath it, even through his shoes.

  Tucked away in the corner of the room was a bed that looked just barely big enough for two people. The sheets and pillows on top of it were arranged with surgical precision, giving the appearance of it having never been used.

  A large TV monitor covered the wall directly across from the door, with a button filled instrument panel attached next to it and two plain office chairs in front of it. Large black tote bins were stacked high on either side of it, and there were two more heavy doors on each wall.

  “This must have taken years to set up,” said Jack. “How the hell did dad manage to get all of this in here?”

  Rebecca just shook her head.

  “When we bought the house, the realtor only ever showed us a glimpse of shelter. Some of this stuff could have already been in here, maybe?”

  Maybe…

  Jack walked over to one of the chairs and ran his hand across it.

  “There’s no dust,” he said. “Dad’s definitely been down here recently.”

  Was he really this paranoid?

  “We need to see what’s in the other rooms!” Rebecca walked in front of him, her tiny gown sliding up along her thighs a bit higher with every step. Jack followed, pulled in by both his curiosity and a strange urge to stay close to his mother.

  Jack and his mom turned the handle on the door to the left and peered inside. A motion activated sensor light switched on, revealing a small, somewhat cramped room. The center of it was taken up by a small table that was, just like the bed, only big enough for two people. In the corner and along the back wall, Jack could see a sink, what looked like a microwave, and two large clear tanks, one filled with water and one empty.

  “It’s a kitchen…” said Jack. “Huh.”

  There were more storage containers filling up all of the rest of the free space in the room, and it was obvious to him at a glance that his father had packed them full of canned and preserved foods. He turned and walked across the main room over to the other unopened door.

  “We should head back outside,” said Rebecca. Jack stopped in midstep and looked over his shoulder at her.

  I’m a little afraid of what we’ll find. That was an asteroid strike. This isn’t a dream.

  “Hold on, mom,” he said. “We have to be careful if we do decide to. The house could have collapsed from that quake.”

  Jack finished turning the handle on the new door and swung it open. Inside was a room that was almost a mirror image of the kitchen, with two huge tanks for clean and used water on either side and motion activated lights. In the center of this one, however, was a metal low flow toilet built into the wall, and a small shower stall.

  “He designed it with literally everything a person could need to survive,” said Jack. “What in god’s name was he expecting to happen?”

  His mom didn’t answer him. Jack turned around and saw that she was heading back up the stairs, towards the door to the outside.

  “Mom, hold on!” Jack rushed after her, starting up the stairs just as she was reaching the top. He could see right up her skirt, and the sight of her light blue panties made him flush with both excitement and embarrassment.

  “Jack, people could be hurt outside!” said Rebecca. “We need to do what we can to help, to get them to safety.”

  “We don’t know what’s going on outside, mom!” It was the truth, but Jack left out what he already could feel was the truth in his gut.

  I know what’s happening. The world is ending.

  “Everyone in the town, our neighbors, your friends, my friends…” His mom looked at him seriously. “And your father, too!”

  She started walking up the stairs and this time, Jack ran over to follow her. His feet tapped out metal echoes as he set them down, slowing to a stop next to his mom in front of the main hatch leading into the cellar.

  “There’s a good chance that rubble from the earthquake is blocking the way,” said Jack. “I’m only going to open the door enough for us to see outside.”

  His mother nodded, and then moved far enough out of the way for him to slide by her in the doorway. Jack tried not to notice the heat that formed in the air as his body brushed against hers.

  Staying in here will be dangerous, in more ways than one.

  He set his hands on the door’s handle and slowly began to turn it. Surprisingly, there was little resistance from the outside, even as he began to push forward. Air rushed in through the widening crack, bringing dust and the smell of something that Jack couldn’t recognize along with it.

  “Well, at the very least we know that we can get out.” He pushed the door open further, creating enough space for a person to slide through if they pressed themselves flat.

  “Just lean out and look around,” said Rebecca. “I think you’re right. It’s too dangerous for us to rush right now.”

  Jack nodded and then began slipping out into what had once been the cellar of his family’s house. He edged his shoulder through, followed by his head, and started to take a look around. What he saw made his jaw drop open In surprise.

  The house had been reduced to splinters. It was the house he’d grown up in, the house that his mom had bought with his father and raised him over 18 long, nurturing years. Now it was nothing more than a scattering of tiny pieces of wood, with various recognizable objects like forks, broken picture frames, and couch cushions littering the destruction.

