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AZ, USA
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Posted: 8/31/2007 5:09:51 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Seadra_tha_Guineapig]
OK I'm making a new post of this because I can't edit the title in the original post to reflect updates. I'm also reposting chapters 8 & 9 in case any of you missed them for the same reason.
Renaissance Chapter 1. John Wazniak woke just after dawn had broken. He hadn’t really been ready to wake but an unusual noise in the distance had triggered his sub-conscious self-preservation instinct. John had wanted to be a cop as a kid, but the need to make money had driven him to be a mechanical engineer. The sound of someone hurriedly dressing in the next room told him they had also detected the sound. It was early March, or late February, in the north Phoenix suburbs a great time of the year to live there. Phoenix had been the 5th largest city in the USA before the sickness had struck. It certainly had been an equal opportunity killer striking down young, old, black, white, rich and poor alike with impunity. Many years later the source of the sickness would be traced back to a seemingly failed bio-weapons program from the former Soviet Union that the Russian mafia had sold to Muslim terrorists. Unfortunately the virus wasn’t dead and had in fact mutated into something a little more benign but that still had a 95% mortality rate and could live outside of a host for months. The muslim terrorists had sneaked the virus across Americas southern border and released it into the water supply in order to commit the mass murder that Americans were unwilling to commit. John had been relatively lucky, he had lost Alison his wife of 19 years and his 18 year old son Alex but he still had his 15 year old son Dave. It had been 9 months since he lost his wife and son and in that time he had somewhat come to terms with their loss, if not for Dave he might have gone on to join them. John and Dave had decided to stay in the family home and make a go of things. They had lived in the house for 9 years and knew the neighborhood very well. The house was a fairly large 2 story structure at the end of a cul-de-sac. Uncharacteristically for Phoenix the sub-division was in was a veritable maze of curved streets rather than the grid structure that most of the city had been laid out on. This was in large part due to the golf course that ran through the middle of it and also that it was an older area, built when developers had had a little more pride in their work. John’s family had moved there because it was quiet and secluded whilst also being very close to shopping and other amenities. In the early days after the sickness this had been a blessing and John and Dave had taken the time to stock up on staples from the local grocery stores, having completely cleaned out the local Safeway of everything they liked. Free shopping had been fun at first but the realization that this was not a sustainable way of life came after the power went out. This had been 2 weeks after the sickness struck and refrigerated goods decayed real fast in the Phoenix summer. John liked fried eggs and Dave liked pancakes. And so they decided it would be a good idea to see if they could locate some laying chickens and have their own source. Most people think of Phoenix as being either desert scrub or concrete and steel. Both are true, however there are a number of “ranchettes” that were built in the late 50s through the late 70s. These were built on 1-2 acre parcels in what was the outskirts of town. The town grew up and around these ranchettes and most people don’t even notice them as they go about their daily business. These types of properties are typically settled by people who need or want a lot of space either for their hobbies or for home businesses. One of them near John’s house had belonged to an acquaintance of his who had raised chickens. The acquaintance was an old Polish man who had fled communist Poland in the 70s and had kept chickens all his life. He had ended up as a successful plumbing contractor but still he liked fresh eggs. John and Dave went over to the man’s house fully expecting to find him dead and to take the chickens. John didn’t consider it theft, the man was dead and the chickens soon would be too without someone to feed them. He was dead alright although his 18 year old daughter Dana was not and she was sunbathing by the family pool as John and Dave waltzed into her backyard. John’s older son had briefly dated Dana as a junior in high school and Dave had had an adolescent crush on her. Dave got quite an eye full. Dana had had no contact with anyone else, although she had once seen a pick up truck cruising the neighborhood after dark with its lights turned off. She gave them surplus eggs that she couldn’t eat and they told her where to find them in case she needed their help. Two days later the pick up truck returned and the occupants ransacked a big house on Dana’s street whilst she cowered in fear locked in her bedroom. The next morning she and her chickens arrived at John’s house and she had moved into John’s older sons room. It was Dana that john had heard rapidly getting dressed, “come on something’s in the chickens!” she shouted and she banged hard on John and Dave’s bedroom doors as she ran past them and down the stairs. The chicken coops were set up in the garden of the house next door. John had created gates in the walls between his yard and all the surrounding houses backyards. By doing this he had amalgamated a little over 5 acres that were secluded and convenient. They were by no means secure and Dana had been concerned about this when she first moved in following her encounter with the pick up truck guys. She had wanted to barricade off the entry to the cul-de-sac, John had said no preferring the concept of hiding in plain sight. So far it had worked. As Dana reached the bottom of the stairs she was already racking the slide of her shotgun. It was an older Winchester model 120 that John had salvaged from a neighbors house. It had started out life as a 28” barreled duck gun with interchangeable chokes. Now it had a 16” barrel and a sling made from a cartridge belt that was filled with half #8 shot and half 00. John was just pulling his boots on when he heard the back door slam, “shit that girl’s impatient he thought” and he shouted “Dave let’s go!” as he grabbed his 22 rifle and chased off after Dana. The 22 was an old Winchester gallery gun. It actually was his gun and he’d had it since he was 13, that and a 38 revolver that he’d kept in the glove box of his car were the only guns he had had before the sickness came. Actually that wasn’t totally true, he’d had a Ruger red label O/U shotgun that his grandfather had left him but he’d lost it when the boat he and his buddy were duck hunting from capsized. There had been a certain amount of alcohol involved and John swore off drinking and shooting after that. As John reached the bottom of the stairs Dave was just exiting his room, he was carrying a Bulgarian AK74S and he racked the slide on it as he started down the stairs, John yelled “Dave watch what the fuck you’re doing with that thing, you’re right behind me”. The warning was a little un-needed, Dave had been a member of high school JROTC rifle team and was a better shooter and safer gun handler than John was. John went through the open back door when he heard the shotgun blast, instinctively he racked the slide on his gallery gun, hoping he’d brought enough gun to the fight. Dave was right behind him and he was sure he’d brought enough gun. John ran through the gate into the next door garden but Dana had already taken care of business. “A fucking feral dog again” she spat out angrily, “John I keep telling you we’ve got to get proactive about this, we’re losing too much livestock to them.” John knew she was right but he hated shooting dogs. John was sitting down at the kitchen table, Dave had scrambled up some eggs and added some canned ham from the stock they had secured last year. He added in some chopped onions and tomatoes from the gardens they had planted and gave the plate to his dad. “Do we have any of that green Tabasco sauce left Dave?” he asked. “No I think we’re out of it” came the response. Dana came in and sat down next to John and Dave set a plate down in front of her. “What happened to the dog?” John asked, “I cut it up and fed it to the hogs” she replied. “So the morning hasn’t been a total loss then” Dave added. John was sitting down in his lazeboy contemplating the mornings events and it was still only 9 o’clock, or maybe it was 10 o’clock. Details like that didn’t seem to matter anymore. He reflected back on Dana and the way she reacted to the feral dog attack on the chickens and his thoughts drifted back to his wife. It would have been his and Alison’s 20th wedding anniversary in 2 weeks, if today actually was March 4th. John felt no sexual attraction to Dana, he really was old enough to be her father and she had dated his son. Sure she was a very pretty girl and although she had been probably 20# over weight when she came to live with them she had lost that through physical work that had honed her body into a hard yet feminine masterpiece. John saw the same strength and beauty in Dana that he had seen in Alison. Dana came and flopped down in the chair next to John. “John I’m serious, we’ve gotta nip this feral dog shit in the bud”. John looked at her “yeah I know you’re right but I just have a problem shooting dogs for no apparent reason”. “We’re not doing it for no reason, we’re doing it to stop them from killing the chickens!” Dana replied somewhat emphatically. “Look Dana we’ve managed to pretty much fly under the radar of all the MZBs out there by keeping our head down and hiding in plain sight, if we go and start exterminating all the dogs around here I think someone’s going to notice.” “What you mean because they’re not getting plagued with dog attacks any more? I don’t think anyone will consider that a problem worth investigating” Dana snipped. “No because they’ll hear the sound of all the shooting, and MZBs tend to notice shit like that!” John shouted back. John was pissed, but he was more pissed at himself than he was with Dana. Dave walked in and said in a funny and sarcastic tone “Could you adults please stop swearing before I have to go wash my own ears out with soap and water”. John and Dana both laughed, it was a needed release from the tension. “So what’s happening?” Dave enquired. “Dana wants to take care of the feral dog problem but I’m worried about it attracting the wrong kind of attention”. “How?” Dave enquired. “Well the noise of all the shooting for one” John responded. “Not even a problem Dad” Dave replied, “You know that guy over in the next cul-de-sac that you knew, the one that got Alex the internship at Inertrode? Well he had a couple of suppressors as well as all the hardcore black rifles and tons of ammo”. “OK I guess it’s time we took inventory of his stuff and see what we can do with it” said John. Dave and Dana got up early the next morning and fixed an awesome western omelet for John. “So what’s on the agenda for today?” he asked. “We got a silenced Ruger 10/22 and a brick of Remington sub-sonics and we’re going to take care of the feral dog problem. Plus we’re looking for any targets of opportunity like rabbits on the golf course” Dave replied. “So I’ll just stay here and tend the gardens and feed the chickens” John replied.”How far afield are you going” John continued, Dave replied “8 in blocks in each direction”. “OK, just watch out for any MZBs or others like us that are hiding in plain sight. In fact be especially careful of people like us.” Dave and Dana set off, actually it was more like Dana and Dave set off. Dave had more time in the woods than Dana had but she had really risen to the challenge. When John and Dave had first come across her she had been a typical spoilt daddy’s girl, obsessed with her friends, her I–pod and her I-phone. Lounging by the pool in a thong and halter top without a thought for her own safety. A brush with some low-lifes that thanks to the grace of God she had survived had been the slap into reality that she had needed. “Where do you think we should start?” Dave asked. “Well the houses are sure loaded with DEEK bodies, but the dogs can’t get at them. So maybe we should head for the grocery stores”. “Yeah but isn’t that where the MZBs are most likely to be?” “Well if they are they’ll have taken care of the feral dogs and we won’t have a problem”. “OK we’ve got to go about a mile to go, I suggest we do bounding cover at about 50 yards each. And Dave do you think you could stop staring at my ass and my tits all the time and concentrate on not letting someone shoot us?” Dave blushed pretty hard, sure he’d been rubbing one out on a daily basis fantasizing about Dana especially since there was no longer any internet porn, but shit she was pretty much every teen boys fantasy. They arrived at the point where the golf course cut across the main road through the sub-division. “Lets wait for a minute” Dana cautioned. “Sounds good” Dave replied, “I think I’ll look around for some targets of opportunity”. They both drank from the nalgene bottles in their packs and Dave glassed the golf course for anything worth shooting. He saw a nice big rabbit and nudged Dana to let her know. She was watching the rabbit when it suddenly dropped like a rock. “Wow that suppressor really is quiet” she remarked to Dave. “I didn’t shoot” he hissed back. Chapter 2 John was having a pretty decent morning. Dana had checked up on the chickens before she’d left and so John just kind of puttered around between the gardens pulling weeds here and there and watering where needed. He had also done his weekly check on the well to make sure all was good. Living without electricity was an inconvenience, living without water wasn’t living. The well was part of the golf course and it was originally used to supply water to the clubhouse, irrigate the golf course and keep the levels up in the artificial ponds. The golf course pre-dated the subdivision by about 20 years and when it had been built there was no city water in this area. John had salvaged enough PV arrays from the neighborhood to run the well pump, and had even put a solar water heater on the roof of their house. It didn’t supply as much head as city water and John had re-plumbed it so that no longer supplied the golf course, routing it into a 1” line that ran to his house. So far the set up had worked well, the PV cells charged deep cycle batteries and the pump ran through an inverter to refill the header tank. All this had been rigged with parts salvaged from the neighborhood, radio shack and home depot. Dana had actually done the plumbing work, her father had no sons and had taught her a lot, eventually she had planned to run his contracting business. Before they’d secured their water supply they had been draining all the hot water heaters in the neighborhood. Thankfully these were all located in the garages attached to the houses. John knew a lot of his neighbors and wasn’t ready to deal with their decomposing bodies. Although in reality it had been 9 months and they were probably all desiccated by now due to the heat. The heat was going to be something else he’d have to deal with come summer time. Last year they’d hooked up a salvaged generator to their house to run the A/C unit but all the gasoline had spoiled since then so they needed a plan B. Whatever they did they’d need to do it fairly soon. The easiest thing would be to convert the generator to run on propane or get a propane generator. This had been plan A and so far it hadn’t worked. Propane generators are fairly common in rural areas but not where John lived. The most sensible thing to do was to try and adapt to your surroundings, rather than making your surroundings adapt to you. Back in the pioneer days men in Phoenix packed the family off to stay in the high country for the summer. Those that couldn’t leave had simply stayed in the shade and slept in wet blankets at night. It hadn’t been as hot back then as it was now. The increase in heat was a man made event, although it didn’t have anything to do with CO2 emissions or any of the other junk science peddled by the global warming hoaxers. When people build large cities of concrete and asphalt the buildings and roads tend to absorb the heat put out by the sun. A lot of this heat is also radiated back out from these structures thereby raising the temperature of the surroundings. Scientists that have monitored the temperatures of the desert areas outside of the cities have discovered the ambient temperature in these areas has varied very little since records have been kept. The global warming hoaxers were probably aware of the thermal mass effect but since they couldn’t make any money off it they kept quiet about it. John’s house had a Mastercool evaporative cooler on it in addition to the A/C unit. Evaporative coolers work pretty well as long as the humidity is low. This is fine in Phoenix except for in July and August. He’d never used it since Alison hated the musty and somewhat fishy smell that evaporative coolers can put out. This smell is indicative of a poorly maintained unit with stagnant water rather than an inherent fault with coolers. She had grown up in Phoenix and her dad hadn’t really understood how they worked and hence hadn’t kept it running well. John had grown up in Romeo MI and had no idea how they worked either. The principal was fairly simple, water evaporates and as it changes from a liquid to a gas it required energy to do so. It extracts energy in the form of heat from the surroundings and in doing so causes a local reduction in temperature. This is basically how your body works, you sweat, it evaporates and you feel cool. So you need 2 things to make an evaporative cooler work, water and moving air. John had the water part, he just needed to supply the air. He put down the HVAC book he had been reading and started making notes, I love it when a plan comes together, he thought. Dave caught the slight movement of a laurel bush 10 yards to the right of the now dead rabbit and brought the sights of his rifle to cover the area. The rabbit was about 70 yards from him across clear cut, but now dead, grass. “Dana” he whispered ”whoever got the rabbit has to see us”. Dana had already figured this out and she’d slid herself down further into the water retention basin that they were in. The water retention basin was a depression in the grassy area about 200sq ft in area and 2 ft deep. It had a large palo verde tree in the center of it which shaded much of it. This tree was actually good concealment and had provided enough shade to hide Dave and Dana from the new owner of the rabbit until Dave had moved his gun. “How many of them do you think there are?” she asked. “Probably just one, and unarmed as well I’d bet” Dave replied. “How do you know that?” Dana asked “Do you see the rock next to the rabbit? Well that’s what killed it, and it was a pretty impressive throw”. Dave said. “You can have the rabbit mister, just don’t shoot OK?” The voice was kind of accented and didn’t sound like it was an adult. “Show yourself, come out from behind the laurel bush” Dave commanded in as grown up a voice as he could. “No, you’ll shoot me” came the response. “That sounds like a girl” said Dana and she stood up.”It’s OK honey we mean you no harm, come over here and bring the rabbit with you.” Dana’s softer tone did the trick. After more exchanged words a filthy looking dark skinned adolescent girl slowly came from behind the bush and picked up the rabbit, she looked both ways before venturing across the golf course, as if she was crossing a busy road. Dave still kept her covered with the rifle but his finger was off the trigger. The girl joined them under the tree. She was about 13 years old and had dark hair and facial features that are typical of the meztiso Indians. “Hi I’m Dana, and this is Dave”. Dana offered “Tensie” the girl replied. Dana and Tensie fell into conversation, Tensie had already seen the set up at John’s place, so much for hiding in plain sight, and Dana elaborated on their circumstances. Dana felt very warm towards Tensie, her sister Katey had been the same age. Tensie told her story. Her family had come from Durango in Mexico 4 years previously. They had emigrated legally and it had taken 7 years for the family’s visa to be approved. Tensie was an only child, her parents did not want to bring up a large family in poverty although they did plan to have more children once they were settled in America. Tensie’s parents had insisted they all speak English, they understood that it was the only way to succeed in America. They saw the prosperity that the English speaking Hispanics had and they wanted part of it too. She lived in the townhouses at the opposite end of the subdivision and had been existing on canned food from the grocery stores. She had killed the rabbit to get their attention and she had been watching them for almost 2 months before making contact. This fact worried Dana, since they had had no idea of Tensie’s existence. She made a note to seriously talk to John about this. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you before, did you go to the middle school?” Dave asked. “No I went to the catholic school” Tensie replied. “Well we were going to hunt feral dogs but I think it might be better if we took you back to meet John” said Dana. “Is he the man?” Tensie asked, then contiuned “He’s not your father, is he your…” “NO, he kind of knew my father and he’s kind of taken the place of my father though. Dave is his son” Dana replied. The 3 of them walked back to the house, “can you walk a little ahead of us please Tensie cause you smell a little ripe” said Dave. “I don’t have the water to waste on showering like you do” she countered in a matter of fact kind of way. Dana had winced when Dave had made the remark, it could easily have been considered insulting although there was no malice in his tone of voice. “Yeah we drank up all the bottled water last summer. Then we were drinking from hot water tanks before we got the well set up, we bathed in swimming pools when they still had water in them” Dave recalled. “I did the same after the stores ran out of bottled water too” said Tensie. Dana did not ask Tensie about her parents, she knew they were dead as were her’s and her sister. She had buried them all in the backyard of her home 3 days before John and Dave had shown up. The 2 mounds in John’s backyard were evident as well. It was not something any of them had talked about yet. She knew John was not over grieving for his wife and besides he looked like the kind of person who kept most of his feelings bottled up inside. Dave was his fathers son plus he couldn’t keep his eyes off her ass. Dana couldn’t blame him too much for that, he was 15 and a raging bag of hormones but it pissed her off none the less. It was a little after noon when Dana opened the gate to the backyard. The front of the house looked deserted and an old Honda Civic was in the driveway with flat tires, in fact pretty much like every other house in the cul-de-sac. There were only 2 windows on the front of the house, one in the downstairs family room and one upstairs in Dave’s bedroom. The curtains on both windows were drawn and appeared tattered, however behind them were blackout curtains and the downstairs one was boarded up. The windows looked perfectly normal until you got right up to them. They wouldn’t stop a determined intruder but would slow one down enough to give time to respond defensively. John was asleep under a tree with some notes on a piece of paper in his hand, the gate closed heavily and he woke with a start “what the f..?” he asked as he saw the 3 of them threading their way through the raised beds that was now his garden. Dana spoke “this is Tensie, she lives in the townhouses up near 43rd ave. She’s been watching us for 2 months and decided to say hi.” Dana’s tone was a little sarcastic at the last part of her sentence. John decided to let it slide for the time being. He knew Dana was concerned over their security, she was the only one who was permanently armed. Where had she gotten that Browning hi-power from anyway? John had not had the terrifying experience that Dana had had and from her reaction to it he figured there was more to the story than she was letting on. “Nice rabbit” John quipped, “I don’t see an entry wound on it. Clean it up Dave and we’ll have it for lunch. I take it you’ll be joining us for lunch Tensie? Come sit here and tell me about yourself.” John winced as her B.O. hit him like a fist. “You know what, how about a shower and some clean clothes first. Dana you must have something she can put on.” An hour later she was back and the transformation was little short of astounding. It was amazing what a shower and a clean set of clothes could accomplish. In all fairness Dana had done most of the work and it had taken her 15 minutes to comb all the knots out of Tensie’s hair. Tensie was wearing one of Dana’s old “fat” t-shirts and it hung on her like a dress. John looked her over and it looked like she had taken care of herself fairly well, she was maybe 5ft tall and 95lbs. Girls develop more quickly than boys so this was probably as big as she would get. That girl needs a sammich or 2 he thought. They were sat down for lunch consisting of a garden salad and the rabbit she’d killed earlier, to be followed by fresh fruit from one of the other gardens. “Are you going to say “Grace” Mr. John?” Tensie asked. “I don’t normally bother, but go ahead if you want to, and it’s just John Tensie. I’m not going to stand on ceremony, he never stood on me”. The last line was a joke from an 80s British sit-com, but nobody else got it. They spent the meal getting John up to speed on Tensie and it was agreed that she should come and live with them. They still had a spare bedroom and it just didn’t make sense for Tensie to live alone. As the afternoon wore on Dana asked Tensie if she had contacted any other people. She had seen but not contacted another group a couple of miles to the east. Dana asked why not and Tensie replied that she got a very bad vibe from the way they interacted with each other. They seemed to spend most of their time getting drunk and ransacking other houses. John interjected that he sure liked a glass of wine and he wasn’t above taking things from those that didn’t need them any longer. Tensie asked him if he had a big screen TV? He replied no, it has no value. Apparently the other group thought it did. This had been a couple of weeks after she started observing John’s group and she could see what would give her a better life. The sun was going down and it began to cool off. Dave took Tensie inside to get her set up with bedding for the night. They typically slept dusk to dawn since they needed all the propane for cooking, also it was not a good idea to advertise your presence by showing a light. Dave sometimes read at night with the aid of a hand cranked LED light but his bedroom had the blackout drapes so he was OK. Dana turned to John “sooner or later those low-lifes are going to run out of liquor stores and twinkies and come knocking on our front door”. “Well I don’t see why, we’ve got nothing they want” he replied. “John, we’ve got a pretty sweet set up here, I mean OK it’s not the Biltmore” she continued ”but sooner or later we’re going to cross paths and I’d rather it be on our terms and not theirs”. “What do you want to do Dana, kill them all and let God sort it out?” “Don’t be such an ass John, you know the world isn’t sunshine and lollies with rivers of chocolate there’s bad people out there that prey on others and I don’t intend to be someone elses lunch” with that she stormed off. Dave came back outside, “what was all that about?” he asked. “Oh just Dana doing her mama bear act again” John replied. “I don’t know dad, I think she’s got a point and all. Wouldn’t it be better to find out who’s out there and what their intentions are? I mean we could hook up with people like ourselves and try and establish some sort of a community” Dave was able to get the message through to John in a way Dana couldn’t. John was amazed at how the 2 of them had matured in the last 9 months, Tensie didn’t seem like a child either. “Yeah I’ll think about it some” John replied “but now it’s time for bed.” Tank woke up with his head on fire. It wasn’t actually on fire but it sure did feel like it. There was an empty plastic 1.75 liter bottle of vodka on the floor next to where he had slept and he was pretty sure that that had caused the problem. Oh man, he thought I’ve gotta stop drinking that shitty stuff. He didn’t see Slash anywhere, which was just as well. Tank thought Slash was an asshole and only stayed around him because he was able to keep the truck running. The truck was their lifeline and kept them mobile enough to scavenge although the pickings were getting slimmer. Slash had been Les Johnson’s buddy and Tank was Les’s buddy also. That didn’t mean Slash was Tank’s buddy though. Les, Tank and Slash had all survived the sickness. Unfortunately for Les someone had blown off his junk and he’d bled out. Some of the shotgun pellets had severed his femoral artery and that had been that. Neither Tank nor Slash had any idea who had done it or why, it had happened on a night very much like the last one, only the vodka had been higher quality. Chapter 3 Tensie wanted to go back to her old home and pick up her stuff and Dave said he’d like to go with her. He felt comfortable with her which was strange, since he’d always felt a little uneasy with girls his own age. He was a couple of years older than her but felt she was his peer. Maybe it was the girls maturing faster than boys thing she’d hopped the fence on the house next to John’s and had made her way to the golf course through other backyards. Dave surmised this is why they’d never seen her since she kept off the roads. The roads were all dusty and even walkers left tracks in them. They’d have to watch that if they were to continue hiding in plain site. Dana had visited the house with the guns and completely cleaned it out of everything. There were 30 guns of various different types, handguns, shotguns and rifles. The guy had been quite a collector and had about 20 50cal ammo cans full of ammo of various different calibers. He’d also had a reloading press and lots of other tools that she couldn’t identify. She also took all the books he’d had on guns and shooting, figuring knowledge was real power. It had taken her 4 trips with the wheelbarrow to move all the guns. She’d also found a lot of dried food stuffs stored in 5 gallon buckets with sealed lids. She’d ignored them at first since they were cleaned paint buckets, but it was the labels containing foodstuff and date stored information that had finally caught her eye. John was back under the tree where he’d been the day before, Dana approached him. “Whatcha doing?” she asked. “I’m figuring out how to cool the place for the summer” he replied. “How are you going to get the cooler working?” she asked, already figuring this was his idea. John explained about the PV cells he’d gotten from the red light cameras in their area and how he would basically replicate the set up he used to power the well pump. “That’s going to make life a lot more bearable” she said enthusiastically, continuing to tell him about her find of the dried foodstuffs and the haul of guns and ammo. John was happy to hear of her finds and he wondered what else would be of value in the other house. Dave and Tensie had got to her old house and Dave had rounded up a radio flyer wagon from one of the neighbors back yards. He said a silent “thanks buddy” to the imaginary former owner of the wagon. Tensie didn’t have a whole lot of stuff. She’d worn out most of her clothes in the past 9 months. She brought the remainder of them, a photo album, some Christmas tree ornaments and some thing else that looked like it was made from corncobs. On the way out of the door she stopped to retrieve a silver necklace with a crucifix and a gold wedding band on it. She put the necklace on and a tear came her eye, Dave saw her as she wiped it away. “What’s up” he asked her and the flood gates opened. Dave went to hold her to try and comfort her, but he wasn’t sure what to do. He felt all choked up as well. He knew why she was crying and he had good reason to do so and so he did. It lasted a full 5 minutes but it felt so good after it was done. “I thought boy’s weren’t supposed to cry”, Tensie said, but not in a harsh way. Dave told her why he’d cried and how much better it made him feel. He’d not cried since losing his mother and brother until know and this simple act had cleansed his soul of a lot of sadness that he’d been carrying around. They made their way back home using the streets because of the heavily laden wagon. Coming into the house they saw Dana sitting in the front room reading a book next to a large collection of rifles that were leaned against the wall. The book was a copy of “small arms of the world, 12th edition”. Dave was impressed by the collection and he told Dana so. She confirmed that they were the former property of the survivalist dude and she was trying to identify them from the book she was reading. “I guess you didn’t