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Message-ID: <28301asstr$978883804@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2001 01:45:38 EST
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 10 (FF, FFm) 1/2
Date: Sun,  7 Jan 2001 11:10:04 -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 10, Part 1/2
Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net




The soldiers that had marched on Grass Valley had been back in Auburn for
three days now.  Their mission had been a complete success in many different
ways.  First and foremost, the small Gold Country town had been fairly rich
in foodstocks.  The residents had been in possession of more than twice what
the early recon unit sent there had predicted.  The town had also had a
fairly sizable, though poorly armed, population.  After a battle of less
than thirty minutes, during which six Grass Valley residents had been
killed, the town, its will to fight destroyed, surrendered unconditionally.
The victorious 2nd and 4th platoons had returned with a total of 130 fresh
women to be bartered over and traded, and 40 additional men that could be
conscripted into the Placer County Militia as soldiers.  The captured women
had already been doled out by lottery to the men in town and had taken their
places as junior wives.  The captured men were still being held in the high
school buildings where they were being "taught" the Auburn way.  Most of
them seemed receptive to the teachings but there was still that disturbing
trend of males that would rather die then enjoy the paradise being offered
to them.  There had been four of them in the Grass Valley group so far and
there were two more that seemed unhappy and teetering on the brink.

As bountiful as the mission itself had turned out to be, perhaps the
greatest achievement had been the manner in which the platoons and their
spoils of war had returned.  Instead of marching exhausted into town, their
prisoners laden with supplies, everyone on the verge of total exhaustion,
they had DRIVEN into town in a caravan of four-wheel drive pickups and SUVs.
Though great sections of Highway 49, the main route from Auburn to Grass
Valley, had been washed away or buried, enough of the side routes had been
left intact to bypass these sections.  The going had been very rough in a
few places it was reported, and sometimes the caravan had had to swing miles
out of their way in order to find a passable route, but it had been done.
The entire group had made it all the way back utilizing roadways and
vehicles, making the trip in only eight hours instead of the nine days that
it took on foot.  The possibilities that this roadway opened up was very
exciting and Barnes was spending most of his time thinking of ways to
exploit it.

This quick return had also moved up the timetable on the Garden Hill
mission.  Since the platoons had returned more than a week early and since
they did not need the extended rest period that typically was required after
a mission, they were now, at 7:00 AM, assembled on the lawn of the High
School, undergoing final inspection before moving out.  They stood in razor
sharp lines, at brisk attention, their weapons on their shoulders, their
packs, heavily laden with food and extra ammunition, upon their backs.
There were four platoons of forty men each.  Each platoon was divided into
four squads of ten.  Each squad was equipped with two automatic weapons and
eight semi-automatic weapons in addition to shotguns, tear gas guns, and one
sniper rifle.  Colonel Barnes walked slowly up and down the lines, looking
at each soldier that he was about to send out, saying a few words to each of
them.  Finally, the inspection complete, he stood at the head of the
formation, next to Acting Captain Bracken, and addressed them as a group.

"Men," he told them, "today you embark upon yet another great mission for
this town, the greatest one yet.  You will be conquering a poorly defended,
though heavily armed, walled encampment after a march of nearly two weeks.
Now this will be the furthest that we've extended our reach to this point,
and this will also be the largest scale expedition that we've mounted.  I
know you are not equipped with as many automatic weapons as you usually are
on such a trip, nor as much personal ammunition, but the trade-off is
greater numbers.  I have seen Acting Captain Bracken's attack plans and they
are good ones.  I couldn't have done it better myself.  If the residents of
Garden Hill do not surrender peacefully and agree to join our ranks as we
hope they will do, you will easily prevail in this fight, most likely
without taking casualties.

"Before you go, let me remind you one more time of our mission.  Strength
through numbers and firepower and unity of the California region under the
laws of God and man.  God willing - and I'm sure he is - we will prevail in
this battle and all that follow and we will be in a position of strength
when civilization begins to rebuild.  Always remember that.  It is our job
to be the strongest during the rebuilding for it will be the strongest that
will reshape human society for thousands of years to come.  We are the
founding fathers men.  Take that with you, and my God bless you on your
trip.  That is all."

The men seemed heartened by this speech, liking the idea that they were
founding fathers, the conquerors of the world.  Barnes gave them a stiff
salute and dismissed them for their mission.  Bracken took over at that
point and ordered them into marching formation facing towards the east.

"Forward, MARCH!" he yelled.

In perfect step, they began to move, their weapons clanking smartly upon
their backs.


+++++



Jean Doleman and Anna Hampton watched them go from a second floor window of
one of the classrooms in the school.  Jean and Anna, both of whom were wives
of Bracken, were part of the cleaning staff for the main building.  They
were responsible for keeping the top floor of the building up to military
specifications and they spent at least ten hours of any given day mopping,
dusting, and wiping in order to accomplish this goal.  For a woman in
Auburn, this was actually considered a favorable assignment and it had been
bestowed upon them because of their husband's high rank in the militia.

"Thank god he's gone," Jean whispered softly to her co-wife.  "We're safe
for at least another three weeks."

"Yeah," Anna, the older of the two replied sourly, "but while we're safe
from his hands pawing at us he's going out to kill our only hope for
salvation."