  “Jack? Is it safe?” His mom’s voice followed out the door after him, more concerned than afraid. The cellar was still essentially intact, but there was no house above it anymore, and the building’s
remains layered every inch of the foundation.

  Jack climbed onto a beam that was leaning at an angle up to where the living room had once been and pulled himself up to ground level. One glance around the neighborhood was enough to confirm what he’d already expected.

  Jesus Christ…

  Nothing was left standing. The houses that had once belonged to his friends and other families were in just as bad, if not worse shape than his was. It looked as though a tornado had swept through town, except the damage was even worse, more severe and with more finality. The asphalt itself had been split by several foot high cracks in a number of spots, as though a giant had pushed too hard on it at either end.

  “Oh my god…” Rebecca had followed him out and was peering across the street from a pile of lumber in the middle of the cellar. “We have to find some way to help!”

  “Hello?” Jack acted on her suggestion immediately, raising his voice and shouting off into the ruins. “Can anybody here me? Does anybody need-“

  “Jack!” His mom yelled his name with more terror, more urgency than he’d ever heard before. He looked over at her and followed her eyes, noticing all at once the danger that they were still in.

  The sky was a scene of smoldering chaos. Burning streaks of red and orange were slowly descending all across the night horizon and above him, like dyed contrails, or the marks of a celestial surrealist painter. They were multiplying even as Jack tried to make sense of them, and the wind had an unusual upward pull to it, as if being sucked in by the brilliance of the flames.

  “It’s… ejection rock,” whispered Jack. “From the asteroid’s collision. It must have been big enough to knock debris above the atmosphere, and now it’s all falling back down.”

  “Jack… We need to get back inside!” Rebecca walked across the cellar and reached her hand up to where he was, only barely managing to grab the back of his shoe with her fingers. It was enough to bring him back to his senses, and he only stared down at her tiny, gorgeous, nightgown glad body for a second before lowering himself down.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We need to…”

  His words began to trail off as the flames in the sky became even more vivid. Paradoxically, it began to grow harder to see rather than easier, the air warming around them and slowly filling with a strange fog.

  “This is bad,” said his mom. “We can’t stay out here any longer…”

  Jack nodded. The temperature was rising fast, like a sauna after being refilled with hot coals. He followed his mom as she walked through the shelter’s heavy door, closing it and the outside world off behind him.

  CHAPTER 3

  The silence of the shelter’s main room was eerie and almost deafening in its emptiness. Jack’s heart was pounding in his chest, the only noise audible to him against silence. Rebecca had taken a seat on the bed, sitting with her legs crossed and hands folded, as though she was waiting for a kitchen timer to go off.

  “There wouldn’t have been any way for us to avoid this,” she said softly. “Or even really prepare for it, even if we had known ahead of time.”

  Jack looked around at the heavy steel walls and double reinforced roof.

  There was a way, and it’s the only reason we’re here right now.

  “Dad built this, all of this, because he wanted us to be prepared,” said Jack. “Mom, he saved our lives.”

  Rebecca stood up slowly and walked over to him. The bottom half of her nightgown was dirty, and a small streak of soot ran across one of her cheeks. The thought of washing up in the shelter’s tiny shower stall, stripping naked and soaping herself up, floated shamefully into Jack’s awareness. He did his best to push it out of his mind as his mother pulled him into a close embrace.

  All this adrenaline is spinning me off in wild directions. My mom is my mom. There’s no reason for me to think weird things like that.

  “We can’t just sit here.” Her eyes darted around the room, settling on the TV monitor against the wall. Jack pulled out of the soft hug and walked over to it.

  “I didn’t see a computer, or a radio, or anything when we looked around,” said Jack. “Except for this one screen…”

  He ran his hand around the edge of the TV’s frame and found the power switch. As soon as he turned it on, the display hummed to life.

  “It’s a touch screen,” said Rebecca. “And there, in the bottom left corner.”

  The interface wasn’t one that Jack recognized, but it was vaguely similar to other OSes he’d used before. It was a simple arrangement, designed more for the basic hardware of the TV than to be anything like a fully fledged computer. He touched the square webcam icon that his mom had pointed to with his finger and watched as an onscreen keyboard appeared, along with an input field for emails.

  “Try your father’s email,” said Rebecca. “He’s probably… “

  He’s probably dead. But she’s right, we have to try it.