watch much Military channel on the cable did you?” Dave remarked. He continued “those 3 are AK47s, that one with the bipod might be an RPD but it’s most likely a semi-auto. The black one is an AR15 and it looks like it has a national match barrel and sights on it. Next to it that looks to be a FAL of some type, there were so many of those made I couldn’t even guess at what type it is. OK the bolt action rifles, that looks like a German K98K and the 4 next to it are all Lee-Enfields, looks like one each of the main variants. Hey pass me the Enfield with the scope on it, please”. She handed Dave the old rifle with the scope, it was fairly heavy but she liked the weight and balance of it. Dave checked it to make sure it wasn’t loaded and looked at the side of the receiver. Sure enough, it was a #4 mk1(T) made by Holland and Holland in 1943. “I sure hope you got a bunch of ammo for this one, it’ll really reach out and touch things. My rifle coach in ROTC had one of these, but his wasn’t in this good shape. These things are really expensive. They kick like a SOB as well”. That’s a shame thought Dana, she really liked the look of the old gun but didn’t think her 110# body would be up to the punishment. “So Dave the AR15, what do you think of that?” Dana asked. “Oh it would be perfect for you, probably just as accurate as the Enfield with nowhere near the recoil. That book there is the manual for it.” She picked up the book, it was a US Army training manual. “This says M16 Dave” she replied, “same thing” he countered. Dana took the book and the rifle to her room and studied both intently the rifle was really heavy, and after she took the butt plate off she found out why. The area inside the stock had a slab of lead in it that weighed about 3 pounds. Removing this changed the butt heavy weight bias, but made the gun a lot easier to handle. It had a 20” stainless steel barrel, national match sights and trigger. It was already clean but with the aid of the training manual she stripped it and checked it anyway. Light was fading fast so she put the rifle in her closet next to her short barrel shotgun and went downstairs to get dinner. The house had originally been all electric and this was just not feasible anymore. John had built the solar cooker to make the most use of available natural resources. It worked in the same way as a conventional slow cooker only it used focused sunlight instead of an electric heat source, it was a good way to cook casseroles or stews and only required a little forward planning. John and Dave had also built a large outdoor kitchen around a massive bar-be-que grill. The grill had sold $1995 + tax before the sickness, but they had gotten it for free. The climate in Phoenix was well suited for this arrangement. John had had a bean casserole cooking in the solar cooker all day and it was done to perfection. Dana sat down next to John and got herself a bowl full. “Where are the kids?” she asked, John found this amusing as she was only 18 herself. He told her they were pulling weeds from the lettuce beds and had already eaten. “This is pretty good” she commented, referring to the casserole. John got the impression that there was something a little more pressing beneath the surface so he flat out asked her what was the matter. Dana explained that while she was happy here she wanted to go off by herself to see if there were other people around that were living and organizing communities. John sensed she was looking for a mate and figured the best thing to do was to let her go look in the surrounding areas. Maybe she would find other people. John suggested she study the books on small unit tactics and survival and E & E that she had gotten from the survivalist and spend time practicing weapon skills before going anywhere. The next morning after she and Tensie had fed the chickens she asked Dave about a good place to shoot her AR15. He suggested she use the ciener 22lr conversion kit and take the suppressor off the 10/22 and shoot out on the golf course. They set up targets at 25, 50 and 100 yards and Dana practiced shooting from prone, kneeling and off-hand. After about 1000 rounds she was feeling pretty confident and could snap shoot a head shot easily at 50 yards. Dave had found a Buckmark in the survivalists collection and it had the barrel threaded for a suppressor. Dave figured Dana had never fired the Hi-Power she always carried and so he showed her the workings of it and suggested she practice with the Buckmark. A Buckmark and a Hi-Power use the same grips and the feel of the 2 guns in your hand is almost undistinguishable. They re-set the targets to 5, 10 and 15 yards and Dana shot at them very confidently. She had mag changes and stoppage clearing down pat after another 500 rounds. Dave showed her how a pistol could be used at longer range by shooting at a metal garbage can in the back yard of one of the houses that faced the golf course. He had to walk his shots on target but after doing so he could hit the target about 3 out of every 4 shots. The garbage can was 130 yards distant. They finished off practicing shooting at 2 opponents, double tapping to the chest and followed by a head shot for safety. Dave referred to this as “Mozambique”, she didn’t know why. Dave had chores to do so he left Dana to continue practicing. He came back to the house where John and Tensie were talking about corn. Tensie had brought some Christmas ornament from her home that her grandmother in Durango had made from cornsheaves. The corn was a type that was ideally suited to growing in their climate and it had been the staple diet of the Indians that had inhabited the southwest USA and northern Mexico. Her father had some planted in the backyard of their townhouse and John wanted to transplant them to one of his raised beds and cultivate more of a crop. Their was a sound of a lot of shots, 12 or 13 maybe then silence. Then 12 or 13 more and then silence Dave was already out the door with his AK74 heading towards the golf course where he knew the shots had come from he was hoping it was Dana doing the shooting and it was, he shouted to her but she didn’t hear him, as he came onto the green where they’d set up he saw why. There were 5 dogs either dead or dying and Dana had a series of bad bite marks along her left side. “The fucking things came out of nowhere!” she yelled, still deaf from the noise of the shooting. She had used her Hi-Power and from the looks of things had done well. “I was packing things up and had the bolt out of the AR15 to clean it when they jumped me”. Dave helped her up and they started back to the house, meeting John and Tensie on the way John picked her up and carried her, she was bleeding steadily from the wounds on her leg. When they got her home they attended to her wounds. Dave had gone back to the green and surveyed the attack scene. At least 5 dogs, coming from 2 directions by the look of things. Dana had engaged them all after being attacked and shot till slide lock, then reloaded and shot to neutralize the remainder of the threat. Dave policed up all the brass saving the 9mm for reloading at a later date. Back at the house Dana was telling the story to John. The initial attack had been frontal and Dana had seen the dogs coming, she had drawn and fired to slide lock. As she was changing mags the other 2 dogs had attacked from behind knocking her down. She had held onto the mag, loaded and engaged the 2 remaining dogs eventually killing them but not before sustaining some serious bites. John was worried, that kind of attack suggested leadership in the dogs. They had been someone’s family pets last year and it was worrying to see how quickly they’d reverted back to the wild. I guess you can never bread the wolf out of the dog he thought to himself. John had cleaned and bandaged the wounds on her leg. They looked worse than they were and they stung like mad. She had some injuries to her chest but she had Tensie clean those in private. Dave came in to where John was.”It’s OK none of them were rabid, I dumped the bodies in one of the other back yards”. “Yeah, it sounds like our Dana warrior princess put up a hell of a fight”. Dave laughed at the Dana warrior princess line. “That pack would have wiped out all our chickens”, john said, “I think you and Tensie should go out and find any others nearby and kill the all. I think you need to get Tensie as good with a gun as you got Dana, someone needs to watch your back.” “Well dad, Dana was kind of self taught, I just showed her the basics and she took it from there.” “Exactly”, John replied” girls don’t have the same ego hang ups as a lot of boys do and tend to listen to direction better.” Chapter 4 It was the end of March and Dana was in the shower, she was thoroughly cleaning herself with an anti-bacterial soap. It wasn’t as nice as the Dove body wash she used to use. it was hard getting a good lather with this soap and she missed the feel of the soapy bubbles running over her breasts and stomach. She was checking out the damage to herself. The bites on her leg and breast were scabbing over and starting to heal. She had lost quite a bit of meat in the attack and was pretty sure they would leave real scars, oh well she thought I’m probably not going to be spending much time lounging around by the pool or staring in “girls gone wild” videos in the future. She got out of the shower, dried off and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She was still sore and had a slight limp but it didn’t stop her from doing her chores. Today was thought to be Easter Sunday, according to Tensie, and Dana had an old hen that had stopped laying that was currently being prepped for dinner. “Sorry old girl, there’s no such thing as a free ride” she’d said to the hen just before she’d wrung it’s neck. John had run the cooler for the first time the day before and it had worked really well, cooling the house down to 60f instead of the 95f it was outside. John had reset the thermostat to 75f, not wanting to totally drain the batteries until absolutely necessary. He had had a good couple of days working in the garage. The survivalist had had all kinds of interesting gun related items including complete parts kits. John had looked into these and found 6 complete Sten mkII kits and also one for 1928 TSMG, but the real prize had been a Sterling L2A2. John didn’t know how much of a prize this was until he read about it in Small arms of the world, 12th edition. The Sterling is a tube gun and was designed to be built in simple workshops. It was a derivative of the Sten which was the simplest gun ever made. John had cut a length of 1.5” tube from a car muffler system and welded up the sterling. It ran like a top, it had 3 34 round mags but could also use Sten mags as well. Dave and Tensie had been out everyday since the attack on Dana and killed over 100 strays. Their most successful technique was to bait a trap with the carcass of a previous victim and then set up on the roof of a house close by and wait. One would be shooter and the other would be security. They had been switching out duties and Tensie was every bit Dave’s equal on the trigger. John was switching out propane tanks on the grill when Dave and Tensie came back from the days hunt. Dana had butchered the chicken and it was in the solar cooker with some onions, carrots and potatoes from the raised bed gardens. The bisquits would be courtesy of bisquick and a fruit salad from the orchard next door would be desert. “Hey dad, do you think we have any use for an electric cart?” asked Tensie during dinner. She had taken to calling him dad since she wasn’t comfortable with John and he wasn’t comfortable with Mr Wozniak. John replied “not a golf cart, no”, “no it’s one of those gator type carts, like a mini pick up truck” she replied. Dave expanded, explaining that they’d trailed a pack of dogs to the golf course maintenance yard and found all manner of electric vehicles. One of them still had some charge in it’s batteries but had flat tires. There was no way to inflate the tires so they had left the Gator after dispatching the dogs. John figured he could hook up some PV cells and make a charging station for the truck. He’d seen the trucks in action before the sickness and they looked to be a useful addition to their life. Dave salvaged a foot pump from one of the neighboring garages and so the next day they set off back to get the truck. John went with Dave and Tensie stayed with Dana since she still wasn’t 100%. There was an ulterior motive to this pairing, John and Dana had noticed the growing affection between Dave and Tensie and it was time for John to have “that talk” with Dave. Dana was supposed to do the same thing with Tensie, he just hoped that someone had given Dana “that talk”. John and Dave were walking the mile to the maintenance yard. John’s attitude towards security had changed dramatically following the attack on Dana, he had traded his gallery gun for a FAL from the survivalist’s arsenal and had a webbing belt with 3 extra 20 round mags. He had also taken to carrying a S&W model 29 in a shoulder holster around the gardens. Dave was carrying the AK74 side folder with 5 mags. He also had taken one of the survivalists Browning Hi-Powers and never took it off. John liked the feel of the FAL, he’d never been in the services or even done ROTC. His father had been a pacifist and had even been opposed to John’s grandfather giving him the gallery gun as a teenager. John’s mum had over ruled his objections to her fathers gift to his grand son. John had studied up on the FAL courtesy of “small arms of the world, 12th edition” and he knew it inside and out. He appreciated the technical brilliance of the guns mechanism in a way only an engineer could. Dave was on point and John was checking their six. “Dave, hey slow down a second, lets take a knee under that mesquite” said John. They sat down and John took a drink from his canteen and said “You and Tensie make a pretty good team and she’s a real hard worker. You know, I’m glad she lives with us”. “Yeah I know dad she’s a really cool girl” Dave replied. The tone in his voice made John think “oh fuck, I hope I’m not too late!” “You know Dave it’s never been easy growing up and it’s gotten a whole lot harder this last year. You’re coming up on 16 and Tensie just turned 14 last week, and I hope you guys and Dana live long enough to be able to have something like normal lives in the future. But that’s going to depend on us all being able to get some kind of a support structure in place and or hook up with some other like minded souls. The gardens are doing well and so are the chickens. We get the odd small game kill and the hogs are coming along nicely but it requires all 4 of us pulling our weight” “Well why wouldn’t we continue to do so?” Dave asked. This was not going the way John had hoped and he didn’t see any way to steer it back so he just said “look Dave, the last thing we need right now is for Tensie or Dana (he added as an afterthought) getting pregnant. And unfortunately all the equipment for that works really good at your age”. “Well you needn’t worry dad, Tensie took a chastity pledge to her grandmother 2 years ago and I don’t think Dana is interested in me”. John knew the success rate of those pledges was approaching zero. Oh well maybe I won’t have to worry about it for a couple of years he thought. They rounded the corner to the maintenance yard when suddenly Dave froze and then quickly concealed himself behind a low wall. John was about 10 yards behind and saw this. He dropped too and swept the area behind him for threats. Seeing none he whispered to Dave trying to get an idea of what was wrong. Dave beckoned him over and he took cover behind the wall as well. “Dad, I’m pretty sure we closed that gate yesterday” he said gesturing towards the gate to the maintenance yard. The gate was a welded tube type with wire meshing in between the tubes, it did not look like the kind of gate that would get blown by the wind. This could be good or bad John thought. “Dad, I think I see tire tracks in the dust by the gate”, “do you see 2 sets that overlap?” John countered. “Yes I do” replied Dave. OK thought John, this probably means one vehicle that entered and exited so whoever was here has now gone. He peered around the side of the wall and could see or hear nothing out of the ordinary. “OK let’s go, you go to the left side of the gate and I’ll take the right”. John wasn’t expecting to find anyone in the yard but he held his FAL at high ready nonetheless. Dave did likewise entering the yard just after John. They swept the yard but whoever had been here had, as John surmised, already left. Nothing seemed to be missing, so whatever it was the searchers were looking for they didn’t have. John surveyed the maintenance yard, it had been months since he’d been here, last time was to search for gasoline and there hadn’t been any. There was a large supply of grounds keeping tools that had been used to maintain the golf course. John went over to a shed and checked inside. He found a small plow and harrow along with large grass cutting rollers. He wondered if he could adapt the gator to tow them, if so he could make good use of some parts of the golf course. The only problem with this is that it would be a big sign to the outside world that something was going on. They checked the gator. The battery condition gauge barely registered. John lifted the battery compartment cover and checked the cells individually, noting those that were below 12 volts. He did the same on the other golf carts eventually finding enough that had sufficient charge to move the battery gauge past the ¼ mark. There was a walk behind roto-tiller that looked in good shape and they loaded it onto the back of the gator. “Why are we taking this dad? We don’t have any gas” Dave asked. John explained “the lower compression of the side valve engines on these types of equipment means we might be able to use old gas and if not I’m intending to try converting it to run on alcohol.” They stayed another hour, using a foot pump to inflate the tires and gathering up anything of use for back at the house. There was a lot of seed but it was probably only grass seed so they left it. The gator ran fine for the mile back to the house and they parked it in the empty garage of the house next door. John had a spare PV charger set up as a spare for either the cooler or the well pump, so he hooked it up to the gator. “I’m not sure how long this will take, or what kind of range we’ll get off a full charge, so we’d better keep a log of charge versus distance.” Dana came into the garage and looked at the gator. It was afternoon and already hot in the garage. “Nice, I always wanted a convertible truck. Couldn’t you have got one in red though?” John laughed and said “I suppose you and Tensie want to go cruise down to the mall in the gator”. “Actually I was thinking more like a trip to china-mart, we need some clothes and other feminine products. I’d like to get a couple of mountain bikes with flat-free tires and one of those tow behind baby carriers.” John looked at Dave. “It’s for hauling stuff that I need when I go out to find other survivors” she said. “When do you want to go shopping then? Are you feeling up to the trip” John asked “Yes I’ve been moving around quite well the last few days but I don’t intend venturing out alone until I’m 100%. I figure I should start to plan ahead for my trip though” replied Dana. The nearest china-mart was a little over a mile west of the house and there was another 2 miles further west of that. The closest store would probably have most of what Dana needed and it also had sold guns at one point. It was already hot outside, so they decided to go shopping the next day. If they left before sun rise they could get there in safety and be back before the heat of the day. There were a couple of other places John wanted to visit on the way as well. John woke early the next morning, it was dark outside probably at least another hour till dawn. Dana was already up having fed and watered the chickens and was now making breakfast on the grill outside. That girl must have cats eyes he thought. The day before John had had everyone put together a pack containing 2 days of food, water and ammo. This was intended to be a quick half day trip but you never knew what was around the corner. John had salvaged a large pull cart from the maintenance yard. It had a 5’ x 3’ bed with stake sides and inflatable tires. John figured it was good for at least 1000# of cargo and since the land was flat, could be hauled by 1 person fairly easily once it was going. Ten minutes later the 4 of them were sitting around the picnic table by the grill eating breakfast. There was an excited buzz in the air and everyone was ready for the outing. They set off. Dana and Dave were 50 yards ahead of John who was pulling the wagon and Tensie was bringing up the rear. Dana had her AR15 and her Hi-Power, Dave had left his AK74 at home and was instead carrying the Enfield #4 mk1 (T), he also had a Hi-Power, but his was an Inglis. John had his model 29 in a shoulder holster with his FAL on the cart and Tensie was bringing up the rear with the Sterling. John had offered to build up some of the Stens for Dave and Dana but they weren’t interested. Tensie really liked the Sterling, she could hit person sized targets in single shot easily to 100 yards and could really hose stuff down in full auto up to 25 yards. The Sterling had a neat feature in that the safety also locked the bolt open. It is dangerous to carry an open bolt sub-gun with the bolt forward and a mag inserted. If they are dropped it is possible for the bolt to travel rearward just enough to strip a round from the mag, chamber and fire it without it engaging the sear. The safety feature on the Sterling allowed it to be carried with the bolt locked back and a mag in place and ready to fire. The route was on back streets and Dave and Dana were on opposite sides of the street. This allowed them to cover each other if needed. They were using extreme caution and it had taken them almost an hour to travel the mile to china-mart. The sun had risen and they were taking cover behind a big stone sign that had once proclaimed the name of the sub-division they’d just traversed. The location gave them a great view of the front of the china-mart store. Dave was scanning the area through the 10 power scope on his Enfield. He could see the glass front doors of the store were smashed in so that meant they might not get everything on their shopping list. He continued scanning and said to Dana “it looks deserted, go tell dad someone’s already hit it and ask him if he wants to go on to the next one”. Dana low crawled over to where John and Tensie were secluded and relayed the info. He reached into his pack and took out a 36 power spotting scope and handed it to her. “Dana it’s got to be 100 yards to the front of that store and it’s all open ground with no cover or concealment. Glass the whole area, especially the surrounding houses. Look for anything out of place, anything that looks like its fortified, anything that could be a hiding place”. “Do you think there might be someone else around?” she asked. “I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t expecting the front of the store to be all smashed in. I would have opened a back door so as to keep the contents of the store secure from animals and the elements. The sort of person that just takes what they immediately need and moves on isn’t the sort that’s thinking long term and isn’t the sort I want to surprise me”. “Do you think they might be MZBs?” Dana asked, he nodded affirmative. Dana and Dave were keeping watch, the sun had moved around and was no longer reflection off the glass windows of the store. She could see someone had parked a pickup truck just inside the store. Dana recognized the pick up truck. Inside china-mart Slash had been up tweeking for 3 days. He had emptied the pharmacy of all the pseudafed and lithium batteries and cooked up a massive batch of meth. Tank hated the smell of that shit and had locked himself in the managers office at the back of the store with his good pals Johnny Walker and Jim Bean. Tank, Johnny and Jim had been going at it pretty hard the night before and Tank was sleeping off a massive drunk. Slash had ransacked through the audio section of china-mart and had found a Slayer CD. He went to play it in the truck cd player, as he opened the truck door Dana saw him through the 36 power spotting scope. The blood in her veins turned ice cold. “Mother fucker!”, she spat out. Dave had also seen Slash and he turned to her just as the sound of the music came across the street. John and Tensie heard it as well. “Give me the Enfield Dave” she said in a cold and detached manner. She was sure she could hit Slash from this range with her AR15, but she wanted to make sure she would get through the rear glass of the truck and anything else that might be in the way. A 174 grain 303 at 2600 fps would do that, a 55 grain 223 at 3100 fps might not. “Dana, what the fuck’s gotten into you?” asked Dave, this was a side of Dana he had not seen before and it scared him. “Just give me the fucking rifle Dave, me and that piece of shit have some unfinished business from last year”. Dave gulped “Dana don’t you think we should see if he’s with anyone?” “He’s with Tank, who’s probably drunk. There was another guy but I already killed him”. She took out her Hi-Power, “this was his gun”. Dana grabbed the big Enfield from Dave and hastily set up in position to fire, the crosshairs of the scope lining up on the back of Slash’s head. She did not have a good cheek weld and in her rage jerked the trigger. The rear glass and rear view mirror in Slash’s truck exploded as they met 5218ftlbs of 303 174 grain FMJBT projectile. Dana cycled the bolt on the old sniper rifle, and went to re-acquire her target but it was too late. Slash had been up for days but he still knew enough to take cover when he was being shot at. Chapter 5 Dana swept the inside of the store with the scoped rifle searching for Slash, but he was long gone. As she did John crept in behind her and Dave. “Are those the guys?” he asked her. She shook her head yes. “What guys?” asked Dave. Dana gave Dave the PG13 version of her rape ordeal that ended with her killing Les Johnson and escaping. John had heard the un-rated version when Dana had first come to him and he was ready to kill. “Well we kind of lost the element of surprise and since we need what’s inside the store we can’t just go pull a Waco on them. That means we’ve got to storm the place. Now they’re probably not expecting anyone to be around so I seriously doubt they have defensive positions in there, so if we move fast we can still retain the initiative. John motioned Tensie over to join them and briefed her on what they would do. The team was going to split in two, with Dana and Dave taking the rear of the building and John and Tensie going in through the front door. Inside the china-mart Slash was freaking out, he’d been up tweaking for 3 days and now someone had just tried to kill him. He had no idea who they were, where they were or why they wanted to kill him. He ran to the sporting goods section, he’d already seen that the guns had been removed by other salvagers but he needed some 380ACP ammo for his Lorcin. He had most of a mag in the gun but he figured a full box would help. He was half way there when automatic fire took out the remaining glass in the front of the store. “Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!” he shouted, freaking out even more. Tensie was firing 3 round bursts from the Sterling into the front of the store. John had told her to hold over about 2 feet due to the range and trajectory of the 9mm rounds and the bullets were going in at waste height. She had 3 34 round mags and intended to use one of them for suppressing fire to buy time for the others to get into position to assault the store. As she started firing Dave and Dana made their break for the rear of the store and John charged over to the west end of the front of the building. He covered the 100 yards in 16 seconds. Not bad for an old dude carrying a bunch of gear he thought. He slipped off his pack retaining the belt with the extra mags for his FAL and the S&W model 29. The sound of automatic fire had woken Tank up from his drunk and he staggered down the stairs from the managers office. He’d woken up this morning with his head on fire and his eyes too bloody to see, but he still knew those were the least of his problems. “Tank, someones fucking shooting at us!” Slash screamed frantically. “Well shoot back!” Tank replied. I’ve got to get the fuck out of here thought Tank, I’m tired of that tweaking asshole Slash anyway. Dana and Dave had arrived in the alley way behind the store and had spotted a door that had been forced open but was closed. The store had been visited by other salvagers before, people who had taken what they’d needed but intended to return. Dana was just about to open the door when it burst open in her face. The opening door cold-cocked her, knocking her flat on her ass. Tank had burst open the door and was standing in the doorway holding a Norinco coach gun. Luckily he was blinded by the sudden exposure to the bright sun light and his hangover slowed his responses just long enough for Dave to shoot him in the chest at point blank range with the Enfield. Dave tried to work the bolt of the Enfield for a follow up shot but Tank fired the coach gun. Tank was falling as he fired so only a couple of pellets caught Dave in the fleshy part of his calf, Dave was so stoked he didn’t even notice. Dana had dropped her AR15 when the door hit her and as she saw tank falling she drew her Hi-Power and shot him twice in the chest and once in the head. “Nice Mozambique” Dave remarked. They were both shaking. “Was that the guy?” he asked. “one of them” she replied. Dana took a series of deep breaths to try and compose her self and she retrieved the AR15. “OK I think we’d better get inside and help out Dad, there’s only 1 guy left and I think we can take him”. Inside the store Slash was walking towards the front of the store, holding his Lorcin gangsta style, shooting for effect and shouting “Die mother fucker die!” as he did. John could see his reflection in a mirror on one of the pillars inside the store. I’ll nail this asshole when he stops to reload he thought. Slash’s slide locked back and John was just about to step inside the store when another movement caught his eye. Oh fuck he realized there’s someone else in there. Slash had stopped to reload, he only had one mag for his Lorcin, and he had bent down behind a display cabinet for cover whilst reloading it. He had finished and was just about to get back up and shoot when he realized something was stopping him. At first he thought he’d caught his shirt on something but then he realized that it was the arrow sticking through his chest pinning him to the cabinet that was doing it. The archer that had shot him called out to John, “I mean you no harm, I have no connection with these men, I just want to go about my business”. Dana and Dave arrived just as the archer was reloading, John saw this and called out “it’s OK kids don’t shoot.” The Archer put down the bow and John came into the store with his FAL at low ready. Dana approached Slash, “do you remember me mother fucker?” she asked. Slash looked at her in disbelief. “I’d better see if I can help him” said the archer, Dana’s Hi-Power barked twice. “It’s too late, he’s dead” she said coldly. Dave stared in disbelief at her “hard fucking core” he said. Dana turned to him “he was already at death’s door, I just opened it for him”. The archer looked at Slash’s body “I could have saved him”, “no you couldn’t” replied Dana. The archer looked at Dana “Young lady, I’ve been an ER nurse in south Phoenix and flight nurse in the Air national guard for 15 years, I think I could have saved him” she said emphatically. “Not disputing your skills old woman, but he raped me and I would have killed him regardless” Dana replied kind of matter of fact. John thought it best to intervene before a major cat fight broke out. “Ladies, please. Hi my names John Wozniak, this is Dana, that’s Dave and Tensie is over by the door”. “Betsy Ross” came the reply. “Any relation to the flag lady?” asked Tensie. Betsy rolled her eyes mentally, she hated when people made that connection, “no just a coincidence, actually why don’t you call me Liz” came the reply. John couldn’t take his eyes off of Liz, she was smoking hot for a woman that had to be nearing 40. She was about the same height as Dana. She had a real woman’s figure that curved where it was supposed to but was not flabby. The shorts and tight T-shirt she was wearing really emphasized her figure. She had a pretty face and medium length dark brown hair tied back in a pony tail. John guessed she was probably of Italian heritage. Liz pulled up a chaise-lounge from the furniture department and flopped down on it. “I’ve been waiting 3 days for those assholes to leave, I’m assuming you got the other one as well?” she said. Dana shook her head affirmative. “Good they were low life pieces of white trash, this one was a meth head and the other one was always drunk. In fact I think they were both borderline with scurvy judging by their complexions and they existed on a chips and twinkie diet. Fuck ‘em, they probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.” “How did you avoid them catching you?” John asked. “Pretty simple really, like I said the one guy was always drunk and the tweaker spent all his spare time watching really nasty pornos on that big screen over there”, she motioned to the home entertainment department .”You know I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time working the night shift in the ER, but even I was shocked at what was going up people in those pornos”. “Anyway, I made a hide in the cloth bolts in the home fashions department and laid low. There was no way in hell either of them would ever go over and check out the curtains or carpet so I figured I was safe”. “You’re pretty handy with that bow, where’d you learn to shoot like that?” John complimented. Liz blushed slightly, adjusting her position on the chaise-lounge to give him what, she considered, her best side. “Oh I took up archery in high school to avoid all the asshole jock type sports and found out I liked it. I’ve been keeping in practice ever since”. John and Liz were deep in conversation, with the other reflectively listening whilst the other talked, there was an obvious chemistry. Liz had been alone since the sickness and was glad to have someone to talk to. Dave interrupted them “hey dad, I think I got tagged back in the alley way”. Dave lifted his leg to reveal a large blood stain on his pants leg. Liz took charge immediately, removing 3 #8 pellets and applying a field dressing. “Thank God for that”, Dana whispered to Tensie, “I was about to suggest they go get a hotel room” and they both giggled. “Dave, why don’t you go get a chair and sit over by the store entrance. You can rest your leg and keep a look out at the same time. Me and Tensie are going to get the stuff we originally came here for” said Dana. Dave hobbled off and the girls set to work. John and Liz resumed their conversation. Liz told John she had originally come to the china-mart to get all the Coleman white gas to use in her generator. John was surprised she still had a generator and she explained it was only used to power the well pump at her place. She had moved into an old nursery that had specialized in desert plants and had been using a small 5hp gas powered generator to run the well pump only. She had been able to grow all the fresh vegetables she needed there and had been relying on canned goods. She was concerned about long term viability of the place because of all the rabbits eating her crops. She had not been able to kill many of the rabbits due to lack of a suitable weapon. John promised her his old gallery gun and a “private lesson” on how to use it. Liz giggled and blushed again, batting her eye lids at John. There was nothing going on out on the street and Dave was getting bored. He had thoroughly scanned the whole area with the 36 power spotting scope and he was confident that no-one else was at home. He walked over to Slash’s truck. It was kind of beat to shit on the outside and the inside was full of garbage, but the tires were new and it looked like it had been looked after, at least mechanically. Dave didn’t have a license but he had driven his older brother Alex’s truck on many occasions on dirt roads when they’d been out hunting together. The truck was an early 70s full size Chevy, the most stolen vehicle in Arizona. It had this title because the “coyotes” would steal them on the way back from delivering a load of illegal aliens and take them down to Mexico. That way they got paid for both legs of the journey from Nogales to Phoenix. You got to love the free enterprise spirit of criminals, if only they’d apply it to legal occupations instead. There was no computer, it had a simple 2 barrel carburetor with points and condenser ignition. Absolutely nothing to go wrong. OK so they got shitty gas mileage but that hadn’t been a consideration in the old world. Dave turned the key and much to his surprise the engine burst into life. Chapter 6 Everyone else was surprised as well, except for Liz. Liz had seen the truck come through the front window of china-mart destroying the garden cart she was using to haul supplies in the process. Dave shut the engine down on the truck because the exhaust fumes smelt pretty bad. “Looks like we won’t have to walk home”, he said “good thing and all, since my leg hurts like hell”. The sound of the truck had jolted John and Liz out of their little love fest and John came over to Dave. “Nice wheels son, can I borrow it to go cruise Central?” “Yeah, no” Dave replied. The girls had finished shopping and came over with laden carts, Dana had a couple of high end mountain bikes, one with a baby trailer attached to it. She had filled it with the best camping gear that china-mart had. “I’m sorry Liz, looks like the white gas was all gone” she said. John checked the gas gauge on the truck, it showed ¾ full. Somehow the former owners had found a supply of gas that was still relatively useable. It had to be something fairly straightforward since neither of the guys they’d killed looked like rocket scientists. Unfortunately they’d taken their secret with them. John walked over to the automotive department and returned with a 5 gallon can and a siphon hose. “You killed one of these guys so by rights half the gas in the truck is yours” he said to Liz all business like. John was in turmoil over his feelings, he wasn’t sure he was ready to move on with a relationship even though he was wildly attracted to Liz. Liz thought his attitude a little odd considering the beautiful moments they had just shared. “I’d better find something to haul it in, since those assholes destroyed my cart” she replied. “We can drop you off if you’d like, the kids can ride in the back of the truck”, said John. Liz shook her head in agreement, maybe I should play things a little easier she thought. Liz had not had anyone before the sickness, working nights in the ER tended to ruin relationships. She’d made good money and had lots of “stuff”, but she had pretty much resigned herself to the fact that she would end up as a crazy old cat lady. They loaded up in the truck except for Dana. She decided to ride her new bike back to the house as a way to try it out. She figured she’d better be comfortable on it if she was going out on her own. It took all of 3 minutes to get to the summer winds nursery that Liz had taken over. From the road the nursery looked deserted, and it was not the kind of place that MZB types would pay any mind to. “Drive round the back”, she said to John, ”I figured the best defense is to not appear offensive.” She continued, “I had a nice condo up near Arrowhead lakes, it was convenient for the hospital and other shopping. Once the fresh food ran out I decided to try and grow my own. I had intended to turn one of the grassy areas at the condo into a garden, but nothing would grow there and after the city water ran out I had to come up with an alternative. I figured some of the older areas probably had their own water supply and I came across this place. Since it already had water and things growing I figured it would be best to move in here. The office over there makes a good enough home for one and I find I really don’t miss all the stuff I left behind. The place was already set up with the generator and I’ve been able to maintain it god so far. I know I’ll need to figure something else out eventually when the gas runs out.” “It’s getting dark, we should head home” said John. “Have Dave stay off that leg for a couple of days and change the dressing on it every day. I’d like to check on it in 3 days or so, could you guys come back here, or do you want me to come over to you?”said Liz. John thought for a moment and told her where they lived. He needed to sort out a few things in his head and 3 days would be time enough to do so. The next morning Dave and Tensie were checking and cleaning the guns from the previous day. “Dave a couple of times the gun didn’t fire when I pulled the trigger” she said “the bolt would be forward and I know it should be at the back. Then another time I went to fire a single and it fired a 3 round burst.” “Yeah I think it might be that we’re using 9mm pistol ammo in your Sterling and it might not be powerful enough.” Dave replied. Open bolt sub guns are incredibly simply devices and 99% of them operate on what’s referred to as “advanced primer ignition”. Advanced primer ignition works thus: the bolt is retracted rearwards against it’s spring and held by a sear; the trigger is pulled and the bolt is allowed to fly forwards; as it passes the magazine it strips a round off and feeds it into the chamber; just before the round is fully chambered the fixed firing pin ignites the primer and the bullet fires; the cartridge is the fully chambered and the gas pressure in the barrel blows the bolt back to be caught by the sear. The reason the cartridge is fired before the bolt is fully forward is to react the firing of the cartridge against the kinetic energy of the moving bolt and spring, rather than just reacting against the mass of the bolt and the spring. This allows use of a lighter bolt mass and spring than would be possible under normal circumstances. A good example of this is to compare the effort required to cock an old open bolt Mac 10 versus the later closed bolt Mac 10. To make this system work you need a cartridge powerful enough to blow the bolt back far enough to both strip a round from the magazine and catch on the sear. Tensie took Daves comments on face value, after all he seemed to know what he was talking about. Dave was pulling a patch through the Enfield. It used Radway Green ammo with a 1955 head stamp which was corrosive. He had put a plug in the muzzle and run boiling water down the bore first. This expanded the microscopic pores in the barrel that are a natural artifact of the manufacturing process. These cracks collected the corrosive salts that are formed when certain types of powders are used in cartridges. The British had been big on corrosive powders and short on cleaning which is why the bores on so few of their rifles had survived in pristine condition. Tensie was re-installing the bolt and recoil spring into her Sterling. “Dad said you were excellent at the china-mart, really cool and collected giving covering fire, he didn’t even know you had any problems”. She blushed slightly her father had always told her how much he loved her and praised her when she did well so she was confident in her ability but it was special when Dave praised her. Liz wasn’t having such a good time of things, she had forgotten to secure the gate to her nursery last night and a family of javelinas had gotten inside. She had been fast asleep and they had quietly eaten most of her peppers and lettuce plants. She woke up and heard them rooting aqround outside the office that was her home and she had exited out the back door with her bow. She had come across the boar who had snarled at her. She hit him with a broad head just behind his shoulder and he’d folded like a cheap tent, DRT. The rest of the family beat feet out the gate leaving the remnants of her garden behind them. Shit she thought, no fresh greens and I’m coming up on winter. It wasn’t actually winter as such. Phoenix has an unusual climate, summer is not the prime growing season. From mid June to mid August virtually nothing grows due to the extreme heat. Her current crop had been set to mature early June, but the javelinas had eaten it all. She went back into her house and returned with a sharp knife and a length of rope. She hooked the rope around the javelinas back legs and dragged him over to a patio cover. She looped the rope over an exposed beam and strung him up. Well at least I’ll eat good for a while she thought as she gutted and quartered the javelin. She was wondering what to do about the javelin entrails when her 2 kittens came over and started poking their noses in them. “Scat you two”, she called out half-heartedly. Muffins and Tibalt were 4 months old and full of energy. Liz had found them abandoned in a wash a month ago. She figured a coyote had probably eaten the rest of the family and had taken them home. They’d earned their keep by taming the local mouse population. She spent the rest of the morning preparing the javelin meat to make into jerky. She’d saved the best cuts for stew and steaks. This would be good to take over to John’s when she went to check up on Dave. She set up her solar cooker and threw in a couple of onions and tomatoes that remained after the javelinas had eaten the rest. Well, she figured, after this is gone I guess I’ve got to go back to scavenging the surrounding houses for the next couple of months. John had awoken late that morning very refreshed. He had never been a religious man but last night he’d had a dream. He and Alison were sitting in their backyard, except it wasn’t their backyard but the backyard at his parents house in Romeo. They’d been sharing a bottle of wine and Alison had said “Liz seams like a really nice person, you shouldn’t be alone.” John saw this as the sign that Alison was watching and wanted him to go on with his life. He came downstairs and saw that Dana was checking out the gear she was going to take on her trip. “Do you have an idea where you’re going to go first off?” he asked. “Well I was hoping we could talk about that, I’m really not sure what’s going to be the best way to attack this.” She replied. “Are you sure you still want to do this? I mean we were really lucky yesterday at china-mart”. “No, we won out through superior weapons and tactics”, she replied. “Dana that guy had knocked you flat on your ass and he would have killed you had Dave not shot him and Liz killed the other guy. I think we might be getting a little over confident here. You know it’s one thing going out with a team, but it’s completely different going out alone.” “John, how old were you when you left your parents home?” she asked. “Well I was 18 and I went to college in the next county”. “Right and I’m 18 as well, I think I need to spread my wings and fly. At least for a while” John thought about this and replied “well OK, I can’t stop you from going so I guess we need to figure out what’s the best plan for success.” “Thanks dad, I knew you’d understand” she replied. “No-one is going to have survived long with out an independent water supply” said John. “All the places on city water are pretty much un-inhabitable except maybe to MZB types who aren’t looking to live a sustainable life. What we need is a map showing where people lived before the city grew up around them. So we should probably visit the library and get a street map from the 1930s through the 1950s and use that as our start point. I figure the places that were inhabited then have the best chance of supporting families now.” “Why?” she asked “I mean we’re doing OK here”. “True, however we aren’t typical. Anyway those places were built and settled without a mains water supply and probably without electricity, so the houses are designed to better suit the climate here. This house was built in 1970, when all most people had was an evaporative cooler. That’s why the place is nice with just the cooler running now.” “OK, that makes sense, let’s hit the library”. She replied. “Good, since we’re going over that way let’s call in on Liz and see how she’s doing” said John. The library was a little over a mile away and they rode there on their new china-mart bikes. John had brought his gallery gun and a brick of 22s, Dana had her AR15. Dave had modified it for her, the survivalist had had a lot of spare parts, including a pre-81 DIAS, M4 upper and stock. This made the gun a lot easier for her to carry whilst on her bike. The back door to the library that John had forced open and then re-closed was still shut. He opened it and they went inside to the reference section. The reference section had copies of old maps showing how the city had grown over the years and in particular the area of the city they were in. Dana was looking at one from 1929. “Hey this whole area was orange groves, I never knew that” she said.”When I first moved here there were a lot of orange groves, the hospital Dave was born in was in the middle of them” replied John. The next map she found was from 1940, the orange groves were still there but there were more houses shown around them. John looked at the map, “that’s probably about as new as you want to go” he said. She took the map, re-folded it and put it in her pack. They were readying to go and John turned to put the older map back on the shelf. As he did something moving outside the window caught his eye. In a very fluid and practiced move he drew and cocked the model 29 from his shoulder holster, holding it in a Weaver grip. Dana saw and pulled her M4 up to low ready, flicking off the safety with her thumb. “What is it?” she hissed at him. “I saw something move out there, I don’t know what it was. OK we’d better find a different way out of here in case they saw us enter.” “Do you think it’s a person, MZB?” she replied. “I have no idea who or what it is, I’m going to go out through that emergency exit over there and you go out through the opposite one. We’ll both make our way back to the bikes.” John felt a little under armed with only the Model 29, he had left the gallery gun on the bike and he now realized what a stupid move that was, he had potentially armed who/what ever they now faced. He opened the door and exited as quietly as he could. Looking right and left he saw nothing, however the brush was pretty thick and it didn’t make him feel any more comfortable. He started towards the bike, his heart racing. This was not a good feeling for him and he wished he’d stayed with Dana, there was a strength in numbers and he wasn’t feeling it right now. A roar and burst of automatic fire from the other side of the building just made things worse. Dana had exited the building just as the bush in front of her moved, she had seen something big and white and reflexively un-loaded onto it. She was sure she had hit something when John almost knocked her over as he came running around the side of the library. “What is it, what did you see?” He asked frantically. “A tiger, a great big fucking tiger” she screamed hysterically. “Next time you go out this fucking door, cause I don’t need this fucking kind of shit! Fuck all I want to do is find some guy to settle down with and I almost get eaten by a fucking tiger”. John pondered at the settling down with a guy part but didn’t want to interrupt her rant. Dana had dropped her M4 and was pacing back and forth with cursing really loudly “Jesus fucking Christ, I just don’t fucking believe this.” She took off her shirt and threw it down on the floor. “All the shit I’ve been through this last year and I almost get eaten by a fucking tiger!” “Dana, Dana honey you’ve got to calm down and focus. Did you kill it, how many times do you think you hit it?” John said in his calmest most rational voice. What he really wanted to say was where the fuck did a fucking tiger come from, but he figured one freaking out person was enough. Dana was hyper-ventilating and was anything but calm so John walked over to her and slapped her across the face. It wasn’t too hard but it was enough to shock her out of it. She shook her head “thanks I guess” she said. “Sorry Dana, I had to do that. Now lets go find this thing and make sure it’s dead”. They tracked it through the brush. It wasn’t hard as the animal had just plowed through everything in its path leaving a pretty good blood trail in it’s wake. They found it on the far side of a wash. It was still alive. John was about 15 yards from it and had his big S&W trained on it, wounded big game animals are the most dangerous and he was not about to be this ones lunch. “A white tiger, I do believe I’ve fucking seen everything now” he said to her. “This one must have escaped from that zoo that’s west of Peoria. Goodnight kitty” he said as the big Smith barked once. A 240 grain JHP destroyed the big cats brain and it was dead. “This is a female, they normally do the hunting. I sure hope there aren’t anymore around. We’d better be leaving I think” he said to Dana. “Yeah, lets go” she agreed. Neither said it but they both felt uneasy about not being on top of the food chain, even if it was only temporary.. |
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PA, USA
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Posted: 9/1/2007 1:01:32 AM EDT
[#1]
okay that was a good three chapters.a bit rushed it seemed and had some errors in there but it keeps the story going. i want to find out what ultimately happens to dana and the others.
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Posted: 9/1/2007 1:48:30 PM EDT
[#2]
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Posted: 9/4/2007 10:12:12 AM EDT
[#3]
ost
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FL, USA
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Posted: 9/4/2007 10:39:19 AM EDT
[Last Edit: KBL]
[#4]
I like the theme of the celebration. "To the angel of death, Dana"...nice touch...
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Posted: 9/5/2007 7:08:07 AM EDT
[#5]
Another good chapter. Keep it up.
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Posted: 9/5/2007 11:13:42 PM EDT
[#6]
Outstanding.
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MO, USA
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Posted: 9/6/2007 7:22:08 AM EDT
[#7]
Great! Keep up the good work.
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/8/2007 8:22:18 AM EDT
[Last Edit: Seadra_tha_Guineapig]
[#8]
Chapter 7 John and Dana got to Liz’s just as the Javelina stew was coming to temperature. They’d approached the nursery cautiously and had called out a welcome first. John had seen how good Liz was with her bow and had no intention of being on the wrong end of a friendly fire exchange with her. Liz was pleased to see them and they all examined the damage that the Javelinas had caused. John offered Liz a share in there fresh produce in exchange for her help in the gardens at Johns place and she accepted. John told Liz about their encounter with the tiger and they checked around the perimeter of the nursery for any signs of big cats. The tiger had been able to get to the library up the Skunk creek wash. This provided it with the cover to move around the city in comfort, but there was nothing like that where Liz lived. After some discussion on the issue they all felt Liz was safe from the likelihood of a tiger attack, if there were even any more tigers around. John wanted to check out her well to see how easily he could convert it over to solar power. While he was doing this Dana showed Liz the proper care and feeding of the gallery gun. Liz took to it like a duck to water. She was easily hitting rabbit sized targets on the far side of the nursery. The well pump was similar to John’s and he felt he could easily convert it to run on solar power. They all hung out for a couple of hours, it was the heat of the day and the temperature was well over 100f. Liz’s house was a trailer that had an additional shade over it’s roof, kind of like a rain fly on a tent. This extra shade helped by reflecting heat off the roof. The trailer had an evaporative cooler as well but it was not working due to lack of power. John knew how to fix that and already knew where to get the parts. Discussions turned to Danas journey. Liz agreed that the plan to check out the older areas was a sound strategy, although she doubted there were any other people still living in the area. Dana had decided to leave as soon as possible and to stay out for no longer than 10 days. She had decided on a sweep that would take her first out to the west side of the city and then north, finally returning eastwards. She planned on writing a diary each day telling of her findings and would leave a copy of it buried under a cairn of rocks at the intersection of a major cross street. In the event that she was delayed or injured this would give John somewhere to start looking for her. Liz’s Javelina stew was terrific. The nursery had had a lot of herbs and peppers growing in it which Liz had put to good use. Wow, this woman can really cook thought John. Liz was well aware that the real way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She also knew that showing up naked and bringing beer was a good plan as well. She’d used the latter one quite a bit in the past although it’s long term effects weren’t a successful as the former. It was getting dark and John thought it advisable that they leave. The next morning Dana rose early. She showered and dressed in a desert camo BDU pants, T-shirt and a boonie hat. This was all courtesy of the dead survivalist guy. As usual she strapped on her Hi-Power. She was also taking her M4,the SBS and silenced buckmark. Dave had cooked up a large breakfast and they all ate in silence, Tensie looked close to tears but she realized that this was something Dana was determined to do. They said their goodbyes and she left. She was heading for the Hedgepath hills as her first stop, it was about 10 miles distant and would be a fairly easy ride she thought. She planned to stay on the side streets except to check out any grocery stores and water ‘n’ ice places for re-supply. She was carrying 5 gallons of water and 3 weeks worth of MREs in her trailer. Food wasn’t a problem but she would definitely need re-supply of water in 2 days. Plan A was to hit the grocery stores and water ’n’ ice places first and then empty hot water heaters and filter the contents. It took her 3 hours to get to her destination. Towing a trailer with almost 200# of gear was not an easy task. Dana found a nice house to use as a base and stowed her bike and trailer in the garage. She had a good rest and chowed down on some of Liz’s Javelina jerky. The plan was to climb to the top of the hill and survey the area. The hill was approximately 500’ higher than the rest of the area and with Johns 36 power spotting scope she hoped to be able to get a good handle on what was happening. It was mid-morning and she decided now was the time to climb. She took with her the scope, a camo tarp and her M4. It took about a half hour to get to the top and it was hard work. She set up on the south side of the hill first, figuring this side would be too hot later on. She found a nice spot and got comfortable. After about 2 hours of scanning it seemed that there were no signs of life. She’d spotted a few places that had been working farms in the past but no one was home now. She was able to identify some of them on her map and figured she would inventory them in the next few days. The north side was a little more interesting. About ¼ mile along the hills and slightly lower was a big water storage tank. It was probably about 200’ in diameter, definitely worth a closer look she thought. Again the north side provided no signs of life, Dana was a little despondent. It was hot up here she thought, she had a good drink of water and adjusted her shade to counter the movement of the sun. it was mid afternoon and she decided to go check out the water storage tank and see if it was any cooler over here. The water storage tank was surrounded by a high chain link fence and the gates were firmly padlocked shut. She took out her Bulgarian AK74 bayonet and used the wire cutter on it to cut the chain link. She cut one strand top and bottom and then pulled it out, in effect un-zipping the fence. Her dad had told her about anti-siphon features on toilets and she wondered if this storage tank had such a feature. If it did it could mean they had years worth of water in storage. It might not be drinkable any longer but it would be good for growing crops. She broke a window to get access to the control room. As she expected everything was controlled electronically, although there did appear to be manual over-rides on the main valves. She went back outside and saw what looked like a sampling valve on the side of the tank. This would let her see if there was water in the tank and to see what the quality of the water was like. The valve was a 4” diameter gate type valve. She was familiar with the type and knew it would flow a huge amount of water, luckily it could also be opened to small increments and flow small quantities. She cracked the valve and about 5 gallons dumped out. It ran down the concrete pathway and collected in a rock depression forming a natural basin. The water was nice and cool, being about 30f cooler than the ambient of about 105f. Dana threw her boonie hat into the basin and let it get saturated, then she put it on and it felt good. It felt so good she went and opened the valve again, filling the basin to a depth of about 3’. Then she stripped her clothes off and lay down in the coolness of it. It felt wonderful, she’d spent all day on the hilltop being baked by the sun and looking for signs of life that didn’t exist. But this felt nice. She washed out her underwear and draped them on a rock to dry. Then she lay floating in the basin for about 30 minutes feeling the water gradually warming up, or was she just getting used to the coolness of it. The sun had gone down on her side of the hill and she got out of the water. The evaporation of the water off her skin cooled her down even more. She wandered around naked for a couple of minutes until she was dry and then put her clothes back on. Time to get back to the house she figured. It wasn’t quite as bad going back down the hill as it had been coming up it. She got back to the house as dusk was falling. After eating MRE she went to sleep in a bedroom on the second floor. She slept soundly until a drumming sound woke her up. WTF, she thought, it never rains this time of year. Sure enough though she could smell the familiar smell of creosote bushes that accompanied every rain storm. The rain lasted for about an hour and dropped about2 inches on the dry ground. Phoenix gets its average 7 inches of rain mostly split between January/February and July/August evenly. Sometimes there is rainfall in October, but it is sporadic. Weather forecasting is not an exact science and mother nature frequently does whatever she feels like. This was one of those days. It had rained a lot harder north west of where Dana was and the water sheds were already filling up the washes that drained down to this area of town. Rainwater drainage is not thought of as a high priority in Phoenix since it seldom rains. Developers were supposed to put in adequate drainage to the sub-divisions that were springing up all over town. The area was experiencing a drought that had lasted 8 years so the developers had been cutting a lot of corners on flood retention and storm water drainage and the local government had given them a pass on it no doubt thanks to lobbyists “assisting” them on their re-election campaigns. Everyone remembered the two back to back “500 year floods” of 1994-95 and figured they were safe for another 488 years. They were wrong of course, the only saving grace was that the corrupt politicians that had taken the “campaign contributions” from the developers were already dead. Dana got up and had a light breakfast as the last of the rain was falling. She was sitting downstairs in the kitchen area with the large arcadia door to the backyard open. It was nice and cool although a little humid. The plan for today was to head 5 miles due west and inventory the farms she had seen from the hill top the previous day. She made a note of this and detailed her findings in a note for John. Before leaving she filled one of her empty gallon containers with water from the houses hot water heater. This was just in case she didn’t find anything better, it was drinkable if filtered it just tasted odd. Dana set out on her bike towing the trailer. She had travelled almost 4 miles when she came to the big wash near Campbell Mercantile and it was in full flow. Shit she thought, there’s no getting across this for a while. Dana was a Phoenix native and was well aware that you never ever, under any circumstances enter a flowing wash. Every year without fail, usually during the winter rains, some idiot snowbird from Minnesota or New York City in a rental car would try to cross a flowing wash. The outcome of this was invariably the same, helicopter dispatched to pluck stranded person from the roof of the car about ¼ mile down stream. In between taking bribes and generally making asses of themselves, the state legislature actually did something right. In 1993 they passed what was referred to as the “stupid motorist law”. In contrast with laws that are named for someone, which are usually knee-jerk emotional outbursts, this one was actually chock full of common sense. It stated that if you were foolish enough to enter a flooded wash then you were responsible for the costs incurred in rescuing you Well when life hands you a bunch of lemons the best thing to do is make lemonade thought Dana. This area was very like where she lived, so she decided to check out the houses for any good salvage. There were lots of RVs, quads and sand rails but nothing of any real use. She’d gotten six propane cylinders though and they were worth something. One of the houses had a 500 gallon tank that looked nearly full. The problem would be how to move it though. There was a forklift truck at the Mercantile building that ran on propane and that would probably lift the tank. All she would need was a