The two women were from vastly different backgrounds.  Anna, who was
twenty-eight, had been a loan officer at the Auburn branch of the Bank of
America before the comet.  A pre-comet divorcee, she had been chosen early
in the aftermath as Bracken's wife because of her classy beauty.  Bracken
had had his eye on her since long before the collapse of civilization.  He
had been a frequent visitor to the bank and had asked her out weekly,
getting turned down just as regular as clockwork.  She had sustained her
share of beatings in the beginning before she had learned that there was no
point in resisting him.  At least he hadn't traded her to Stu or one of his
men, a fate that was the worst nightmare of any Auburn woman.

Jean, on the other hand, was not from Auburn at all.  A nineteen year old
high school dropout, she had lived in Meadow Vista, the first town the
militia had attacked in force.  In pre-comet life she had worked full time
in a small, family owned bait shop on the outskirts of town.  Her father and
mother had been down in Sacramento for the day when the comet had hit and
had died down there.  Her brother had been one of the leaders of the defense
that the Meadow Vistans had put up when the militia came to town and he had
been gunned down in the streets for his efforts.  Jean's small-town-girl
good looks and healthy breasts had attracted the leader of the invading
forces - Lieutenant Corban - and she had spent nearly three weeks as his
wife before being traded to Bracken just before the recon trip to Garden
Hill.  She could not count the number of times she had been raped and beaten
by both of her "husbands" since then.

Though Bracken had two other wives currently, neither Anna nor Jean liked or
trusted them.  Kelly, the beautiful blonde he had picked up in Colfax, had
decided long ago that the way to keep in her husband's favor was by
informing on the other wives when she observed them breaking the rules.
More than one beating had been attributed to her tattletale behaviors.  And
Sharon, another Auburn acquisition from early in the aftermath, was just
plain insane, her mind apparently broken from the strain of life these days.
Kelly spent much of her time caring for Sharon and it was only because no
one else had offered a trade for her that she was still around at all.

Jean and Anna had gotten along well with each other since the very first day
that Jean had been traded into "the family" as Bracken called it.  Anna had
been the one to explain to her on that first night, after Bracken had
"broken her in", how to best avoid future beatings and other forms of
punishment.  She had shared with her various tips on how best to get Bracken
to orgasm as quickly as possible during sexual encounters in order to get it
over with for the night ("call him "Lieutenant" while he's fucking you,"
she'd advised, "it does it every time").  She'd explained about Bracken's
fetish for suddenly sticking his penis into an anus during intercourse and
how best to avoid pain during such times ("lube yourself up with Vaseline
beforehand and don't clench down - RELAX").

As the days went by and the weeks went on the two women had grown closer and
closer to each other, sharing their secrets during moments of solitude on
work detail or when Bracken was off on a mission.  This closeness and
friendship was enhanced by the reality that there was really no one else in
town that they could confide in or get close to.  For a woman living in
Auburn, life was very much like Nazi Germany during World War II or Oceania
in Orwell's 1984.  So cowered were the women in town that there was no way
of telling who you could trust and who would inform, who had been pushed
over the edge and who still had the spark of rebellion within them.
Undoubtedly the majority of the women were miserable with their lot in life
and would be sympathetic ears to others that shared their fate.  But the men
of Auburn feared organization of any kind by the women as much as plantation
owners in the south had once feared slave organization.  It was well known
that many of the town's women had adapted the defense that Kelly had; that
of garnering favors with the men by informing on their own kind.

Anna and Jean had naturally talked of escaping from Auburn from time to
time - there was hardly a woman in town who had not thought of such a thing.
It sounded so liberating to discuss slipping out during the night and
disappearing forever, never to see Auburn or it's men again.  Like many such
fantasies, the harsh realities of the situation put a damper on it.  Five
women had tried to escape from their captivity at various times in the past
and of those five, there was only one that had possibly made it.  Two had
been captured trying to slip out past the defenses and had been hung the
next day.  Two others had made it out only to be dragged back the next
morning and hung later that afternoon.  Only Marla Brown had managed to both
get out and avoid capture by the pursuing troops.  And what had become of
Marla?  Nobody knew for sure of course but Jean remembered what it had
looked like on the march from Meadow Vista to Auburn and both of the women
heard their husband talk to others about the sights he'd seen on his
missions.  There was nothing out there to live on - nothing at all - and
there were no indications that Marla had smuggled any food out with her.
And there was nowhere for her to go where she could expect to be taken in,
nowhere until Garden Hill anyway.  As much as they wanted to believe that
she had made it to safety and was even now living in comfort and freedom,
the odds were that Marla was lying dead out there somewhere, her corpse
eaten by the scavengers that remained.

"But she COULD have made it to Garden Hill," Jean had said on more than one
occasion, the words sounding like a lie told to children.  "She COULD have."
Even Anna, who's educated mind was a little sharper than her younger
companion's, found slight comfort in these words.  The news that there was a
functioning community in Garden Hill had served to electrify many of the
town's women, especially after the first recon mission when eyewitness
accounts revealed that the community consisted mostly of women and that
these women were being used as soldiers.  Women who were packing guns and
helping defend their town were not women who were being treated as property
by the men.  Could there be hope in Garden Hill?  Could there be a new way
of life there?

Perhaps there could have been but that hope was now within two weeks or so
of being destroyed.  Though Bracken did not discuss the layout of forces in
Garden Hill with his wives he had no problem discussing these things around
them when other men were present.  Both Anna and Jean had heard many times
over that Garden Hill consisted of only about 30 men and 200 or so women and
children.  They had heard about the poor defenses being utilized to defend
themselves and they had personally seen 160 armed men heading off to take
the town.  Jean could testify in intimate detail how efficient the militia
was at what they did.  If they were going to take the town, they would take
it, more than likely without firing a shot.

