“Please, what?” I asked, bending over her. My fingers trailed through the sticky, wet mess that we’d made of her sex.
She reached up and tangled her hands in my hair, then pulled me down and whispered, “Please do that again.”
14
The next morning was a lazy one. We didn’t make it further than the couch, but I did pull out a blanket for us, which was good since the fire burned low and was almost entirely out by morning. Jackie curled up on top of me, Ghost was on my feet, Pepper on the back of the couch, and Sasha nowhere I could easily see.
I did wake up first, but I didn’t even bother moving since I was so warm, comfortable, and happy. This was the first day I’d woken up truly in a good mood since everything had happened, and I meant to enjoy it. The solar panels in Montgomery, if they were even there, weren’t going anywhere.
Jackie shifted a little and murmured something. I made a soft shushing sound, and she subsided. Pepper got up and started washing, her yellow eyes on me the whole time. They probably wanted food. I closed my eyes and sighed softly. Damn it. I didn’t want to get up, but we probably needed to.
“Jackie,” I murmured. “We need to get moving.”
“Don’t wanna,” she slurred, nestling down against me even tighter.
This wasn’t going well.
“Come on, sweetie,” I coaxed. “The critters need feeding.”
Sasha chose that moment to make her presence known, somehow getting under the covers and burying her cold nose against Jackie’s ribs.
“Agh!” she cried out, flailing and damn near knocking me out. “I’m awake!”
The little black dog dodged away and started to bark as we got tangled in the blanket and rolled off the sofa to land with a thud on the floor. Ghost bounded away immediately before it all went bad, but Pepper just sat primly on the back of the couch and watched the shenanigans.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Jackie kept repeating as we tried to extricate ourselves from the blanket.
I finally shut her up with a kiss. There was no need to apologize for anything. Last night had been amazing, and we both were responsible for not making it some place sane like a bed.
Unfortunately, we still needed to get cleaned up, have some breakfast, and tend the animals. At least it wasn’t too cold in the house. The old place was surprisingly well-insulated, and the fire had been warm enough to spread a little.
We finally managed to get free of the blanket and each other without too much kissing and groping, and separated, a little breathless and wound up.
“So,” Jackie started as she gathered her clothes. “Want to share the shower and then take care of everything else?” She looked up at me, blushing faintly.
I knew where that would take us, and I didn’t have any problems with that.
“Sure,” I replied.
“Good.”
I just wrapped myself in the blanket, and we headed upstairs. While she ran the water to hot, I got the gas heater in the room going. It would heat up in there pretty fast, so we could dress comfortably after our shower.
Just as I got finished, the shower turned on, and I went to join her.
Now I’d like to say that we didn’t end up fooling around under the comfortably steaming water, but then I’d be a liar. Jackie turned as I stepped into the shower and grinned up at me, water streaming over her skin. The bathroom was lit by a powerful battery-powered lantern that still cast interesting shadows.
We came together and kissed hungrily, our bodies pressing together while the shower cascaded over our skin.
Sometime later, with the animals fed, we sat in the dining room with coffee and more reheated chili. Neither of us really wanted to make anything else, and honestly, food was food.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “About everything we need to do, and as much as I hate to say it, going into Montgomery to look for solar equipment just might have to wait.”
“Why?” Jackie mumbled around a mouthful of food. Her hair was pleasantly mussed from air drying while we did the chores, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes off her. The girl was gorgeous any way I looked at her.
“We’ve gotten a lot of supplies, but we need to make the rounds and get seeds and planting stuff,” I replied, then took a gulp of coffee. It had gotten colder than I liked, but I could deal. “We also, well, need to figure out how many animals we can take care of, and what sorts, and go around to the farms and collect or release everything we can.”
“So… like really free-range?” she asked, smiling faintly. “I guess it gives most of the livestock a slightly better chance of survival than leaving them cooped up.”
“I’d like to add a few more animals to our farm, maybe a couple more cows and a couple of bulls, some more goats, chickens, and possibly pigs,” I said, ignoring her joke. “The rest, well, I hate to say it, but natural selection.”
“They might just thrive, too, except for maybe the horses. They aren’t the brightest.”
“There are limits to what we can care for,” I said with a sigh.
“I know,” she said. “You’re right, too, and I’m game.”
“I should also show you where a lot of the orchards are. We’ve got several ‘You pick it’ places around here that handled fruits and vegetables.”
“That works, plus we get seeds and fertilizer and everything else we need to lay in a garden once spring rolls around,” Jackie added. “This is a good idea. We’ve got gasoline and propane to last for a while, though I do think we should try to move to solar.”
“It’s just not as much of a priority as I’d convinced myself it was,” I said with a shrug. “We aren’t in danger, yet, so a few days won’t matter.”
Jackie rested her elbows on the table and cradled her chin in her hands as she looked at me. “Is that our plan for the day?” she asked.
“I’m thinking so,” I replied. “You in?”
A playful smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “That’s what she said.”
“God damn it,” I swore, then started to laugh.