trailer to load it onto and John could use the truck to tow it back. John had also woken to the sound of falling water, but in his case it was the sound of someone showering in his bathroom. Oh fuck, he thought to him self, I hope this isn’t going to be awkward. It stopped and a minute later Liz exited the bathroom wrapped in a towel and came and flopped down on the bed next to him. “Well I guess we had a bit too much to drink last night, you know I don’t normally just jump into bed with guys on a first date”. “Well it wasn’t exactly a first date technically speaking. The shoot out with the MZBs at the china-mart where you pinned that guy’s chest to the wall with an arrow would have been our first date” John replied. “Oh well that makes me feel much better” she said and they both laughed. “How do you feel about, you know…..” asked John. “I feel great, I had a good bottle of wine, good conversation, great sex and now the first real shower I’ve had in nearly a year”. Liz had come over the day before to check on David’s leg wound. It had healed over nicely and there was almost no trace of it left. Liz had taken time getting ready for the trip, she was really attracted to John and felt she had a good chance for something special with him. She’d washed up as best she could and put on her cleanest clothes. The top she had on was fairly revealing but not too slutty and she’d applied light make up so as to not appear too obvious. Clearly she’d had complete success. She had also brought over the remains of her Javelina stew and a couple of bottles of decent Shiraz that she’d salvaged from the Bev-Mo near her nursery. They had stayed up late talking by the fire ring and one thing had led to another. The sex had felt very natural to them both when it had happened and neither felt any regrets or guilt over it. Chapter 8 Dana looked again through the 36 power scope. It was definitely smoke out on the horizon, not too much but definitely smoke. Since there had been so much rain just recently she figured that it probably wasn’t a natural occurrence, such as a lightning strike, but was man made. It had taken 2 days for the wash at Campbell mercantile to subside. She’d done well with her time scavenging, having found a lot of food and more importantly 5 cases of bottled water. She’d also picked up a Walther PPK in 380 with some nasty looking hollow point ammo, a perfect hide out gun. She also got a Mosin Nagant 91/30 sniper rifle with a PU scope and 700 rounds of Czech silvertip ammo. She’d tried out the rifle at ranges of up to 600 yards and been impressed by its accuracy. She figured it had to be the equal of Dave’s Enfield #4 mk 1 (T). She was wrong, but it was still a pretty good rifle. She’d only taken 100 rounds of the silver tip with her, figuring the rest of it wasn’t going anywhere and she could get it later. She was now a day west of the wash and figuring how far away the smoke was. She’d left John a detailed note at Campbell mercantile telling him where all the propane was as well as the food stuffs she’d found. Campbell mercantile was also heavily stocked with heirloom seeds that were suited to growing in this part of the country. It also had a lot of literature on how to get the best yield from these seeds as well. There was a storage tank of fuel oil in back of one of the houses and she wasn’t sure if it was any good but she mentioned it none the less. Dana had climbed up a utility pole to try and get a better fix on the smoke. It had to be at least 20 miles as she figured it. Hauling everything she had that would be a days ride at an easy pace. Or she could un hitch the trailer and do it in 2 hours. Fuck it she thought, it’s early I’m going to go for it. She stashed the trailer in the back yard of a house and took an MRE, a gallon of water, her M4 with 3 magazines and set out on her bike. The land was flat and she made really good time. A little over an hour later she was crouched down in a damp wash looking at the periphery of a fairly major farming operation. The smoke was coming from the main farm house which looked to be about ½ mile distant across open fields. The fields looked like they had once been cotton and were now lying fallow. Dana had lived amongst the cotton fields out in Peoria as a child and knew they were infested with black widow spiders. Her little sister had been bitten once and had nearly died as a result. It was getting warm and she decided to lay low and see what the lay of the land was. It looked like a perfect set up from her view point. The wash was nice and cool and still had pockets of standing water in places. She figured it probably ran right through the farm and decided to explore it. She hid her bike and carried on on foot. About ¼ mile up the wash she set up the scope again and looked around. Wow, this just keeps getting better she thought. She could see cattle pens with cows in them, so they had to have milk, cheese and fresh meet on the hoof. There were fields of corn and some kind of citrus and vegetable gardens. Some good size buildings that were most likely chicken coops and it even looked like they had sheep as well. She still hadn’t seen any people and figured a farm of this size would need at least 10 people to run it, so where were they all? OK she thought, cows need milking at dusk and dawn, hens lay over night, so need attention and feeding at dawn. Therefore right now the people would either be in the farm house or out tending the gardens or fields. The fields were empty so that left the gardens and they were on the other side of the farm house. Luckily the wash ran about 100 yards to the east of the farm house and so she followed it up there. She set up with a good vantage point towards the gardens and waited. 2 hours passed before any movement was seen. Dana spotted a Latina girl who looked about her age coming out of one of the shacks about 50 yards from the main house. She was followed by a Latino boy about 13 years old. They both came to the vegetable gardens to tend them, Dana could here them talking to each other in Spanish. She couldn’t understand what was being said but she sensed the atmosphere was tense. The boy was working pulling weeds from the lettuce patches, he came to within 10 yards of Dana so she said quietly “Hola amigo”. The boy froze in his tracks. He recognized the speaker was not a native Spanish speaker and so he replied equally quietly “hello my friend, you’d better leave here”. Dana was taken aback, “why?” she replied. The boy looked around before replying “there are many bad men here, they make us work the fields against our will”. “Why don’t you leave?” Dana asked. “My father tried to, and they killed him” the boy replied. “How did you get here?” Dana asked. The boy replied “We were told we were coming to America to work in an agriculture program. You’re government had agreed to let us come and these men had secured the right paperwork to let us come here. We are poor people from Xoahaca and if we worked here a year we could save enough money to buy our own farm back in Xoahaca. But they lied to us, there was no program and they said we had to pay them $5000 each or they would not let us go”. The girl had seen what was going on and approached Dana from the other side. Dana instinctively covered her with the M4. The girl recoiled in horror, her brother said something to her in Spanish and she softened her attitude. “My sister does not speak English so good” he explained. “The bad men they take her to their bed at night and she returns to us and cries for hours. I want this to stop”. Dana looked at the girl, she was a lot like her, young, pretty, hard working, she deserved a lot better than this. “How many of there of you?” Dana asked. “20” the boy replied. “Why don’t your men fight back?” Dana asked. “They have the wives and young children held captive in the basement of the farm house. We cannot do anything or they’ll kill them”. “How many of the bad men are there?” she asked “six, they sleep in shifts so there are 3 sleeping while 3 are awake” came the reply. “3 guys against 20, you’ve got to be shitting me!” The boy looked at her non-plussed. Dana looked at the girl, “listen sister, I know what you’ve been through. The same shit happened to me, only I didn’t let myself be a victim. 3 guys had their way with me one time. I killed one of them that night and the other 2 I killed at a later date”. “I have no weapons and my mother is their captive” the girl said almost apologetically, “what could I do?” Dana was about to say “at least bite one of them’s dick off while he’s forcing you to blow him and die with some dignity” but she figured this was not a winning strategy. “OK, so where are these 3 bad guys while the other 3 are sleeping?” Dana asked “They could be anywhere” the boy replied. “Usually I see them up on the upstairs balcony of the farm house, but they’re not there. I hope they haven’t seen you”. Fuck! Dana thought, I’d better leave. “I’ll be back with some friends to help you, be ready for us” she said and left as fast as she could. She had to avoid contact with the bad guys other wise things could turn real nasty for the other people at the farm. She made her way back down the wash undetected and without leaving any noticeable tracks in the soft earth. She got her bike out of the cover and mounted up riding as fast as she could back to the rest of her gear. She’d been seen out on the road by one of the bad guys. They weren’t MZBs in the “according to Hoyle” definition but they were close enough. The bad guys were coyotes who were “escorting” a group of illegal aliens from mexico into el norte when the sickness had hit. They’d been hiding in a remote location and had avoided the sickness. When their food had run out they’d taken over the farm and used the illegals as a form of slave labor to work the farm whilst they reaped the benefits. Dana heard the roar of a V8 behind her and knew she had to get off the road right fucking now. She ducked into a wash and heard the truck slow down to a stop and then speed up through the wash and stop again. OK she thought, I’ve got some behind me and some ahead of me. She hid her bike in the bushes, pulled the charging handle on her M4 and tapped the 2 spare mags on her heel. She wished she had her Hi-power with her, she’d left it behind to travel light. Although she did have the PPK, she took it from her pack and slid it down into her cleavage, just in case. Since the best form of defense was attack, she decided to go to the threat that was behind her. She moved further down the wash away from the road before climbing out of it and into the field. The bad guys had not seen her after she’d gone into the wash and were still on the road looking at each other. The one she could see looked like a typical gaucho with a big sombrero, Zapata moustache and a Winchester 94. He had not seen her, probably because he figured she would be cowering somewhere in the wash. He was too arrogant to think that a mere girl posed any serious threat. No this guy was just looking to get his rocks off with another pretty blonde gringa. Dana judged his range to be approximately 100 yards and she fired. Goucho’s head exploded, spraying a good sized mist of blood over the road. MZB #2 who was closest to him saw this and about shit his pants. What the fuck he thought people aren’t supposed to shoot at us, they’re supposed to do what we say. He ran back to the truck as fast as he could. MZB #3 had a bit more about him and he called out something in Spanish to MZB #2. Whatever it was it must have been a powerful insult to his manhood, because he stopped in his tracks and turned back. Dana saw the guy was carrying what looked like a Browning Auto 5 shotgun with the barrel roughly cut down to the end of the magazine tube. This would be a formidable CQB weapon she thought, but since Dick Cheney had failed to do much damage to his buddy at 25 yards she was not too concerned. MZB #3 had picked up the dead guys Winchester 94 and that would reach out and touch her. The 2 MZBs entered the wash and started down it towards where she had exited it. She dropped down into the scrub grass and tried to figure out where they were. They weren’t being too stealthy and she was able to pick up their position. They were about at the point where she’d come up out of the wash and she was ready to fire. Amazingly they didn’t see her trail out of the wash. She couldn’t believe her fortune, either I’m the Queen of the forest or these 2 assholes are dumber than a box of rocks she thought to herself. Dana’s field craft wasn’t that good, but thankfully the MZBs had been hitting the cervezas pretty hard since just about the time they had gotten up this morning. The one that she had killed earlier had had the most shit on his face, but the other two weren’t that far behind him. Dana decided to slip back into the wash and take them in a flanking maneuver. She saw they were about 30 yards ahead of her and she crept back into the wash. She was concentrating too much on them and not enough on her footing and in doing so she slipped and slid down the bank on her ass. In doing so she involuntarily tightened her grip on the trigger and let off a 10 round burst. Browning auto 5 MZB had seen her and fired of the contents of his mag at her. Luckily he had had it loaded with #8 birdshot and whilst she was stung by a few pellets she was unharmed. He was now dry, but she was more concerned about the Winchester guy. She saw him working the lever and pushed herself to her right side just as the 30-30 slug burrowed into the tree next to where she had been crouched. She looked back across the wash and Browning auto 5 guy was headed out of there. He’d not had a stomach for a fight in the first place so she decided to concentrate on the Winchester guy. Another 30-30 round went through the branch near her, she saw him behind a palo verde branch and let off a long burst towards him. She saw the gun drop and he followed it. OK two down and one to go she thought and started running back to the road. He reached the truck about the same time she reached the road. The truck was moving towards her, she aimed at the truck with the selector on full auto and dumped the remainder of the mag. The bolt stayed back and she saw the truck still coming. Instinctively she dropped the empty mag and shoved a fresh one in, slapping the bolt hold open paddle and engaging the threat again. This time she did not panic and fired a 5 round burst through the trucks windshield and into the remaining MZB. The truck passed her and then rolled to a halt. Dana ran up to the truck to make sure the guy was dead. No obvious signs of life and 3 clear entry wounds in the upper torso she thought. She took the PPK from out of her cleavage and put it in her waste band. That was a stupid move she thought, her breasts were very sore from the gun sights rubbing against them. Next time I’d better get a holster before I put anything in there again she thought. She dragged the dead looking MZB out of the truck and dumped him by the side of the road. There didn’t look to be much blood on the seats at all, she turned to see MZB #2 stirring slightly and quickly gave him the coup de grace from the PPK. It looked like the 223s had fragmented as the passed through the windshield and had in fact only stunned the guy. The truck was still running so she mopped up the blood from the seats and drove back to the wash to pick up her bike. Then she picked up her trailer and drove all the way back to John’s house arriving just after dark. Chapter 9 John heard a truck approaching and he Dave and Tensie ran out of the house loaded for bear. Luckily she had the foresight to stop around the corner from the house and called ahead to John. This undoubtedly prevented her from being greeted by a hail of lead. She parked the truck in the drive way of the house next door. She noticed that the other truck had gone and commented on this. John explained that Liz had taken it to get her stuff because she was moving in with them. Dana took this at face value and passed no comment. She had no ill feeling towards Liz and intended to move on anyway. It was nice to be in the cool of the house again, the evaporative cooler was really working well. The first thing Dana did was to take a long shower and wash her hair. She borrowed Dave’s LED light so she could see what she was doing. After she’d dried herself off she went back downstairs to talk to John, but he’d already gone to bed. Tensie was the only one up, she’d missed her big sister and wanted to get all the details of her adventure. Dana gave her a brief synopsis but skipped over the killing of the 3 MZBs in the wash. A wave of fatigue came over her and she had to go to bed. Dana slept very fitfully, she’d had to kill the 3 MZBs because she knew they’d have killed her eventually, but it bothered her. Particularly it bothered her the way she had so easily slipped into the role of cold blooded killer. She hadn’t hesitated for one second when she killed the 1st MZB before he’d even fired a shot. She was aware of the saying that the 1st one is expensive, but after that they’re cheap. In this case even the 1st one had been cheap. There was another thing to consider, the rest of the MZBs would be looking for their comrades and who knew what retribution they would exact on the captives at the farm. Dana had to go back and rescue them, of that much she was sure. Dana got up late the next morning, she came down stairs to find Liz’s 2 kittens play wrestling in the front room. They stopped their game and both came over to sniff her. She stopped and played with them for a while, they were so cute she thought not a care in the world. But she had business to attend to and she sought out John. She found him over at the well pump checking on the battery conditions and wiping dust and other debris from the PV panels. “Hey girl, what brought you back so quick, I thought you were going to be gone 2 weeks?” he said. Dana told him this was only a brief return and that she needed them all to go back and free the people at the farm. She told him about meeting the boy and girl from the farm and her encounter with the 3 MZBs in the wash John was very interested in the farm but did not want to go and risk their lives assaulting it. He was even less enthused when she told him that 20 people had been essentially held hostage by only 3 MZBs. “Shit Dana, sounds like you’re turning into a combination of Tomb Raider and the Terminator. You know it sounds like these people don’t really want to be rescued Dana” he said. Dana was flabbergasted, “John, you didn’t see what kind of people these MZBs were!” “Were they any worse than Tank or Slash?” John asked. “No they were exactly the fucking same, which is why we’ve got to take them out!” she shouted back. John paused for a moment before responding in what he hoped was a calm voice. “Listen Dana, it’s a simple fact of life that there are bad people out there and shitty things happen. These people are illegal aliens no matter how you sugar coat it, and they were breaking laws pre-SHTF. I’m just not sure I feel like risking my and the lives of my family to help them out. Tell you what, how about you take a couple of guns back to them and tell them to resolve their problem themselves. There’s only 3 bad guys left, right? So it should be a much easier task for them.” “John, you’re a fucking coward! She spat back. “Dana, shut the fuck up, you’re really coming off like a spoiled child right now and I’m about done putting up with your shit.” Dana was pretty shocked, she’d never heard John speak like this and it took the wind out of her sails. “Jeez John I’m sorry OK?” was the best she could respond. It was obvious that John was really pissed and Dana thought that maybe a little distance between them was a good thing. Dana went to see Dave to see what guns and ammo they could spare to give to the people at the farm. Dave really didn’t want to give away anything really good, which Dana could understand. In the end she got a charter arms 38 snubbie and 2 Hungarian Makarovs. She figured whatever happened at the farm it would have to be a surprise CQB to work. She wasn’t sure of the layout there but planned to war game it that way with as many of the farm people as possible. She left the next morning before sun up in the truck without speaking to John. Dana parked the truck under a stand of mesquite trees about a mile from the farm. She’d driven very slowly the last 3 miles to avoid creating a dust cloud. Even though the sun was not up a dust cloud would hang in the air for a while and the roads were dusty despite the fact that they were paved. The 3 dead MZBs were still in the wash where she’d killed them the previous day. She gathered up the weapons and ammo from them and put them in the bed of the truck. It looked like something had made dinner out of them last night. Dana didn’t care one way or the other. She was in her usual desert camo BDU pants, T-shirt and boonie. She’d also put on a webbing harness and had 2 3 mag pouches stuffed with 30 rounders. The webbing harness was a little uncomfortable on her, “jeez, they really didn’t design these things with women in mind” she said to herself, her breasts were not large but they were enough to fill out a bikini without padding. She put on her back pack with the extra weapons in it and set off towards the garden at the back of the farm house. 45 minutes later she was in position in the wash near the garden. About an hour later she saw the same girl come out of the farm house to harvest some tomatoes and peppers from the garden, huevos rancheros for breakfast she thought. That sounded a lot better than the MRE she’d had. Dana called over to her in a low voice. The girl discretely acknowledged her and went back into the farm house. Half an hour later she came back out and over to where Dana was, hopping the fence she came down into the wash. “I’m so glad you came back, I couldn’t stop thinking about you yesterday. We heard all the gunfire and when the 3 men didn’t come back I feared the worst for you. Did you kill them all?” the girl asked. “Yes they’re all dead. Wait, I didn’t think you spoke English. Didn’t your brother say that yesterday?” Dana queried. “Oh that was just my little brother, he acts all protective of me since my father was killed. I can handle myself” she replied. “I don’t think you can, otherwise you’d have found a way to free your self from this shit” Dana responded, gesturing towards the farm house. That did it, the girls tough outer shell cracked wide open and she broke down sobbing quietly. Dana wanted to hold her and tell her everything was going to be OK but this girl had to toughen up and quickly if she was ever going to do what needed to be done. Dana had been pissed at john for what he’d said yesterday, but the more she thought about it the more she could see he was right. “Listen………..listen” the girl was still sobbing, so Dana slapped her face just as John had done to her and it had the same effect. “It’s time for you to start taking care of yourself, I can give you the tools you need but you’ve got to do the job yourself. Do you understand me?” Dana asked. The girl shook her head yes. Dana really had her doubts that she could but short of assaulting the farm house herself there was no other choice. Dana introduced herself to the girl, whose name was Marisol. Dana asked her how many of the other men at the farm were going to help them. Marisol said no-one else was willing to help and besides some of them thought they might get to replace the MZBs Dana had killed. They did not have any confidence that a girl could help free them. Dana was disgusted by this attitude, although she was more pissed that once again John had been right. Dana showed Marisol the 3 guns she had brought and decided the 38 snubbie was the best bet for her to use. They figured out a good hiding place for the gun in the waste band of Marisol’s skirt and she practiced drawing and dry firing but she never displayed the confidence or aggression that Dana knew she would need. Dana was starting to realize that she’d have to do this herself and she was wondering if it was worth the effort. Well at least Marisol could guide her and maybe watch her back. “OK Marisol, we’re going to do this together” Dana said. She handed Marisol a stick and told her to draw a floor plan of the farm house in the dirt. Marisol did a very detailed drawing showing all the rooms on all floors. Dana figured the best thing to do would be to have Marisol enter through the back door and let Dana enter through the laundry room door. The rooms in the house and the passageways between them were small and Dana decided to leave the M4 behind after taking out the bolt. She would be better off just using pistols. She also took off her webbing harness. The plan was for Marisol to go back to the house and open the laundry room door. Then check to see where the MZBs were and signal to Dana when a good time was to enter the house and where the closest MZB was. They would then clear it together with Marisol providing direction and rear security. Dana figured this was the best way to attempt clearing the house with out getting shot or accidentally shooting someone that didn’t deserve it. Dana was sitting in the wash looking at the side of the house that had the laundry room door in it, it was about 30 yards from where she was. She knew the other door to the laundry room (room 1)`opened out to the family room (room 2) at the back of the house. Adjacent to this was the kitchen (room 3) which was connected to it by a pass through arch. A passage (room 4) led from the kitchen to front door of the house and the stairs to both the basement and upper level. There were 2 rooms off this passage, one to the dining room (room 5) and the other to a front parlor (room 6). She was going to use the Browning Buckmark with the TAC-65 suppressor on it as her main weapon, at least till she had either killed the first 2 MZBs or was discovered. Then she planned on using her Hi-Power. She had 3 10 round mags for the Buckmark and 2 17 round mags for the Hi-Power. She cocked both guns leaving them in condition 1 and took one of the Makarovs and left it de-cocked with a round in the chamber. She had her Hi-Power holstered and the Buckmark tucked into her belt. She put the Makarov in the small of her back. She was ready. After what seemed an eternity Marisol opened the laundry room door and held up 3 fingers. Ok good thought Dana, the first guy is in the kitchen. She ran across to the door flicking off the safety as she did. She entered and exited the laundry room and as she entered the family room she caught sight of the MZB, he was in the kitchen facing away from her. Marisol was in front of him with her shirt lifted jiggling her breasts in front of him. He was grunting very appreciatively, there was a definite professionalism with which Marisol did this. Dana stopped and braced the pistol barrel against the door jamb and readied to fire. The MZB must have sensed something and began to turn his head towards her. He was too late and she shot him twice behind his right ear. The Remington sub-sonic ammo she was using made almost no sound and wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate through the other side of his skull. The bullets bounced around inside his head until they lost all velocity scrambling his brains in the process. The guy was dead before he hit the floor. Dana went over to him and relieved him of a Smith and Wesson model 19 combat masterpiece. “You OK?” she said quickly to Marisol, she shook her head yes. “I hope the titty jiggle was worth it fuckstick” she said to the lifeless corpse. She checked to make sure the Smith was loaded and then handed it to Marisol. “That was pretty clever of you to distract him like that” said Dana. Marisol smiled and replied “There’s another guy upstairs sleeping in the master bedroom with one of the other girls. The other guy is outside somewhere, I don’t know where”. “Is the other girl a friendly?” Dana asked. Marisol shook her head yes. Dana did a tactical mag change and then said to Marisol “lets get this over with before the missing guy comes back and finds us here. We’ll deal with him later.” They walked down the passageway towards the front door and turned to go up the stairs. Marisol indicated that they should let the captives out of the basement but Dana shook her head no. they were better off where they were for the time being. Dana was standing at the door to the master bedroom and it was locked, she motioned to Marisol to hang back halfway up the stairs. As she did so the front door opened. It was the missing MZB. He saw Marisol but the gun she was holding did not register. The one Dana was holding did. He went to draw his own gun to shoot Dana but Marisol shot him first. She was only 10 feet from him but had flinched when she pulled the trigger and had only hit him a glancing blow on the right side of his chest. The impact had spun him around and he shot into the floor as he drew his Ruger Vaquero from a cross draw rig on his left side. Marisol had frozen although she still had the gun pointed at him. This gave him enough time to make it into the front parlor. Dana had seen him start to move and had dumped the entire mag from her Buckmark after him as he went through the door. The door was a cheap hollow interior type door and she figured he had to have hit him at least once. Dana dropped the Buckmark with it’s slide locked back on an empty mag and drew her Hi-Power, disengaging the safety as she did. She could hear movement inside the master bedroom and moved over to the blind side of the door. Suddenly the door opened and a naked man wearing a leather fetish mask started to come out holding an AK47. He never made it across the threshold before Dana shot him twice in the head and he fell to the floor. Dana stooped over and picked up the AK. She pulled the 30 round mag and finding it to be full set the selector to full auto. She walked back down the stairs past Marisol and hosed the wall of the parlor with half the mag. She used the rest of the mag on the door and kicked it off it’s hinges. She had hit the guy inside several more times and he was definitely out of the fight with a sucking chest wound. She dropped the AK and covered him with her Hi-Power. "you need to learn the difference between concealment and cover buddy" she said to him in a sarcastic voice. “Marisol come here, you have a job to finish” she called out. Marisol came in the room and saw it was drenched in blood. She looked like she was about to throw up. “Kill him, one shot to the head will do it” Dana barked out. Marisol looked at the MZB, the guy was shaking really badly and going into shock from loss of blood. “Come on put him out of his misery”. Marisol lifted the Smith and closed her eyes as she shot. It was a good enough shot and the sight of the MZBs brains sprayed across the wall made her drop the gun and begin to cry. Dana went back upstairs and into the master bedroom. There was a naked woman handcuffed face down to the bed. Dana checked her for a pulse and found one. She had a large bruise on the back of her neck which had probably knocked her unconscious. Dana found the handcuff keys and released her, covering her with a bed sheet. By now the house was full of the people who had been outside working in the fields. Two of the men were beating the dead MZB in the kitchen with garden hoes. No-one wanted to go near the one Marisol had killed, the inside of the parlor looked like Jackson Pollock he re-painted it with blood. Dana came down the stairs to find Marisol standing in the doorway holding the big Smith. She looked different, Dana went to her and hugged her. Marisol hugged her back gently running her fingers over Danas shoulders and neck and kissing her full on the lips with a passion and intensity. Dana had not experienced that kind of sexual thrill before from a woman and it kind of scared her. Dana separated herself from Marisol. “Marisol, I’m not into that” she said slightly offended. “Oh I’m sorry, it’s just that the way you are dressed and the way you act I thought maybe you were. I mean don’t get me wrong I like guys as well”. Three men who had been working the fields and were now in the kitchen had seen it as well. Two of them were definitely into it and made appreciative noises and gestures. Dana was fucking pissed by their attitude. She drew her Hi-Power and walked towards them holding it in a weaver grip. “None of you dick less motherfuckers are fit to breath the same air as her. She came to you yesterday for help and none of you had the balls to help. I know some of you figured you’d get to graduate to be one of the captors so you could sit on your ass all day getting drunk and fuck any of the girls you wanted to”. One of the men who had not been beating the dead MZB was hanging his head in shame, he turned to Dana. “You are right senorita, but you have to realize it is not as easy for some of us as it is for you”. He said. Dana turned to Marisol, “Who the fuck is this asshole?” she asked him. “He is my 2nd cousin Hector, his wife is probably the woman upstairs and his 2 children are probably locked up in the basement.” Marisol replied “So were you planning on taking the place of the guys I killed already?” Dana asked. “No, but they were” he replied gesturing to the 2 men who’d been beating on the dead MZB. “Marisol, is this right?” Dana asked. “Yes” she replied. Dana