"Well," Anna said now as she watched the line of soldiers disappear in the
distance, "it was a nice fantasy while it lasted.  Goodbye to Garden Hill."

"Yeah," Jean said softly.  "I only hope now that Marla didn't make it there.
Can you imagine what they'll do to her if they find her?"

"They'll make an example out of her," Anna told her, turning from the
window.  "But at least we have a few weeks without Asshole around."

"There's always that," Jean smiled, stepping closer.  She put her arms
around her co-wife, pulling her body against her.  "It'll be nice to sleep
in peace with you again, without worrying about him catching us.  All we'll
have to worry about is Kelly, and she sleeps like the dead."

"Yes," Anna agreed, smiling back, feeling her breasts touching Jean's
through their shirts.  "I have missed that while he's been home."

Though neither of the two women had ever had lesbian tendencies before the
comet, the realities of the aftermath and their mutual need of tenderness
and affection in a world where such things were rare, had driven them into
each others arms early in their relationship.  The first night had been
while Bracken had been off on his recon mission to Garden Hill.  They had
stayed up late that night doing the family laundry while Kelly and Sharon
had been sleeping and their talk had turned to masturbation.  Soon they had
found themselves touching each other and kissing.  Soon after that they had
been licking each other to orgasm.  After that first night they had been
together many times - always in secret, either late at night or during their
workday - since Bracken would have beaten them severely and probably traded
one of them had he known what was going on.  Homosexuality was strictly
forbidden in Auburn.

"I have a surprise for you tonight," Anna said to her lover as her lips
reached out to kiss her softly.

"What is it?" Jean asked, licking at the protruding tongue that slid out at
her.

"It's something I made out of that deodorant container and some nylon
straps," she told her, sucking her lower lip into her mouth.  "We'll play
with it tonight after the bitch goes to bed."

"I can't wait," Jean replied, letting her head fall back on her shoulders as
Anna slid her mouth down to her neck.

"I think you'll like it," she told her, tasting the much-loved flesh.  "But
for now, why don't we have a little warm-up?"

"Oh yes," Jean breathed, her hands dropping down to Anna's breasts.

Slowly Anna sank to her knees, so her face was right in line with the
buttons of Jean's pants.  She unbuttoned and unzipped them, pulling them
down to her ankles and revealing the white cotton panties beneath.  The
crotch of the panties was already starting to get damp.  She pulled them
down, baring the hairy bush of black hair that covered Jean's sex and
releasing the odor of musk into the air.

Since they were in the very building that served as the administration
center for Auburn and since they were committing a crime against the laws of
Auburn, they could not afford the luxury of actually removing their
clothing.  They had long since learned to live with this.  She pushed the
clothing as far down Jean's legs as possible, so they were puddled up around
her shoes.  This allowed her to bring her knees and thighs apart far enough
for Anna to put her face in there.

Jean sighed softly as Anna's tongue slipped between her wet lips and stabbed
into her body.  She let her hands fall to her hair where she began twisting
and turning her fingers in it.

Anna licked at her expertly, lapping up and down the length of her slit for
several minutes before attacking the swollen clit with lips and tongue.  She
sucked gently on the clit at first and then with more force, drawing a
leg-wobbling orgasm from her that nearly made her fall down.

And then it was Jean's turn.  She pulled her pants back up and fastened them
carefully before kneeling down before Anna and unfastening hers.  Anna's
pubic hair was dark brown and naturally sparse, her odor sharp and
excitingly biting.  Jean buried her face between those slender thighs and
went to work, her tongue probing into the depths like a small penis.  Anna's
hands played with Jean's large breasts through her sweater as she was
ministered to.  Soon the lapping and probing did its work and she was
coming, her pelvis gyrating back and forth uncontrollably, wetting her
lover's face.

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, Chrissie, Brett, and Michelle 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.  Brett 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," Brett said, stretching a little, feeling soreness in
his muscles.

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

Chrissie 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 Brett a peck on the lips.  She looked up at Michelle, 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?" Michelle asked her, making no move to share a
good morning kiss.

"Okay," she said with a shrug.

Michelle 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 (Chrissie and Brett still shutting the
door when they peed, Michelle letting everyone see her business) and then
went about their morning maintenance chores.  Brett shaved off the nine days
worth of beard from his face, having to use a pair of scissors to get the
top layer.  Michelle and Chrissie 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
Brett's bothered with makeup or fancy hairstyles.  Plain faces and simple
ponytails were enough.

"So what's the plan for the day?" Chrissie 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," Brett 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?" Chrissie said, alarmed.  "Brett, 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," Michelle 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," Brett said.

"What?"

"I'll double your salary."

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

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

"Don't ask me," Brett 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 Tina 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 Brett to counter her words, she knew that 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 Brett 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 Brett by community vote, had not one time
considered that her speech, no matter 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
Brett was responsible for it.  If Brett 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 Chrissie, Brett,
and then Michelle.  Behind them in line were Matt, 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," Matt was saying, "that we should have some sort of
formal ceremony for couples here in Garden Hill."

"Couples?" Michelle 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?" Chrissie 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," Matt 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," Chrissie said softly, mostly understanding what he had said.

"I think that's a real good idea," Brett 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," Matt 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.

Brett 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 that 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 Chrissie took her plate, the sensation became even stronger.  Chrissie
hesitated for a moment, her eyes worried.  She looked at Jessica and then at
Brett.  It was obvious that she felt something as well.  Finally, with
nothing concrete to act upon, she moved to the side, allowing Brett 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 Brett 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 that she was now executing.  It took her less
than a second to draw the .45 from her belt and turn towards Brett to fire
it, much too fast for Brett 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 Brett, 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, Brett 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 Brett 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.

