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Message-ID: <27518asstr$974729402@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Al Steiner <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner-Ch 5 (Fm, preg) 4/5
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:10:03 -0500
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

AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner
CHAPTER 5 - PART 4/5
Send comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Missing parts can be found at www.storiesonline.net




It was Chrissie who spotted him first.  It was less than an hour before
the end of her second shift on duty and she was looking out the window
of the northwestern guard position.  Her partner for the shift - Brenda
Callahan - was chatting away behind her about how Hector had promised
her that he was going to dump Maria Sanchez pretty soon and make her,
Brenda, his new official woman.  Chrissie was hardly listening to her,
so sick was she of the whole subject.

"I don't know WHY you threatened to tell Brett if Hector came out here
to visit me," Brenda said huffily.  "Someday when you're old enough and
the men start paying attention to you, you'll understand where I'm
coming from.  You have to take it when you can get it in this world."

Chrissie ignored her, keeping her eyes trained outward.  They were dry
and sore from fatigue and she had a nasty headache forming behind
them.  It was getting so that she always felt like this towards the end
of a double shift.  It wasn't like her partners ever helped her keep an
eye out.  If she could even get them to stay awake for more than half
the shift she considered herself lucky.

She stretched a little, relieving the pain in her aching back and
sighed, knowing that when she got home after her late dinner she would
have nothing to look forward to but a cold bed and her own company.
She was still terribly hurt over what Brett had done with that bitch
Mitsy and was not sure that she could forgive him for it.  He had
cheated on her!  Though it had been nearly two weeks now since he had
admitted it to her she still could not get the betrayal out of her
head.  She did not know what to do.  Should she move out of his house
and start a new life without him?  As drastic a move as that seemed,
she sometimes thought that was the only solution.  How could she ever
trust him again?  Did he even realize how much she loved him?  But if
she let him go, would she ever find love again?  In a town with five
times as many women as men, was that really likely?  Especially when
everyone thought she was nothing more than a child?  Was she being too
petty, too judgmental just because he had given into temptation a
single time?

She sighed, her heart torn in two directions.  Should she stay or
should she go?  Should she abandon the love that she had with a man she
couldn't trust and risk living without love forever?  She didn't know,
had no precedents in her short life upon which to base such an
important decision.  And so she held in limbo, refusing to resume her
relationship with Brett as it had been but also refusing to take the
terminal step of declaring an end.  All she knew was that she was going
to have to make up her mind soon.  Brett had been giving her the room
that she needed, holding in limbo with her, but that wouldn't last, it
couldn't last.  Soon, if she didn't decide, he would undoubtedly make
the decision for her.

"So," Brenda said from behind her, derailing her train of thought, "is
Brett like a homo or what?"

"A homo?" she said, turning her eyes away from the window for a moment
to stare in astonishment.

"Well, yeah," she said.  "I mean, he's not sleeping with anybody and
I'm here to tell you, some of the best in town have tried.  The word is
that maybe he's not interested in women at all.  They think maybe that
he and your brother have a little something going.'

"You think he's sleeping with Jason?" she yelled, horrified with the
very thought.

"That's just what people are starting to think," she said defensively.
"I mean, he doesn't sleep with any of the women and he has a teenage
boy living in his house.  What do expect them to think?"

"That is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," Chrissie said.

"Hey, don't blame me.  I'm not the one that came up with this.  I'm
just telling you what I heard."

Chrissie shook her head and put her eyes back out the window.  She was
about to launch into a seething lecture about how idiotic the rumors
that passed in this town were but before she could do that, movement
outside the wall caught her eye.  She had caught just a brief glimpse
of someone flitting from one tree to another, right on the edge of the
open ground that separated the last set of hills from the concrete
wall.  "Someone's out there," she said, putting her hands on the
binoculars around her neck.

"Imagine that," Brenda said, bored.  "Another straggler."

"I don't think so," Chrissie said, trying to spot more movement.  "He
didn't move like a straggler.  He's being sneaky."

