She pushed my ass up against my desk and made the towel disappear. It caught on certain anatomy as it was whisked away, but it didn’t do a thing to distract my attention from how she was working her way down my body, using her lips as locomotion. All I could think about was the fact I couldn’t think at all. I was feeling quite a few incredible sensations, though.
My darling dearest reached her destination.
“Oh. That.” I squeezed those words out while I had breath to use. Sometime later I whispered something that I hoped was indistinct enough for her to ignore. No such luck.
“Mmm. What did you say, mister?” She looked up at me with mirth-filled eyes and a wicked grin.
“Led Zeppelin,” I whispered.
“Oh?”
“Anything in particular?” She didn’t let the Don forget her presence as she interrogated me.
“Squeeze my lemon ‘til the juice runs down my leg,” I whispered, chagrined at my persistence of memory.
“Kinky!” She resumed her payback for our first time.
In the end I had a Franco-Japanese experience. When I could put words together again, I glared at her with mock consternation, and pushed her over on our bed pile. She didn’t resist at all, and by the time I was finished she’d had a few international good times of her own.
Lust is a grand thing.
I almost, almost, forgot about how we started the day and what we’d planned on doing. War and sex can make you forget about almost anything, just look at human history. Not to be undone, my brain would have to kick things back into the forefront.
“We never made it to talk to Jayashri about the ‘maybe pregnant’ thing,” I said to her from my comfortable position beside her, with my head on her thigh. “And I think my tummy is perturbed.”
She cursed with feeling and levered herself onto her elbows, disarranging my comfortable position in the process. “What do you want to do first, food, or deal with an unpleasant reality?”
“I want food, but I’m worried that something else will insert itself into our plans.”
“Eh, I can’t imagine what the fuck else could show up today.” She stretched, and so did her t-shirt. It was delightful. “Let’s head over to the dining hall-thing and rattle the larder. Ooo! Think they’ll have coffee? You wear me out, mister!”
“That’s funny! I’d say the same about you!”
We laughed at ourselves, rearranged and dressed to be presentable people, and headed down the stairs. I stopped about halfway down, and scooted back into our room to retrieve some potentially useful weapons. After the day we’d been having, I wasn’t about to trust Charlie’s imagination to keep us out of trouble.
Suitably attired, we struck off to Building Two, ignoring the sounds of fun in the spa. I didn’t have the mental or physical constitution to investigate. Charlie and I just made funny faces at one another and kept moving.
Chapter 14
At least six, possibly more, houses had been demolished in order to build the school, gymnasium, mess hall and canteen that we called “Building Two.”
No one in the community has really complained about the local upgrades. In fact, no one ever complained about how civilized our neighborhood was in comparison to quite a bit of the world.
During the first year of the Emergency, most low to middle income inner city neighborhoods either imploded or exploded when the economy collapsed. There were food riots, gang warfare on an unprecedented scale, and crime like you wouldn’t believe. It eventually petered out, but for a while it was insane.
Outside of the cities, neighbors banded together and tried to share resources rather than hunt one another down like suburban wildlife; at least here, anyway. Speaking of suburban wildlife: we have more than our share. The local deer have gratefully repopulated the areas where people have disappeared... to say nothing of foxes, squirrels, coyotes, and the occasional wolf.
We were lucky in a lot of ways, not the least of which in that most of us were crafty or capable of learning crafts and trades that allowed for ease in bartering with other communities. Even before I moved into the hardware store these people were doing an excellent job of things, and were very capable of defending themselves against local gangs that were not interested in an economy based on barter.
I like to think that I added something to our local flavor, being a freelance zombie exterminator and all-around handyman. I know I added a little extra drama to everyone’s lives, especially over the past few months. It isn’t very often that you find out that your Pops is a zombie that wants to kill everyone you care about, after all.
With the interference… “assistance” if you will… of the Feds, we found ourselves living lives of luxury in comparison to other groups of people that we used to trade with before we were shut off from the rest of the world. Nate and Barbara were particularly happy to have the role of Educatrix Rex fall on the government. Wrangling kids in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world was really more than two people should have to cope with.
Charlie and I wandered over to the Building Two, which had been built right across the street from Matt’s place. For a moment I paused, and looked for the tree that my brother had hid in when he tossed a shuriken at me to get my attention, but it was long gone... a casualty of progress. Appropriate, since he’d died not terribly long after he’d obtained the filial contact that he’d wanted.
Died.
I eviscerated him.
“The last time I was standing around here, Stu threw a shuriken at me to get my attention.” Charlie looked up at me, and I continued, “I eviscerated him and I don’t feel a damned thing about it. That really worries me.” At least I got the words out of my head.
“I think that would worry anyone, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’re not experiencing some emotional shock from the last few hours. Tell you what? Let’s keep going and get some food in our bellies. How does that sound?” The look on her face was super perky, and I imagined that it meant that she really wanted something to eat. I nodded and we kept going.