Brett reached for his gun again, acting completely on instinct, but before
he could draw it Chrissie grabbed Jessica by the hair and pulled her head
downward, slamming her onto the table right into her tray of eggs.  Michelle
also acted, jumping onto her back and getting her hands around her neck,
utilizing the choke hold that Brett had shown his students during their
training.  Now, without a shot, Brett'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 Chrissie and
Michelle 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.  Brett gave it a sharp kick, sending it
spinning across the floor.

"Get her on the floor," Brett yelled as Paul, Maureen, and Matt 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.  Michelle, still trying to choke her out, went over the table with her
and landed atop her.  Brett, Chrissie, 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 Brett'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!" Brett, 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 Michelle forcibly dragged her across the room, Chrissie walking in
front of them.  She opened the far door for them and they pulled her through
it, still screaming that Brett had to die.


+++++


Two hours later Paul found Brett 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 Brett 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," Brett said, dropping the wrench that 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?"  Brett 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,"
Brett 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 200 pounds and
created a little more room.  I got room for an extra passenger now or 200
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 300 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 nav reference to Cameron Park.  What
other towns are along the 50 corridor?  Any chance that they will be
standing?"

"There's Placerville," Paul said.  "It was the biggest between Sacramento
and South Lake Tahoe but I imagine its pretty much gone.  It sat down in a
gully, right where all of the water and mud would have drained.  Keep an eye
out for El Dorado Hills though.  It was the first town in the foothills as
Highway 50 climbed out of the valley.  It was mostly an upper middle class
suburb, a little bigger than this town.  Portions of it might still be
standing."

"Sounds like a plan," Brett said, wondering just what he would do if he
found people in those towns.  Would he try to make contact?  Would he just
note their presence and then fly on?

"I just finished up my little talk with Jessica," Paul said, changing the
subject.  It had been decided shortly after the attempt on Brett's life that
Paul should be the one to question her despite Brett's greater experience at
criminal interrogation.  It didn't seem exactly kosher for the victim of the
crime to be the one performing the investigation.

"Did you?" he asked.  "And what did she have to say for herself?"

Paul shook his head a little.  "It's something that really has to be seen to
be believed," he said, lowering his voice to keep Steve from hearing.  "I
videotaped the conversation like you suggested.  If need be I'll play it at
the community meeting tonight."

"Did she confess to trying to kill me?" he asked.  "Or did she try to say it
was some sort of misunderstanding?"

"She confessed," he said.  "She told me quite plainly that she had planned
to kill you in front of the townspeople to keep you from corrupting them
even further.  She's really gone around the bend Brett.  She actually
believes that she was trying to do this town a favor.  She's not just
justifying her actions like she normally does, she really BELIEVES that.
She thought that she would kill you and then address the town and convince
them to go back to following her as their leader."

"Just like that huh?" he asked.

"Just like that," he said.  "I think that removing her from the committee
and facing her down in front of the town made something snap inside of her.
Do you remember that discussion we had a long time ago about what she would
do if her sense of worth was threatened?"

"Yes," Brett said.  "It would seem you were right."

"It would seem so.  When we took away the image of superiority she was
fomenting and put her down on the same level with everyone else, she just
couldn't take it.  She had a breakdown."

Brett frowned a little.  "Whether she's psycho or not, whether its her fault
or not, she tried to kill me.  What are we going to do about that?  We seem
to be a little short on mental health treatment centers these days."

"I'm going to recommend exile to the town at the meeting tonight," Paul
said.  "We certainly can't have her walking among us anymore and I can't see
us keeping her locked in a storage room for the rest of her life, wasting
food and manpower feeding and guarding her.  Whatever her mental issues, she
made a choice this morning and she's going to have to live with the
consequences."

It was a drastic solution, exile.  Brett knew that better than just about
anyone else.  Despite the understandably harsh feelings he had for Jessica,
he had strong misgivings about just sending her out there.  How much chance
did Jessica have out in the wilderness?  As he had said when the exile
solution was suggested for Stacy and then himself, it was little more than a
death sentence that allowed the sentencers to pretend there was no blood on
their hands.  Unfortunately, like Paul, Brett really didn't see any other
solution to the problem.  "Can we at least give her some food when we send
her out?" he asked.

Paul, who had had many of the same feelings, nodded slowly.  "I think we
could probably do that."


+++++


The mood at dinner that night was somewhat somber, the weight of the
decision to be made sitting heavily on nearly everyone.  By then the rumor
mill had already carried to every ear the proposed punishment as well as
Jessica's intended defense for her actions.  Appetites were down.  Though an
unofficial rule against leaving any food on your plate had been in effect
for some time now and though this rule was usually followed religiously,
quite a few plates came back only half-empty on this night.

It was Paul who called the meeting to order at 6:00 PM.  He flipped on his
microphone and announced that the community meeting was in progress.

"It is my wish that we did not have to conduct this meeting tonight," he
said, "because the subject of it is the expellation of one of our citizens.
Unfortunately this is something that we MUST address and that we must
address immediately.  Now I'm sure that all of you know what I'm talking
about here.  Most of you were here this morning and of those of you that
were not, I'm sure you've heard about it.  But let me make it official for
you just for the sake of the proceedings we are about to undertake.  Jessica
Blakely will stand accused of the attempted murder of Brett Adams this
morning at breakfast.  Now this is not America anymore and we don't have a
court system or a public defender or a jail.  All we have to decide the
matter with is this community meeting.  All Jessica has to help defend
herself with are her own words.  And all we have for punishment for a crime
of this magnitude is exile.  I want you all to keep those things in mind as
we go through this process and to think very carefully about your decision
before you make it.  Does everyone understand?"