Brenda got up from the bed and walked over to the window.  She took a
quick glance outside.  "I don't see nothing," she said.  "Are you sure
you're not imagining things?"

Chrissie did not favor this with a response.  She put the binoculars to
her face and started examining the tree where she had last seen the
movement.  At first she saw nothing but bark and pine needles dripping
with water but after a moment, a face appeared from behind it.  Though
all of the people that appeared behind the wall were bearded, dirty
men, Chrissie instantly realized that she had seen this particular
bearded, dirty man before.  "I see him," she said, watching as he
peered carefully at the wall in front of him.  "He's someone I ran out
of here yesterday from post 3."

"I still don't see nothin," Brenda said from behind her.  "Why would
someone come back after you ran him off anyway?"

"Because he really wants to get in here," Chrissie said.  "Get on the
radio and tell Brett what's going on."

"Shouldn't we wait until we're sure that someone's out there?"

"Someone IS out there you idiot," she barked.  "Now get on the fucking
radio and tell Brett!"

"Now listen here," Brenda said huffily.  "I don't know who you think
you are little missy, but you will not..."

"He's moving," she yelled, watching helplessly as he suddenly broke
into a sprint towards the wall.  She dropped the binoculars from her
face and picked up the rifle.  Before she could get it to her shoulder
however, he had passed out of her line of sight, the wall itself hiding
him from view.  "Goddammit," she said, putting the rifle back down.
Now she fully understood what Brett had always said about the
vulnerabilities of the current guard positions.  Though they could see
the open ground on the other side of the wall, they could not see the
area immediately on the other side.  Now that the intruder was safely
there, he could move along the wall at will, invisible to all of the
guard positions.

"Where'd he go?" Brenda, who had finally gotten a glimpse of the man,
asked.

"He's against the wall," she said, pushing Brenda aside and picking up
the walkie-talkie.  "This is position 2," she said into it.  "Brett,
are you there?"


+++++


Brett was in the community center in the main office, going over the
roster for the upcoming night shift when the call came in.  He knew
immediately from the tone of Chrissie's voice that something unusual
was happening.  He picked up the microphone from the CB set on his
desk.  Jessica and Paul, who were both going over paperwork of their
own, also noted Chrissie's tone and looked up from what they were doing.

"Right here Chrissie," Brett said.  "What's up?"

"A man armed with a hunting rifle and a sidearm just sprinted from
cover a hundred yards west of my position.  He's now up against the
wall somewhere and I've lost visual.  I was not, repeat not able to get
a shot off at him.  He was moving too fast."

"Copy that Chrissie," he said, grabbing a map of the subdivision and
unfolding it.  He placed his finger on the approximate spot that she
was describing.  "Any idea where he is now?"

"None.  He could be moving either way.  Information only, he's the same
person that I drove off about two o'clock yesterday afternoon from
position 3."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"That is affirmative.  It's him all right."

"Okay," Brett said.  "Stand by for a minute Chrissie and keep your eye
out for him.  Position 1, Position 3, Position 4, all of you check in
right now."

This took a minute to accomplish but all of the other posts finally did
acknowledge him and affirmed that they had heard what Chrissie reported.

"Keep a sharp eye out everyone," he told them all.  "Especially you
guys at position 1.  There's a good chance he might be heading for the
gate.  Since Chrissie didn't get a shot off he might not even realize
that we know he's here."  He set the microphone down and looked at the
map again.  Paul got up from his chair and came over to look over his
shoulder.

"What do you think he's up to?" Paul asked.

"He's trying to get in obviously," Brett replied, his finger tracing
back and forth along the wall.  "Since Chrissie recognizes him from
yesterday that means he realizes we guard the place and has probably
figured there's something worth guarding in here.  He's also figured
out that we're blind to what happens directly under the wall.  That
means he has a fairly good idea of where our guard positions are.  If I
was him I would wait until dark and then scale the wall."

