Message-ID: <26828asstr$971359803@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
X-Original-Path: not-for-mail
From: Al Steiner <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
X-Original-Message-ID: <8s3gh1$ld0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Oct 12 05:00:19 2000 GMT
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath 1 by Al Steiner (Mf) 2/4
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:10:03 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2000/26828>
X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, IceAltar, RuiJorge

AFTERMATH 1 2/4
Send comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com



The rifle bucked against his shoulder and the sound of the shot rolled
across the landscape like thunder.  In the scope, Brett saw Ricky's
head explode into a spray of blood, brain, and skull fragments.  Before
his body even hit the muddy ground Brett was working the bolt on the
rifle.  The ejected shell casing shot out to his right and he slammed
another round into the chamber.  A quick glance down into the clearing
showed exactly what he had hoped to see.

Ricky was down and the other three bikers were still trying to process
exactly what had just happened.  They were all standing still, looking
up towards him, trying to identify the direction from which the shot
had come.  The two behind Ricky, those that still had rifles in their
hands, were not even aiming at the spot.

He quickly sighted on the farther of the two men, centering the
crosshairs on the middle of his chest.  As soon as they were steady,
perhaps four seconds after the first shot was fired, he pulled the
trigger again.  The gun bucked and the second biker suddenly had a hole
in his muddy shirt.  He looked almost comically surprised at this for a
moment and then he fell to the ground.

The second shot got the bikers moving.  The leader and the one
remaining man with the rifle, finally realizing they were in mortal
danger, both dove to the ground and began firing up at him.  The leader
only had his pistol and his shots were nothing to be concerned about
from sixty yards, but the other biker was firing short, controlled
bursts from the M-16.  Bullets began to slam into the mud and the trees
around him, sending little sprays of water, bark, and dirt flying
through the air.  Brett knew instantly, by the way the man was firing
his weapon, that he had military experience.  A novice would not have
shot a rifle that way.

He slid down the hill about ten feet and crawled quickly to the left,
hoping to catch them on the right flank before it occurred to them to
turn their attention back to the family they were tormenting.  Above
him bullets continued to whiz by in groups of three and four, smacking
the trees or flying off into space.  He found another tree that
overlooked the ground below and inched on his belly up to it, his body
coursing with adrenaline, the rifle dragging behind him.

When he reached his new position he poked his head out a little and
trained the barrel of his rifle down over the scene, looking first and
foremost for the biker with the M-16.  He saw him immediately.  He was
in a crouch, moving right to left towards a stand of trees that would
provide him with relative cover.  Yes, Brett thought, this man, despite
the fact that he had not reacted to the first shot, knew what he was
doing.

Intending to snap off a shot at him before he reached the tree line,
Brett took a quick glance at the rest of the players before he did so,
just to make sure that they were all where he thought they were.  The
two women that had come with the bikers were nowhere to be seen,
apparently smart enough to run off into the woods once the shooting
started.  The leader of the group was crouched behind a rock, having
taken the time to pull his pants back up into the combat position.  He
was reloading his pistol with a fresh magazine that he had pulled from
his pocket.  The young boy was cowering where he had last been, as was
the young girl.  But the mother, that was another story.

"Oh shit," Brett muttered, seeing what she was doing, knowing he was
helpless to prevent it.

She had decided to take a little initiative in the gun battle by
creeping forward and pulling one of the M-16s from Ricky's body.
Crouching next to the former biker and obviously having never fired a
rifle in her life, she socked the weapon into her shoulder and took aim
at the leader just as he made a sprint towards the tree line where the
other biker had gone.

She pulled the trigger and unleashed the entire clip at him.  It took
about four seconds to fire all thirty rounds.  The barrel of the gun
jerked upward in her arms and at least twenty of the rounds flew
harmlessly into the air above.  But the first five or six rounds cut
the leader's legs out from beneath him as he ran.  He dropped sprawling
to the ground, his pistol flying out before him, his body landing
facedown in the mud and sliding about ten feet.

