The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Jesus," Stu said.

  "What are you talking about?" Jessica suddenly asked. "Are you saying that you were going to attack Garden Hill?"

  "We were going to incorporate your people and resources into our town," Bracken said. "By force if necessary. This information you gave us has just saved us from being massacred if they elected to resist us."

  "What do you mean?" she asked. "Incorporate? Massacred?"

  "We are unifying the California region under our command and our laws," Bracken told her. "We have already taken Colfax, Meadow Vista, Grass Valley, and several other towns, bringing the inhabitants to live in Auburn. Your town was next on our list."

  Jessica listened to this carefully. "So you intend to take over Garden Hill?"

  "We're unifying the entire region," Bracken explained. "It is something that has to be done if civilization is ever going to return. For now we're taking everyone to Auburn and building up our militia and our food supplies. Our goal is to unify without actually having to fight anyone, just by overwhelming force."

  "Overwhelming force?" she said doubtfully.

  "By convincing the towns we unify that resistance is pointless. We thought we had a decent chance of that in Garden Hill with the size of the force we have here."

  "But you don't think that anymore?" she asked, starting to like the idea of the town that had cast her out being conquered. And if she was in a position of authority in Auburn, as she had every intention of achieving, then she would be set up to enact a little revenge on a few members of that town.

  "It would seem," Bracken said, "that things have changed in Garden Hill since we performed our reconnaissance."

  "I don't understand," she said. "Do you mean that these defenses that he put up are better than what we had before?"

  "What you had before was a joke," Bracken told her. "Good for keeping out isolated wanderers but not much else. Had they remained in effect we would have taken that town in less than an hour, probably without taking a single casualty. But now..." he shook his head. "Now he has a classic defense arrangement in place. Things have suddenly become a little more difficult and dangerous."

  "So you're not going to do it?" she asked.

  "I didn't say that," he replied. "We'll just need to see if we can come up with another plan. We'll need your help if you're willing." Of course he could have just beaten the information he wanted out of her but he had already pegged her personality. Stroking her ego would be the more effective way of getting intelligence from her. "You were one of the ruling members of that society. You have access to the information we need to help unify that place. So what do you say?"

  "I'll give you any help you need," she said immediately, a smile on her face.

  Bracken smiled back, ignoring the contemptuous look he was getting from Stu for treating a woman the way he was. "What other improvements to the security system did this Skip person make since the attack on the town? Try to tell me everything."

  "Well, aside from putting those people through the so-called training program he had and digging those bunkers, he hasn't done much else. He put up some signs warning people away from the area and fiddled with the trucks that were parked on the bridge a little. He and that child he's living with have also been making everyone in town go through some sort of shooting class."

  "You mean in addition to the people he is training as guards?"

  "That's right," she confirmed. "Skip and Paul ordered that everyone in town fourteen and older, whether they pull guard duty or not, learn to shoot."

  Bracken and Stu shared another look, reluctant respect for this man Skip showing in their eyes. With such a small population of men in the town, teaching the bitches to shoot only made sense. Of course bitches would not be able to take the place of a man behind the sights of a weapon, but they could still pour fire down on an attacking force if they were concentrated in high enough numbers.

  "What else?" Bracken wanted to know. "He's had plenty of time to whip up some other surprises for us. Tell us everything."

  "That was about it by the time I left," Jessica said. "He had plans for a lot of things. For instance, he wanted to rig up ammunition carrying buckets to help get extra bullets to the guards on the hill and he wanted to try to dismantle the entire catwalk beneath the bridge to try and keep anyone from using it."

  "But he hadn't done those things yet?"

  "No," she said. "He was too busy trying to get his hands on that stupid helicopter to do any of that."

  There was complete silence for a moment as Bracken and Stu digested what they had just heard.

  "Did you say helicopter?" Bracken finally sputtered.

  Bracken and the commanding officers of his platoons were sitting in a circle beside the road, all of them smoking or chewing as they discussed this new information and what it meant to their mission. Stu, though he wasn't a commanding officer, was with them at Bracken's request. Though Stu was overly aggressive and sometimes reckless, he did have a keen military mind and was the better of nearly all of those higher in rank than he. Jessica had been spirited off towards the rear of the formation, near the guard positions. She was being watched carefully by a small squad and fed from the homemade MRE's the company carried.

  "I think we can still succeed in this attack," Stu was saying, taking advantage of Bracken's order to speak freely, without military courtesy. "Granted, we'll have to sit down and have a brain session on the best way of countering these new defenses they have, but the fact remains that we have more automatic weapons, better training, better discipline, and more men."

  Two of the lieutenants agreed with this reasoning and vocalized this to Bracken, both interjecting a few points of their own to further the argument.

  "There are only twenty men in that town," one said. "Twenty. We have a hundred and sixty. It doesn't Micker how good their defensive bunkers are, simple math will tell you who is going to win."