shifted her stance slightly so that she was now covering all 3 of the men. “OK since I’m assuming none of you had to study civics or American history like my father did when he legally entered this country and became a citizen, I’m going to give you a crash course. We have a saying in America “the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots”. Hector, I’m assuming you know what the difference is between tyrants and patriots is, so which one are you?” “I’m a patriot” he replied. Dana didn’t ask him which country he was patriotic to, she figured countries no longer existed. Instead she said “it’s time to water the tree Hector” and she pulled the Makarov from behind her back and handed it to him. “Those 2 wanted to be next in line to donkey punch your wife and abuse your kids. I’m going to be leaving here because I have my own life to get on with, what do you think will happen after I’m gone?” Hector was in real turmoil. He knew Dana was right but could not bring himself to kill the 2 men in cold blood. Dana was loosing patience, she turned to Marisol with a look of exasperation on her face. Her dropping her guard was enough to prompt one of the MZB wannabes to act. He began to swing the hoe he was carrying towards her. It was a bad move and he had grossly under-estimated Hector’s resolve. Hector shot him twice in the chest, and then shot the other MZB wannabe just to be sure. Chapter 10 Marisol let the captives out of the basement and Dana had done a quick head count, all together it looked like 10 adults and 8 children not counting her. Hector organized a work party to clean up the bodies and as much of the blood as possible. He wanted to bury them but Dana suggested feeding them to the hogs, at least this way their lives won’t have been a total waste she rationalized to him. No-one missed any of the dead, the MZBs had raped and abused all the women and the 2 wannabes had also been hated. Marisol’s mother came over to Dana and started thanking her profusely jabbering away in Spanish. Dana looked around for someone to translate for her, she was wondering who Angela Delmuerte was. She must have been one of the other women Dana figured and left it at that. Presently Marisol’s brother Jose came by and he translated, telling Dana that the women were planning a feast and dancing to celebrate their liberation. Dana figured a good meal with other festivities would be nice and she had no place else to go right now. Dana had policed up all the guns and ammo that she could find, including the arms from the first round of MZBs she’d killed. In total she had gotten 6 handguns, 3 shotguns and 4 rifles. Except for the AK47 the long arms were typical of what you’d find in just about any household in America and were in all the typical calibers that could be re-supplied from china-mart. Dana had no use for these weapons and intended to give each adult a gun and instruct them what the appropriate circumstances for their usage were. There were no un-attached men to dance with at the feast and if Jose tried to grope her one more time whilst “dancing” she was going to slap the shit out of him. Marisol had searched through her closet and hooked Dana up with some “girly” clothes to wear. Dana tried them on and Marisol was quite surprised to see what a trim figure Dana had. Marisol had figured that Dana wore the BDU pants because she had something to hide. Dana thought it felt nice to be wearing a skirt and blouse again kind of more like the way things had been. The blouse was very bosomy even though Dana wasn’t really and it flared out at the bottom just enough to hide her Hi-Power. The clothes were definitely “Chicka wear” and a little more revealing than Dana would usually be seen in. It must have been this and the cervezas that she seen Jose sneaking that was the reason for his brashness. Either that or the fact that Marisol had done her hair and makeup and she really did look thin and gorgeous. She was looking for the kind of man that wouldn’t have let himself get into the kind of mess she’d just had to clean up. Hector seamed like a decent enough person but he had lacked the courage to do what had needed to be done in the past. Hector called a momentary halt to the festivities by tapping a knife on a wine glass. This is pretty much a universal sign for everybody go hit the bar/bathroom because someone who likes the sound of their own voice is going to pontificate for an hour or so. He was talking in Spanish anyway so she went to get a refill on the punch. She had just filled her lass and replaced the dipper when she heard him say “Angela Delmuerte, Dana”. This was followed by much applause and Dana realized that she was Angela Del muerte and also that she was expected to speak. Dana cleared her throat and began “I didn’t originally intend to come here to free you people, my idea was that you were going to do it yourselves and I was sorely tempted to leave when Marisol was the only person willing to do the job. You’re going to need to defend yourselves in the future because it’s unlikely you’ll get this lucky next time. There’s not enough of you to let machismo bullshit get involved in your survival, each person has to be able to work to the best of their ability at whatever they’re best at doing. This is one of the things that has made America great. Also people have the right to own the fruits of their labors, if you work harder that the next person you deserve to reap the rewards. That doesn’t mean you don’t help the other guy out but it does mean no free rides. You need to form a system of government for yourselves and it needs to be based on one person one vote. Elect yourselves a leader who you can trust and let that person handle the day to day details. For any big decisions concerning the running of the farm or the farm infrastructure the leader should consult with advisors who have specialist knowledge in these areas and make the best decision. You should be able to replace the leader if it’s not working out, but to do so you must have 2/3rds of the people decide this. I’m re-distributing all the guns to individuals. Each one of you has a god-given right to self defense and you must use it when needs be. I’m not giving you these guns so you can hunt, although you can hunt if you want to. I’m giving you these guns so that if you need to fend off hostiles be they from outside or within you can do so.” “There is a lot of knowledge in the local libraries and in other peoples homes. The dead are gone and they have no need for any of their former possessions. Treat houses you salvage from with respect and don’t take anything you don’t need for survival. OK I’ve said enough, you should all get back to enjoying yourselves.” Dana sat down and felt she’d done well, it wasn’t as long as a John Galt speech but she figured it was words to get them started Marisol came over to sit next to her with some of the other women. Not all of them spoke English so Marisol translated where need be. Everyone was in excellent spirits and were hopeful for the future. Jose came staggering past aided by one of the men before un-ceremonially and very noisily barfing before reaching the bathroom. Dana smiled, too many cervezas it serves you right you little fucker she thought to herself. It turned out that Jose was a good kid, after his father had been killed by the MZBs he had been made to work the fields like an adult and had pulled his own weight. Like the others he had been fearful of any retribution that the MZBs would enact on those that he loved. This changed Dana’s attitude towards him and she gave his mother the Browning auto 5 that she had intended to take to replace her Winchester. She figured he’d earned the right to have a gun. Maybe in the future maturity should be measured by actions rather than something as arbitrary as age. The party went on all night and the punch kept flowing. She wasn’t sure but it tasted a little different to the stuff she’d had earlier on. Dana woke up in the bed of the master bedroom of the farm house the next morning and she was not alone. She was lying on her side facing into the room and she could see all the clothes she’d been wearing last night and someone elses strewn around on the bedroom floor. As her eyes came into focus she could see the other clothes were mens. She tried to prop herself up on her elbow, but her head was pounding. Fuck, she thought, I’m never drinking again. She tried to remember what had happened last night but she couldn’t and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She could see her underwear and decided that getting dressed was first priority. She slid out of the bed and onto the floor, after pulling on her underclothes she got up and saw that it was Marisol who she was in bed with. Except Marisol was wearing a nightgown and was sleeping on top of the sheets. This confused Dana even more, but was reassuring in other ways. She staggered into the bathroom and splashed water from the pitcher on her face. She then took a long drink of water from the pitcher, spilling a lot of it down the front of her T-shirt. Setting the pitcher down on the vanity she noticed her BDU pants and her Hi-Power were there so she put them on. Returning back to the bed she sat down heavily, or as heavily as she could, on it. This woke Marisol up, which had been her intention. “Hi” she said to Marisol. Marisol rubbed her eyes, yawned and then smiled at her “Hi yourself” she replied. Dana was really confused by the scene surrounding her. She was too hung over to figure out how to delicately ask the question she wanted the answer to so she just asked it. “Marisol, you know last night after we came back here from the party which I don’t remember. Did we, you know, do whatever it is that women do to each other?” Marisol looked at her and laughed in a natural and spontaneous manner, “no silly, whatever made you think that?” “I don’t know, I’m just not used to waking up drunk and naked and you know yesterday when we….”. ”No, we didn’t do anything. Hector carried you up here after you’d had…”. “Oh my god, those aren’t Hector’s clothes are they, I didn’t fuck Hector did I?” Dana was really getting confused now. “No you didn’t fuck Hector, you didn’t fuck me, you didn’t fuck anyone. I came in later and you were fully clothed. You then got up and stripped all your clothes off and started pulling mens clothes out of the closet over there and got dressed in them saying how you felt much more comfortable in them. You then took a banana and stuck it out the fly on the pants and said “come here Marisol, I’ve got something for you””. Dana was mortified, “oh fuck I didn’t really do that did I?” “Well all of it except the banana, I made that part up” said Marisol as she collapsed into laughter again. Dana laughed as well until her head began throbbing. “I feel like shit, I need to get something to eat” she said to Marisol. “I’ll make you some breakfast” Marisol replied. They went downstairs to the kitchen. There were no traces of blood from where Dana had shot the MZB the day before, which was a good job because she was definitely still feeling delicate. Marisol scrambled her some eggs with tomatoes and melted cheese on the top of it. Dana hadn’t had any cheese for at least 9 months and breakfast tasted good. “So did you fight in Iraq?” Marisol asked. “No, whatever made you think that?” Dana replied. “Well I figured you must have been in the army or something, the way you know so much about guns and fighting”. “No, completely self taught. I was on my own for a while and a girl needs to look after herself these days.” “So what did you do before?” asked Marisol. “I was about to start college, I was going to do business studies at ASU. My dad had a plumbing business and I was going to take it over from him in a couple of years when he retired. I used to work part time in the business as well, my dad wanted to make sure I knew the ins and outs of the business first. You should have seen some of the looks I got when I’d arrive at a job. It was good work though, I got real satisfaction from it. What about you? “I was a dancer.” Marisol replied. “What you mean like a Flamenco dancer?” Dana asked innocently. “No in a bar, I’d dance for men. I didn’t much like doing it but it was good money. One night I made 500 pesos, one peso at a time. I came here because I figured I could make a lot more than that here.” Dana had no idea how much 500 pesos was, the way Marisol told it it must have been a lot of money to her though. Dana looked at her again, she was very pretty and had at least D cup sized breasts which were kind of out of proportion to the rest of her body. “So did you get fake boobs then?” Dana asked. “No these are my own” Marisol paused for a moment and then said “What are you going to do now, I’m guessing you’ll be leaving and going back to your home?” “Well no, I was on a journey when I ran into you guys. I’m looking for people in general. Looking for other survivors living around here to either join up with or to maybe trade with when I figure out what I have to trade. And then I’m also looking for someone in particular, but I won’t know who he is until I find him. He’s not here though, that’s for sure.” “Yeah I know what you mean, I’m looking for him as well. Although I don’t think he’s the same guy you’re looking for” Marisol agreed. With breakfast over Marisol took Dana on a tour of the farm. It was pretty big was farmed well, producing good yields of corn and various dairy products. There was also a small flock of sheep and larger herds of cattle out grazing in the open range. They approached the barn that the chickens and hogs were kept in and found Hector saddling a horse. Pleasantries were exchanged and Hector was glad to hear that she was mostly over her hang over. He thanked her again for the Winchester 94 which he had in a scabbard hanging off his saddle. He explained he had to ride out to check up on some of the cattle out on the range and was going to fix the windmill at one of the watering holes. It had been broken for months, but now he was working “his” farm he intended to fix it. The liberation of them had given everyone a pride and a sense of purpose and they would be eternally grateful to her for that. Dana told him she was moving on and this would probably be the last they saw of her for a while. She intended to come back and visit to trade later on so it wouldn’t be good bye forever. Hector told her to take as much food as she could carry and that whatever she wanted she could have as her money was no good with them. They finished the tour of the farm and Dana started picking out supplies to take with her from the farm’s store house. She intended leaving the truck at the farm and carrying on on her bicycle. “You know when you asked me if my boobs were fake? Well the reason they’re so big is because I’m pregnant.” said Marisol. Dana was a little surprised at this revalation “so congratulations are in order then?” she asked. “I guess so” said Marisol half heartedly. “How far along are you, you certainly don’t look pregnant?” Dana inquired. “I figure about 7 or 8 weeks” she replied. “So who’s the father?” Dana asked “I’m not sure, but he’s dead anyway.” She replied. “Uh yeah, was it one of the MZBs I killed? Sorry about that.” Dana replied. “It’s OK, actually I think it might have been the one I killed, which is why I hesitated before shooting him. Dana I want to go with you on your journey, at least for a little while. I won’t be able to do this later on after the baby comes and I want to have some adventure. I was very scared yesterday but it was so exciting as well.” “Marisol, I try to avoid getting into run and gun shoot outs as much as possible. I only did what I did because no one else would do it. I’m hoping the rest of my journey is quiet and boring, except for the part where I find a Justin Timberlake look alike who has his act together and I fall madly in love with him.” Marisol had no idea who Justin Timberlake was. She hadn’t had the luxury of an indulgent adolescent hood like Dana had. Dana thought about the idea of Marisol coming along and agreed to it under the stipulation that they had to move at Dana’s pace or she would leave Marisol behind with enough supplies to get back to the farm. |
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Posted: 9/8/2007 2:00:30 PM EDT
[#9]
Good read! 1 chapter per day will be fine...
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MO, USA
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Posted: 9/10/2007 5:51:10 PM EDT
[#10]
great addition!
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/12/2007 11:46:08 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Seadra_tha_Guineapig]
[#11]
Chapter 11 Dana and Marisol had gathered as much as they could carry and were about to leave the store house when Hector came back in. Dana said to him “Hector, what is this stuff here?” pointing to a gallon bottle of Pri-G. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen it before” he replied. “I have, some guys we had a run in with had a bunch of it.” She read the label on the bottle and a light bulb went on in her head. “So this stuff restores bad gas, this must be how people are able to keep vehicles running even though the gas has all gone bad. Hector, you need to find as much of this stuff as possible and use it to restore any gas you can find.” There were 3 bottles so Dana added one to her supplies. They decided to spend one more night at the farm before setting off. Everyone was sad to see them leave but understood Marisol would be back in a couple of weeks. They left the next morning after breakfast. The plan was to head mostly north to take in the south side of Lake Pleasant. Dana figured that would be a reliable source of water and would likely attract anyone with common sense. It was 15 miles by road, so a fairly easy day for the 2 of them. Marisol had gotten a nice bike and Dana had taught her to ride it in about a half hour. They saw the entry to Lake Pleasant park at around noon. It had been a fairly un-eventful ride as there were no houses or farms on the road they had taken. They had seen some cattle on the side of the road but it was obvious no-one was tending them and they looked like bulls. Marisol had tamed down her clothing for the journey. She had opted to wear tan slacks and baggy shirt topped off with a wide brimmed cowboy hat instead of her usual bright red short skirts. Dana was glad of this since she didn’t fancy having to run from the enraged bulls. Dana had spent the last 30 minutes examining the lake and building around the entrance to the park. “Let’s get out of the heat Dana, I’m tired” Marisol said to her. “OK, but lets get to the marina first”. “Why the marina?” came the response. “Because that’s where all the salvage stuff will be”. Dana replied. They had dismounted and cautiously walked up the drive to the marina. Dana her M4 and Marisol had Danas Winchester 120 SBS. They approached the front door to the marina stores and Marisol stooped down to pick up a cinder block, ready to hurl it through the window. “No, we don’t do that Marisol. We enter and leave doing as little damage as possible and we take only what we need.” Marisol looked puzzled, “that way when we need any more it’ll still be here for us. If we smash the windows the animals and elements get in here and ruin things”. This answer made sense to Marisol and she nodded in agreement. Dana went around back and forced open the lock on one of the emergency exits. Inside was like a hardware store on steroids with all kinds of metal fittings and engine spare parts. There was not a lot of canned or dried goods inside because this lake had mainly been for day usage and it was expected that people would bring there own food with them. Dana figured that if there were any people living on or around the lake that they would already have salvaged this place and she was a little disenchanted. “Marisol, why don’t you look around for any food or water that we can salvage while I look around outside” said Dana. Marisol nodded affirmative and went outside. The water level in the lake was certainly down a couple of feet from normal but this was OK. Dana walked over to a pontoon boat that was tied up to the dock and jumped on board it. It was a 55’ long house boat and the keys were in the ignition but it was too much to hope that it would start. She turned the ignition on and all the gauges came up, including the warning light indicating the glow plugs were energized. What the fuck, she thought, and turned the key to the start position. After cranking for about 30 seconds the engine caught and continued running. Dana couldn’t believe her luck. She checked the gauges, oil pressure good, voltage good, fuel and potable water tanks full. It was as if the boat had been prepared for someone to take it out for a few days and no-one had showed. Walking through the interior of the boat she couldn’t believe her luck, the A/C was blowing cold and there was a refrigerator that was working as well. She left the boat idling and went to find Marisol. Marisol had heard the engine start and had come outside to see it. “How do you fancy a couple of days cruising around the lake on a swanky house boat?” Dana asked her. “I can think of nothing better at this point” she replied. “What foodstuffs did you find in the store?” “Some canned chili and clam chowder and a bunch of chips and other junk food. Nothing I’d really want to eat to be quite honest. I did find a load of beer, spirits, water juices and sodas though. The beer and sodas are probably no good by now though. I did find a bunch of ammo though as well as radios and batteries that might be useful.” Dana checked out the supplies Marisol had gathered and was impressed, “yeah, this all looks good. Lets get it and our bikes loaded on the boat”. Marisol started to collect the supplies and then paused by a rack of swimsuits and wraps “well if we’re going on a cruise we’ll need the right “Cabana wear”” she giggled and scooped up the rack of clothes. It took them about an hour to get everything stowed on the boat and the temperature was hovering around 112f by the time they were done. Dana wasn’t worried, she knew it would be much cooler out on the water and besides the A/C had cooled the cabins down to a chilly 75f already. Also the fridge was already making ice, this looked like it was going to end up as a pretty luxurious couple of days. Dana had stowed her gear in the aft cabin, so as to be near the stairs to the upper bridge and sun deck area in case of emergencies during the night. Marisol had chosen the port side cabin which opened up to the patio on the front of the boat. “So what’s the plan captain?” Marisol said to Dana, saluting as she said it. Dana giggled at her and replied “I guess we set out around the lake in a westerly direction and put in anywhere that looks interesting. Once we get down to a half tank of fuel we either start thinking about heading back or leaving the boat somewhere else when we’re out of fuel.” “So this is definitely going to be more than a 3 hour tour? If that’s the case I’d better go get my stuff unpacked” Marisol jokingly asked her. Dana had never driven a boat before, but she’d been on others and figured it couldn’t be too difficult if you took it slow. She’d hit the dock a few times and crunched a couple of smaller boats on her way out of the marina but felt she was getting the hang of it. About a half an hour later she heard Marisol coming up the stairs to the upper level. “WHOO WHO CAPITAN, THE BEERS ARE COLD AND I’M HOT” she shouted in a very exuberant voice, jiggling her breasts to show that she wasn’t talking about the temperature. Dana turned to look at her laughing along with her energy. Marisol handed her a beer saying “Thank god for American beer, I swear this stuff lasts for ever in the fridge”. Dana took the beer and had a good drink from it, it really was cold and refreshing. This just keeps getting better she thought as they stood up on the bridge looking at the lake shore stretching out in front of them. Marisol kept going downstairs to replenish the beers as the day wore on. Dana wasn’t keeping score but she figured they’d had a few by the time she decided to stop and set the sea anchor. This took her a while to figure out where it was located and how to hook it onto the cleats at the stern of the boat. Marisol had obviously spent her time trying on all the swimsuits and wanted to give Dana a fashion show. She also wondered how much Marisol had already had to drink, because she really looked kind of buzzed. Dana walked into the downstairs saloon and Marisol handed her a cocktail, ushering her to sit down. “OK, I never told you I also used to do fashion modeling as well as the dancing. It was kind of low budget stuff, this guy I knew used to get Chinese knock-off designer stuff and we’d go round and do shows in the lounges of the better hotels in the city. Not exactly Paris but a girls got to start somewhere. So sit down and enjoy it while I show you how to look good “chicka” style.” Marisol went back into her cabin and a moment later Dana heard her say in an affected accented announcer type voice “and here we have the lovely Marisol from Xoahaca. Put your hands together and give her a big round of applause. She’ll be modeling sizes 2 through 4 of the latest in stylish yet casual convertible wear.” Marisol emerged from the cabin wearing a shawl over a floral print wrap and with her hair held up with a pair of chopsticks. “Perfect for early mornings or late at night.” Marisol gracefully walked towards Dana, then dipped her right hip turned 180 and walked back towards the front of the boat and stopped again performing the same move back to face her. Dana was impressed, she’d seen a couple of fashion shows on TV and thought Marisol had the look and the walk down pat. Marisol slipped the shawl off and continued “this casual yet stylish outfit is perfect for wearing to lunch on the terrace” she said, performing the same walk, turn walk and turn routine. Dana wondered how she’d managed to fashion something as elegant and sexy out of just a square of material. It was obvious that she had wrapped it around her and tucked the ends into a knot behind her back. She had used a head scarf tied around her waist to cinch in the lower portion of the dress to emphasize her large breasts and narrow waistline. The point of the scarf pointing down to the top of her legs. Marisol did the walk again, this time taking off the wrap to reveal a skimpy 2 piece bikini “then later for an afternoon at the pool”. Then once again removing the chopsticks, flouncing her hair, slipping off the bikini top and bottom in an obviously practiced yet slightly un-coordinated move “and then finally for a night of passionate lovemaking”. Dana blushed bright red at the sight of Marisols naked body. Marisol giggled hysterically and ran over to hug her. “Oh chicka, you should have seen the look on your face, it was absolutely priceless”. Marisol let go of her and went to put the floral wrap back on. “You know you’ve definitely got to lighten up a bit or you’ll explode”. Marisol said the last part in such a mock serious voice that Dana had to burst out laughing. Dana had dropped the sea anchor with the boat about a mile off the shoreline and without a current it was holding steady. They sat up for another coupe of hours drinking and talking. Marisol told Dana about her life in Mexico and her brief teenage marriage to an older business man, although she never went into any details over why it had ended. Finally when neither of them could stay awake they both retired for the evening Dana ducked down behind the wall and turning to Marisol shouted, “well you wanted some action and now you’ve got it. For fuck’s sake get up there and fire your fucking weapon!” Dana got back up from under cover and fired a 3 round burst back at the same MZB who had taken position behind a hand cart about 35 yards in front of her. She was sure she’d hit him the first time but he kept on coming. This time she’d solidly stitched him 3 times in the chest. “Marisol come on, give me some fucking cover, I’m about to run dry”. As she said that she heard the hammer drop on an empty chamber. Why hadn’t the slide locked back she wondered? She dropped back down behind the wall and saw Marisol lying on her side immobile. Dana reached over to shake her and saw that the side of her face had a big exit wound where her left eye had been. She didn’t have time to attend to Marisol and reached into her ammo pouch for the last 30 round mag. What the fuck is wrong she thought, the mag seamed like it was too big to fit in the mag well of her M4. She tried again this time putting it in back to front, which she knew wouldn’t work. She pulled the mag up to check it and saw that the bullets had turned into black slugs, the kind you normally find in the garden after a rain storm. Dana looked at them and thought to her self that she’d better rotate her ammo a little more often and perform better before action checks. She let the M4 drop on it’s 3 point harness, it was time to go to the Hi-Power. She drew it in a fluid move again raising it to fire at the same MZB who by this time had closed to less than 20 yards. So wearing body armor are we she thought and aimed for his head. He was a strange looking guy, his face was ghastly white. It almost liked someone had ripped all the skin off of it. Now the Hi-Power wouldn’t fire, she went to do a tap, drop rack when she noticed that it was a plastic training gun and not her usual Hi-Power. She didn’t remember ever having a training gun and the MZB was almost on her. He had what looked like a L.C. Smith field grade double with the barrels cut down to 12”. He let go with both barrels simultaneously. She saw the fireball at the end of the barrels and the shot column being spread open by the wad but somehow he completely missed her. Dana reached to the small of her back for the PPK hold out gun but it was too late, the guy was on top of her, his boney hands wrapped around her neck. She tried to turn her head away from the foul stench of the guy and away from what she knew was coming next. Her right arm was pinned underneath her unable to bring the PPK into play and her vision was starting to cloud. The door burst open and in came Marisol holding the S&W combat masterpiece in a firm weaver grip. She found Dana bolt upright on the bed panting frantically and drenched in sweat. “I heard you cry out, like you were in pain. Are you alright?” Marisol asked her. Dana slumped back down heavily on the bed. “Bad dream” she said to Marisol “It’s OK though. I’m glad you brought the gun, it could have been something worse”. Chapter 12 Dana woke to the sound of activity in the kitchen. She got out of bed, changed her t-shirt and underwear and put on her BDU pants. Marisol was in the kitchen wearing the trademark tight top, short shorts that looked so good on her and a pair of high heeled cowgirl boots. She was cooking up some powdered scrambled eggs for breakfast. She’d added a can of green chilies and some chopped tomatoes. Dana could also smell coffee and toast as well. “How you feeling this morning?” Marisol asked her. “Better for seeing you and this delicious and nutritious breakfast”. They both ate heartily and in silence, finally Dana spoke “That’s got to be about the best breakfast I’ve had in a long while. If I ever go lesbian, would you marry me?” They both laughed at the joke. “So what do we do today, more searching the lake shore?” asked Marisol. Dana nodded affirmative. “What was that dream you had last night, you looked like you’d seen a ghost when I came in to check on you?” “Oh it was the usual panic dream, you know the one where nothing goes right for you and everything you try to do fails. I think it’s a delayed reaction to all the death and destruction I’ve been responsible for these last few months.” “Well from what I’ve seen you didn’t kill anyone that didn’t need killing. There no laws anymore except for the natural ones and I don’t think you’ve violated any of them”. Marisol responded. They both cleared away the breakfast mess and Dana went to check on the engine. They had slept with the windows open and the water temperature had kept the inside of the boat around 80f all night. Dana planned on showing Marisol how to best use the Moisin 91/30 sniper rifle and she got it from her bedroom. They both were up on the bridge and Dana was showing Marisol how to best support the rifle off an improvised rest and how to use the range finder and bullet drop compensating scope. She practiced lining up on distant saguaro cacti and dry firing the gun until she felt confident in its use. She knew using live ammo would be different but Dana assured her the recoil was no more than the SBS she had shot already. They pulled in the sea anchor and headed towards the shore. Dana was piloting the boat and Marisol was scanning the shoreline with the spotting scope. Due to the craggy nature of the shoreline Dana elected to stand off about 200 yards so as to not have to go into every single inlet and outlet on the shore. Dana was also wary of hitting underwater obstacles. Even though the houseboat had a very shallow daft they had felt things scrape on the underside of the pontoons. Dana figures it was trees and cacti that were left underwater when the level of the lake had been raised a few years back. “Hey I think I see something” Marisol said. They had