This immediately drew the fire of the biker with the M-16.  He stopped
in his tracks and trained his weapon on the woman, firing a three-round
burst directly into her chest.  The rifle dropped from her hands and
she clutched her chest, falling forward over the body of Ricky.

"Momma!" screamed her kids simultaneously, their voices filled with
fresh horror.

The biker ignored them.  So did Brett.  He only had a second or two
before his target started running for the tree line again.  He sighted
in on him until his torso was the only thing in the crosshairs.  With a
smooth tug of the trigger, the bullet was fired through his body, a
good portion of his internal organs spraying out behind him with the
exiting projectile.  The M-16 clattered to the mud and a moment later,
he joined it, dropping face down.

Brett did not take any time to celebrate his victory or marvel over the
fact that he was still alive.  He quickly shouldered the rifle and
stood up.  Moving as fast as possible in the thick mud, drawing his .40
caliber as he went, he ran down the hill.  As he went past the man with
the military experience, the one who had shot the mother, he put a
single bullet into the top of his head, turning it into pulp and
insuring that the man would pose no further threat.  He did the same
for the second biker he had shot, the one who had taken a round in the
chest at the beginning of the battle.  Ricky, he didn't bother with.
Ricky's head had exploded from the thirty caliber round, unequivocally
ending his days of posing a threat to anyone.  Besides, the mother of
the two children was still lying over the top of him.

The leader of the group was still very much alive.  His legs were both
virtually useless, the knees shot out by the rounds from the M-16, but
he crawled relentlessly forward, dragging himself through the mud
towards his .45 pistol that was lying about five feet in front of him.
Brett did not put a bullet in his head.  Instead he ran up behind him
and put his hunting boot between his shoulder blades, pushing his head
down into the mud.

"Don't move motherfucker," he said, "or I'll stick this gun up your ass
and pull the trigger."

The leader stopped instantly, his hands still outstretched.

"I oughtta do that anyway, you piece of shit," Brett told him, pushing
a little with his foot.  "You like to rape little girls, do you?  How'd
you like a nice piece of lead up your ass?"

The biker said nothing.  He only whimpered pathetically.

"Roll over," Brett said, stepping back a few feet.  "Keep your hands in
sight at all times."

He did as he was told, his face miserable with fear.  Brett was glad to
see it.

"If you so much as twitch, I'm gonna gut shoot you and let you lay here
until you die, do you understand?"

"Yeah," the man breathed, looking up at him with terror.  His face
recognized something in Brett's, something he had undoubtedly seen many
times before.  "You a cop?"

"I'm worse than a cop," Brett told him.  "I'm a cop with no fuckin'
internal affairs division or Supreme Court to tell me what not to do.
Do you dig it?"

The biker nodded, not saying anything.

"Good," Brett said.  He stepped back a few feet, keeping his pistol
leveled on the biker and diverting half of his attention to the tree
line where the two women had disappeared.  There was really no telling
whether they had been armed with concealed handguns or not and there
was really no telling just where they had gone.  He looked over at the
two kids that he had rescued.  They had pulled their mother off of
Ricky and were cradling her in their arms, sobbing over her.  Even from
twenty feet away, Brett could see that she was still alive but fading
fast.

He walked over and picked up the pistol that the biker had been trying
for.  It was a Colt .45, one of the newer models of a timeless
firearm.  Its surface was caked with mud.  We wiped a little of it
away, unplugging the barrel.  On the grip were the initials: EDCSD
followed by a serial number.  Brett, as a California law enforcement
officer, knew that meant that the weapon had once belonged to the El
Dorado County Sheriff's Department.  Strange.

He stuck it in his belt and walked over to the family after a quick
warning to the biker of what horrible fate awaited him if he moved.
The two kids were still cradling their mother, telling her that she was
going to be all right even though it was plainly obvious, even to them,
that she wasn't.  Blood was running freely from her mouth and her skin
was pale, almost gray.  Her breath was ragged in her mouth.  But still
she was awake and alert, her eyes locking onto him as he approached.

"Thank you," she croaked at him as he kneeled next to her.  "You...
saved my... my kids."

"And you probably saved me," he lied, not wanting her to die thinking
that she'd done something stupid.  "You're pretty mean with a machine
gun."