There was a loud babble of voices as everyone said, in different words, that
they understood.

"Very well," Paul said.  "Then let us begin.  Please bring out the accused."

Jessica, her hands still tied behind her back, her face calm and determined,
was led through a side door by Frank Bender and Barbara Stovington, two of
the newest members of the guard detail.  A murmur swept through the crowd as
they marched her across the room and to a chair next to the podium.  She sat
down in the chair without being told and faced the townspeople, her eyes
trying to make contact with everyone.

"Jessica Blakely," Paul said formally.  "You stand accused of the attempted
murder of Brett Adams with a firearm.  This meeting will be to decide your
fate.  I will present the evidence against you to the town and then you will
have an opportunity to answer the accusations made against you.  We will
then vote on your innocence or guilt.  If you are found guilty, we will then
vote on your punishment.  I have decided that two-thirds majority must
prevail in both votes.  Do you understand all of this?"

"I understand," she said clearly, her face forming into a quivering smile.
She looked very confident in herself.

"Very well," Paul said.  "Let us begin."

It didn't take very long.  Undoubtedly if this had been civilization, the
trial would have gone on for months, but in Garden Hill in the post-comet
area, justice moved swiftly.  Brett came up and told the story about how she
had pulled a gun on him and how he, with the help of others, had managed to
wrestle it away.  Paul then played the videotape of her interrogation,
plugging it into a power cord that was tied into a DC converter on the fire
engine outside.  The crowd watched open mouthed as her taped image told
Paul, in a calm, cool, collected tone, that she had planned to kill Brett
because she saw him as a threat to the community.  She told about practicing
drawing the gun from her pants and bringing it to bear on him.  She
expressed frustration that her carefully conducted plan had not worked out.

"I might still be able to counter his influence," her image said.  "It will
be harder to do while he's still alive, I know that, but I think I can still
convince everyone where their best interests lie before its too late."

"Do you have any remorse for what you've done?" Paul's voice asked her
image.

"Just that I wasn't able to move faster," her image replied.

The crowd gasped a little at this last line, most of them starting to see
now that Jessica was certifiably nuts.  Jessica herself simply sat placidly
throughout the entire playing of the tape.  Not a single time did she react
in any way to something her recorded image said.

Paul flipped off the VCR and made a motion to one of his assistants that
they should go shut down the fire engine.  He then returned to the
microphone.  "I have no further evidence to present," he said.  "You have
heard from the man she tried to kill this morning and you have heard her say
that killing him was exactly what she intended.  Many of you actually saw
the incident in question as it took place.  Now I will give Mrs. Blakely the
opportunity to speak in her own defense if she wishes."  He turned to her.
"Jessica?  Anything you'd like to say?"

"Yes," she said, standing up and walking slowly over to the microphone,
stepping carefully since she was not able to use her hands for balance.
Frank and Barbara, the two armed guards watching her, trailed her over
there, taking up position a few feet behind her.

"I will now turn the floor over to Jessica Blakely," Paul said, stepping
away to give her room.

Her speech was rambling and nearly ten minutes in length.  It was clear that
she thought she would be able to twist the viewpoints of the townspeople
back around to her own as she had always been able to do in the past, but
this time her words served only to show the depth of her breakdown.  She
started off by rehashing all of the "values" that had been lost or were
heading out the door since the arrival of "that evil, perverted man".  She
mentioned the sanctity of plural marriage and monogamous commitment more
than ten times, using that as the anchor of her discussion.

"Not only is that man living in sin with a teenage girl and a slut at the
same time," she ranted, "but now I have witnessed him encouraging
homosexuality between the two of them.  Just last night they engaged in this
perversion right in our own bathing area!  Is this the kind of morals that
you want your children to grow up following?  Is this the kind of man that
you want leading them?"

Had she stayed with this theme she might have picked up a few converts.  But
next she began to explain how killing Brett was a perfectly justifiable
reaction to this offense against town morals.  "He has seduced you all as
surely as he has seduced that young child," she told them all.  "He has
convinced you that your morality, that the values you hold sacred just don't
matter anymore.  And you people, in a moment of fear and weakness brought on
by the violent attack upon our town, an attack that may very well have been
staged by Mr. Adams himself just for this purpose, you have begun to listen
to his words.  Well hear me now.  His way is not the way this town should
travel.  His way is the way of evil and perversion.  What kind of society
will we have here in a hundred years if we follow his teachings, if we
accept the degradation of our most cherished institutions?  What kind of
world will our grandchildren have if we turn on backs on these institutions
now?  We will have chaos and destruction!  We will have our descendants
perpetually living in SIN!  And for this, to protect these future children
and grandchildren, to protect the future of humanity itself, I acted as I
knew was correct and tried to remove this evil man from the equation."

She said much more after this, mostly retouching on points she had already
made, but that last line was what stuck in everyone's head.  Jessica was
insane and she was dangerous to everyone.

When she finally finished up and went back to her seat, a satisfied,
confidant smile upon her face, Paul stepped forward, resuming his place
before the microphone.  His expression was somewhat pained.  "You've heard
the evidence and the testimony folks," he told the town.  "Now let's vote on
guilt or innocence.  Remember that two-thirds majority must be achieved.
All who find sufficient evidence to find Jessica Blakely guilty of the crime
of attempted murder, please say aye."

