The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  After, they held each other and exchanged wet kisses, both of them tasting their own juices on the other woman's lips and tongue.

  "I love you, Anna," Jean said quietly. "I never thought I'd say that to another woman, but I do."

  "I know," Anna replied, giving her one last kiss. "And I love you too."

  "Somehow, some way, we have to get out of here. We have to."

  "I know, sweetie," she said. "I know."

  At about the same time, Christine, Skip, and Paula were waking up in the large bed of the master bedroom. Though no further sexual activity had taken place between them after their return from the community bathing area, all three had climbed into the bed together for the first time, sleeping naked and huddled together. Skip had been in the middle, the two women on either side. They all looked at each other a little sheepishly as they opened their eyes in the dim bedroom.

  "Good morning, girls," Skip said, stretching a little, feeling soreness in his muscles.

  "Good morning," Paula said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the lips. Her breast rubbed against his arm as she did so.

  Christine gave a weak smile - she was feeling decidedly strange after the events of the previous night - but she too wished everyone a good morning and gave Skip a peck on the lips. She looked up at Paula, wondering if she was supposed to kiss her as well. Was that the proper etiquette after you had a semi-lesbian encounter with your co-wife? Why had Miss Manners never addressed such a topic before?

  "How are you feeling, Chris?" Paula asked her, making no move to share a good morning kiss.

  "Okay," she said with a shrug.

  Paula continued to stare back at her for a moment, trying to read her face. "Good," she finally said. "Glad to hear it."

  They climbed out of bed and began their morning routines a minute later. This made everyone feel a little better since they were back on familiar ground. They all used the bathroom ( Christine and Skip still shutting the door when they peed, Paula letting everyone see her business) and then went about their morning maintenance chores. Skip shaved off the nine days worth of beard from his face, having to use a pair of scissors to get the top layer. Paula and Christine both sponged themselves off with the soapy cold water from their collection bucket and then went about combing and fastening their hair. Unlike most of the women in town, neither one of Skip's bothered with makeup or fancy hairstyles. Plain faces and simple ponytails were enough.

  "So what's the plan for the day?" Christine asked, finally breaking the silence that had prevailed. "Do you want me to take the afternoon shift in one of the posts?" Since gaining an additional sixteen volunteers for the guard force, the four original members had all been able to cut their hours back to only six a day.

  "No," Skip told her. "I'm going to keep you in charge of the guards for the time being. I'm going to have too much to do with the helicopter and with getting my next class of sixteen through to handle the routine stuff. In fact, I'm toying with the idea of just keeping you as the guard supervisor permanently."

  "Permanently?" Christine said, alarmed. "Skip, I can't replace you."

  "Sure you can," he said. "You did it while I was gone didn't you? And from what I've heard, you've managed to command a little respect doing it. More than one person has come up and told me how great of a job you've done."

  "But what if we're attacked again?" she said.

  "If a large scale attack occurs, then I'll be in charge of operations," he told her. "But for all of the small stuff like staffing, partner conflicts, anything like that, you seem to be doing fine."

  "But..."

  "Take the promotion, Chris," Paula said, smiling at her as she pulled on her jeans over a fresh pair of panties. "It'll get you out of the damn guard bunkers."

  "And I'll tell you what else I'll do," Skip said.

  "What?"

  "I'll double your salary."

  And so Christine became the first Garden Hill security supervisor, establishing a chain of command of sorts.

  "What about me?" Paula wanted to know. "Should I man a post today? I'm rested up enough."

  "Don't ask me," Skip said. "It is now officially beneath me to worry about shit like that. Ask your supervisor."

  They left for breakfast a few minutes later, their moods much brighter. On the way they met Paul and Janet, whose house was three doors down. They all fell in together.

  Jessica stood behind the lunch counter, a large white apron tied around her waist, a large spoon in her hands. She stood before a steaming platter of powdered eggs that Stacy and Sara had dressed up with various spices and seasonings to taste almost palatable. As each person approached she would shovel a bit off the eggs onto a plate, add a little of the pork jerky that they had made back at the beginning, and then put one piece of the bread that had been baked the previous day atop that. Nobody thanked her as she handed him or her their plates; nobody talked to her at all, though a few gave her contemptuous looks. She kept her face expressionless as she had been doing for nearly three weeks now. She had become quite good at it.

  Behind her expressionless face on this morning was a certain amount of glee and anticipation. Today was going to be the day of her liberation. She was confident that by dinner this evening she would be back in power, her chief tormentor dead, his supporter, Paul, in custody pending exile. She could feel the weight of the .45 pistol resting in her waistband, beneath her apron. It was the weight of justice about to happen.

  Her glee increased when she saw the target of this justice enter the community center gym through the back door. He was in the company of that lesbian slut and that child they were corrupting, Paul and his bimbo right behind them. They took up a position at the end of the line, patiently waiting their turn for their food. There were maybe twenty people between him and her. Less than five minutes to wait, she figured.