"The same way you got in," Paul said.

"Right," he agreed.  "Only he won't give himself up to the perimeter
patrol.  If he manages to get inside after dark then we'll have no idea
where he's at.  He'll be able to hide anywhere."

"Then we have to make sure he doesn't get in," Paul said.

"Exactly," Brett said.

"Uh... excuse me," Jessica, who had been monitoring the conversation,
broke in.

"What?" Brett asked.

"Has anyone besides Chrissie seen this person?"

"I don't know.  What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, she might be mistaken," Jessica said.  "I mean, it sounds rather
incredible that someone would try to hide against the wall like that.
And given her propensity for exaggeration, maybe..."

"I'm not even going to favor that with a response," Brett said, glaring
at her.  "If you don't have anything constructive to add, why don't you
keep your mouth shut, okay?"

"How dare you talk to me like that," she yelled.  "Maybe I should
remind you that..."

"Jessica, shut up," Paul told her.  "Give it a rest for now."

She fumed at him but did as he asked.

"What's the plan?" he asked Brett.

Brett continued to look at the map for a moment.  "We need to catch him
before it gets dark.  He must not be allowed entry into the subdivision
where we'd have to do a house by house search to track him down.
Someone's gonna have to go outside and get him."

"Who?" Paul asked.

"Me," he said.  "I'll grab one of the AK-47s out of the supply room."

"You can't go out alone," Paul told him.  "I'll grab a rifle and go
with you."

"No," Brett said.  "You stay here.  Michelle is in position 1 with
Cindy.  They have one of the M-16s up there.  I'll have her go with me."

"Why her?" Jessica asked, seemingly happy about the idea of Paul and
Brett both going out into danger.

"Because that's what she's trained to do," he said, picking up the
microphone again.  "Position 1, this is Brett.  Are you there Michelle?"

"Right here," she said.  "We haven't seen anything so far."

"Copy that. Michelle, grab the 16 and meet me at the front gate.  We're
gonna flush this fucker out.  Don't go out until I get there.  Cindy,
keep a sharp eye outside while Michelle is gone and I mean a sharp
eye.  This is the real thing."


+++++


The front gate of the complex consisted of a thirty-foot gap in the
concrete wall through which the main road of the subdivision passed.
Directly in the middle of this gap was a small structure that had once
served as a guard booth where a uniformed security officer - his salary
paid for by the homeowner's association - had controlled access to the
subdivision by raising and lowering a small railroad crossing type arm
over the roadway.  The exit lane of the road was guarded by a set of
steel spikes that would rupture the tires of any vehicle trying to
enter from that side but that would allow the safe egress from the
inside.  The front gate, which was the most likely avenue of entry by
stragglers, was watched over by the guards of position 1 during the day
and by an infrared equipped video camera at night.

Brett found Michelle, the M-16 rifle in her hands, standing just to the
side of the gate when he arrived.  She was wearing one of the black
rain slickers, complete with hood and a pair of heavy-duty boots.  Her
face was nervous but determined.

"Do we have any idea where he is?" she asked him as he trotted up to
her and put his back against the wall next to the gate.

"No," he said, patting the walkie-talkie attached to his belt.  "Other
than that he's still along the wall somewhere.  If he would've left,
one of the position guards would've seen him."

"If they're watching what's going on," she said cynically.

"Yeah," he agreed.  "If.  I'd like to think that they'd at least put
their extra-curricular activities on hold for the few minutes it takes
us to clear this asshole out of here."

"I'd like to think a lot of things," she said.  "But they don't usually
happen, do they?"

"No," he said.  "They don't.  But you work with what you got.  Are you
ready for this?"

She looked at him doubtfully, her eyes dilated in fear, her knuckles
white on the grips of the M-16.  "I don't know," she said.  "To tell
you the truth, I'm scared shitless to go out there."

"So am I," he said.  "It's never fun to go out where someone with a gun
is waiting for you.  But it's our job Michelle, so let's do it."