A faint smile followed by a ragged breath.  "You're not... not going to
just... take over where they left off... are you?"

"No ma'am," he assured her.  "I'm not like them."

She nodded a little, becoming weaker by the moment.  "Take... take...
take care of them... for me.  Please?"

"Momma," the girl insisted bravely.  "You're gonna be all right!  He
doesn't have to take care of us.  Right mister?"

Before Brett could answer, the woman answered for him.  "I'm dying
baby," she said.  "It's a new... a new reality now.  Your job is to...
to live."

"Momma!" the boy said miserably.  "You can't die!"

"Can't help it," she said.  "I'm all used up.  I'll be with your daddy
in a minute."  She looked at Brett again.  "What's your name?"

"Brett," he told her.  "My name is Brett."

"Take care of them Brett," she said weakly.  "Please?  They'll die
without... without someone to help them."

And they'll die WITH someone to help them, he did not say.  "I
promise," he told her instead, having only the vaguest idea at that
moment of what he was getting himself into.

"Thank you," she croaked.  She told her children that she loved them
and a moment later, her breathing stopped.  She died with a faint smile
on her face.

+++++


While the two kids cried over their fallen parents, Brett picked up the
M-16 that the woman had fired and looked at it.  It was a standard
military issue rifle, no different than the ones that he had fired in
basic training so many years before.  Engraved on the metal just below
the action were the same initials that he had noted on the .45: EDCSD.

He popped out the empty magazine and stuck it in his pocket, having to
struggle to get it to fit.  He then patted down Ricky's pockets,
searching for another.  He found two of them, one in each rear pocket,
both fully loaded with jacketed rounds.  He made a quick check to make
sure the action and the barrel were clear of mud.  There was a little
bit in there but nothing to be concerned with.  This version of the M-
16 had been designed, after all, with conditions like this - mud,
water, and rain - in mind.  He slammed one of the magazines into the
weapon and jacked the first round into the chamber.  He then fiddled
with the selector, turning it to the setting for semi-automatic fire.
That done, he pocketed the other full clip and walked over to where the
single surviving biker was still laying in a pool of his own blood.
The biker looked up at him in fear as he approached.

"You know that you're gonna die, right?" Brett asked him, pointing the
rifle down at his body.  "I mean, even if I just left you alone here,
there's no way you could last for very long in this new world of ours
without being able to walk.  Even if your buddies came and got you,
even if they hauled your sorry ass back to camp, I seriously doubt
they're gonna waste any precious food feeding a cripple, right?"

The biker said nothing, only trembled there, his face a mask of pain.

"So if you concede that you're gonna die here," Brett went on, "the
only question remaining is whether it's gonna be an easy death or a
hard one."  He pointed the barrel of the M-16 at the biker's forehead.
"A head shot would be pretty quick," he said reflectively.  "One second
you're alive, the next second you're dead.  I don't imagine that you
even feel pain, it happens that fast.  But a shot to the groin on the
other hand..."  He let the barrel drop about eight inches, until it was
pointing at the man's crotch.  "Now that would be a miserable way to
go.  It could take hours, days even.  You'd just lie there in pain
while you slowly bled out onto the ground.  Hell, I bet scavengers
would start eating you before you were even dead.  After all, they
gotta be just as hungry as we are."

Brett saw that his speech was having the desired effect.  The biker
began to shudder uncontrollably.  His face became a mask of horror as
he contemplated the thought of coyotes or mountain lions, insane with
starvation, making a meal of him while he was still conscious.  "What
do you want?" he asked Brett in a halting voice.

"Information," Brett said simply.  "It seems I have a couple of people
to watch after for a while and I'd kinda like to know just what I'm up
against out here.  Now I'm gonna ask you some questions and you're
going to answer them truthfully and without hesitation.  If you lie to
me, I'll know it.  I've talked to a thousand pukebags just like you in
my lifetime and if there's one thing I know how to do is tell when a
piece of shit like yourself is handing me a line of crap.  Besides,
you're about to die anyway, right?  What would be the point of lying to
me?  If we get through this interview without a lie, I'll put a bullet
in your head and end things quickly for you.  If you DO tell me a lie
however..." he jabbed a little at the man's crotch with the rifle,
making him jump, "... it's semi-automatic castration, get it?"