The building doors were automatic, so we didn’t need to do anything more active than walk through them. Charlie almost set off at a run when the smell of fresh coffee caressed our nostrils and I decided to hold my comments and just keep up with her.
Mess halls are probably the same all over the world. The few that I’ve been inside had no décor, abysmal seats, funky food smells and a long buffet-serving table of some kind. For the most part, ours was an improvement. Our food smelled better, and that counts for a lot when you think about ambiance.
However, the military industrial complex does not understand décor. They had hung modern, semi-expressionistic color field paintings on the walls. Unlike real art they didn’t inspire any emotional involvement. I remembered Barbara’s comment about the paintings from earlier that day.
“Oh. They’re so… culturally sensitive.”
Her timing with that comment was superb. Her husband, Nate, had a mouthful of food at the time. His laughter nearly choked him and he shot something out of his nose.
Charlie and I were not the only people in the room. All of the community’s kids were hanging out, being teenagers and probably consuming more coffee than was good for them. Then again, this isn’t your normal gaggle of teen angst. These youngsters were superhuman, just like the rest of us. God knows that has to add another layer of freakiness to their lives.
Little David Klein, the youngest of our local children, since Siddig and his family died, was the first to notice Charlie and me, but hesitated for just a second before greeting us. At seven years old he hadn't sprouted the teenage self-consciousness that could have stopped him from running over to say “Hi.” Yet, he looked a little uncomfortable around the older kids and I guess that he probably didn’t want to seem uncool.
It surprised me a little when he broke from the pack and came over to see us.
“Mr. Frank,” he said with a tiny wave. “How are you?”
“Not bad. How�
�s things David?” I couldn’t help but smile at him. The boy was charming enough to disarm a pack of angry, hatchet-wielding old ladies. His older brother and sister did not inherit the charming gene.
“Pretty interesting! We’ve got video school now and I tested into fifth grade Language Arts!”
“I am not the least bit surprised. If anyone could do that, it would be you.” I kept smiling, messed up his hair, and noticed that the rest of the kids had wandered over into a rough semi-circle around us.
“So, Mr. Frank… ” Nancy Smith, our 15-year-old beauty queen barely got the words out of her mouth before I hollered at the top of my lungs.
“Hard cover! Now!” I slammed into the pack of kids and Charlie from a standing start and toppled everyone like dominoes.
There was a noise outside that sounded like a shrieking whistle ending in a pop. Within a quarter of a second after the pop there was another noise that sounded like an electrical transformer blowing up, a horrible shattering crackle. It reminded me of the nasty sound of the discharge when Channing blew himself to dust on our underground generator.
The eardrum-ripping whistle sounded again, and I knew that whatever attacked us had retreated. Mere moments later, the inside of my head was filled with voices. Apparently I had broadcast my warning as well as bellowing it at the top of my lungs.
All those voices in my head were a cacophony I couldn’t take, so I bellowed at all of them. “Shut up! Who was outside? Somebody give me a status report! Now!” I felt everyone ping on the Townhall channel inside my head, except for one. “White? White? Give me a status report!”
He was the quietest of the men that showed up to help us out when Nate and Flower went walkabout a few days prior to our mission to rescue Bajali. I regret that I never had the chance to talk to him or get to know him. I knew he was gone almost as soon as I called out for him in my head.
“Frank, we’ve got fatalities out here. You and Charlie need to stay with the children until we get some other people to hold that location. How are you fixed for tools?” Buttons broadcast it to everyone, which was probably smart because it served as a solid status report for the group. I followed it in kind.
“We’re lightly armed. All the kids are present and accounted for. Nothing else is incoming from hostiles, at least nothing I can feel.”
“All right. Everybody stay put.”
“Buttons? It’s White, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Three, maybe four guards, as well.”
“Fuck.” Then it was quiet inside my head.
I took stock of our set of kids, and aside from Ezra rubbing the side of his face, everyone looked to be in good shape. That isn’t to say that there weren’t a few tears and terrified expressions, but they were in one piece and that was the only thing that truly concerned me.
“Okay, everybody, let’s get up and get seated,” I told them.
Getting up off of Nancy Smith was unsettling. I had never noticed that our pretty girl had sprouted curves until then and it was quickly filed away in my head before I could really process what my hands had been grasping.
“Frank, what was that?” Charlie grabbed me by my elbow as I got up.
“Something entered our airspace, and I knew it was hostile,” I said as I shrugged because I didn’t have any other information beyond that. “My critters kicked up a warning.”
“Shit,” she looked upset at herself, remembering that young people were present, and amended her exclamation to something more apropos. “Sugar!”
The kids were sitting quietly, looking a little shell-shocked, and I really couldn’t blame them. One or two months was too little time for young people to adjust to having your neighborhood and life disrupted by violence. In my opinion, it wouldn’t be all that hot for adults either.