been cruising for a few hours and Dana had been marking what she thought to be their position on a map of the lake they had taken from the marina. “What is it?” Dana inquired. “About a half mile over to the right, just in front of the tree line. It looks like an abandoned camp site, but real messy looking. I don’t see any sign of people or vehicles or anything else like that, but you never know. You want to go and take a closer look at it?” Marisol replied. Dana thought for a moment and shut the engine down to an idle. She turned to Marisol and said “We need to get ready for this, the nightmare I had last night was about going into situations half cocked”. “Well I don’t know about that, I mean I don’t even have a cock at all” Marisol responded in that jokey kind of voice of hers. Dana wasn’t sure if she had to explain the euphemism to her and the twinkle in Marisols eye told her she was just messing with her. “I think you know what I mean” Dana said, playfully punching Marisol on the arm. “You’d better take off the “girls gone wild” costume and put on your work clothes”. “Hey, I’m a dancer, these are my work clothes” Marisol responded in a faked hurt voice rubbing her arm. “OK Marisol, it’s time to put on our war faces” said Dana a little more seriously. “Oh well why didn’t you say that in the first place instead of beating around the bush” Marisol replied. They both went to their cabins to prepare. Dana already knew what she needed to do. First she quickly broke down the M4 and gave it a thorough clean using an OTIS kit from her back pack. She did the same for her Hi-Power. The PPK hadn’t been fired since she last cleaned it so she checked to make sure it was loaded and leaving it in condition 2 she stashed it in the horizontal IWB holster in the small of her back. Next she emptied the 2 Argentinean military 17 round magazines and checked the spring tension before reloading them. She put one magazine in the Hi-Power, racked the slide and then switched magazines. Finally she turned her attention to the M4 magazines. She had 7 loaded and she checked the condition of all of them. Satisfied she took one and locked and loaded it into the M4. The other 6 she split between the 2 mag pouches on her webbing harness. Satisfied with her gear, she came out of her room and went up to the bridge. Marisol was already there and she looked ready for action. She had put on her tan slacks and shirt with her desert boots. Her hair was tied back tightly into a pony tail and tucked under a baseball cap. Marisol had taken the shotshell sling off the shotgun and had converted it into a gun belt with her S&W combat masterpiece holstered on it. She held the SBS Winchester lightly in her left hand. Dana gave her the quick once over. “How many shells in that thing and what are they?” she asked. “4 00 buck in the mag and 1 birdshot in the chamber” came the reply. “How many reloads for the Smith?” “2 speed loaders in my shirt pocket”. “Hmm, I thought your tits looked a little lobsided” Dana said. Marisol had a really good comeback ready for this last line all about beating around her bush but decided to save it for another time. “OK Marisol you take the boat in slow and as close as you can to the shore and I’ll jump off the front. Then back up about 100 yards and cover me with the Moisin. I’ll do a brief sweep through and then signal to you if it’s clear. Then you come back in and we’ll search the place thoroughly. Lets set the radios to channel 3.” “OK boss, sounds good” came the response. Marisol piloted the boat in slowly and carefully as Dana continued scanning the shore line for any signs of life. She could see lots of garbage strewn around and a large fire ring near what looked like a 5th wheel. The 5th wheel was a good size but it’s door was on the hidden side. They were about 50 yards off shore when Dana had her stop. “What’s the matter, what is it, what do you see?” Marisol asked. Dana could tell from her voice she was nervous, for all the bluster about wanting action Marisol was just as scared as anyone else would be. This is good thought Dana, she not as likely to go do something foolhardy and stupid as she realizes that when push comes to shove she could get hurt. “I don’t know, I thought I saw movement in the trees but there’s no wind blowing”. Dana thought for a moment and then said “Marisol back up, something feels wrong. We’ll put in about a half mile down the shore and I’ll go in on foot. Then you come back here and hold station about a quarter mile out and wait for my signal”. Marisol had slammed the engine into full reverse about halfway through Dana reply and she had to shout the last 2 sentences. Dana jumped off the front of the boat as soon as it stopped moving and Marisol put it into hard reverse to get it off the beach. Dana was so focused on the woods ahead of her that she didn’t notice how expertly Marisol had performed this maneuver and already had the boat heading back to the original landing area. Dana crouched down behind a fallen saguaro cactus. She could hear the sound of the boat fading into the distant and was listening to the sounds around her. She waited immobile for about 15 minutes getting attuned to the sounds of the woods around her. Marisol had gotten the boat back on station and was moored a good distance from the shore. She had made a slow turn to face the shore and had not created any waves doing so. As a result the boat remained calm at rest. Marisol took the Moisin and went up to the forward rail on the sun deck. She took a long thin cushion off one of the sun loungers and draped it over the rail. She sat down behind this and proceeded to get comfortable. She had the stock of the rifle in a good cheek weld with the scope and focused on a garbage can on the beach. She shut her eyes and took her hands off the rifle. When she opened her eyes she was still focused on the can. Good she thought, that’s exactly what Dana said would happen if I got my position right. Marisol lightly gripped the rifle again and adjusted the focus so the garbage can was sharp. She knew that standard ones were 3 feet tall and so lined the stadia in the scope up on it. The 12 MOA line was really close to the size of the can, so she figured 36” = 12 MOA, since 1 MOA is 1” at 100 yards, that makes me about 300 yards out and she set the bullet drop compensator accordingly. A little closer than Dana had wanted but good enough. Marisol had the 36 power scope set up so she could look through it with her left eye without having to break position. She was sweeping it right to left when she caught movement. It was Dana, she was slowly making her way to the top of the ridge over looking the 5th wheel. That’s good she thought, always take the high ground when you can. Marisol had the magazine full of silvertips with one in the chamber and she let off the safety. This is a cumbersome job on a MN 91/30 and most people don’t bother with it since the trigger pull is about 20#. This one had been worked on and was more like 5#. Dana was just below the summit of the ridge looking down onto the hidden side of the 5th wheel. Everything seemed quiet but that could just be an illusion. The wind which was a barely noticeable breeze must have shifted slightly because she detected the familiar odor of decaying flesh. It seemed to becoming from the 5th wheel area but she couldn’t be sure. She figured it unlikely that anyone would want to remain in close proximity to that for very long and surmised that probably no-one was home. She keyed her radio twice and got the same response back. “Marisol, can you see me?” “Roger that” came the response. “I don’t think anyone’s home. Do you see any signs from your point of view?” Dana continued. “No, nothing” came the response. “OK I’m going down” Dana replied. Marisol detected motion at the top of the ridge and instinctively lined up and shot. Dana heard the hiss and thwock of an impact followed by the boom of the report and dove for cover. She frantically grabbed for her radio to raise Marisol. Marisol was bringing the Moisin back out of recoil and cycling the bolt at the same time to get another round in the chamber. The scope had slammed into her eyebrow and it was pouring blood down the side of her cheek. “Stay down” she shouted into the radio microphone, “I think I hit it”. She scanned the ridge for further signs of movement but there was none. Dana could here some frantic thrashing over the ridge behind and to her left. She rolled over and belly crawled towards it. Marisol was ready and glassing the rest of the area for signs of movement but there were none. Dana crept over the ridge in time to see a Javelina expire. Dana keyed the radio mike, “Marisol, I shit my pants when you fired, and it was only a fucking Javelina”. There was a pause then “Javelina huh? Well, I got a good recipe for those. Why don’t you start prepping it and I’ll bring you some clean pants” came the response. Marisol brought the boat up to the shore in front of the 5th wheel and beached it perfectly. She jumped off the front carrying her shotgun and a fresh set of clothes. Dana was sitting in the water nearby with her bottom half naked cleaning shit off herself. Marisol finally got to use the line she’d been saving, “So I guess now you’re beating around your bush then?” she said to Dana. Dana smiled back in a fuck you kind of way and gave her the finger. Dana got out of the water and dried herself off best she could before putting on the clean clothes. She’d already rinsed out the soiled ones and they were drying on a rock nearby. Marisol could smell the death as well and was poking around by the 5th wheel. She knew what she would find inside so she tied her scarf over her mouth and opened the door. Inside was a family, or at least that’s what it was at one point in time. The strange thing is that they were not that decayed. Bodies typically only smell for a couple of weeks so that meant these people had been survivors of the original sickness. Marisol closed the door and turned to Dana, “Well they’re dead, but they haven’t been dead all that long”. Dana looked perplexed, “How long do you think?” she replied. “I don’t know, maybe a month or so” guessed Marisol. “Their faces were all kind of red, like cherries” she continued. “Were all the doors and windows closed tight?” asked Dana. “yeah it looks like it” came the response. Dana looked under the 5th wheel and saw a generator there. “Well my name isn’t Quincey nor did I stay at a holiday inn last night, but I’d guess they died from carbon monoxide poisoning from their own generator.” Said Dana. Dana didn’t feel like emptying out the 5th wheel just yet so she and Marisol went to see the Javelina Marisol had shot. It was about 50 yards over the ridge and they approached it. Marisol had hit it just behind the shoulders and had severed the 50# animals spine. It had dragged itself away on its front legs before expiring. The big 7.62 x 54R had done a lot of damage to the meat. “Well we’ll at least get some steaks off of it to barbeque” said Dana. Marisol agreed and added “We should bury the family in the trailer, it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know who they were but they had some bad luck”. Stupidity more like Dana thought, but she kept it to herself. Dana volunteered to dig the graves and Marisol butchered the Javelina and got a decent fire going. Dana went into the 5th wheel and wrapped the bodies in plastic tarps prior to carrying them out. She buried them all next to each other in a shallow grave. It wouldn’t keep determined carrion off them but it was better than nothing. Dana went through the trailer looking for anything of value, and there was virtually nothing. Almost no food, no water, no guns nothing of any use. This was kind of strange and Dana wondered why. She figured either the people had run out of supplies and just given up or someone else had come along and stripped the place afterwards. If it had been stripped afterwards it had been done carefully because it didn’t look ransacked. Marisol had a good fire going and was grilling the Javelina steaks on an improvised grill. The grill looked like it had been an iron slatted gate at one point in time. Dana was hot, it had to be 110f and she been working hard digging. She walked over to the waters edge and jumped onto the boat. The front of it was beached but the back was in about 4 feet of water. She paused in her bedroom to strip off all her clothes and then climbed off the back of the boat into the cool water. Now that felt good she thought. She floated and paddled around for 10-15 minutes before getting out and getting dressed. Marisol had brought the steaks inside the boats cabin and was fixing some rice and beans to go with them. She had cleaned the blood off the side of her face but her eye was looking really bruised. “That scope really caught you good Marisol, still it was a hell of a shot. How far do you think it was?” “Must have been close to 400 yards, I had zeroed for 300 but that ridge is probably another 100 past that” Marisol replied. The interior of the boat had warmed up considerably and so Dana pulled off the shore and dropped anchor about a half mile off shore where it was cooler. “I found some laundry soap in the trailer, we should do laundry and hang it to dry off the railing on the sun deck” Marisol said. “Didn’t it strike you as odd that there was virtually nothing of value in that trailer Marisol? And how did they get it there in the first place?” Dana asked. Marisol shrugged her shoulders, she either didn’t know or didn’t care |
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Posted: 9/13/2007 10:25:38 AM EDT
[#12]
Thanks!
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VA, USA
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Posted: 9/13/2007 12:17:28 PM EDT
[#13]
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/13/2007 12:36:17 PM EDT
[#14]
sorry, as Dana says "she's not into that".
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MO, USA
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Posted: 9/13/2007 1:00:50 PM EDT
[#15]
Great addition!
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NOR
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Posted: 9/13/2007 2:26:37 PM EDT
[#16]
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USA
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Posted: 9/15/2007 12:56:52 AM EDT
[#17]
This is the nakedest survival story EVER!
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/15/2007 9:45:32 AM EDT
[#18]
yeah I know, I decided the story would be more entertainment than survival manual. chances are though that at least one titty bar dancer would survive teotwawki. also it's hot where the story is set, no A/C in the summer means you have to go to extraordinary methods to stay cool.
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IA, USA
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Posted: 9/17/2007 7:30:09 PM EDT
[#19]
great keep it coming
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WA, USA
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Posted: 9/25/2007 8:55:09 PM EDT
[#20]
Please don't let this story die!!!!
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Posted: 9/26/2007 1:45:51 PM EDT
[#21]
i have a gap in what i have read could someone send me chapters 6 and 7 please
thanks jeb |
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MO, USA
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Posted: 9/27/2007 10:23:20 AM EDT
[#22]
Fourays:
Please, pleeaaaaassssssssseeeeeeee give us a few more chapters. At least tell us you are alive and thinking about the story!! 
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/27/2007 11:42:32 AM EDT
[#23]
yeah, sorry about the lack of progress, I've been away on business for a while. I'll get back on it maybe this weekend. chapters 6 & 7 are in the other thread. I had to start a new thread because I couldn't edit the title in the old one to let people know I'd added new chapters.
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 9/29/2007 9:34:44 AM EDT
[#24]
OK here's another chapter, sorry there's no nudity in it
Chapter 13 John had figured out the significance of Pri-G as well. He and Dave had scoured the local auto parts stores and found some, but there big score came at a boat supply store less than a mile from their house. They now had enough to treat approximately 5000 gallons of gas. Getting the gas was a minor problem, it was in storage tanks at the gas stations all around them. Getting the gas out of the tanks was a little more challenging, but John was an engineer and he liked a challenge. They had retrieved some 55 gallon drums from the golf course maintenance yard and intended to fill them first. A manual pump had been salvaged from the local china-tool store along with some big wrenches to get the caps off the storage tanks. John would have preferred the tools be phosphor-bronze to avoid sparking and setting of an explosion. He had to settle for wrapping the tools in duct tape instead. No matter, it worked and they were soon pumping gas into the drums. The fuel availability meant they could run the generator again. This was a good thing since it was now mid july and the cooler was being less effective with the increase in humidity. Liz had talked John into re-filling the pool in the house adjacent to them. This house had a backyard that was exquisitely desert landscaped and would never be useful to grow crops in. So John figured why not, they deserved to have fun and comfort. Cooling off in the pool was a god send during the heat of the day. As summer wore on they would come to realize just how vital it was to be able to cool off. Now that they had transport John intended to go and collect some of the useful items Dana had found on her journey. First things on the list were a 20KW propane powered generator and a full 500 gallon propane tank. These were located near the Campbell mercantile store which was not much of a trip to get. John knew of a trailer manufacturing business that an old acquaintance of his owned. He figured this would be a good place to get a trailer and a truck to haul the generator and propane tank. Dave and Liz were busy doing chores so John figured it would be a good opportunity for him and Tensie to spend some time together. He also wanted to teach her to drive. Tensie had finished her chores early and was sitting in the shade of a mesquite tree reading a Harry Potter book. John came over to her and asked her if she wanted to go on an outing. She agreed enthusiastically and went to get her Sterling, John was wearing his S&W model 29 as a matter of course. Tensie came back with the sub-machine gun. She kept it with the stock folded and 3 magazines in an old school back pack. She went over to the passenger side and John told her it was time to learn to drive. The truck was the former property of the MZBs that they had killed at the china-mart. It was an early 70s model Chevy C/K. it had automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes so it was a good vehicle to learn in. Tensie got in and adjusted the drivers seat so she could comfortably reach the pedals. John showed her how to adjust the mirrors as well and generally let her get the feeling of the controls. He showed her how to start the truck and she did so. She put her foot on the gas peddle and pushed down on it until the engine rpms increased, she let her foot off the pedal and the rpms dropped. She repeated this until she felt comfortable with the amount of force needed on the pedal to make things happen. John suggested they try moving the truck and she agreed. She put the gear selector in drive increasing pressure on the gas pedal and the truck began to move forward at a rate slightly faster than a jog. Reaching the end of the cul-de-sac John instructed her on turning the steering wheel to negotiate the turn. Tensie did this almost instinctively and was pleased with the result. She stopped at the stop sign before entering the main road and John had her check both ways, just to be sure. They took off on the main road heading for the trailer business and john had her keep the speed down to 25 mph. they reached the trailer business which was a couple of blocks north of the main road in a semi-residential area. Tensie pulled up outside the business and even managed to do a decent job of parking in a parking spot. “That was very good Tensie, I think you’re a natural at this” John complimented her. John scanned the business yard for any signs of activity, as he expected there were none, but it always paid to look first. They both got out of the truck, John with his 44 magnum at the ready and Tensie with the sterling ready to fire. John pushed the gate open and they went inside. There were racks of sheet steel and tubing in the yard and these were all reflecting the heat from the sun making it a very hot place to be. Over to one side of the yard were finished trailers and John went over one of them. It was a 10,000 lb capacity trailer. It was brand new and the tires still had plenty of air in them. John asked Tensie to back the truck into the yard and she did so. John hooked up the trailer to the truck and had her shut the engine off. John wanted to see what there was of use in the workshop areas. They entered the buildings and as John figured it was a typical light engineering set up. Lots of welding equipment, chop saws, sheet metal breaks and presses, a medium sized lathe and an old Bridgeport milling machine. This was all good stuff and John knew how to work most of it. There was also a trailer outfitted to be a mobile welding station. It had arc and mig welders on it as well as a 20hp gas powered generator set. Satisfied with what he saw John closed the doors to the shop and had Tensie drive them back home. They went the long way around so she could get some more practice driving. Unfortunately the truck didn’t have A/C so they were pretty hot by the time they got back to the house. Tensie parked the truck and trailer outside the house. There was enough room in the cul-de-sac to be able to turn the truck and trailer around without having to reverse it. Liz came out to see them pulling up and parking. “My little girls all grown up and driving” Liz said in a mock tear-jerky kind of voice. John and Tensie both laughed at her. Liz had grown very fond of both Tensie and Dave and they of her as well. Liz had never had any children although if she had had any Dave and Tensie would be about the right age to have been them. Liz had been living with them for a little over a month and she had to admit she had never been happier. She finally had what she wanted in life, a family, although the means by which she had gotten it were rather unconventional. She still hadn’t given up on the idea of having children of her own although circumstances now made it a much riskier prospect than in the past. Lunch was a cold pasta salad with tomatoes, olives and artichokes from the various gardens. The first crop of corn was getting ready for harvest and Tensie wanted to make tamales and tortillas with it. She had an old family tamale recipe that was to die for. They had pretty much a lifetimes supply of pasta stored in one of the nearby houses. It had come from several of the local grocery stores and since it had an almost unlimited shelf life they had gotten all they could. Liz, being Italian, had a thousand different ways to cook it as well. After lunch everyone was cooling off in the pool since the temperature was pushing 115f. John had erected a fabric cover over almost half of the pool and it helped prevent being burnt by the sun. John briefed them on what he had planned for the next day. He intended to go and retrieve the 500 gallon propane tank and 20KW propane generator and any of the other items Dana had found at Campbell mercantile. He wanted everyone to come along since he wasn’t sure how hard it would be to get things loaded onto the trailer. He knew there was a forklift available and felt sure they could figure out how to use it. The plan was to leave at first light the next morning, it was only a 30 minute drive to their destination and that should leave the plenty of time to get what they needed and get back before the oppressive heat of the day came. The next morning everyone was up before first light. Liz and Tensie took care of the chickens and made breakfast whilst John and Dave loaded up the 2 trucks with tools and other supplies they thought they might need. Dana had already swept through the area but John wasn’t taking and chances. He was taking his FAL, Dave had his AK74, Tensie had her Sterling and Liz had taken a shine to the Enfield #4 (T). She had shot it quite a lot and was not intimidated by the recoil at all. “Hey, Dr. Ruth was a sniper in the Haganah and I’m much bigger than her” she told Dave when he expressed surprise at her choice in weapons. They set off, with John and Tensie leading and Liz and Dave following about 200 yards behind. John was driving, he felt confident in Tensies ability to shoot but he was a little unsure if she could drive in a panic situation. Liz drove the second vehicle for pretty much the same reason. The drive was pretty uneventful except for areas where the road was still covered with detritus from the washes that had run during the rains. John stopped about 400 yards short of Campbell mercantile and got out of the truck. Tensie did the same. John got out a spotting scope and set it up on the roof of the truck. He spent about 15 minutes thoroughly searching the surrounding area for anything. Tensie did the same thing in their immediate area, just to be on the safe side. Everything looked good and so they moved on to their destination. John drove his truck down the drive way of the house that had the 500 gallon propane tank. He got out of the truck and walked over to the tank. The pressure gauge on the side showed that it was full. John smiled to himself, that Dana sure is thorough he thought. Liz and Dave had pulled up around the back of Campbell mercantile and had gotten a surprise when they did. Lying on the ground in the Campbell mercantile yard was a dead woman. That in itself was not unusual, the unusual thing about this was that judging by the condition of it the body had only been there a couple of days. Liz turned the body over with her foot and saw the tell tale signs of the sickness on the womans face. Liz recoiled in horror at what she saw, not because of the womans gruesome features but because they’d all assumed that the germs that caused the sickness had died off. Dave saw the womans face and he recognized the same symptoms that he’d seen on his mother and his brother. “Liz, I think we should leave” he said. Liz looked at him and said “why, we’ve already survived this virus?” “Well she’s dead, I mean what if the virus has changed into something else?”. Liz shook her head ‘We all know we’re immune because of our exposure to the virus before. We don’t know if this person ever did. It might be that she lived in an isolated location and hadn’t come in to contact with the virus until now”. The woman was dressed in typical ranch clothing, blue jeans, flannel shirt cowboy boots and hat. She was fairly slim and Liz guessed her age to be mid to late 40s. There was a Yamaha quad parked over by the Campbell building and they both figured it belonged to the dead woman. Liz checked the womans body for any personal effects, she found a S&W model 10 in a IWB holster and a wallet with about $800 in cash in it. Also in the wallet was a drivers license, Liz looked at it. “So you’re Joanne Miller, sorry about this Joanne I guess it’s just shitty luck”. Liz took the S&W and the holster and slipped it under her shirt. She went over to the quad and checked it over. There was a backpack on it with a lot of medical supplies, it looked to Liz’s trained professional eye like someone was trying to set a broken bone. There were none of the usual consumer or recreational drugs, just anti-biotics pain killers and splints. Liz put 2 + 2 together pretty quickly, “Looks like someone is injured and this lady came to get supplies. I figure someone might be alive somewhere and needs our help”. She looked at the license, it had a rural route address on it. Highway 74 was the road to Wickenburg and it was probably about 10 miles away. She ran across the street to find John. He had started up the forklift and was maneuvering it into place by the propane tank. He turned it off when he saw her running. “John, I think there’s someone hurt that we have to help”. He looked at her puzzled and so she filled him in on what she knew and what she suspected. “I’m going to help John, someomes hurt and this is my area of expertise”. It sounded like there was no arguing with her, so he didn’t. ,Liz took off back across the road to the truck. She took the backpack of medical supplies off the quad and placed them on the front seat beside her. She told Dave she was going to render aid and that he should go and see what John wanted him to do. Liz thought about bringing the body with her but decided against it. Her rational was that she didn’t know if anyone at her destination had been infected and survived. If they hadn’t then she could be bringing infection into their community on the dead body. She could also be bringing it in on herself, but that was a risk she’d have to take. It took her less than 10 minutes to drive the 10 miles to the ranch. That was one of the good things about life now, no traffic and no one putting arbitrary limits on what you could do. The gate to the ranch was open and she drove about ¼ mile down a dirt road to the ranch house. It looked like a double wide and was probably only about 10 years old. There were some cow pens and a couple of other small buildings behind it. It looked like a family cattle ranching outfit with a good sized garden for fresh vegetables. Liz turned the truck off and got out carrying the backpack. She went up to the front door and rang the door bell. There was no reply so she went inside and announced her presence. It was really hot inside and she doubted anyone would be in there, so she quickly swept through the place. There was a sound of breaking glass, it was coming from a screened in porch on the back of the house. Liz went out through the kitchen door and into it. Laying on a cot was a young man in his early 20s weakly pointing a 1911 at her. She stopped dead and said “It’s OK my names Liz and I’m a nurse, Joanne sent me here to help you”. “Steve” he replied putting the gun down on the bed with what looked like the last of his strength. Liz quickly did triage on him and saw that he had a compound break on his femur just above his knee. This was fixable but he’d developed a fever due to infection which complicated matters. She quickly administered anti-biotics and pain killers before going to work on the leg. It looked pretty swollen and there was soft tissue damage in conjunction with the infection. “Where’s my mom?” he asked her. “I’m sorry Steve, she didn’t make it. The sickness took her. I found her body in the parking lot at Campbell mercantile and saw what she was taking and put 2 and 2 together.” Steve had been expecting this after his mother hadn’t returned the first day, but it still hit him hard and he began to cry quietly. Liz was expecting this and felt sure he would have been crying a lot harder if not for his weakened condition. “Was it just the 2 of you?” she asked him after he stopped crying. “Yes, my father died a couple of years ago, had a heart attack out on the range. He was only 62. My little sister was away at school in Tucson, studying medicine at the University. She got all the brains. She died of the sickness, we heard about it from her room-mate and were going down to pick her body up to give her a decent burial when the quarantine notice came out and then that was pretty much it. Everyone round here died off and somehow thanks to the grace of God we survived.” “Did you ever have any symptoms of the sickness yourself Steve?” Liz asked him. He shook his head no. This was good news and bad news. It was good news for Liz since it meant that the virus probably hadn’t mutated into something else but bad news for Steve since he could still contract it. Liz had set Steve’s leg and began to wrap it in a plaster cast, she was about to ask him more questions but he’d fallen asleep. Probably the pain killers she thought, just as well the poor kid needs the rest. After she finished the cast she soaked a couple of towels and placed the on him to keep him cool. It would be a couple of hours before the cast hardened enough to risk moving him and it looked like he’d have to come and live with them for a while so she could monitor his condition and make sure he made a full recovery. |
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MO, USA
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Posted: 9/29/2007 12:38:09 PM EDT
[#25]
Woo!!! great addition as always!
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IN, USA
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Posted: 9/30/2007 10:01:06 AM EDT
[#26]
Great chapter. I'm glad one of these stories is being continued & not going to the wayside.
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WA, USA
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Posted: 9/30/2007 4:32:51 PM EDT
[#27]
I thought this story was going to die like the rest of them seem to. It is a great read, please keep it up.