"Yeah," he breathed.

"How many of you are there at this camp you mentioned?" Brett asked.

"About thirty or so," the biker replied without hesitation.

"How many men, how many women?"

"Mostly men.  We got six bitches that were girlfriends and wives that
we managed to pick up after the comet.  We got three more that we
snatched from other guys up here.  Campers and hunters, you know.  We
keep them in one of the tents."

"I see," Brett said, not bothering to ask WHY they were keeping these
women in tents.  "And what became of the guys that these women were
with before you snatched them?"

He hesitated for a moment.

Brett jabbed at his crotch with the rifle again.  "No lies now," he
said.  "Remember the penalty."

"We killed them," the biker said, almost defiantly.  "We killed them
and took their supplies."

Brett simply stared at him for a moment, enraged at what he heard
though not particularly surprised.  As a cop he had always
instinctively known that he and his colleagues were the only things
standing between civilization and the sort of savagery that this man
represented.  Now he had proof.

He took a deep breath, calming himself, resisting the urge to end the
interrogation right then by means of a bullet.  "And just where IS this
camp in relation to this spot we're in now?" he asked when he felt he
had regained control.

"About half a mile that way."  The biker raised a hand and pointed off
to the east.  "We grabbed some Arctic tents from a sporting goods store
in Placerville before we headed up here.  They stand up pretty well to
the wind and the rain.  Especially since we put 'em in a grove of big-
ass trees."

About half a mile to the east, Brett thought reflectively.  That was
higher ground up there, more trees and less mud.  Was a half a mile
close enough for his fellow bikers to have heard the gunshots from the
recent battle?  Were they even now on their way here to see what had
happened, or would they have to wait until to two women who had fled
made their way back?  He didn't know, could not guess just how far
sound was capable of traveling in these horrid weather conditions.  But
common sense told him to assume that they HAD heard.  They wouldn't
have much time.

"Where did you get these guns?" Brett asked next.  "They belonged to
the El Dorado Sheriff's, didn't they?"

"Yeah," the man said, again hesitating.

"So how did you get your hands on them?" he demanded.

The biker took a deep breath.  "From the arsenal at the ED-triple C,"
he said, using the local slang term for the El Dorado County
Correctional Center.  This was a county jail facility where inmates
sentenced to less than a year were housed.  "All of us in our group
were inmates there when the comet hit.  The guards let us out when they
realized what was goin' on.  They said they didn't want us to drown
like rats."

"That was awfully decent of them," Brett said, feeling a fresh rage
creeping through his body.  "And you repaid them by..."

"We killed most of them," the biker reluctantly admitted.  "There was
only eight of them and there was almost fifty of us.  Some of the guys
didn't get in on it and they went their own way. But me and my guys...
well... we knew we had to have guns if we was gonna live and we knew
there was a shitload in the armory there.  You can't blame us for that,
can you?  It's survival of the fuckin' fittest out here now.  How could
we just walk away and leave all them guns behind?"

"I'm real tempted," Brett said through clenched teeth, "to gut-shot you
and leave you here to die slowly.  I'm real tempted."

The biker said nothing, simply looked upward in fear.

"But I'm a man of my word," Brett said next.  "I don't have much in
this new world, but I can still keep my fucking word.  Even to a sub-
human piece of shit like you.  Good-bye asshole.  I sincerely hope
there's a hell so you can rot there."

He backed up a few feet and pointed the barrel of the rifle at the
biker's head.  The biker closed his eyes, awaiting his oblivion.  It
came a moment later when Brett squeezed the trigger, unleashing a
single shot that punched a hole in his forehead and blew his brains out
the back of his head.  His days of raping teenage girls were over.


+++++


The two kids, still sitting by the bodies of their parents and sobbing,
looked up at the sound of the rifle shot, jerked back to the reality
that they now found themselves in.  They looked at Brett fearfully as
he walked over to them, the Remington and the M-16 both slung over his
shoulders.