  Jack entered it in and then pressed okay. The word “CONNECTING” appeared on the screen for a moment, and then nothing happened.

  CONNECTION FAILED

  “Damn…” he said. He looked over at his mom and saw the crestfallen look on her face. She forced a weak smile onto her lips for his sake, and Jack walked over to her and gave her another hug. Her body felt soft against his, and intoxicatingly feminine.

  “Well, we still have power down here,” he said softly. “And it seems like the TV is connecting to something. Dad… he must have installed some type of satellite receiver when he built this place.”

  His mom didn’t say anything. He pulled her against him a little more tightly, feeling her bosom mash against his chest.

  “We should see if any of the TV channels are coming in,” said Rebecca. “Or if there is a way to get online with it.”

  Jack nodded, though he was pessimistic about their prospects. He reached out to the TV and tapped his way back to the main menu. There was an app for cable TV, an app for an online movie streaming service, and an app for the daily news and weather. He tried each of them in quick succession, finding that they all led to nothing but connection errors.

  “That’s… no good.” Jack tried to keep the defeat he was feeling on the inside from slipping into his voice, but it was impossible. His mom was watching him and still smiling, for real this time.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

  Jack felt her arms wrap around him from behind. Suddenly, it became very hard to focus on the TV and figuring out its functions. He could feel his mom’s breasts pushing against his shoulders, her nipples poking through the thin nightgown fabric. Her breath was hot against his ear, and Jack had to focus all of his energy into not getting a hard on.

  It’s the situation, not me. My body is just confused. I’m just confused.

  “We have food,” whispered his mom. “We have water. We have the bed.”

  Jack clicked on another app, one that had an icon in the shape of an old VHS tape. A downloaded movie, already midway through, instantly began playing.

  “And we have at least a couple of things to watch,” he said, forcing himself to step outside of his mom’s reach and outside of temptation. “I don’t know if dad downloaded them, or if they were already here, but it’s certainly better than nothing.”

  Rebecca smiled at him. Jack’s eyes met hers, and the air in the shelter suddenly felt very hot. He could only hold his gaze against her for the briefest of moments before having to break the silence, awkwardly clearing his throat and turning away.

  “What time do you think it is?” Rebecca walked back over to the hallway leading up to the surface.

  “It can’t be later than midnight,” said Jack. “It hasn’t even been an hour since this all began.”

  His mom nodded. Jack was surprised by how calm she looked. It put him at ease, in much the same way that her presence had back when he’d been just a little boy, nervous and anxious about everything in the world.

  “I thin
k we should take another look outside,” said Jack. “Maybe things have settled down a bit.”

  Rebecca shook her head.

  “Sweetie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Jack had already started up to the hatch.

  “I’m just going to open it a crack,” he said. He twisted the handle and then gingerly pushed the thick door open, and noxious smoke fumes pushed back into the shelter, stinging his eyes. He shut the hatch as quickly as he could, but what little had made it through was enough to make him cough as it burned his lungs.

  “Honey!” Rebecca ran over and knelt beside where Jack had fallen into a crouch. She pulled his head against her and then took a seat, cradling him as she ran her hand through his hair.

  “It’s… really bad out there,” said Jack. His mother nodded, and smiled knowingly at him. Her breasts hung in his face, and again, impure thoughts filled his head as he stared up at her, clothed only in her thin, tiny nightgown.

  She’s here for me. My beautiful mother. If it weren't for her, I’d already have given up.

  “Come on, let’s head into the main room.” Rebecca helped him to his feet and slowly walked him back down the stairs. “If we’re stuck in here for now, there’s no sense in us not taking stock of what’s available to us.”

  The two of them spent the next ten minutes searching through the neatly stacked plastic boxes. Jack was impressed by the extent his father had gone to in preparing. There was soap, towels, extra clothes, toilet paper, just about everything they could have asked for.

  “Finally!” Rebecca pulled out a white t-shirt and a pair of pink sweatpants. “I’ve been itching to change out of this flimsy nightgown ever since we got down here.”

  She bent over to close the lid on the box, and Jack couldn’t stop himself from drinking in the sight of her butt poking out from underneath the tiny garment.

  This isn’t something I should be thinking about…

  His mom walked into the room on the right-hand side of the main one, the bathroom, and creaked the heavy metal door closed behind her. The latch didn’t hitch, and it slowly began to reopen, giving Jack a view that was even harder to resist than the one he’d just seen.