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Posted: 9/30/2007 8:13:14 PM EDT
[#28]
+1 |
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IA, USA
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Posted: 10/2/2007 4:54:50 PM EDT
[#29]
love it
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 10/14/2007 5:02:41 PM EDT
[#30]
Chapter 14 Liz decided she needed to go talk to John and tell him about Steve, she left Steve a note incase he woke up before she came back. Then she drove back to where the rest of the family was, at a more sedate pace this time. As she pulled up in front of the house they were salvaging from John was just loading the 500 gallon propane tank down onto the flatbed trailer behind his truck with the forklift. There was a box already on the trailer that was about the size of a large chest freezer. This was a 10KW propane generator that had been installed in a shed adjoining the house. Liz told them about Steve and all agreed it would make sense to have him convalesce with them. They broke for lunch and sat under the patio in the back of the Mercantile building. Dave had already buried Joanne’s body under the shade of a Mesquite tree. It was a nice spot to be laid to rest he figured. Tensie had salvaged all the drugs and seeds from the store and they were pretty much ready to go back. John decided he and Tensie would go back home with the trailer whilst Liz and Dave went to pick up Steve. Liz let Dave drive the truck back over to Steve’s place. It had been about 3 hours since she had left him when they got to his place and he was still sleeping. Liz decided to stay with him whilst Dave went to check the place over. It was pretty small as ranches go and Dave figured they must have let the cattle graze mostly on open range. There was a barn with a tractor in side and a lot of farming implements that he didn’t recognize. Out back there was a windmill set up to pump water from a deep well. This was used to water the cattle and it did look as though it was potable. There were also 2 1000 gallon fuel tanks, Dave figured one for gas and the other for diesel. The sight glasses on them both showed they were close to empty, maybe 100 gallons or so in each. Well there was no shortage of fuel anymore and the tanks would be useful if they could move them. When he got back to the farm house Steve was awake. Liz introduced them and they discussed Steve living with them at least on a temporary basis until his leg mended. He agreed eventually and Dave helped him pack a bag to take with him. Steve was pretty adamant that this was only a temporary arrangement and that someone would have to come over at least every other day to check on the cattle. Luckily he had no milk cows and the cattle grazing out on the range were fairly self-sufficient. Steve had taken 100# or so of dried food stuffs from the pantry with him. He didn’t want to be a burden on Liz’s family. He realized that he would have died without her intervention and was very grateful for the kindness she was showing him. Back at John’s house they had converted the dining room into a bedroom for Steve. The dining room was a separate area in the front sitting room that was separated from the sitting room by 2 arches. John had rigged some curtains over the openings in the arch ways to give Steve some privacy. He had also removed the dining table and chairs and installed a cot and dresser. It was all ready for him when Liz and Dave brought him back to the house. Dave helped him inside the house and after a light dinner and some more medication he sacked out for the night. Steve woke late the next morning and it smelt like someone was cooking eggs. He’d not had eggs in months and he hoped there would be some left for him. Tensie knocked on the wall of his bedroom and asked if he was decent. Steve replied yes and she moved the curtain aside and went in. “Hi I’m Tensie, you must be Steve.” Steve shook his head yes. “I got some eggs cooking with tomatoes, onion and peppers if you’re hungry”. Again Steve shook his head yes. “Well OK I’ll give you a shout when they’re ready and you can come get them or I’ll bring them in”. Steve again shook his head yes. “Well which is it?” Tensie asked, wondering if Steve was a mute or just painfully shy. It was the latter and eventually Steve managed to say “I don’t think I can get up ma’am, could you please bring them in to me”. Tensie left a little confused, she’d never been “ma’amed” before, she wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. She went outside to the grill where Liz and John were sitting after they’d finished their breakfast. “Is Steve, you know, alright?” she asked Liz. “What do you mean by alright? He’s probably still groggy from all the pain killers and anti-biotics I gave him ”Liz replied. “No, I mean he’s like not having eye contact with me and he called me ma’am when I asked him if he wanted breakfast”. “Steve is from a ranching family and a lot of those folks are raised to treat people they don’t know with respect and so they often address strangers as sir or ma’am until they know them better. He probably couldn’t figure out you’re only 14 and since you’re acting in a very adult way he just called you ma’am out of habit. I’d consider it a compliment” said John. It took 4 days for Steve to get back on his feet. Liz had gotten him a pair of crutches from a thrift store and he was getting around on them quite well. He had also warmed up a lot more and felt comfortable with the rest of the family. They in turn had warmed to him. There was nothing complicated about Steve, he said what he thought but he also knew that if you don’t have nothing nice to say then don’t say nothing. He came out to join the rest of the family for breakfast and he sat down at the picnic table under the patio cover bidding everyone a good morning. “I feel like I need to be helping out a lot more, I hate being a burden on you folks. I was just wondering Mr Wozniak, sir, if there was some special reason you had for laying out them vegetable beds the way they were. I mean I don’t mean to be rude non, sir, but I was just thinking we could get more production out of them by changing the way things was arranged in them. I don’t pretend to be an expert and all and I guess most of my knowledge is ranching, not vegetables.” “Not at all Steve” John replied. “I admit not knowing anything about growing produce, I just laid them out without really thinking and so far we’ve been doing OK, but if you can improve things, and it sounds like you’ve got some real knowledge in this area, then I’m happy to have you suggest what to do.” “Well thank you sir, that’s right nice of you to say that. I’d like to poke ‘round things a bit this morning and see what I can see. I’m not guaranteeing y’all anything outrageous but I figure I can help out some” Steve replied. Chapter 15 Dana and Marisol had finished looking around the lake and had found nothing of any real interest. Dana was sure that there was more to the story with the dead family in the trailer but she didn’t care enough to stick around and investigate further. They’d lived on the boat for almost the whole month of August and it had been comparative luxury. They’d spent a lot of time in the middle of the lake where it was cool and this had helped reduce the diesel consumption. They had found a large box of movies on DVD and had stayed up all night one night watching a collection of Alfred Hitchcock movies. One week had been spent speaking nothing but Spanish, Dana had taken Spanish in high school but now she spoke it fluently. The food and water were both running low and it was time to move on. The extreme hot weather had broken and the late summer monsoons looked like they were going to be rolling through. Dana had spent a considerable amount of time studying a map of central Arizona and wanted to continue heading northwest. Her original plan had been to do a loop around and come back through north east Phoenix but it was becoming apparent to her that the area was no longer inhabited. The plan was now to head towards Prescott, which had been the territorial capital. It was at 5000 feet and the climate was better suited to the more primitive lifestyle that they were all now living. It was about 60 miles as the crow flies but on road it was more like 100 and there was an elevation change of 4000 feet to consider. Dana figured that travelling at night to avoid the heat and including stops to forage for food and water that it would take them 5 days. The first night had been pretty easy going and at dawn the next morning they were just outside of Wickenberg. Dana and Marisol were on top of a ridge looking down into the town. It was just light enough to see and Dana had the 36 power spotting scope out surveying the area. She had been through the town before and vaguely remembered how it was laid out. There were a couple of large super markets that they needed to go to for re-supply and this was what they planned to do during the day. It was quiet down there, nothing was moving. They headed into the town. The road in was 4 lanes with a median, Dana took the right side of the road and Marisol the left side. Dana was pretty sure the place was deserted but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. They rounded a blind curve and came to a burned down gas station. It had obviously burned down several months previously. They hadn’t seen it from their look out spot due to the contours of the land. Dana dismounted and went to investigate, Marisol followed her. Dana had her M4 held at low ready, something un-nerved her about the burned down gas station. There were several burnt out pickup trucks parked on the forecourt area by the pumps, but they didn’t look like they had been there filling up. As they approached closer it became obvious that a major gun battle had taken place over ownership of the gas station. It looked like a lot of rifle caliber cartridges in one place, Dana picked a couple of them up and looked at them. The headstamp was 7.9 1939 T and a crescent with a star in it. So some one had fired almost 200 rounds of world war 2 era Turkish 8mm Mauser ammo into the gas station. Dana picked up the black metal link off the ground, it looked like the ammo had been shot from a belt fed machine gun as well. She walked over to where the gas station office had been. Here she found a lot of shotshell cases that had been fired. They were mostly #8 and #7 1/2 loads, pretty ineffective at anything over 25 yards. She handed the 8mm and 12 gage cartridges to Marisol. “Not really a fair fight at all, I hope what ever it was they died for was worth it. The 8mm looks like it was fired from a belt fed machine gun, see there are scratch marks on the sides where it was stripped from the belt and I also found a couple of links as well.” Marisol looked around at the damage and said, “Well it looks like it happened a long time ago, I figure whoever did it has moved on. I just hope they didn’t do this at the supermarket.” The supermarket was intact but it had been stripped bare. It looked like it had been done by people who knew what they were doing about the only things left intact were the cosmetics aisle, cat food and the freezers full of rotting food. Dana was a little disheartened and she sat down heavily on a chair in the furniture aisle. Marisol came and sat beside her putting her arm around Dana’s shoulder. “Well look on the bright side chicka, we’ve got all this years colors in the make up department, so at least we can look good when we’re eating our kibbles and bits.” Dana laughed, Marisol had a great sense of humor and she knew how to lift Dana when she was down. Dana had half expected the place to be empty when they’d found more of the fired 8mm mauser cases outside in the supermarket parking lot but it was a blow to see the place picked clean. It was the same at the convenience stores as well, evidence of a gun fight and empty shelves. Someone had methodically gone through the town taking everything and killing anyone who stood in their way. The way Dana figured things the town was effectively now safe. Anyone who had been living here was either dead or run off and the people who had done the killing and looting wouldn’t be coming back because there was nothing left to take. They needed a re-supply before carrying on, they were down to about 12 gallons of water and that would only last 3 or 4 days at most. “It’s time to go solicit donations from the neighborhood” Dana said. “I don’t much like doing it either but I figure we have no choice in the matter.” Marisol shook her head in agreement, although she had no moral problems at all with taking things from dead people. They no longer needed them, so why would they care? The went through a lot of houses that proved fruitless until they hit pay dirt. The jackpot was a house they entered in a very upscale neighborhood and it yielded a lot of stored food. It looked like the house had belonged to a Mormon family and the basement was full of dried and canned foods. There was also over 200 gallons of purified water stored in 5 gallon plastic bottles. The bottles were the type used on water coolers but they could easily pour them into their water containers. There was also a gun locker, nothing in it for Dana but Marisol picked up a couple of boxes of 00 buck shot. The basement was fairly cool and they decided to rest up in it during the day. They had hidden their bikes in the garage and felt safe in the town. They slept most of the day waking up around mid afternoon. The rest of the time was spent loading up the bikes in preparation for the nights journey. Dusk fell and they decide to start travelling. Figuring the town was deserted they rode down main street and took the road that was sign posted to Prescott. The town was truly deserted and they rode all night. Dana felt better once they’d gotten out of the town limits, there was something that didn’t seem right about the place they’d just left. Sure there’d been death everywhere due to the sickness, but the evidence of the gun battles they’d seen at the gas station and the supermarket made her feel uneasy. Dana had triumphed in every encounter she’d had and felt very confident in speed of action and use of overwhelming force just like she’d read in the army training manuals she’d read. But the more she analyzed her previous gun fights she knew that her opponents had been low level thugs that she’d always caught off guard. Now there was a greater predator out there with a belt fed machine gun that had no qualms about slaughtering people and this was worrying. A little after dawn the next day the girls were on a hilltop looking down into the town of Congress. It really wasn’t much more than a gas station and a convenience store with a couple of hundred house spread out over 2 square miles. Someone had torched the gas station and store here as well. They could both see it and there was an uneasy silence between them. There was nothing stirring down in the town. Marisol cleared her throat and said “hey are you sure this is the right direction for us to be going?” This was not said in her usual joking carefree voice. “Well whoever did it is long gone, so I don’t see any real danger” replied Dana. She was trying to put a brave face on things, but she was as nervous about the whole situation as Marisol was. Dana had scanned the town 4 times and didn’t see anywhere that looked like a good place to hole up for the day. The houses were all single or double wide trailers on lots with chain link fences, it was doubtful any of them had basements either. So far the only place that looked even halfway promising from a security point of view was a mobile mini storage place, but all the concrete would likely make that a hot place to be. It might be a good place to check out for any decent salvage, although it seemed like such an obvious salvage place that she figured whoever was cleaning up around here had probably already hit it. Dana contemplated there immediate surroundings, they were about 400 yards off the main road and there was a narrow canyon below them whose opening was well concealed from the road. Maybe this was a better spot to spend the day. Marisol was pretty tired and agreed to spend the day where they were. Dana found some mesquite trees to stretch a camo tarp between and it made a nice shaded area. There was a gentle breeze blowing and Dana rigged 2 hammocks up between the same trees. They ate a simple meal and then sacked out in the hammocks. They both slept on and off all day. It had been a good spot with shade and a gentle breeze blowing on them. They’d sweated a lot but had kept well hydrated enough throughout the day. By late afternoon Dana was awake and left a sleeping Marisol to go get them some fresh game to eat. She took the silenced buckmark with her and set out to see what was available. She didn’t need to go far, there were signs of rabbit all over. She found a good spot to hide in some rocks and waited. After about 15 minutes she heard movement in the bushes behind her. It was a jack rabbit of real good size. He was about 15 yards up wind from her and hadn’t smelt her yet. Dana eased the safety off on the pistol and took the rabbit with a head shot. She went over to retrieve her prey and then headed back to their camp. Marisol was up and had seen what Dana was doing. She was busy making up some flour tortillas from the supplies they’d gotten from the Mormon household the previous day. She was cooking them by leaving them on a hot rock in the sun. As Dana came into the camp she said to her “This is old school, I got this from my grandma, she used to do this when we’d go on picnics. I think she used to do this just to show off, I mean it’s not like we didn’t have propane cookers.” Dana sat down and dressed out the rabbit while Marisol lit a fire. The wood was very dry and the fire made almost no smoke at all. The rabbit cooked quickly and they shredded the meat up when it was cooked. It made 4 very large sized burritos after they added canned salsa to it and refried beans. They decided to eat one each now and safe the other for later on that night. Dana had studied the map and it looked like they had a lot of climbing to do on the road ahead. The road was split into 2 lanes as it ran up the side of the Mesa that they had to summit. Their destination was Yarnell and it was on the top of the Mesa. “Salsa definitely tastes better when it’s fresh” Marisol said. Dana picked up the jar of salsa and looked at it. It was part of the salvage they’d picked up from the Mormon house. “I don’t know if it’s the age of the salsa that’s the problem, this stuff’s made in New York City” Dana replied. “New York City? Uh, what the hell do they know about making salsa?” Marisol said in disgust. |
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FL, USA
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Posted: 10/15/2007 3:32:31 AM EDT
[#31]
Good story. Please keep up the good work.. Thank you lil
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Posted: 10/15/2007 9:02:06 AM EDT
[#32]
Good work keep it coming.
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MO, USA
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Posted: 10/15/2007 1:04:45 PM EDT
[#33]
great additions!
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 10/21/2007 7:08:13 PM EDT
[#34]
Chapter 16
They broke camp and left just as dusk was falling. They stopped briefly in Congress at the burned out gas station and there was evidence of another one sided fire fight. Dana could not see the head stamp on the brass in the dark, but she was pretty certain she knew what it would be. She pocketed a couple of pieces of the brass to look at later when it was light. The road out of Congress and to the bottom of the main hill was a fairly gentle run up hill. They were able to maintain a brisk walking pace on their bikes without much trouble. They paused at the bottom of the hill, trying to decide if either side of the divided highway would be easier. Dana could vaguely remember coming on this road a couple of years previously and thought the uphill lane was more gently sloped than the down hill side. So they took the uphill lane. Things were OK for about the first half mile then the grade started getting steeper. Had they just been riding themselves everything would have been OK but the extra 120# each they were towing was too much. Dana was wiped out and at the point where she was moving so slowly that she couldn’t keep balance. Marisol was doing a little better and had pulled off about 20 yards in front of her. Dana called to her to stop so they could rest. They sat down on a rock and took a good drink from their canteens, “Marisol I can’t do this, I can’t peddle up this hill towing the trailer”. “Yeah I know, I’m only just able to keep my balance to. I guess this is going to be a long night” Marisol replied. “I think we should try towing one trailer between us first and then come back for the other” Dana proposed. Marisol agreed that this was a better bet, so they un hooked the bike from Dana’s trailer and lashed it on to the front of Marisols bike. On the count of 3 they both started pedaling and this time they were able to maintain a slow walking pace without either of them falling over. The vegetation was changing as they climbed the hill and the temperature was dropping as well. This was good since it was hard work and they were sweating pretty god. They stopped about ¼ mile below the summit and rested up in a small patch of woods. After 15 minutes to catch their breaths they un hooked the trailer and rode down the hill to pick up the other trailer. It took only 5 minutes to cover the distance going down hill that had taken over 2 hours going uphill. The second trip up the hill was no easier than the first but it didn’t seem to take as long. The last ¼ mile was easy and as they crested the summit they saw a valley with grass and trees stretching out before them. There was probably still an hour till dawn but they were both exhausted. There was a small stand of mixed trees about 200 yards off from the side of the road so they decided to go and rest up in it. Dana checked it out and it looked good. The trees were mostly low firs which provided a good screen from the road. They got out their bed rolls and after covering the bikes and trailers with camo tarps sacked out for the day. Dana woke up with a start. She had just heard a dry branch break somewhere behind her. She glanced over at Marisol who was dead to the world. Dana slipped her Hi-Power out from the holster that was under her pillow. As best she could figure the movement was behind and over her right shoulder somewhere in the trees. She had taken her outer clothes off when she had gotten into her sleeping bag and was now only dressed in briefs and a T-shirt. Well the time to act was now, she quietly unzipped the side of the sleeping bag and prepared to roll out to her right side. As she did she reached out with her left hand and gave Marisol a good push to try and wake her. Dana rolled out of her bag and right into a patch of burrs that promptly dug into her legs and arms. “SHIT!” she yelled out in pain. This startled the dwarf antelope that had been the source of the noise and it took off at incredible speed. Dana jumped up out of the burr patch and stepped right in them again. “MOTHERFUCKER, DAMM, SON OF A BITCH!” she continued cursing eventually falling back on her sleeping bag. Marisol opened one eye and looked at her, “are you about done with your Redd Foxx impersonation? Would you like me to pull them out?” Dana was fuming and in pain, the burrs had hooks on the end of them and getting them out was no easy task. Marisol leaned over to where her pants were and retrieved a multi-tool from the pocket. It took 10 minutes to get them all out and some were dug in pretty far. Dana had calmed down and told her about the dwarf antelope, this they both agreed was a good sign, as animals of that size generally were around a source of fresh water. The ground cover plants were about mid calf high and generally an area than can produce vegetation like that can support all kinds of life. Judging by the sun it had to be approaching mid-day and the temperature in the shade in their wooded area only felt like about 80f. This was a nice change from the previous day when they’d both been very hot in camp. The climb up Yarnell hill had been brutal, the hill rises 2500 ft vertically over a horizontal distance of 4 miles. The elevation at the top is close to 5000ft and this gives the area an almost perfect year round climate. The summer highs are mid 90s and the winter lows in the 20s. the dwarf antelope Dana had seen was part of a large herd that had been slowly migrating west from the area south of Prescott, the old territorial capital of Arizona. The girls both got dressed and rather than move on decided to spend the rest of the day and night in the same spot. They cleaned up camp area taking care to remove all the burrs and brambles in the process. Dana had lost a brake block from her front brake on the run back down the hill the previous night. She had overshot the trailer by 50 yards and had skidded to a halt with a locked up back brake. So she spent some time checking over both bikes and trailers, doing maintenance and replacing parts as needed. They had slept the previous night on the ground and it had been OK, but Marisol preferred sleeping in a hammock. They found a good stand of trees that would let them rig the hammocks close together and also drape a tarp over the top in case of rain. The ground was dry but judging by the green color of the plants they would need to plan for rain. They still had 10 gallons of drinking water with them but Dana decided to see how much water they could collect from the atmosphere. She got a 10’ x 10’ camo tarp and suspended it about a foot above the ground and placed a rock in the center of it. The idea was to see how much dew they could collect over night. The rock was to give a collecting point for the dew to run down to. With this done Dana decided to take a walk around to see if she could get some game for their supper. Marisol didn’t feel much like hunting and instead got the 36 power scope out to see what she could see. She knew the village of Yarnell was about a mile away and so decided to see if there were any signs of life. They hadn’t brought any chairs with them so Marisol found a comfortable looking rock in the shade of the trees that looked down the valley into the village to sit on. There wasn’t a whole lot to see down in the village, no stores of any sort and just one road leading off the main highway which presumably led off into a residential area. She checked the residential area over as best as she could and it looked like no-one was home. There were a few more of the antelope and a stream with running water in it. This was really good news. Marisol checked the course of the stream to see if she could find where it came from. It looked like it went back under the main road and into the woods on the side of a hill about a ½ mile from where she was. Dana had gone off in the other direction and Marisol decided to go and check out the stream. She grabbed her shotgun and a couple of empty gallon water jugs and set off towards the stream. It didn’t take long to get to it and the water tasted clean and sweet. Marisol filled the water jugs and set them down on the bank of the stream. The stream ran uphill into the woods and it looked like there was a pond or small lake just inside the tree line. She left the jugs where they were and followed the stream to the pond. The pond was a reasonable size, covering about the same size as a typical house. It was fed by a waterfall that had some kind of manmade funneling device at the bottom of it. Marisol went over to examine it further and it turned out to be an enclosed water wheel with a generator attached to it. It was running and a heavy gage cable mounted on poles was attached to it that led further into the woods. The water wheel generator looked like it had been there for some time. The funneling device for the water wheel was constructed from local stone and had been very well made by someone who was an expert in these matters. The out side of it had a good covering of moss but the inside looked like it had been sealed with epoxy paint. The actual wheel looked like stainless steel and the generator was enclosed in a painted metal enclosure. It all looked like it had been maintained well and the lubrication reservoirs for the bearings on the wheel were full. It looked like someone was still using it and they couldn’t be too far away. Marisol looked around but couldn’t see anything but trees. There was a hill crest about 200 yards off and the cable was headed in that direction. She started heading to the top of the hill but suddenly stopped. She wasn’t sure if she should go and get Dana just in case there could be trouble, but she didn’t know where Dana was. It might be nothing she thought, I’ll go see if there’s anything to go get her for first. The woods ended at the top of the hill and she had a clear view down into the valley below. There was a futuristic looking house made of cast concrete with floor to ceiling windows all across the front of it. The rear of the house was set into the hill side and the roof was covered in solar panels. There was a large fenced area in front of the house that was growing wheat and greenhouses off to the sides with garden vegetables in them. On the other side of the valley there were orchards and what looked like a vineyard. Someone was definitely at home here, everything was well kept up. Marisol looked around for signs of people working in the fields but there were none. She sat in the sunshine at the edge of the woods admiring the beauty of the valley below her. “Put down the shotgun and raise your hands above your head” said a mans voice. The voice was firm but not harsh, Marisol did as she was told. “Stand up and turn around to face me”, “I can’t with my hands on my head, I’ll lose my balance and fall” Marisol replied. The man was obviously looking her over to try and gage how much of a threat she was. “OK, but do it slowly”. Marisol stood up carefully and turned around to face the man. He was fairly tall and looked to be in his early 30s, with an open and honest looking face. He had shoulder length blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail and he had a recently groomed beard and mustache. Marisol flashed him her winning smile and the man smiled back. He was still covering her with a scoped Winchester model 70, but his finger was off the trigger. He lowered the rifle and said “my name’s Ted Griffin and this is my place.” “Marisol Senna De Silva, pleased to meet you” she replied. “How did you find me?” he asked and Marisol told him about following the power line from the water wheel. She also told him about Dana and that they were both looking for a community to settle into. Ted looked at his watch and said “well there’s about2 hours till dark, why don’t you go find your friend and bring her over here for dinner. I’ve got a guest house the 2 of you can stay in if you want. Marisol liked the idea of sleeping in a bed and she decided to get back to camp as fast as possible to tell Dana the news. She was easily able to retrace her route back to camp but there was still no sign of Dana. Marisol decided to start breaking camp anyway, she was feeling very pleased with herself. Ted and the set up he had were exactly what she was looking for, all she had to do was make him fall in love with her. That was probably going to be an easy task for her to accomplish. Ted couldn’t believe his luck, he’d been starting to get lonely and had thought about trying to find a woman for companionship and a totally gorgeous one dropped right into his lap. On the surface of things she was pretty much his ideal woman, very pretty, a great figure, decent personality and that slightly husky mexican accent that was so sexy. He took 3 good sized venison steaks out of the freezer in his cellar and brought them up into the kitchen. The cellar was built underneath the house and extended back into the hillside. Part of it was made from a cave that had been on the property and it was this feature that had made him want to build the house in this spot. He figured he’d microwave the steaks to get them thawed at least partially and then finish them on the grill. He planned a fresh garden salad to go with the steaks and also some potatoes left over from the spring planting. The potatoes were a little old so he figured it would be best to bake them. While the steaks were thawing he went to check on the guest house. It was a little stuffy inside so he opened the windows. The guest house was adjacent to the main house and it was laid out like a studio apartment. Ted checked to make sure the linens and towels were clean and he turned on the water and power. On his way back to the main house he stopped to light the grill, the charcoal was dry and it lit fairly quickly. Marisol had camp pretty much broken down and was going to go wash herself off in the stream when a bruised and bloody Dana limped back into camp. “Aikericko girl! What the hell happened to you?” Marisol exclaimed. She sat Dana down and started to clean her up. “I got spooked by a rattlesnake and slipped and fell down a small cliff”. Dana explained, she seemed more embarrassed than anything else. The cuts were all superficial and they cleaned up easily. Marisol told her about finding Ted and their dinner date with him. Dana could tell by the excitement in her voice that Marisol had high hopes for this “date”. “Well OK Marisol if you think he’s a good guy then there’s no harm in checking him out, but if he mentions a ménage-a-trois then I’m out of there”. Marisol made a face at her, “No, I don’t think he’s like that, and anyway don’t knock it until you tried it?” “Are you serious?” Dana asked her, “Well what’s wrong with it, it was fun. Would have been better if the camera crew hadn’t been there, I don’t know I just couldn’t totally relax”. This was too much information for Dana. She had been joking about the ménage-a-trois but it looked like Marisol would be game for it. Dana wasn’t up for it under any circumstances and she let Marisol know that. Careful design and build had resulted in a house that took surprisingly little energy to run it. Ted had made a fortune in silicon valley during the dot com days. He had started a website called “my clock” as a joke. The web site was fairly simple it was a clock that told the same time that you could get off your computer. You could select your own wallpaper for it and there were various themes like pin-ups, cuddly animals and such. Later on he added a gossip column to it where people could also leave their own comments. It generated reasonable traffic and an investment group paid Ted $5 million for it in summer of 1999. Ted got out of the game just in time and by 2003 he had managed to double his money. He had tired of the Palo Alto lifestyle as well and sold his 900 sq ft condo and moved to Yarnell to live the simple life. It had taken him 2 years to find this place and another year to get it built. This was his 3rd year living at the ranch and things were working well. The water wheel had been his idea, after losing power repeatedly during the 1st year he decided to be independent of the local power company. At first he had considered a propane powered generator, but it wasn’t really in keeping with his independent philosophy. The water wheel and solar panels seemed more natural. He had found a good spot and had constructed the funneling for the waterwheel. He had considered doing a turbine at first but the flow of the stream just wasn’t enough to justify the huge extra expense it would incur. The setup worked well, the water wheel make a constant 2KW of AC power and the solar could produce another 4 KW of DC. The DC was used to charge a battery bank and inverters converted it to AC. Ted was as nervous as a high school kid on prom night. The steaks were thawed and at room temperature, the wine was chilling in the fridge and all he needed was his date, and her friend. From the sound of things Dana was a tomboy and Ted wondered exactly what the nature of her relationship with Marisol was. In reality Marisol had slightly oversold Danas masculine characteristics as Ted would later find out. The sun was just peaking over the hill when Dana caught site of Ted’s house and the valley it was in. it looked more fabulous than Marisol had described it. Ted was sitting on the deck in front of the house drinking a glass of wine and he waived to them both. Dana thought he looked handsome although he was a little too old for her. “He’s cute” she said quietly to Marisol. Introductions were made and Ted showed the girls to the guest house. Dana spied the shower and asked if she could use it. She suggested to Marisol that she go help Ted with dinner. Marisol agreed saying she telling her not to run off all the hot water. Ted and Marisol walked back to the house and Ted gave her a tour of the place. It was laid out fairly simply in keeping with Teds personality. The living area was all on one level comprising a very large “great room” with living and dining areas in it. The spacious kitchen was on the end of the house and set partially into the hillside and had skylights going up for natural lighting. The 2 bedrooms were on the opposite end of the house. Underneath this area was a walk in basement which also gave access to the cellar in the hillside. The basement was fully finished and could be used as another bedroom if needed. Next to the basement was a 4 car garage which housed Ted’s truck, his tractor and a 1966 Mini Cooper S that was a former Monte Carlo rally car. Ted had restored it to race condition and he used it for fun driving up and down Yarnell hill in the dead of night. A Subarru Imprezza WRX would have gotten up the hill a lot faster but it didn’t have the character of the Mini. Dana walked up to the open garage door where Ted and Marisol were discussing the Mini. She had showered and was wearing one of Marisol’s more demure outfits. She had her hair up and had used a little make up. She looked cute in a girl next door kind of way. Ted smiled at her, she was a little too young and skinny for his tastes but she was a pretty girl for sure. Marisol excused herself and went to get herself ready for dinner. It was dark and Ted turned the outside lights on. He gave Dana the same tour as Marisol but did it in reverse. Dana had lots of technical questions about the house and how things worked. Marisol had just taken everything he said at face value without question. The solar panels and inverters were similar to the setup at Johns house for the well pump, just on a larger scale. Dana commented on this and Ted was interested to here more about John and his family. Dana gave him the 5 minute history, leaving out her run in with the MZBs. She didn’t feel comfortable talking about the subject with him just yet. They were in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine when Marisol came back. She had chosen a tube dress that clung all over making the most of her slinky figure. She’d been in 2 minds about it since she was starting to have a bit of a “show” of the baby in her tummy. The outfit wasn’t as cleavage showing as she would have normally gone with but she figured restraint would work better. Ted looked her over and was very pleased with what he saw. “Ladies, how do you like your steaks cooked?” he asked heading out to the grill. |
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Posted: 10/22/2007 10:02:09 AM EDT
[#35]
Thanks! Keep it coming!!