"Are you... are you gonna... hurt us?" the girl, Chrissie, asked
softly, her eyes cast downward.  It was hard for Brett to tell for sure
but it looked like, under all the dirt and mud that covered her, she
might be pretty.  Her eyes, though haunted by what they had seen, were
a pale blue, the color the sky had once been before the comet.  Her
hair, which was mostly tucked under a filthy brown hat, was light
blonde in color.  The shape of her body was impossible to guess at
under the bulky clothing she wore, but it seemed she was neither overly
chubby nor overly thin.

"No," Brett said, kneeling down next to them, these two kids he had
suddenly been put in charge of.  "I'm not gonna hurt you.  Whose
trailer is this?  Are there any supplies we can carry in it?"

"You killed that man," she said, ignoring his question.  "You shot him."

"I killed all of them," he told her.  "They would have killed you and
your brother just like they did your parents if I hadn't.  Does it
bother you that I did that?"

She thought about that, sniffing a few times while she mulled it over.
"No," she finally said.  "I'm glad you did it.  I'm glad they're dead.
Thank you."

"Anytime," he assured her.  "Anytime.  Now, we need to get moving out
of here real quick-like.  Is this your trailer here?"

"We found it the day after the rain started," she told him.  "Our
camper got washed down a hill.  It almost killed us all but we got out
before it went over a cliff.  We started walking and we came across
this one.  The owners didn't seem to be here so Daddy broke into it.
We've been staying in it ever since.  Why do we have to leave it?  It's
shelter."

"Because it's a magnet for people like this," he said, indicating the
sprawled bodies of the bikers.  "Why do you think they attacked you in
the first place?  This place just screams out for any passing dirtbags
to pillage it.  And my guess is that there are a lot of desperate
dirtbags out here.  That's in addition to the thirty or so other bikers
that are part of the group that these ones came from.  If they're not
on the way here now, they sure as hell will be soon."

"We'll stay here," the boy, speaking for the first time, said
defiantly.  "Leave us a couple of those guns and we'll fight them off.
This trailer is ours.  No one is going to force us away from here."

Brett looked at him pointedly for a moment.  Like his sister, it was
difficult to make out his features very well, so dirty was he and so
bulky was his clothing.  He had light brown hair, the same color as
that on the head of his dead father.  "What's your name kid?" he asked.

"Jason," was the reply.

"How old are you Jason?"

"Fourteen," he said toughly.

"Well Jason, I'm thirty-five.  I've spent time in the army.  I'm a
combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War.  I've been a cop for the last
eight years.  With all of that experience at fighting and shooting,
even I would not try to defend this fixed, highly visible target from a
group of bikers armed with automatic weapons.  It's suicide."

"We'll manage," he said.  "No one's asking you to stay here.  I just
want a couple of those guns."

"Jason," his sister broke in.  "I think we should..."

"Shut up Chrissie," he said angrily.  "I know what I'm doing."

"No you don't," Jason told him.  "If you stay here, you're going to be
killed, probably within the hour.  I promised your mother that I would
take care of you.  You need to come with me."

"I don't think that she meant we should..."

"Look goddammit," Brett jumped in, taking a step closer.  "I'm sorry
about your parents, I really am.  I lost my entire family to this comet
as well as my best friend.  You'll forgive me if I seem less than
compassionate with you - its not really my nature - but we don't have
time to sit here while you posture and whine at me about this fucking
trailer.  We need to get moving as soon as possible and I'm not going
to allow you to stay here, with or without guns.  I'll drag your ass
out of here forcefully if that's necessary.  So let's drop this
worthless discussion about staying or going.  We're going.  Do you
understand?"

"You don't even know us," Jason cried, holding his ground. "Why do you
care what happens to us?"

Brett had to admit that the little shit had huevos.  "What else do I
have to care about?" he asked in reply.  "Twenty minutes ago I was all
alone and about to blow my brains out, to give up.  Now, a couple of
people need help and I'm the only one around who can give it.  I can't
turn my back on you now.  I couldn't do it even if I hadn't promised
your mother that I would.  We're all probably going to die anyway, and
soon, but if there's a chance for you two to live for a while, I'm it.
Okay?"