“Anyway, though,” she added. “I’m good with that. Let’s get to prepping.”
“Honestly,” I said. “It’s a little too late to prep. We’re more like reacting.”
“Whatever,” Jackie bounced to her feet. “Let’s just get to it.”
I rose a bit slower, and we went to put on coats and boots before shutting down the generator and the propane heaters. The cats and the indoor dogs were fed, food was put up, and then we hooked up the livestock trailer to my Dodge truck.
“So right now,” Jackie said, her brow furrowed. “We’ve got your grandma’s cows, my goats and horse, a bunch of chickens, the Roberts’ goats, cows, and horses, and now we’re after… what?”
I’d almost forgotten how many animals we already had.
“Pigs,” I told her. “And a couple of bulls if we can manage to keep them from killing us.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “Do you have a separate pasture?”
“You know,” I said. “We might want to just put the bulls and the cows together over in the Roberts’ fields, then keep the horses and goats in ours. The dogs can roam between the properties.”
“I’m pretty sure they already do,” she said and looked out the window for a minute.
We’d want to transport the bulls one at a time and keep them separated with their own little herds of cows. These would grow, of course, over time, and we’d have a decent supply of meat, and possibly milk. As for pigs, well, that might be a bit trickier, as Grandma’s farm didn’t have a sty, just a pasture, a barn, and a large chicken coop.
“What do you think of free-range pigs?” I asked.
“They need a lot of space, but,” she said, then paused for a moment. “We pretty much have that. We’ll probably want to just keep a few, to begin with, and give them a couple of acres of pasture if we’ve got it.”
“Once again, the Roberts to the rescue,” I said. “They’ve got a
separate fenced off pasture out back that’s around three or four acres. We can use that for the pigs. What do you think?”
“It works for me,” she replied. “I’ll keep an eye on them all and let you know if we need to make any changes.”
“If you can handle the changes yourself, do it,” I said. “I trust you.”
Jackie cackled, then, and rubbed her hands together. “A chance to use what I’ve learned,” she exclaimed. “How wonderful!”
I side-eyed her and shook my head. At least she was happy. Weird, yes, but happy.
Our first stop was a farm not too far from my mechanic shop. The owners’ name had been Simmons, an older fellow who kept a pair of black Angus bulls for stud. It wasn’t like we really cared about pedigree anymore. We just wanted baby cows and milk, so these would do.
As I remembered, these two weren’t related, but they’d been raised together and treated very well by their owner. This led to them having a reasonably sunny disposition for bulls. They were big enough, though, that we could only transport one at a time in the livestock trailer.
“I got this,” Jackie said and hopped out of the truck while I prepared to back the trailer up to the first bull’s enclosure. There was adequate grass, so he wouldn’t be hungry, hopefully. Still, she did pour a bucket of feed from the bags we’d stuck in the bed of the Dodge and headed over to the fence.
The large, black-furred bull came trotting over to her, dainty as you please, and after a moment or two, the young woman had the damn thing eating out of her hand, both figuratively and literally. Within a span of minutes, she’d made friends, opened the gate on both the enclosure and the trailer, and coaxed the big boy inside. She left him the bucket, closed everything up, and walked around to get into the truck.
“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it,” I told her. “Nice work.”
“Thanks,” she beamed at me. “Let’s get him home, put him in the Roberts’ pasture, and then I’ll lead half the cows over there before we come back to get his brother.”
“They aren’t related, believe it or not,” I said. “Simmons bought them at the same age from different breeders, or at least that’s how he advertised them.”
“They look really alike, and they seem really even-tempered,” Jackie observed. “Nicest bull I’ve ever met.”
I chuckled at that, and within a half-hour, we had the first bull named (Rob), and half the cows (the Roberts’ herd, I thought), tucked away across the street in the empty pasture we’d originally lured them from. Now, we were on our way back to pick up the second bull, whom Jackie had decided would be named “Joe.”
What followed was an almost identical performance of her first encounter with Rob. She took a bucket of feed, introduced herself at the gate, and spent a few minutes talking to the big Angus. He gave a moo of protest when she took the bucket away, then followed her meekly as she led him into the trailer, gave him the rest of the bucket, and got out, securing the gate to both trailer and pasture before getting back into the truck.
I just shook my head.
“You did say,” she said with a grin, “that you hired me because I had a way with animals, didn’t you?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” I said and shook my head as I put the truck into gear and slowly pulled out of the drive to head home.
“Were they always kept close to each other?” Jackie asked.
“I think so,” I replied. “Why?”
“I have a theory that might be why they’re pretty chill for bulls,” she answered. “Bovines are social creatures, and the males compete primarily for females, or to protect the herd. These two never really had to compete with each other, and the owner probably never even directed a harsh word at them.”
“Think they’ll step up if anything threatens their cows?” I wanted to know.
“I’m pretty sure they will,” she replied. “Since it is instinctual rather than learned, but we might want to try to be on hand, just in case.”
“If we can,” I said. “If we can.”
“They should certainly give coyotes and wild dogs pause,” she said. “But once there are calves, we’ll want to move them and the mothers someplace protected and keep a closer watch.”