  Her plan was a simple one. She would wait until he was directly in front of her and then she would shoot him dead right in front of everyone, putting the pistol down before the slut or the child had a chance to draw theirs. People would be shocked at first, that was a given. They would probably whisk her away to a locked room for a while. That was all right. She expected that. But eventually she would be allowed to defend her actions before the town. She would be allowed to speak to them. She could sway a crowd like no one else could, had been doing it all of her life. Without that snake Skip to counter her words, she knew she would be able to convince the people of the town that she had acted in their best interests. These women were her people. They had been bred and raised just as she had. She had no doubt that if she was just able to talk to them for ten minutes, to remind them of the morality and the values that they were all tossing away just because of the comet, they would see the foolishness of their recent actions. They would see that Skip and his followers represented evil and corruption. They would see that they needed to follow her instead.

  Her mind, which had become more than a little unstable since that fateful night when she had tried to expel Skip by community vote, had not one time considered that her speech, no Micker how moving, would not be powerful enough to justify murder. She had not considered, even once, that maybe she had been wrong all of this time and that maybe it was time to change her views a little. All she knew is that she had been torn from power and that Skip was responsible for it. If Skip were gone, she would be the only one capable of filling that void. The town would know that and they would put her back in charge, where she could be somebody instead of a lowly kitchen worker. She just knew it.

  Paul and Janet were in the front of the group. Then came Christine, Skip, and then Paula. Behind them in line were Mick, who was working an afternoon shift in the bridge bunker, and his wife Maureen. They were talking about the subject of marriage in their town.

  "So it's my thoughts," Mick was saying, "that we should have some sort of formal ceremony for couples here in Garden Hill."

  "Couples?" Paula asked, raising her eyebrows a tad.

  "Or triples
," he allowed, "or even quadruples. My point is that when someone around here enters into what is a committed, permanent relationship, there needs to be some sort of legalistic and binding ritual to it. The marriage should be recorded and logged and there should even be a ceremony of sorts to accompany it, maybe even something like a ring given or a necklace."

  "What do we have to do all that for?" Christine asked, shuffling forward a few feet as the line moved. "It's not like there are health benefits or tax breaks that you get by being married."

  "No," Mick agreed, "there are no legalistic benefits to it under these circumstances, that it true. But by having a ceremony of some sort and by recording the nuptials, we are legitimizing the relationships and adding weight to the commitment factor. The people involved in such relationships have to declare before their peers that they are committed to each other permanently and hope to remain together for life. In every society, from primitive bushmen to that monstrosity that we had before the comet, the permanence of a mating relationship involves some sort of ritual for this very reason. Without it, there is nothing to bind the people together. There will be no step beyond simple flirtation and infatuation that shows everyone that a commitment has been made."

  "I see," Christine said softly, mostly understanding what he had said.

  "I think that's a real good idea," Skip said, looking at his two wives, as he now thought of them. "There could be a standard ceremony with vows and all that. When we three decided to do this, we vowed certain things before each other just so that we would all understand what was expected."

  "Right," Mick said. "You did it privately but I think it should be done publicly, in front of everyone. And there should be some sort of symbol of the relationship."

  They continued to discuss the various aspects of what a ceremony and a symbol would entail. As they did so, they slowly moved forward in the line, until Paul and Janet were getting their eggs put onto their plates by Jessica.

  Skip began to get a little twitch on the back of his neck as he got closer to the woman he had humiliated in front of the town. It was just a little one, it's origin unknown, but it made him take a real good look at her. On the surface nothing seemed different about her. She was wordlessly shoveling eggs, meat, and bread onto a plate as each person passed her position. It was the same thing she did every day. But something was different today. After a moment he figured out what it was. She kept glancing over at him, quick, semi-furtive glances as if she was checking his positioning. Normally she avoided looking at him at all when he approached her. Why was she doing that this morning? Was something going on?

  As Christine took her plate, the sensation became even stronger. Christine hesitated for a moment, her eyes worried. She looked at Jessica and then at Skip. It was obvious that she felt something as well. Finally, with nothing concrete to act upon, she moved to the side, allowing Skip to step up.

  As he stood in front of her his senses were on high alert status. His eyes tracked her every move, her every twitch, watching for the slightest thing out of the ordinary. He didn't have to wait very long.

  Just as she finished putting the food on his plate, as he was reaching down to pick it up, she suddenly turned around. Her hands reached under her apron, grabbing at something in her waistband. Now Skip had something tangible to base his fears upon. He had seen that move before during his time as a cop and had learned to fear it. The last thing a cop wants to see is someone reaching under their clothing and grabbing at something. His hand started to drop to the pistol on his belt.

  It was a very close thing. Jessica was fast pulling the weapon out and turning towards him. Almost too fast. She had stayed up until well past midnight practicing the move she was now executing. It took her less than a second to draw the .45 from her belt and turn towards Skip to fire it, much too fast for Skip to get his own pistol free of his holster. She spun around with a triumphant smile upon her face and a mad glint in her eyes, knowing that her plans were coming neatly together.

  Fortunately for Skip, Jessica had not yet taken his firearms training class. If she had, she would have known that she was breaking a primary rule of such engagements. The rule was that you never point a gun at someone who was within arms reach of you if you could help it. The reason for this rule was about to become very clear to her.