Reluctantly he nodded, his tough expression fading a little.

"Good," Brett said.  "And if you want to live, you're gonna have to let
me make the decisions here and you're gonna have to do what I say, when
I say it.  Little boys aren't going to be able to cut it. You need to
be a man.  All right?"

"All right," he mumbled, taken, as Brett had known he would be, by the
challenge to "be a man."

"Good enough.  Now, what kind of supplies do you have in that trailer?"


+++++


As it turned out, the trailer was a virtual treasure-trove.  Whoever it
had belonged to before the apocalypse, they had stocked it with enough
canned food and dry goods to last for a while.  There were nearly a
hundred cans of Chef Boy-R-D pastas, Campbell's soups, various
vegetables and fruits, and even pie filling.  There were bags of rice,
beans, flour, sugar, coffee, and powdered milk.  There were vitamin
pills and aspirin and Tylenol.  There was even, glory of glories, two
bottles of Jack Daniels and a half a case of Budweiser.

"There IS a god," Brett said, seeing all of the supplies.

The two kids both had backpacks which Brett directed them to fill with
as much of the canned and vital dry goods as they could fit in there.
He dumped out another backpack, which had belonged to their father, and
began to fill it as well.  Even with all three filled to capacity,
there were still numerous supplies left over.  Brett would have liked
to haul them out of the trailer and bury them somewhere for a rainy day
(no pun intended) but he felt the time slipping away from them.  Any
moment a group of armed bikers could come bursting out of the forest.

He rolled up the sleeping bags that were in the trailer, noting with
satisfaction that they were the waterproof kind, and tied one to each
backpack.  Into his he carefully slipped six of the beers and both of
the bottles of JD.  Strictly for medicinal purposes, he told himself
with a grin.

"Okay, let's get out of the trailer," he said, once they were ready.
"One last thing to do before we go."

After they stepped outside, packs firmly upon their backs, Brett went
and collected two of the rifles and pistols.  He searched each body for
ammunition, finding a total of six magazines of M-16 rounds and eight
of .45 rounds.  He shoved all of it into his backpack along with the
cans.

"Do you guys no how to use guns?" he asked them.

They both shook their heads.  "Our dad doesn't... uh didn't believe in
guns," Chrissie said sadly.

Brett raised his eyebrows a bit and looked at the .38 pistol that was
lying next to his body.  Chrissie followed his gaze over there.  "It
wasn't his," she explained.  "He found it in the trailer.  When the men
came he pointed it at them but they just laughed.  He fired at them a
few times when they kept coming and they..."  She couldn't continue.

"It's okay honey," he said soothingly.  "Your dad was obviously a very
brave man.  He tried his best.  But in any case, you guys need to take
these."  He handed each of them an M-16, after removing the chambered
rounds of course.

They took them very doubtfully.  "I don't know how to fire this," Jason
said.  "I've never shot a gun in my life."

"Me either," Chrissie echoed.

"I'll teach you everything you need to know about them later," he
said.  "I was always in favor of gun control before.  There was simply
too many goddamn weapons out on the streets.  If you'd a asked me last
week, I would of said melt down every last one of them, including
mine.  But now, this is the kind of world where you're gonna have to
learn how to shoot if you wanna stay alive.  For now, just lug em.
Sling 'em over your shoulders like I have."

They did as he asked.

"And take these too," he said, handing each of them one of the
holstered .45 pistols.  "Run the holster through your belt."

When they were all armed up and ready to go the kids took one more look
at their dead parents, tears falling from their eyes.  Chrissie had
asked Brett if they could bury them before they went but he vetoed that
idea.  There simply wasn't enough time.  And so they left them there,
lying beside the dead bikers.

"Goodbye Momma, goodbye Daddy," Chrissie said as they walked away.
Jason looked over his shoulder once, but offered no words of parting.
Both of them were sobbing as the campsite faded from view behind them.

+++++

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html>  Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations.         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+