  "They also have nearly two hundred women," Bracken put in. "Now I'll allow that women can't possibly fight with the same effectiveness as men can, but this Skip character has been training them and he is a former member of the 3rd ACR if I understand that bitch correctly. You can train monkeys to put up a semi-effective defense if a competent leader commands them. Women are a little smarter than monkeys and this Skip sounds like he knows what he's doing. Now I'm sure that we would take this town if we attacked it, don't get me wrong, but at what cost? How many casualties would we take trying to bully our way through those hills to that wall?"

  "And then there's the helicopter," put in one of the other lieutenant's, one that tended to think like Bracken. "Don't forget about that."

  "Exactly," Bracken said. "I think the helicopter is the deciding factor here. That chopper takes away any element of surprise we could hope to maintain once contact is made with the defenders. It rules out the use of a diversionary force to draw their attention away from the main attack. Once the first shot is fired, he will go up in that thing and circle around, out of weapon's range from the ground, and radio our troop concentrations and locations to the bunkers and to the people inside the wall. He will be able to direct the entire battle from three thousand feet in the air where he'll have a panoramic view of everything. If he puts a gunner with an automatic weapon in that chopper, he'll be able to swoop in and make harassing attacks on any groups of our soldiers that are pinned down or hiding behind cover. In short, that eye in the sky gives those Garden Hill defenders a tremendous advantage."

  "Not enough of one though," Stu insisted.

  "Enough of one to make the entire mission pointless," Bracken replied. "Sure, we'll probably take the town if we attack it. Sheer numbers almost guarantee that. But what will we take? We would have to kill almost every defender in order to gain entry to the town. And that means many of the women will be dead. Every position we fight our way through will take out too many of our own men. Remember our doctrine, guys? We don't have enough soldiers to be throwing them away in battles of attrition. Our way is t
o hit with overwhelming force and either convince the defenders to surrender, or take them quickly with minimal casualties. These people will fight us and they will fight us hard. We may have as much as a forty percent casualty rate and that, I'm afraid, is completely unacceptable."

  "So what are you saying?" Stu wanted to know.

  "I'm saying that we have lost that overwhelming force advantage we strive for. We need to abort this mission and go back to Auburn. We're going to need a hell of a lot more than one hundred and sixty men to take this town painlessly. A hell of a lot more."

  Had the Placer County Militia's attack force been a democracy, they might very well have gone on to take up the fight. But it wasn't a democracy; it was a dictatorship under the direction of Bracken. Bracken's word was the word of God in that force and God ordered that the entire group turn around immediately and begin heading home. By the time night fell, they were nearly ten miles west of where they had picked up Jessica.

  It was 5:10 and nearly dark when Christine heard the voice come over the command radio she was monitoring from inside of the community center.

  "Position 4 to base," came John Marshall's voice. He was one of the two guards on duty at the hill on the south side of the canyon. "Are you still there, Christine?"

  "I'm here," she said, fighting to keep her voice neutral. "Do you have them?"

  "That's affirm," he said. "I have our aircraft approaching low from the west along the canyon. Looks like the last bunch made it back safe."

  "Copy that, John," Christine replied. "Thanks for the update."

  This last return of the helicopter marked the end of a very busy and productive day for the residents of Garden Hill. Starting as soon as it was light enough to fly by that morning, the fuel transfer operation had continued. With everyone in the rhythm they had managed to transport all of the remaining fuel from the Cameron Park tank to the Garden Hill water truck where it was being stored. It had taken a total of six cycles of transport, dumping, and refueling but now, combined with the take from the previous day's missions, Garden Hill had 2750 gallons of fuel in its possession.

  She picked up the portable radio she had that was set to the helicopter's frequency. With a smile she keyed it up. "Aircraft approaching Garden Hill," she said into it, "please identify yourself."

  "It's me, baby," Skip's voice returned. "Strung out and sore and with my ass completely asleep from sitting in this vibrating chair too long. I have just enough light to land normally."

  "Good to hear that, Skip," she said. "The password, if you will?"

  "Poultry," he said, giving the agreed upon signal that everything was normal. Had he been under duress of some kind he would have said "waterfowl".

  "That's what I like to hear," she said. "Is everyone safe and sound in there?"

  "That's affirm. Shellie and her squad are tired, dirty, and hungry but they're all safe. We'll be touching down in about two minutes. See you on he ground."

  "See you on the ground," Christine returned, getting up from her chair and pocketing her portable radio.

  She pulled on her rain jacket and walked downstairs to the front door. As soon as she was outside she saw the helicopter circling around overhead, bleeding off its speed. As many times as she had seen Skip take off and land she still could not get over how quiet and un-helicopter-like the machine sounded. All that could be heard was the whine of the engine and the rushing of air being churned downward. Thanks to the NOTAR there was none of the chopping sound that gave rotor aircraft their nickname.

  Though she was standing more than thirty yards away the blast of air and rainwater churned up by that rotor was still enough to force her to lower her head. The skids gently touched the pavement and the whining of the engine wound down to a soft growl, the rotor slowly losing the suicidal velocity it had been spinning with. The blast of air and water went away and Christine stepped out of the doorway and walked closer, seeing Skip going through the power-down checklist through the windshield. She kept her distance, staying outside of the arc of the rotor, not entirely comfortable walking beneath those spinning blades despite Skip's assurances that it was impossible for them to come closer than three feet above her head. At last the engine was shut off and the blades came to a gradual halt.