  Unable to get his pistol out in time, Skip instead reached out with his left hand and grabbed her wrist just as she was bringing the gun to bear on him. He sidestepped to the right, removing his body from the line of fire and tried to force her wrist downward. She pulled the trigger just as he cleared the front of the weapon.

  The gunshot was shockingly loud in the echo chamber that the gym was. The bullet blasted out of the barrel and out across the open area where people were sitting. It passed within four inches of Stephanie Mills' head, close enough for her to see a streak of gray shooting past her eyes. It passed through Mike Carlton's juice glass, shattering it and spraying everyone around him with Tang. It then hit the wooden surface of the cafeteria table, peeling a four-inch section off, before ricocheting upward, passing six inches from Darlene Sampson's throat, and finally climbing high enough to miss everyone else. It buried itself in the far wall of the gym six tenths of a second after it was fired.

  "Motherfucker!" Jessica screamed just before Skip swung a right hook into her face. He felt the meaty thump of his knuckles shattering her nose and covering his hand with her warm blood. The blow stunned her just enough so that he was able to force her hand downward before her fingers could pull the trigger again. The gun exploded with noise once more but the bullet went harmlessly into the polished wooden surface of the floor.

  Skip reached for his gun again, acting completely on instinct, but before he could draw it Christine grabbed Jessica by the hair and pulled her head downward, slamming her onto the table right into her tray of eggs. Paula also acted, jumping onto her back and getting her hands around her neck, utilizing the chokehold that Skip had shown his students during their training. Now, without a shot, Skip's hand abandoned its quest for his gun and instead concentrated upon getting hers away from her. His left hand was still holding her wrist so his right hand joined it. While Christine and Paula kept her from getting up, he slammed her arm up and down against the edge of the serving table, twisting it back and forth. She managed to fire one more shot, which again went harmlessly into the floor, and then the gun finally fell from her hand. Skip gave it a sharp kick, sending it spinning across the floor.

  "Get her on the floor," Skip yelled as Paul, Maureen, and Mick all stepped up to help. "On her stomach!"

  They pulled her over the table kicking and screaming and onto the floor. There was a clatter as the food trays were pulled off the table as well. She thumped down hard enough to expel the contents of her lungs in a painful gasp. Paula, still trying to choke her out, went over the table with her and landed atop her. Skip, Christine, and the others all dropped to the floor as Jessica tried to kick and squirm her way free of them. She was trying to yell obscenities at them but didn't quite have the breath to do so.

  At Skip's direction they pinned her legs against the floor and forced her hands behind her back, twisting them painfully upward towards her shoulder blades. By now a large crowd was standing around them, watching in awe at the struggle.

  "Somebody get us some fucking rope!" Skip, fighting to keep her right arm in position, yelled.

  "I got it," Paul, who had not been involved in the fracas, shouted. He ran off towards the nearest door, heading for one of the supply rooms.

  Three minutes later it was done. While she continued to scream incoherent obscenities and threats, they tied her hands behind her back, cinching the rope tight enough to reduce the blood flow to her hands.

  "Let's get her in an empty room," Paul said, hooking his arm through hers and pulling her to her feet. She immediately began kicking at anyone who happened to be near.

  "Let me go!" she screamed. "Goddammit, let me go! He needs to die! Don't you see that? He
needs to die!"

  Paul and Paula forcibly dragged her across the room, Christine walking in front of them. She opened the far door for them and they pulled her through it, still screaming that Skip had to die.

  Two hours later Paul found Skip in the park's maintenance shed. He was helping Steve Kensington remove the aluminum water tank from the grass fighting truck so that it could be used to transport fuel. The entire rig had been jacked up and placed on stands to allow enough clearance for the tank to be slid out once it was freed from its mountings. The going was fairly slow and Skip was serving very much in the apprentice role. Steve, who had been a pool cleaner before the comet, had also been quite adept at automotive mechanics and certainly knew his way around a toolbox better.

  "How's it going?" Paul asked, lighting a cigarette as he watched Steve dismantle the hose deck of the rig.

  "We're getting there," Skip said, dropping the wrench he had been using and walking over. "Hopefully we'll have it out in another hour or two and then we can start thinking about reinforcing it."

  "Do you think you will be ready to fly tomorrow?" Skip was planning on a mission to recover the maintenance supplies and a tank full of jet fuel from Cameron Park the next day.

  "More than likely as long as Steve doesn't fuck up that tank," he said.

  "Hey now," Steve said lightly. "Be nice."

  "I've also stripped the chopper of every unnecessary piece of equipment," Skip said. "I took out the litter, the medical supplies, even the cabinets that they were stored in. In all I lightened it up by about two hundred pounds and created a little more room. I got room for an extra passenger now or two hundred more pounds of cargo."

  "Are you gonna do a little recon while you're up there?" Paul wanted to know.

  "Maybe on the way out," he said. "I still have more than three hundred pounds of fuel on board. I thought maybe I'd take a swing down through Colfax and Auburn, just to see if anything's left there. Once I'm over the valley I can cut to the south and pick up Highway 50 as a navigation reference to Cameron Park. What other towns are along the 50 corridor? Any chance that they will be standing?"