"Why don't you take the 16?" she suggested.  "You're better with it."

"But it's your assigned weapon," he told her.  "And it would be
insulting for me to take it away from you."

"I don't mind," she said.  "This is not like writing articles on how to
masturbate or put on make-up!  I'm not sure I'm cut out for this!"

"You are," he told her.  "And maybe you can write an article about it
later.  Now let's go."  He pointed to the gate.  "I'll clear the wall
just around the corner and you step out to cover me.  Ready?"

"Brett," she pleaded, actually trembling now.

"You'll do fine," he said.  "Remember, this is our job.  It's time to
get your cherry popped."

"My what?"

"I'll explain later," he said.  "Let's do it."

Without giving her any more time for self-doubt, he poked his head
around the corner of the concrete wall, looking at the other side.
Along the Route 63 side of the subdivision the concrete wall curved
back and forth, following the twists of the road.  This meant that only
about a hundred feet or so was visible at any given point before a
blind spot intruded.  Brett saw nothing in that first length.  "It's
clear," he told Michelle.  "Move!"

She moved, her doubts and fears pushed to the back of her mind now that
the moment was at hand.  She trotted sideways through the gate, her
feet squishing in the mud, and trained her rifle along the wall, eyes
searching for the intruder.  "Clear," she said, just loudly enough for
him to hear.

Brett then slipped around the corner, hugging the wall.  Holding the AK-
47 at the ready, he moved forward, edging out sideways so that more and
more of the wall came into view.  Michelle, as she had been taught,
edged out even further, covering his advance with the automatic weapon,
her eyes taking everything in at once.

They continued to move sideways, crossing over the highway and
squishing through the mud on the other side until all of the blind
spots along the western wall were visible.  They could now see all the
way to the point where the wall turned the corner.  There was no
straggler visible.

"Okay," Brett said.  "He's probably still on the north side somewhere.
Let's move up to the corner real carefully, keep a sharp eye on the
bend in case he comes around it."

"Right," Michelle said.  She began to move forward.

It took them almost twenty minutes to cover the distance from the front
gate to the northwest corner of the wall.  They stayed to the west side
of the road, keeping close to the rolling hills and the trees that
marked that particular approach.  As they drew closer they began to
move from tree to tree, trying to keep their bodies hidden from view.
First Michelle would move forward and then Brett would leapfrog past
her, then the cycle would repeat itself.  As such, it was Michelle that
was first in position to peer around the corner.

The northern stretch of wall was perfectly straight and she saw their
quarry immediately.  He was about a hundred and fifty yards from the
corner, crouching in the shadows, his back to the wall, his rifle held
tightly against his chest.  He had seen her last dash from one tree to
the next and he reacted to it.  He stood and turned towards her,
bringing his weapon down into firing position.

"Shit," Michelle gasped, training the M-16 on him.  She began to shoot,
squeezing the trigger in short bursts of three and four rounds apiece.
The sharp cracks of gunfire sounded off and reddish-orange flashes
exploded from the barrel.  She saw specks of concrete chip off of the
wall next to the man and she adjusted her fire, swinging just a hair to
the left.  Just as he got his own rifle into firing position, it
suddenly fell from his arms and he dropped to the ground, rolling into
a shallow gully.  He didn't move.  "He's down!" she yelled at Brett.

He leapfrogged around her and pulled himself behind a tree, looking in
the direction that she had been shooting.  It took him a moment of
searching but finally his eyes locked onto the prone man.

"He was gonna shoot at me Brett!" Michelle said, near the verge of
hysterics.  "He was pointing the rifle at me!  I swear!"

"It's okay Michelle," he said softly.

"I didn't WANT to shoot him, but he... he..."

"Michelle," he barked, a little louder this time.  "Chill out baby.
We're not done out here yet.  Let's move up and make sure he's not
playing possum."

"Move up?" she said.

"Right," he told her, his eyes never leaving the man on the ground.
"Take the lead please."