I nodded and went back to driving in silence for a few more minutes, but as we pulled into the driveway of the farm, a question popped into my head.
“So why those names?” I asked.
“What? Joe and Rob?” she said. “Oh, Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro. You know, from Raging Bull.”
I groaned as she laughed. That was clever. Bad, but clever.
15
Close to Auburn, there was a farm I knew about that had pigs. Grandma had been decent friends with the owners, who, for all I know, were cousins or something. They were an older couple with a very strong hippie vibe about them. They had a very expansive co-op, with lots of smaller fields for veggies, a large garden near the house for herbs, with a little plot set aside as a butterfly garden. In addition to this, they had orchards with peaches, pears, and apples.
Bill and Mary Norris were their names. They had goats, chickens, pigs, and bees. Bill dealt with the animals, and Mary, a skilled apiarist, handled the bees. Fortunately, as cold as it was, they wouldn’t be too active.
They had a nice, paved driveway leading through their fields to the house, a colorful three-story, gabled home that looked like it had sprung organically from the mind of a demented architect with visions of a tie-dyed carnival.
“Holy crap,” Jackie exclaimed as the place came into view. “Who designed that? Wavy Gravy? The Grateful Dead?”
“All of the above, I reckon,” I said, trying to hold back a snort of laughter. “I always liked visiting this place when I was younger. Mary made the best honey biscuits.”
“I never even knew this place existed,” she said as we rolled to a stop in the front yard. “What all is here?”
“Well, there are the various fields, some gardens, orchards, and an apiary, as well as a small zoo’s worth of livestock,” I said. “There’s one problem, though.”
“What’s that?” she asked as we clambered out of the Dodge.
“Everything was pretty much free-range,” I replied.
At about that moment, around the house came trotting a black billy goat. It spied us and let out a loud “Baa!” before running over eagerly to try to search our hands and pockets for treats.
As if that had been the cue, a fair portion of the rest of the menagerie swarmed us. We had goats begging for food and attention, pigs of various sizes attempting to eat our shoes, and even some chickens strutting around like they were at an animal rave.
“Oh my God,” Jackie said. “It’s, like, a drunken petting zoo.”
That was a pretty apt description.
She knelt down and was pretty quickly overwhelmed. That was when a sudden thought hit me.
“We’re taking them all with us, aren’t we,” I said, trying to keep my voice level.
“Of course we are,” she asserted, hugging the black goat and gazing up at me. “Can you say no to this face?”
I wasn’t sure if she meant her face or the goat’s. Hers? I could deny nothing. But the goat? Not so much. I let out a sigh.
“Right then, let’s have a quick look around and load them up. Are you sure you can take care of all of them?”
Jackie smiled up at me and nodded.
Of course she could, she was an animal whisperer.
In the next few minutes, she proved it. With a few words and some assertive posturing, the young woman managed to extricate us both from the mob and settle them down. Once more, I was amazed.
We did a search of the house, including the garage store, and found nothing. There were signs that the Norrises had left, but they’d taken nothing. It took a moment to dawn on me that they might have left for the hospital, especially if they’d gotten sicker at slightly different times.
Still, I felt a little guilty packing away a couple of boxes of honey and several
bags of homemade candy. Jackie eyed me curiously, then picked up another box of honey and followed me out to the truck.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Mostly,” I replied honestly. “I have a lot of fond memories of this place and people. Whenever we’d visit Grandma, she’d always bring me here and then spend time talking with Bill and Mary while I ran around like a little idiot with the other kids whose families came to take advantage of the You-Pick-It.”
We loaded the honey and candy, and when I turned around, she wrapped me in a tight hug that I returned.
“If there’s anything you want to talk about or anything I can do to help you, I’m here,” she said.
“The same goes for you,” I murmured. “I might not offer sound advice, but I can be a pretty good listener.”
Jackie laughed and pulled away a bit to look up at me with a broad grin.
“I should be the one saying that,” she teased. “I mean, you’re so much older than me…”
“Yeah, right,” I snorted. Then I held up a hand when she started to open her mouth. “No, don’t tell me. There’s really no point in thinking about it beyond the fact that we’re both adults, and we’re happy with each other.”
“We are happy, right?” she asked.
“I’m pretty sure I am,” I replied.
“Only pretty sure, huh?”
“Yep,” I nodded and grinned. “What about you?”
“I’m pretty sure, too,” she replied.
“Do you know anything about bees?” I changed the subject with no warning and watched her visibly shift gears. Her brow furrowed for a moment, and she opened her mouth and then closed it again.
“Just a little,” she admitted. “Maybe we can pick up some books on it?”
“We might want to do that,” I said. “Especially if we can move one or more of the hives to the farm.”
“It’d be nice to have honey close to home,” she replied, grinning.
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “Before we load up the critters, we should see if they’ve got a store of seeds and fertilizer we can load up. We’ll need to get a lot, but eventually, the cows and the pigs will give us a more natural supply.”
After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus Page 10