The ayes were not shouted out enthusiastically by any means, but they were
shouted out.  There was no question that nearly everyone in the room said
one.  Jessica's expression, which had been confidant, suddenly turned to
shock.  "What?" she screamed.  "What are you idiots doing?"

Paul ignored her.  "More than two-thirds majority is clear," he said.
"Jessica Blakely has been found guilty of attempted murder.  The only
punishment that we can possibly have for a crime of this caliber is exile
from the community.  Now we all know what that means and I'm sure that no
one here is very happy about having to do such a thing, but there is no
other option.  We do not have a jail here, nor can we allow Jessica to walk
among us any longer.  It is my recommendation, which I make with a heavy
heart, that exile it should be.  Let us vote.

"You can't do this!"  Jessica screamed.  "You can't vote me out of this
town!"

"All in favor of permanent exile for Jessica Blakely as the punishment for
her crime, please say aye."

A subdued, but overwhelming "aye" echoed throughout the room.

"No!"  Jessica screamed, standing up.  "This is MY town!  I was president of
the homeowner's association! You can't kick me out of here!  You can't!"

Frank and Barbara quickly stepped up to push her back down in her seat.  She
twisted out of their grasp and fell to the floor with a thump.  When they
bent over to pick her back up she began thrashing and kicking at them.  "Let
me go!" she demanded.  "You can't do this!"

"Jessica Blakely," Paul said formally, ignoring the ruckus, "your fate has
been decided by the community.  You will be exiled from this community
forever.  Sentence will be carried out after breakfast tomorrow morning."

"You motherfuckers!" she screamed as Frank and Barbara finally were able to
pull her to her feet.  "I won't go!  You can't kick me out of this town!
This is MY town, do you hear me?  MY TOWN!"

They dragged her away forcibly.  She kicked, screamed, spit, and yelled all
the way.


+++++


It was close to 11:30 that night when Brett finally made his way home.  He
had been over at the maintenance shed with Steve since the community meeting
had broken up, trying to ready the water tank for transport.  Using a welder
that had been found in one of the houses, they had attached three
reinforcement straps and a large hook that could be used to support the tank
from beneath the chopper.  They had filled it with water (which weighed a
little more than jet fuel per gallon) and, with the help of Jason, who had
been hanging out with them, hoisted it into the air to check for leaks and
balance.  The balance was just a little off but not enough to worry about.
Satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get, Brett had drained it
once more and stored it in the shed.  It would receive its real test the
next day.

The house was empty as he entered it, the fireplace blaze long extinguished,
all of the lamps dark.  He lit a candle just inside the doorway and then
made his way to the bedroom, stopping at the bathroom along the way to
relieve himself.  Inside the bedroom he found Chrissie and Michelle both in
the large bed, sound asleep, Chrissie on the left side of the bed, Michelle
on the right.  He stared at them for a moment, listening to their breathing,
looking at their faces.  He smiled as he watched them, feeling contentment
for the first time since Jessica had pulled a gun on him that morning.

He undressed slowly, putting his gun on the nightstand and dropping the rest
of his clothing into the laundry hamper that they used.  Naked, he blew out
the candle and then crawled into bed between his two women.  They were both
wearing pajamas - Chrissie a long T-shirt, Michelle a flimsy nightgown - but
he enjoyed their warmth nonetheless as they both snuggled up to him from
either side.

The feel of their two bodies against him helped put his mind at ease and
soon he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.


+++++


Paul tried to feed Jessica breakfast in the morning but the moment her hands
were untied she picked up the tray and threw it at him.  He ducked just in
time to avoid having a plate of steaming eggs hit him in the head and then
he and the two guards - Chrissie and Matt - wrestled her to the ground and
put the restraints back on her.

"You're not throwing me out of this town!" she screamed as they put the rope
on her.  "You can't!"

"We can and we will," Paul said mildly.  "And if you don't want your last
hot meal, that's your problem.  Come on.  Let's go."

She had to be dragged forcefully from the room since she refused to stand on
her feet.  Wordlessly Paul and Matt grabbed her by the armpits and pulled
her down the hall and through the main entrance of the center.  Chrissie
trailed behind them carrying the backpack that they had loaded with twenty
pounds of canned food for her.  Throngs of people leaving the breakfast area
for their work assignments watched this spectacle silently, several shaking
their heads at the obvious insanity they were witnessing.

"This is MY town!" Jessica screamed as they pulled her bodily into the back
of the Dodge Ram that served as the wood gathering truck.  "MY TOWN and I
won't leave it!"

They slammed the tailgate shut once she was inside and Matt crawled in after
her.  He had to kneel down on her back to keep her from getting back up.
"Jessica, for god sakes," he told her, pushing on her legs with his hands to
keep from getting kicked, "have a little dignity why don't you?"

"Fuck you," she screamed back.  "Get off of me!  I'm not leaving this town!"

"You are," he said.  "So just accept it."

Chrissie climbed in the back of the truck to help Matt and Paul climbed in
the front.  He started the engine and pulled slowly out of the parking lot,
heading through the streets to the main gate.  Every person he passed looked
at the truck, knowing who was in it and where it was going.

Whenever the subject of exiling someone from town was discussed in Garden
Hill, the term "walking across the bridge" was used.  Indeed it had become
the euphemism for exile.  However, now that the time had come to actually do
such a thing, it had been unofficially decided that sending Jessica away in
that direction constituted cruel and unusual punishment.  There were no
towns for many miles on that side of the bridge and, as the helicopter
expedition had proven, no people except for corpses and those who fed off of
them.  So instead of turning left from the main gate, the direction that the
bridge lay in, Paul turned right, heading for Interstate 80.