"But... but..."

"Take the lead Michelle," he said.  "Keep that 16 trained on him.  If
you see him move, shoot him again.  Let's finish our job, okay?"

She took a few deep breaths.  "Okay," she said, nodding.  "Let's move
up."

As they started to move forward, Brett took a brief moment to report
what had happened to Paul and the other guards that were monitoring the
walkie-talkies.  "We're moving along the northern wall now," he
reiterated to them, "so you guys in positions two and three hold your
fire.  If you see movement it's probably us."

They reached the man a minute later.  He was not playing possum.  He
had a series of holes in his chest and even one in his throat from the
bursts that Michelle had fired at him.  His eyes were open, unblinking,
staring upward.  His mouth was locked forever in an expression of panic.

"He's dead," Michelle whispered in awe.  "I killed him."

"You sure did," Brett agreed, bending down to take a better look.
"That was damn good shooting.  You did well."

"I've never killed anything before," she said, unable to take her eyes
from him.  "I mean... I mean..." She shook her head a little.  "I mean,
he was just alive a minute ago and now he's not."

"And he was just about to shoot at you a minute ago, wasn't he?" Brett
asked.  "And he was also trying to sneak into our town with a gun."

"Well... yeah... but..."

"But nothing," he said firmly.  "You did what you had to do, what you
signed up to do."  He stood up, turning towards her.  He took her face
in his hands and forced her to look away from the body and up at him.
She was trembling all over.  "It's okay to feel guilty about it," he
told her gently.  "It's a natural reaction among those of us that have
morals.  Just don't feel TOO guilty about it, okay?  He played the game
with us and he lost.  Too bad, so sad for him.  We get to go back to
town now, and he gets to stay here and contribute to the future
ecology.  And that's the way it SHOULD be."

"I never thought it would be like this," she said, her eyes trying to
look at the dead man again.  "So... so... fast.  It was all over in a
second."

He put his arms around her, pulling her against him.  "That's the key
phrase," he said, patting her back comfortingly.  "ALL OVER.  You
reacted just like you should have and now it's all over, right?"

"Right," she said doubtfully, letting her head fall to his shoulder.
"All over."

He held her that way for a minute, feeling her body tremble with
adrenaline overload, knowing that embracing each other in this hostile
environment outside the wall was a bad idea but doing it anyway.
Finally she calmed a little and he was able to release her.  He could
see a few drops running down her cheeks that might've been rainwater
but were probably tears.

"Sorry," she said.  "I didn't mean to freak out like that."

"As long as you do it AFTER the shooting stops and not during it, don't
sweat it.  I think we should head back in now though."

"Okay."  She gave him a weak smile.

They began to walk back the way they had come, their pace a little more
hurried.  Brett reported over the radio that the subject was dead and
that everyone could return to normal alert status.  As they reached the
surface of the highway and began to walk south along it, towards the
main gate and the safety of the subdivision, he noticed that she was
trembling even worse then she had been back at the body.

"It takes a while to get it out of your system," he said, putting his
arm around her shoulders again and pulling her against him.  "We'll get
you some dinner and you'll feel a little better."

"I don't think I could eat right now," she said, leaning into him.  "I
already feel like I'm about to lose my lunch."

"Well how about a drink first then," he suggested.  "We'll get Paul to
break loose a little whiskey ration from the supply room.  There's
nothing like a few shots to help put killing someone into perspective."

"Now that sounds like a plan I'd be happy to participate in," she said.




+++++


Meanwhile, back at the community center, dinner was in full swing and
most of the town population, oblivious to the events going on just
outside their wall, was contentedly chomping down on bowls of stew that
had been made with cans of beef and vegetables and more than twenty
packages of Top Ramen noodles.  They sopped up the juice of this soup
with pieces of freshly baked bread that had been cooked in large ovens
powered by propane piped into the kitchen area from a series of tanks
that had once stood outside every home.