  The doors opened up allowing Paula's squad of four to climb out of the vehicle. All of them, with weapons on their shoulders and packs on their backs, took a moment to stretch and work the kinks out of their muscles. Paula, who had been sitting in the passenger seat, stepped out next. Seeing her co-wife standing there she ran over to her.

  " Christine!" she squealed, throwing her arms around her and hugging her tightly. "God, its good to be home."

  "It's good to have you back," Christine told her, returning the embrace. "Are you hungry? I had Stacy and Sara keep a couple of double rations hot for you and your troops."

  "I'm famished," she said. "And dirty too. How's the bath situation?"

  "Mick's squad are still working their way through one by one," Christine told her. "They should be done within the hour I would hope."

  "Good," she said. "I'll send my squad through first and then I'll go." She gave a saucy look. "Maybe you and Skip should come over and make sure I get nice and clean," she said softly.

  Christine blushed but couldn't help smiling. There had so far been no repeat of the events that had taken place the last time Paula and Skip had returned from a long mission. Though the two women now slept in the same bed with Skip between them and though both continued to imbibe in their marital liberties freely, neither had touched the other during sexual encounters or even talked about what had happened between them. Paula's oblique comment about it now was the first mention of it.

  "We'll see," Christine said, giving Paula one more hug. She broke the embrace and then went over to greet Skip.

  As it turned out, responsibility called on Christine when it came time for Paula to hop into the bathtub. She had to drive out to guard position two, which was located on the hill northeast of the subdivision, to first break up a fight between the two women stationed out there and then separate them. This was not a completely uncommon occurrence. Though the training regiment had cut down on such incidents greatly and though the idea of polygamy was slowly starting to be considered an option to be pursued, the simple fact was that there was still a lot of sleeping around going on in the off-duty hours. Though Christine tried not to station people who were in conflict with each other together, sometimes the rumor mill, which brought her news of these lethal combinations, did not reach her in time.

  "Who is it?" Skip asked as she stood up from the cafeteria table in the dining room to go deal with the situation.

  "Maria and Leanette," she said, shaking her head. "What's the deal with those two?" she asked those seated around her. "What did I miss?"

  "You put Maria and Leanette together?" Maggie, who was at the same table, asked in disbelief. "Jesus, girlfriend, you are behind the times. Word is that Leanette and Hector have been spending a little time off in the empty houses."

  "Checking out redecorating schemes I'm sure," Christine said sourly. "Skip, I'm gonna have to break the same-sex rule in order to separate them. I can put Leanette over in position 3 with Greg and move Mike over to position 2 with Maria. It's either that or pull someone who just came off the mission and put them out there for the night and I don't really want to do that."

  Skip shrugged. "Your discretion," he told her. "Do you think those two sets will be able to keep their hands off each other?"

  "Probably," she said. "I think they'll at least wait until after watch if they want to get in each other's pants."

  Skip chuckled a little. "That's all we can ask for, isn't it?"

  "I suppose," she said. "I'll see you guys at home."

  Shortly after she left, driving off in the Honda Prelude that was used to transport people from town to the guard positions (it was the most fuel efficient vehicle in a town full of SUVs and BMWs and Mercedes'), the time for Paula and Skip's
bath period arrived. They were not so filthy that a double rinse would be required so Skip went outside and activated the fire engine pump while Paula went about adding the hot water. Ten minutes later they were sitting in the steaming tub, scrubbing themselves clean and occasionally stroking a slippery body part that belonged to the other person.

  "I've been more than forty-eight hours without it now," Paula said as she slid her hand up and down his erection beneath the water. "I'm ready for a fill-up."

  "Climb aboard, baby," he told her with a smile, beckoning for her to sit on his lap.

  "Let's go home first," she said, giving him a peck on the lips. "I'd rather have you in the comfort of our own bed."

  "Okay," he said. Even so he could not resist sliding into her from behind for a few strokes as they went about washing and rinsing each other's hair.

  "You're a pervert," she accused as she felt him penetrate her and gyrate slowly back and forth.

  "And proud of it," he assured her, his hand squeezing her ass.

  They walked home together and, after lighting a few candles, immediately removed the fresh clothing they had just donned and climbed into bed. They started out kissing and cuddling under the warmth of the covers but soon threw them off as they started to heat up.

  "Eat me, Skip," Paula moaned, pushing his head down her body. "Make me come with your mouth."

  Ever the obedient husband, Skip kissed his way across her stomach and soon had his tongue running through her wet vaginal lips. He cupped her ass cheeks with his hands as he licked and sucked at her, tasting her fresh juices.

  The sound of the front door opening a few minutes later did not detract either of them from what they were doing. Only when Christine walked in the room carrying a candle with her did Skip raise his head out of Paula's crotch.