Omura pinged us with an update. “Guys, I’ve got footage from the CCTV cameras. I can’t broadcast it to you, but when Nate and Barbara show up, hand off the kids to them and meet me in the meeting room in the Lab Block.” Omura added, “I just got a ping from Nate. They’ll be with you two…”
“Right now.” Nate cut Omura off as he and his wife came through the canteen door. They were both armed for bear. “Tag, my loves! You two are it!”
“Since when did we graduate to full-on love, my guidepost to dark chocolate desires?”
“When shit calms down, Frank, I will tell you just how good it is to have you around to mess with again. Get your asses over to Omura, and then fill us in about what the fuck that was. Cool?” Nate was in full expressive mode, meaning that he didn’t really care that children were present and I was perfectly all right with that. Barbara was scowling but it kept alternating with a smile so I didn’t get my knickers in a twist over it.
“We have to grab some road food first, but,” I looked around and noticed that Charlie was headed toward the kitchen, “we’ll kite out of here momentarily.” We did, indeed.
The remains of White and the indeterminate number of guards were in the middle of the street between Building Two and the corner. Ramos, Fitzgerald and several of the local guard staff were attempting to examine and document what was left of that group of people. I glanced at the anthropomorphic charcoal sculptures as Charlie and I ran past and I was very grateful that I didn’t have to do more than that.
Something about looking at blackened objects that used to be people unsettles me quite a bit. That is probably a holdover from the swath of Hell that we’d created outside the building my father had taken over with his cult of personality. I will never look at pork rinds the same way again. In fact, I hope no one ever hands me a bag of them because I’d have to scream like a little girl and club them over their insensitive skull.
The charcoal sculptures were much less colorful and didn’t scream. Objectively, that should have made the tableau easier on my sensitive aesthetic soul. I have learned the hard way that dead people who did not deserve to die kick Mister Objectivity square in the nuts and invite Missus Emotional Involvement over for tea.
Yes, I was entirely grateful that Charlie and I were running away from that because we were required elsewhere.
Building One takes up quite a bit of space. Nate and Barbara were relocated in order to build it in the second largest area of uninhabited houses. They were good sports about it, and I don’t blame them. Their new house is right next door to Baj and Jaya, and I know that the government tarted up the interior a bit before they moved in.
I remember sitting outside the store during my convalescence and watching the troop of people in funny clothes going in and out of the box across the street. Of course, now that I have my brain back, I know that the funny clothes were biohazard suits and that the box in question was next door to the Sharma’s house.
No sense in putting contract labor to risk of becoming friendly enough with all of us that we could give them our little gift that keeps on giving. I wonder if they got hazard pay of some kind for working here, or bonuses for doing so much in such a small amount of time. It wouldn’t surprise me if every single one of them got very thorough physical exams after being in our general vicinity for any length of time.
I imagined a conversation that went something like this. “Have you had any strange symptoms such as vomiting, cold sweats, saliva that brings back nutrients when you are too wounded to move, or any desire to lick metal objects?” Then the Doctor would likely look in every bodily fluid, orifice and pore for some indicator that they’d been colonized.
Colonized. That’s a great word. It has “colon” in it. Those poor workers probably got federally mandated anal probes for their trouble, come to think of it.
My brain was in a really strange place when we got to B1.
When we swung into the meeting room, a gigantic screen showed a grainy image of something that looked far too much like a UFO for comfort. Matt “Flower” Wilson waved us over into a knot of our friends. Major Kenney and a few of his people occupied the opposite side of the room.
“Frank, how did you know someth
ing was about to happen?” Omura barely gave me time to get myself situated in the huge space before he pinned me down with that question.
I had to think about it for a moment before I said anything, and was about to answer with a resounding “I have no idea,” when my mouth was hijacked.
“There was a massive electromagnetic disturbance and an instant change in the local air pressure. That seemed to indicate that something dangerous was about to arrive. I felt that a warning was absolutely necessary... ” I felt the words forming in my mouth, but the information was coming from somewhere in my head that was unfamiliar. Much like the warning shout, it was my colony of nano-buddies using my vocal cords. Every eye in the room got wide when I clapped both hands over my mouth, muffling whatever other noises might have meandered onto my tongue.
“Frank, why do you look completely panicked and have both hands over your mouth?” I can only imagine what I must have looked like to get such a question from Bajali.
I gently took my hands away from my face, thinking that something more bizarre could happen at any moment. “Baj, we’ve got a whole bunch of shit to talk about when this meeting is over. For the time being, let’s just say that my self-control isn’t as fantastic as we might want it to be. Work for you?”
He nodded. Omura looked befuddled, but appeared to move the issue to his own mental back burner in favor of resolving the data on whatever attacked us.
“Riiight. Great. We’ve got footage of this craft entering our airspace and firing some sort of weapon that would have fried every external electrical system in a non-hardened area, had it not been so precise. I’m sure you two saw the impact area on your way here. Anyone have any thoughts?” Omura never took his eyes off me.
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