They reached it three minutes later.  The onramp to the westbound lanes was
still intact and Paul utilized it, coming to a halt just at the point where
the ramp met the freeway surface.  He got out, leaving the engine idling,
and opened up the tailgate.  Chrissie and Matt got off of Jessica and pulled
her out of the truck, trying to get her to stand on her feet.

She refused to do this, slumping to the pavement while screaming
obscenities.

"Get up Jessica," Matt said impatiently, reaching down and pulling her to
her feet again.  He held her up while Chrissie untied the knots in the rope.

"Take your backpack," Paul said, trying to hand it to her.

"I'm not leaving," she said.  "You can't make me go!"

With a shrug, Matt began to drag her down the freeway.  Chrissie stepped up
and grabbed her other arm to help him.  Paul walked behind with the
backpack.  Ignoring her screams and curses, they pulled her thirty yards to
the west, until they were standing next to the large sign that Brett had put
up warning all stragglers that they were approaching a guarded area.  They
then let go of her.  This time she remained standing.

Paul tossed the backpack down at her feet.  "It's time to leave Jessica," he
told her.  "I wish it wouldn't have come to this, but it did.  You need to
go now and never come back."

"I'm coming back in," she said.  "You can't stop me from living in my own
town.  You can't and you won't."

"You stay on that side of the sign," Paul told her.  "The guards have orders
to treat you as any other straggler now.  If you set foot over the border,
they'll fire warning shots at you.  If you don't go away, they'll kill you."

"They wouldn't dare," she said defiantly.  As if to prove her point, she
stepped back across the invisible line.

"Get back," Chrissie said, pulling the .45 from her holster and pointing it
at her.  Beside her, Matt did the same.

"You wouldn't shoot me," she said, taking another step forward.

Chrissie stared at her menacingly.  "I would do it in a second after all
you've put me through since I've been here," she told her, keeping the gun
leveled on her face.  "You are no longer a citizen of this town.  Now get
back over on that side or I'll put one right between your eyes."

Jessica, despite the insanity that she was dealing with, despite her refusal
to see Chrissie as anything but a child, could plainly see that she meant
exactly what she was saying.  If she took another step into Garden Hill
territory, she would be killed as an intruder.  She stopped in her tracks.

"Now go," Chrissie said, continuing to point her gun.  "Pick up your
backpack and go."

"I don't want your fucking backpack," Jessica spat at her.

"Fine," Chrissie said.  "You can starve to death out there then.  That's
your prerogative."

Jessica stared back at the three stony faces.  "You'll all regret this," she
told them.  "I promise you that.  You will regret doing this to me."

No one said anything.  After a long moment Jessica picked up the backpack
and put it on her back.  She turned and began to walk down the Interstate.
She stopped and looked back at them once.  "You'll regret this," she
promised again, her voice shaky.  "I swear to you."  With that she began to
walk again.  Soon she was out of sight over the first rise.


+++++


As soon as he lifted off at 10:30 that morning, Brett was able to feel the
difference that the additional weight had on the chopper's handling.  He had
a squad of four people - Jason, and three of the new guards, Karen Hanglon,
Cindy Mackles and Ron Wells - the combined total of which weighed in at 684
pounds, including their weapons and packs.  This weight, combined with the
100 pound pump and the 40 pound water tank slung from the bottom, made for
nearly 300 pounds more than he had carried on his first trip, quite enough
to feel a difference.

Jason sat proudly in the passenger seat, the radio helmet atop his head, a
top-of-the-line video camera in his hands that he would use to record the
recon aspect of the mission.  The three newbies, their weapons tucked
against their bodies, were crammed uncomfortably close together in the
limited space of the cargo area.  Their discomfort was made worse by the
presence of the pump and the fifty feet of inch and a half hose that went
with it.

Brett brought the aircraft up to 2000 feet above ground level and headed off
to the west at 60 knots, following the narrow ribbon of Interstate 80
towards the town of Auburn.  To the left the canyon and its still-raging
floodwaters were clearly visible.  To the right were the smaller peaks and
valleys of the Sierras, the fringe area where the foothills became actual
mountains.  In front of them they could see that the Interstate had been
washed out in many places, either by mudslides or by floodwaters coming down
from higher up.  There were cars and even a few large trucks parked
alongside the road in several places.  They kept half an eye out for
Jessica.  The guards atop hill 4986 had reported that she'd continued
walking down Interstate 80 until she disappeared from their sight.  Brett
wondered if she was heading towards Auburn or cowering in fear somewhere
near the fringes of the detection zone.  Either way, he couldn't tell.  All
he knew for sure was that she had moved off the Interstate and into the
woods.

"It doesn't look like a vehicle could get more than five miles down the
interstate before it becomes impassable," Brett said into his mouthpiece,
his words being transmitted to Jason's earpiece.  "That's why all the people
that left in the beginning never came back.  Even if they tried, they
wouldn't have been able to get around the mud after it closed the road."

"What do you think happened to the drivers of those cars and trucks?" Jason
replied, his voice excited as he pointed the camera out the window and
filmed the passing Interstate.

Brett shrugged, reducing power just a little as the land continued to drop
below them.  "They probably followed the road until they couldn't go anymore
and then wandered off into the woods.  It's likely that most of them died
the very first night after the impact, either from mudslides or lightening
strikes.  Do you remember how it was those first few days?"