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Posted: 10/23/2007 7:16:37 AM EDT
[#36]
+1 |
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MO, USA
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Posted: 10/23/2007 11:14:07 PM EDT
[#37]
Took me a couple days to find time to read, but yet again another great addition. Keep up the good work.
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Posted: 10/29/2007 3:14:45 AM EDT
[#38]
Great story...
Looking forward to more... |
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 11/3/2007 1:27:52 PM EDT
[#39]
Chapter 17 Ted was glad he’d chosen a pair of comfortable dockers pants to wear instead of jeans, because he was sure his erection was sticking out about a foot in front of him. Wow, he just couldn’t believe how hot Marisol was. Sure it’d been a year or so since he’d seen a woman but he didn’t remember one having quite this effect on him. Dana was pretty cute as well maybe a bit on the skinny side, under normal circumstances he’d have been all over her as well. Ted briefly wondered if there was any chance of them doubling up on him. He put that thought aside. Nice girls, the kind you want to settle down with, aren’t into that kind of thing. He came back into the house after laying the steaks on the grill. Marisol was in the kitchen working on something. “This is an old family recipe for the salad dressing, I think you’ll like it. It goes really well with game meat as well” she said . Marisol was kind of winging it, she’d never had venison before but figured it couldn’t be much different than Javelina. “I washed the lettuce and chopped the onions small and tomatoes, I figured we could do a kind of pico de gallo sauce with it, kind of spice things up a bit. I didn’t see any fresh cilantro, do you have any dried?” Ted laughed in an appreciative way, “I think I have some frozen cubed cilantro in the freezer, let me get it for you. Is there anything else you do Marisol?” Marisol smiled at him and repositioned herself ready to continue chopping. It may have been accidental but the combination of turning slightly and movement of her shoulders caused her breasts to jiggle very obviously. Dana rolled her eyes thinking “Yeah, give her a pole to dance around and she’ll give you quite a show”. Dana walked out into the living area of the house. Ted had a real nice home theater set up, she figured it all still worked. There was a rack of DVDs against the wall and she casually looked through them. There were a lot of black and white classics, some foreign films with subtitles, plenty of obscure “indy” type films with real stories and some contemporary comedies. “Wow, Ted has great taste in movies she thought. She was kind of surprised to see there were no violent action movies like “Heat” “Blackhawk down” or “Army of darkness”. She’d figured those were de riguer for guys, at least they were for any guys she’d dated. Dana selected “Legally blonde” from the rack, she loved Reece Witherspoon movies. Dana felt she could relate to the character in the movie and it would be nice to sit down and be entertained since it looked like Ted and Marisol would be too engrossed in each other. She walked into the kitchen with it just as Ted was returning with the steaks. “Can we watch this later on?” she asked. Ted looked at the DVD and shook his head yes, “ah yes, some of Ms Witherspoon’s greatest work”. Dana re-filled her wine glass and went and sat down at the dining room table. Ted had set it perfectly and had dimmed the lights opting for candles instead. Dana sat on the side of the table looking out the house into the valley, she figured Ted and Marisol would want to sit at either end of the table so they could gaze into each others eyes all night. Either than or so Ted could stare as Marisol jiggled her boobs for him. Dana wasn’t really bitter, it’s just that she’d enjoyed being with Marisol but it looked like that was coming to an end. Dinner was served, Marisol had artistically arranged the greens and her pico de gallo sauce both looked and smelt delicious. The steaks had had time for the juices to re-absorb and even the baked potatoes looked regal. Dana felt slightly heady from the 2 glasses of wine, but she thought this was the best looking meal she’d ever seen. “You know I’d like to go get my Hi-Power and put it by my plate, then take a picture of them both and post it on the internet” said Dana. Marisol gave Ted a look that said “what the fuck was that about?” Dinner tasted as good as it looked. It had been quite a while since the girls had sat down to dinner at a table with a cloth on it. Ted opened up the conversation “Marisol, what did you do before?” It wasn’t necessary for Ted to state before what, everybody just understood. “Well I was kind of a model, an actress and a dancer. I also did promotional work, you know any time they needed a pretty face to brighten things up”. “Wow that was really sugar coating things” Dana thought to herself. “I guess my biggest deal was doing the weather forecast on a local TV station down in Xoahacha. My intro line was when the anchor would say “And here with the weather is Marisol, our own little ray of sunshine” and I’d come on camera and smile lots and be all slinky in low cut tops. And I’d stretch with my arms out in profile shots to indicate where the low pressure zone would be. I was supposed to help brighten peoples days up after all the bad news on the news. There was talk of me doing a cooking show as well.” Dana was about to interject with “So exactly how was it you ended up dancing in a titty bar?” but decided to keep her mouth shut for the time being. One thing was for sure though, if Marisol kept laying down bullshit this thick she’d need wear rubber boots to leave the table. Ted thought about the image of Marisol being slinky in a low cut top and as he glanced over at her she did that thing moving her shoulders again that caused her breasts to jiggle slightly. He wasn’t sure but he thought he could see an out line of a nipple on her right breast. “So how about you Dana?” he asked. “I was a business major and a part time plumber in my Dad’s plumbing business. Since then I guess you could say I’ve been a farmer and I’m really good with chickens. Right now I’m looking to find a place in the world, I don’t know where it is or what it is but I think I’ll know it when I see it”. “Does this place involve anyone else?” Ted inquired, trying to figure out what Dana’s real intents were. He was definitely picking up mixed signals from her and wasn’t sure if it was his “gaydar” pinging. “It’s going to involve a real man and then later on lots of children I hope. So far I haven’t been too impressed with a lot of the men I’ve been running into” Dana continued. “Well I just think you’ve had an extraordinary amount of bad luck Chicka, I mean sure there’s bad men out there but there’s a lot less of them now” replied Marisol. Ted wasn’t sure what Marisol meant, he figured she just meant that there were less people in general. “How many people have you met since it happened Ted?” Marisol asked. Ted put down his fork and said “actually you 2 are the first visitors I’ve had since then. There were a bunch of people in 4 pick up trucks camping out in some houses in the town a couple of months back, but they moved on. I was going to go down and talk to them but they had a lot of guns, looked like a machine gun of some type mounted in the bed of one of the trucks. I just didn’t get a good vibe from them.” Dana and Marisol looked at each other and Dana spoke. “Yeah I believe we’ve seen some of their work, they specialize in raiding settlements and them killing everyone and taking what they want. They would have killed you no question.” Ted gulped, “is there a lot of that going on? I mean I’d assumed that there would be some lawlessness but I didn’t think it would break down this fast.” Dana laughed, “it took about 2 weeks Ted, if you meet someone who’s bad it’s now kill or be killed. Why do you think we are both armed?” Ted didn’t believe Dana, he thought she was either drunk or lying. He turned to Marisol “So how many people have you killed?” he asked in a way that was almost mocking Dana. Marisol picked up on Ted’s attitude and anger flared inside her “Only one man, but he deserved it after holding me captive and repeatedly raping me” she replied. Ted about fell out of his chair. “This is his child, but that’s not going to stop me loving it with all my heart” she said, stroking the lump on her tummy. Ted realized how much of a dick he’d come off as and he tried to regain his composure, “I’m sorry, I had no idea how things were and I didn’t mean to insult you like that. It’s just all kind of coming as a shock to me. I mean I expected some rioting and looting but then I figured the government would come in and take control. Maybe establish martial law for a while and crack down on the trouble makers.” “Ted, there is no government, there is no law, there’s just look after yourself and your own community.” Said Dana. “Marisol and a group of others were being held captive and were forced to work as virtual slave labor by a gang of MZBs. There were no police to help we had to kill them ourselves”. “Well in fairness Chicka you did most of the work on that one and there’s no way I could have done it without you” Marisol said gently squeezing Dana’s hand in friendship. “Yeah but that guy would have killed me going up the staircase if you hadn’t shot him first” Dana replied. Ted refilled Dana’s wine glass, this wasn’t going as he’d planned and he needed to get things back on track. “The steaks are from a buck I harvested about 3 months ago. I have a deep freezer set up in the basement portion under the hill. The temperature in that part of the house stays constantly in the mid 50s year round. When I built this place I paid particular attention to details like that and also I’ve tried to make the place as energy efficient as possible. What do you think of the wine Dana?” “It’s very nice, I don’t know much about wine but this sure tastes good” replied Dana. “I made it myself, from grapes grown in the vineyards on the other side of the valley. I had intended to make this my business, but I’m not sure there will be a market for it in the future”. Ted continued. “It’s hard to figure out what future there is for mankind”. “Well it’s not going to have one if we don’t work hard at re-populating the world” added Marisol “and I’m looking forward to getting started on that”. Ted laughed, more out of relief that the tense situation had been defused than anything. Also he was looking forward to the opportunity of helping Marisol out with re-populating the world. Dinner was done and Marisol got up to and started to clear the table. No one said anything but it was noticed that she had taken charge of the domestic situation. Ted helped her with the table cloth and went outside to shake the crumbs off over the side of the deck. Dana had sat down in a lazyboy recliner and was rolling the movie. She felt warm, fat and happy as she watched the movie and sipped her wine. Dana woke up and the movie was over and the room was dark. She wondered what time it was and where everyone else was. There was some light coming from the moon shining through the window behind her. She got up out of the chair and stretched. Walking over to the arcadia door she saw Ted and Marisol were sitting outside on a love seat on the deck looking out over the valley. Ted had his arm around her shoulders and they had a blanket over their laps. They were obviously deep in conversation and Dana did not want to intrude. She went over to the door and opened it slightly. “Hey guys I’m going to bed, good night” she said. She didn’t know if they’d heard her or not but figured they had other things on their minds. Dana woke up the next morning and was a little surprised to see Marisol was in bed with her. She got up and put a pot of coffee on and quietly went to take a shower. Wow, this was real luxury hot running water and electricity. Sure she had coffee and hot showers at John’s place but this seemed nicer. She dried herself off and came out of the shower wrapped in a big towel. It was a little cooler in the guest house so she dressed quickly as the coffee maker was finishing it’s brew. Marisol was stirring as Dana opened the curtains in front of the arcadia door that was the front window of the guest house. The window also had a great view of the valley and she sat down on the couch with her coffee to enjoy it. Ted waived at her as he walked by the window, and she waived back. He came by about 10 minutes later carrying a basket of eggs with him and stopped outside the window. Dana opened it for him. “Good morning” she said to him with a smile, she hadn’t gotten a “range report” from Marisol about last night so she wasn’t sure what had happened after she went to bed. “Good morning” Ted replied “are you two interested in breakfast in a little while?” “I’ll have to wake Marisol up first, but yes we’d love breakfast. I hope you didn’t keep her up all night because she does need her beauty sleep”. “Oh I don’t know, I think she does alright without it” Ted said closing the door and heading up to the main house. Dana took a pillow off the couch and threw it gently at Marisol. “Alright Senna de Silva, lets hear all the details” Dana said in a loudish voice. “Ugh, what do you mean waking me up like this” Marisol responded kind of grumpily. “Come on the details, what did you and Ted get up to last night?” “Nothing much, we just sat on the deck and talked lots”. “What that’s it, you didn’t jump his bones or anything?” “No, what kind of a girl do you think I am?” Dana was a little taken aback. “You’ve got to be shitting me, you worked in a titty bar and made pornos with other girls and you didn’t fuck this guy?” “No, that was the old Marisol, I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. Listen I really like Ted and I think we could have something really special going here. So please don’t say anything about what I’ve told you I did before, I guess looking back on it it don’t sound too good.” Dana made a gesture of zipping her mouth shut and throwing away the key. Marisol got up out of bed and went into the shower. She showered quickly, dried and dressed herself. She didn’t put any make up, she didn’t need to. Dana looked at her as she came out of the bathroom, “I wish I could look as good as you do”. “You have inner beauty chicka” Marisol responded. “Are you going to stay here with him?” Dana asked. Marisol shook her head yes “I think so, if he asks me”. This is what Dana had expected. It had been very obvious from their body language at dinner last night what was going on and Dana had not missed it. Oh well it would be a shame to lose Marisol, but at the same time Dana was happy for her. |
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Posted: 11/3/2007 6:26:36 PM EDT
[#40]
Awesome...Dana wanted to post a 'dinner pic'...
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Posted: 11/3/2007 8:09:30 PM EDT
[#41]
and a range report. lol |
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Posted: 11/4/2007 12:59:35 AM EDT
[#42]
Gad I found this again, I had lost it back around chapter 4 months ago, must have been a different thread
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 11/4/2007 8:44:25 AM EDT
[#43]
yeah I just couldn't resist throwing those Arfcom in jokes in there.
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 11/4/2007 8:46:10 AM EDT
[#44]
something got messed up in the original thread and I could no longer update the title. called the mods on it and they couldn't figure it out either so I started a new one. |
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USA
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Posted: 11/4/2007 2:41:59 PM EDT
[#45]
Great story going still. Keep it up!
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Posted: 11/5/2007 11:15:45 AM EDT
[Last Edit: oden131]
[#46]
glad you did put the jokes in
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IL, USA
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Posted: 11/6/2007 8:47:06 PM EDT
[#47]
great story, keep it up!
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 11/9/2007 10:35:03 AM EDT
[#48]
Chapter 18 It had been a week and Ted had been the perfect host. Marisol had moved into the main house with Ted on the 5th night and Dana was figuring it was about time to be moving on. She didn’t feel uncomfortable around the new couple but it was time to go none the less. Dana had been exploring further down the valley and had come to another farm house. This was nowhere near the scale of Teds place but it had yielded a mid 90s vintage Ford Ranger pickup truck in working order. The truck was nothing special, a 4 cylinder stick shift regular cab with only 2 wheel drive, but it did have a camper shell on it. The battery did not have enough charge to turn the motor over so Dana had roll started it down a small dip in the road. Ted had filled up the tank for her, giving a driving range of almost 500 miles if she took things carefully. She loaded up the truck with all her gear and the supplies that both she and Marisol had been hauling. This only half filled the bed of the truck and she decided to use the other side of the bed to sleep in if needs be. July 5th 2013 Dana was eating breakfast in the Palace hotel in downtown Prescott. It had been a long night and she was looking forward to bed. There hadn’t been too much trouble, just the usual cowboys in town for the rodeo getting too drunk and making asses of themselves. The Prescott rodeo had been held since 1888 and was the worlds oldest rodeo. It had taken a hiatus for the past couple of years due to lack of participants but this year it was back with a bang. The format had changed little although this year there was a shooting skills test added to it, along with all the traditional roping riding and branding skills. There had also been a series of skills clinics where experienced cowboys had been teaching the newer hands. But mostly it had been a time to meet and greet the new neighbors. People had come from as far as southern Utah and western New Mexico and it had turned into a giant party. Well a couple of them were sleeping it off in the jail right now and the real sheriff could let them out later on when they sobered up. Dana was half watching the morning news on the TV set behind the bar when she heard the commercial for her plumbing business run. It was a low budget deal with Dana speaking to the camera in front of her work truck but it did the job. The local economy had bounced back fairly well after reliable power had been restored from the Hoover dam 4 years ago. The population of Yavapai county was reckoned to be around 10,000 which was about 1/20th what it had been before the sickness. The population was made up about 80% of people who had moved in since the sickness. The economy was based on farming with cotton, cattle, corn and citrus being the main crops. Trade was good with other western states and even some of the Mexican states. The federal reserve system had been abandoned and silver and gold coins were used along with a barter system in its place. A county sales tax of 1% funded the limited government services that were in place, the federal government in essence no longer existed. Dana had settled in Prescott a couple of months after leaving Ted’s place. She’d drifted around northern Arizona and found nothing to her liking and had driven into Prescott in search of gas. What she found was a town that was trying to get back to some sort of normality. The town had a policy that anyone could occupy an empty ranch or house but could not remove any of the existing household property if you left it. This policy encouraged settlement and discouraged looting. The town had also taken ownership of all vacant properties through eminent domain. The town then charged any new residents 20 hours per month of community service per head of household for living in the houses. Dana had settled in a house near the town square, it was a Victorian era house and had a large backyard which she planted and kept chickens in. her original plan had been to grow herbs and peppers since there were already plenty of other farming operations that were supplying most of the other foodstuffs. Her community service work had been involved in shutting off the water supply to un-inhabited areas of the town and maintaining the fire hydrants in the inhabited areas. This had shown her there was a definite market for a plumber and she decided to scale back the herb farming and concentrate on plumbing. More recently she had branched out into commercial irrigation systems for the farms and had service contracts with most of the major farms in the county. The business was doing well and she was thinking about buying a larger house. She didn’t mind the community service work since it was a great way to get to know the rest of the people in the community. Later on she changed from the town water department to the sheriffs office as a reserve deputy, which was why she’d spent independence day night locking up rowdy drunks. One of the drunks was her current boyfriend Steve, the relationship had been on the way down and the spell in jail had probably ended it. Oh well, he’d been a fun guy to hang out and drink beer with but that was about it. The news program came back on TV, it was a repeat of a story from earlier on in the week about the attempted hi-jacking of a fuel oil tanker near Black Canyon city. Marisol Griffin was interviewing the gunner from the tanker truck escort and he looked like he was only 15 or 16 years old. The hi-jack attempt had started just past sunset point as the truck and it’s escort were heading down the bank towards Black Canyon city. “I’m speaking with Tom Watson who’s an employee at Watson securities based in Flagstaff. So Tom could you tell me about the events that lead up to the attack?” Marisol asked the gunner. “It had been a pretty normal day, we’d picked up the Tanker near Glen Canyon from the Utah crew and had been stopping off making deliveries at fuel stations all the way down highway 89. We’d stopped off at Cordes Junction and had lunch and were on to the final stop at Black Canyon City”. “And at what point did you know there was an attack coming?” Marisol continued. “We was in the tail car just behind the tanker. Well ma’am we’d just come past the old rest stop at Sunset point and these 4 technicals came up the slip road from it. They was really hauling ass, I was sitting in the back of the humvee facing backwards and I caught sight of them and they looked like they were going to catch up with us real quick. They had armor plate on the windshields and in front of the engine. I told my dad who was driving “hey dad, there’s bad guys coming” and he told me get on that fifty son, get on that fifty. The lead technical opened up with what sounded like a MG42, but luckily he couldn’t hit anything with it. He was shooting straight ball ammo with no tracer so he couldn’t see where the shots were going. There was shots ricocheting all over the place and I was glad I had a level 3 vest with trauma plates cause I was standing up in the ring mount on the roof of the humvee. I started shooting back at him and I must have hit his tire or hit something that went into the tire because he started swerving real violent and stopped. One of the others technicals stopped to help him out and the other 2 opened up on me with rifle fire from guys in the beds. They weren’t as well armored and I shot out the engine on another one. When Ma Deuce says stop, you’all had better listen to her. Anyway that kind of took the wind out of their sails and they gave up pursuit” “But that wasn’t it was it?” Marisol continued. “No ma’am, they had the road blocked up just north of the bumble bee turn off. The lead car came around the bend in the road and saw it was blocked with railroad ties. He stopped and we caught up with him. Luckily for us the people behind the barricade only had small arms and Ma Deuce chopped ‘em up and stacked ‘em like chord wood. They all took off, at least what was left of them did, then we cleared the road and carried on to Black Canyon city”. “How many do you estimate were in the gang that attacked you?” Marisol asked “No more than about 20 total” the gunner replied. “Well it looks like proper training and keeping a good head prevailed, thank you for your time.” The camera panned in on Marisol “I’m also here with Sheriff O’Neil who would like to share some of his thoughts on this attack, sheriff?” “Yes thank you Marisol. Well folks it looks like a strange place for an attack at first, the tanker was at the end of it’s delivery schedule and it was nearly empty. So it would appear that they chose to attack here because it was a good spot for an ambush. They came on heavy with gun fire right out the gate and that leads me to believe that the tanker was not the real target. I think what we’re dealing with here is a straight up robbery attempt. They were after the gold and silver coins that the tanker driver had been paid with for the fuel they’d been delivering. It’s very important that we catch these guys, for several reasons. The cost of the next fuel shipment is going to be higher now, since the fuel company is going to have to hire extra security and the security company is going to want more for the extra risk and this cost will be passed onto us. If the robbers had succeeded in getting the coins it would have had a devastating blow to our local economy as that much money had been taken out of the system. I know there are people out there watching this broadcast who are trading with these bandits and I’d like to tell them this is bad for our community. Give me a call at the sheriff’s office in confidence and we’ll deal with this properly.” “Thank you sheriff and now back to the studio” Marisol concluded. Dana smiled to herself, Marisol took her job as TV news anchor very seriously and the shows were pretty good, considering. The “studio” that they broadcast from was the guest house at Griffin vineyards that Dana had stayed in. Ted did everything behind the camera and Marisol did almost everything in front of the camera. Marisol was speaking to camera again, ”that was an interview I did last Monday. It seems like we have some bandits operating again in the area around crown king. Those of you who are long term residents may recall that sheriff John O’neil, deputy sheriff Dana Sczupak and the citizens militia were involved in large operation to clean out the crown king area 3 years ago. It looks like the bad guys may have returned so I would urge any one travelling in that area to go prepared accordingly. And now over to Dana Griffin for the Griffin vineyards weather forecast”. The camera panned over to focus on a 5 year old girl. The little girl was dressed in her Sunday best and it was obvious to anyone that this was Marisol’s daughter. The little girl cleared her throat and said “it’s going to be a lovely day so if you’re going outside make sure you put on sun block and drink plenty of water”. The camera panned back to Marisol. “Thank you for the weather forecast Dana. That concludes our programming until this evening at 6pm, remember if you’ve got a story that needs to be told you can contact us here at Griffin vineyards”. With that the transmission ended Dana knew all the details about the hi-jack incident. Eight of the attackers were killed and the kid who Marisol had interviewed was the only one in the tanker convoy that wasn’t seriously injured. Two of the technicals had been destroyed but the one with the mounted MG42 on it had been salvaged by the attackers. Dana and sheriff John had examined the scene and Dana had found a lot of 8mm mauser fired cartridge cases headstamped 7.9 1939 T with a crescent with a star in it. She showed them to the sheriff and he was familiar with them as well. They had followed tracks that led towards the settlement of Crown king. Crown king had been an old gold mining town and had turned into a ghost town in the 1930s. It then experienced a comeback at the end of the last century as a tourist destination for rich urban bikers from Phoenix. It sat atop one of the mountains in the Bradshaws and had a large lake near by. There were only 2 roads into Crown king, one was practically impassable except for hardcore 4wd vehicles and the other was very easily defendable. This made Crown king an excellent place for bandits to hole up in. It also made it a very easy place to lay siege to. Dana finished her breakfast, paid for it and left. She walked the 2 blocks to her house and was greeted by 3 other people on the street as she walked. The town had around 1500 permanent residents so you sort of knew or at least were on acknowledgement terms with just about everyone. Property crime was nonexistent and Dana’s main function as deputy sheriff was in settling domestic disputes and providing firearms training to people who wanted to learn. She put in a lot more than her required 20 hours per month but it was a worthwhile task and she enjoyed meeting people. Arriving home, she checked her phone messages. There was one from Liz Wozniak reminding her that Tensie was having her bridal shower this Saturday. Liz wanted to know was there any chance that she could get Marisol to do a feature on the happy couple on the evening news show one day next week? Dana was pretty certain that Marisol would do this as most of her shows were about weddings, births and funerals. The phone system had been easy to revive as soon as the power grid had been restored. Cell service had come back as well but no new batteries were available and so you couldn’t un plug them from the walls. This meant people could really only call you if you were somewhere with electricity or if you were in your vehicle. The lead acid batteries in vehicles were starting to fail as well and without replacements transport would be effected. However enterprising people were working on a solution to that problem. There stood to be good money made by the person that figured it out. And as usual if people have the right motivation they can achieve pretty much anything. John Wozniak had moved his family up to the Prescott area about a year after Dana had settled there and the power was re-established. He had brought up all the machine tools he had salvaged from the trailer manufacturing shop in Phoenix and had started his own engineering business. Most of his work was repairing farm equipment and since nothing was newer than 2007 he was kept pretty busy in doing this. He had also made the up-armoring kits for the humvees that were used by the escorts in the failed tanker hi-jacking. Dave and Tensie were finally getting married and this was the bridal shower that Liz had called about. Steve Miller had moved up with them and he was currently in the town jail sleeping off a drunk. Later on in the day after he sobered up Dana intended to dump his sorry ass. |
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WY, USA
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Posted: 11/9/2007 11:40:44 AM EDT
[Last Edit: WDS]
[#49]
Well, we can't accuse you of dragging out the story... Pretty abrupt end (assuming this was the end), but still a good story.... Thanks for your work
WDS |
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AZ, USA
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Posted: 11/9/2007 4:07:14 PM EDT
[#50]
thanks for the positive feedback and no it's not the end |
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