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 past 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 think 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.
She was facing away from him, totally oblivious to her son’s peeping eyes. Slowly, she pulled the nightgown up and over her head and tossed it aside. She didn’t have a bra on, only panties, but all Jack could see from his vantage point was a tantalizing edge on view of her big, gorgeous breasts.
This is sick. I need to cut it out, right now.
He stood up and forced himself to turn his attention to somethin
g else. His cock was rock hard, an illicit symbol of the strange, perverse emotions that he was struggling with. Jack walked over to the TV and started clicking through the menus, desperate for a distraction.
He went back to the recorded TV shows and downloaded movies, and began scrolling through them. A couple were post-apocalyptic themed, including one that was a popular, mainstream adaptation of a zombie comic book, and Jack winced internally as he skipped over it.
Is that what’s happening for real, now? Has the world ended?
“I think we should eat some food. Why don’t you pick out something for us to watch while I’m at it?” His mom had snuck up behind him, startling him with a reverse hug and a kiss on the cheek just as Jack’s thoughts began to tread into dark territory. She smelled faintly of perfume, a sweet and flowery scent.
“Uh, okay,” said Jack. “I guess I’ll… do that, then.”
She pulled away from him and walked over into the shelter’s kitchen area. A surreal feeling swept over Jack as he tapped on the touch screen and scrolled past a couple of action movies, a mixture of déjà vu and absurdity.
We’re still acting out our roles down here, mother and son, without even being sure if there is anything left on the surface of the planet.
Jack settled on a romantic comedy about a man, his girlfriend, and a dog, in the end. Rebecca was humming a tune as she moved about the food stores of the shelter, picking through dried powder soups and mountains of canned goods. He recognized the song and had to fight off a wave of nostalgia as childhood memories crested on his mental horizon.
“There is an entire spice rack’s worth of seasonings tucked away in the back of the pantry,” said his mom. “That must have been your father’s doing.”
Jack didn’t saying anything. Thinking about his dad, thinking about any of the many people that they’d left behind above ground, was painful. Jason and Mitch suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye, both of them biking away from his house, waving to him as they went.
I’m never going to see them again, most likely.
“Jack?” Rebecca was standing in the doorway, her brow furrowed, and her eyes locked onto him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, mom,” he said. “Sorry. I’m just thinking...”
She walked over to him, her expression softening into warmth and understanding. She pulled him close to her and ran her hand through his hair. It was exactly what Jack needed.
“I know,” she said softly. “It’s too much for one person to make sense of. We just have to keep going.”
Rebecca shifted her son’s face so that their eyes met each other’s. Again, Jack felt a mild sense of hot tension wave over him. He shook it off and tried not to let his excitement get the best of him.
“You’re right, mom.” He smiled at her. “Sorry.”
She reached her hand up to his face and pinched his cheek, a gesture that made him feel like he was a little kid again.
“We don’t know anything yet, sweetie,” she said. “Whatever is going on, it could be affecting the entire world, or it could just be the state, or maybe even just the local neighborhood. We don’t know. For now we just need to hang tight.”
Jack nodded, but on the inside his pessimism continued to nip at his psyche.
The earthquake, and the firestorms in the sky… Those are not the type of things that just happen on a local level.
“I’m going to finish with the food, and I want you to pick out a movie for us.” Rebecca spoke slowly, as though she was trying to emphasize the importance of the roles each of them had to play.
“Okay mom. Thanks.”
Rebecca kissed him softly on the cheek. The touch of her lips against his skin was like fire, like the fire that had lit up the night sky. She turned and walked back into the kitchen, and John turned back towards the TV screen.
After the Fall: Close and Confined by Anya Merchant
Goddess Cruise Lines: The Complete Collection (Taboo Erotica) Page 27