"I remember," Jason said slowly, remembering the terror of the flaming rocks
and the hurricane winds.  It had only been through blind chance that he,
Chrissie, and their parents had lived long enough to meet the biker gang.

The first town of any size that they came to was Colfax, some twenty miles
from Garden Hill.  It had once boasted a population of about 2000 and had
served as an anchor for gas stations and fast food establishments along the
Interstate.  Now it looked abandoned and dead, half of the houses washed
away or collapsed to rubble.  Brett slowed up and reduced altitude as they
came over the top of it, his sharp eyes looking for any sign of human
habitation or for anything that might be useful.

"You see anything?" he asked Jason.

"It looks empty," he replied, moving the camera this way and that.  "I can
see a few dead bodies down there but nobody alive."

"I wonder what happened to the people that lived there?" Brett said.  "There
must have been survivors.  Did they all die of starvation, or were they
killed?"

"Maybe they ran out of food and headed off towards Auburn or something,"
Jason suggested.

"Maybe," Brett said.  Feeling a vague depression at the emptiness of Colfax,
he brought the aircraft back up to altitude and put on the speed once more.

They flew on and found the same emptiness in Meadow Vista, the next town
down the line.  This time there were more corpses lying about and even from
the air it was plain that they were in advanced states of decomposition.
Brett spent less time examining that town, instead finding something very
interesting off to the north to look at.

There were railroad tracks over there, the Southern Pacific line that led
from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  These tracks roughly
paralleled the interstate (or actually, it was the other way around, the SP
line had been built decades before I-80 had even been thought of) and they
had already flown over them several times on their trip.  But now, sitting
idle upon these tracks, were the remains of a freight train.  It was sitting
in an area where the tracks climbed up the side of a heavily forested hill.
It appeared that the train had come to a stop and then had the front
two-thirds of it washed down the hill by mud.  The back third was still
sitting there on the tracks, although some trees and minor falls of mud had
come down upon it.

"Jason," he said, slowing up and turning that way, "pan over to the right.
Zoom in on those freight cars on the tracks."

"Freight cars?" Jason said, turning that way.  He looked at them through the
viewfinder.  "Do you think there's something we can use in there?"

"There might be," he said, bringing them in closer.  "You see those yellow
cars with the circular spouts on top?"  There were six of them lined up near
the center of the remaining cars.

"Yeah," Jason said, filming them.

"Those are grain carriers.  I'll bet you twenty bucks to a bucket of shit
they're full of rice or wheat from the Sacramento area."

"Really?" he asked.  "How do you know that?"

"Military training," Brett said.  "Blowing up trains used to be one of my
jobs as an Apache pilot.  I never got to actually do it, but they made sure
I knew how."

"Will the grain still be good?"

"That I don't know.  If it was kept dry it probably will still be edible, if
water got in, it'll be useless."

"Don't you think someone would have already gotten into them?" he asked
next.

"Maybe," Brett allowed, "but maybe not.  This is a pretty isolated section
of tracking.  Unless someone was in the air like we are, I'm not sure they
would have even seen these cars.  Not only that, it doesn't look like the
easiest place in the world to get to on foot.  Those mud slides in front of
and behind it would be hard to get through."

"Won't that keep us from getting to it too?" he asked.

"Not if we lower people down from the helicopter," Brett said, feeling real
excitement now.  He put the helicopter in a low hover about three hundred
yards from the train.  "And look over there, behind the grain cars," he told
Jason.  "Those are standard cargo carriers.  There could be anything in
those.  We definitely have to bring someone out to take a look.  Zoom in on
the doors of them and tell me if they're still shut."

Jason did this.  "They are," he said.

"The cargo is probably still inside then," Brett said.  "If someone would
have pilfered supplies out of there, they wouldn't have bothered to shut all
the doors again, would they?"

"No," Jason replied, catching some of the excitement, "they wouldn't."

"Pan left now," Brett said after all of the cargo carriers were filmed.
"There are about ten tanker cars there toward the rear.  I'm sure there's no
food in them but try to get a legible shot of those numbers on the sides of
them."

"What numbers?" Jason asked, looking that way.  "There's a whole bunch of
numbers on the sides."

"There should be a four-digit number stenciled in white in large numbers.
That's the Department of Transportation HAZMAT number.  Every tanker car,
whether its on a train or a truck, has to have one so that the contents can
be identified in case of a spill."

"Oh," he said, finally locating it on the first tanker.  "I got it.  It says
twelve-oh-three.  What's that?"

"I think that's gasoline," Brett said, "but I'm not sure.  Paul will have a
copy of the book that tells you all that on his fire engine.  Every
emergency vehicle with the potential to respond to a spill carries one."

Jason filmed all of the tank cars finding that all but four of them were
marked with 1203.  Behind the tank cars were two car carriers full of Toyota
4-runners.  He didn't bother filming those.  Behind this were two empty flat
cars and then three more generic cargo carriers.  "I got 'em all," he said
when he was done.

"Good lad," Brett said, taking his hand off the control long enough to give
a thumbs up.  He then pulled up and began heading off to the east again to
see what else was in store for them.  Had he passed over the ridge that the
train was stalled upon, he would have found himself flying over 160 armed
men that were heading west towards Garden Hill.  As it was however, neither
Brett nor Jason nor the three guards crammed uncomfortably in the back saw
the slightest sign of them.  Nor did the marching men on the ground see or
hear the chopper.  The ridge kept between them and the low noise output
provided by the NOTAR system saw to this.  The eyes of Garden Hill and the
military might of Auburn passed each other peacefully less than five miles
apart with neither realizing it had happened.

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