Jason, his belly full, finished up and carried his dishes up to the
large cafeteria rack that stood in the corner of the gym.  Stacy was
there, just removing a fresh batch of dirty dishes so she could carry
them to the trough that was used as a sink.  His arrival there at the
same time as hers seemed like a coincidence but was not.  He had timed
it carefully in advance.

"Hi Jase," she said, flashing the smile that he had become increasingly
infatuated with.  "How was chow tonight?"

"It was bitchin," he said enthusiastically, setting his plates down.
"Did you cook it?"

"Me and Tina did," she told him.  "It's kinda hard to keep from getting
boring when you only have canned food and powders to work with, but we
try.  I'm glad you liked it."

"I did," he said, giving her his own smile.  "It was like totally the
bomb.  Really."

"So you heading out for watch now?" she asked, her hands moving plates
from the large cart to a smaller, wheeled one.

"No," he said.  "I'm off tonight."

"You get a day off?" she asked, surprised.

"Brett makes all of us take at least one day off a week.  He calls it a
mental health day."

"So he's not quite the slave driver that everyone thinks he is, huh?"

He shrugged.  "I'd actually rather be on shift tonight," he said.
"What else do I have to do anyway?"

"If you're bored," she told him teasingly, "you can always come back
and help us do dishes you know."

He thought about that for a minute.  "Okay," he finally said.

She looked at him strangely.  "I was kidding Jase," she said.  "You
don't really have to help us."

"So I can't then?" he asked, disappointed.

She looked at him as if he were insane.  "Are you trying to tell me
that you WANT to come back and help with dishes?"

"Why not?  Like I said, what else do I have to do around here?"

She shook her head a little, the way one does when one realizes they
are dealing with the mentally challenged.  "If you wanna help clean up
after these slobs," she said, "then I sure ain't gonna stop you.  Start
grabbing some dishes."

He got a crash course in Garden Hill kitchen clean-up operations over
the next two hours.  Though Tina Gillian, who had been a cafeteria
worker at the elementary school before the comet and who was the
official leader of the "culinary department" as it was called, thought
he was crazy too, she had no problem putting him to work.  The hot
water hose that normally supplied the bathtub had been run into the
kitchen area and was used to fill the trough with soapy water in which
the dishes were soaked and scrubbed.  They were then moved to another
trough full of cold, clear water from the fire engine where the soap
was rinsed off of them.  From there they were given a final rinse with
running water supplied via hose from the rain gutter before they were
neatly stacked on drying racks until the next morning.  Jason was put
on rinse detail, making him the middle of a chain of motion.

"Hey Tina," Stacy said at one point as she scrubbed the grime from a
bowl, "did you know that Brett makes the people on HIS detail take a
day off every week?  What do you say about that?"

"I say dream on," she answered.  "Until that cunt Jessica decides to
assign me a few more women to help out in here, we're both stuck
working every day."

"Like that's gonna happen," Stacy said bitterly.

"Yeah," Tina said, "because we can't have women of BREEDING working as
mere kitchen hands, can we?"

"God forbid," Stacy said.

"Even if most of them don't have any assigned jobs from day to day."

"Wait a minute," Jason said, wondering if he was hearing correctly.
"Are you saying that the two of you work in here every day, breakfast,
lunch, and dinner, and that you NEVER get a day off?"

"That's the way it is sweetie," Tina replied.

"Jessica refuses to force any of the town women onto kitchen detail,"
Stacy clarified.  "And you can imagine how many volunteers we get for
the job.  So it's just the two of us.  We're here from 4:30 every
morning to almost 7:00 every night.  We can usually get a little bit of
a break between lunch and dinner, but it ain't much."  She shrugged.
"It's our lot in life I guess."

"Yep," Tina said.  "That's what we get for being poor women in a rich
town.  We're not part of the clique so we've been turned into the
servants."

"Don't ever let anyone tell you that the old ways are dead Jason,"
Stacy added.  "Believe me, they're alive and well."

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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