The day after: An apocalyptic morning (78 page)

              Some murmuring rumbled through the room as people discussed what they had just heard.

              "And there's one other thing I'd like to say before I let you get back to your business and I get on with my much needed bath. One of my first priorities with this helicopter will be to teach a few other people to fly it. If, for some reason, I meet an untimely demise, I want this town to be able to continue to utilize this gift that has come our way. Now flying a chopper is a difficult task and I will be a very strict and unforgiving instructor. But if you're interested in learning, start thinking about letting me know. I'll consider each person's request on an individual basis and I will retain the right to have the final say on who is taught and who is not. Are there any questions?"

              There were many, most having to do with the cannibals or the flight training program. Skip answered them the best he could, as quickly as he could, but it was still nearly 7:00 PM before the meeting came to an end and people started to drift away.

              Paul, who had yet to talk with Skip since his return, saw his opportunity and stepped in before he could get away. Skip dutifully sat back down, Paula and Christine at his side, and spent another half-hour giving a more detailed debriefing of his mission.

              "So that's pretty much how it is," he said wearily when he finally finished. "I figure that we can transport the fuel over 250 gallons at a time, maybe 300 if we use the outside hook. So we need to figure out first of all, what to store it in and second of all, what to transport it in. There's also the Micker of how to pump it efficiently, both there and here. Any ideas?"

              Paul scratched his head for a moment, thinking. "The water tank on the grass fighting rig we have," he said at last. "It holds 250 gallons. We can take it out, reinforce it a little bit with some steel straps, and rig it so it can be carried levelly underneath the chopper. Would that work?"

              Skip thought that over. "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't. Is it a steel tank?"

              "Aluminum," he said. "If it was plastic I wouldn't have suggested it."

              "Good enough."

              "As for the pump, the fire station had an electric powered evacuation pump that we used to get water out of a flooded house. It doesn't pump very fast, but it would be faster than siphoning. All you'd have to do is get a vehicle operating that has an inverter or get a generator running. Do you think the airport has either one of those?"

              "I don't know about the vehicle," Skip said, "but I'm sure they have a generator at the airport somewhere. Question is, will it still have fuel and will it still work?"

              "You'll just have to find out."

              "What about storage?" Skip asked next. "That's the big one. Do we have anything around here that we can use to store two or three thousand gallons of jet fuel in?"

              Paul thought long and hard on that one, turning every possibility over in his mind. He drew a blank. "Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing that I can think of off hand. We'll have to work on that one."

              Skip nodded. "No real hurry. I'd suggest that we take out that carrying tank tomorrow and get it ready for transport. If nothing else, it gives us a 250-gallon reserve that we can store here. That's enough to fill the chopper's tank almost four times."

              "Sounds like a plan," Paul said, lighting one of his cigarettes and taking a puff, more to drown out the smell of his companions than out of any real desire to smoke. "And I'll put on my thinking cap about the long-term storage."

              "How have things been going here?" Skip asked.

              "Pretty good," he said. "As Christine probably told you, she's run ten more women through the basic gun training class. Most of them did well enough so we shouldn't have the problems we had in the first battle."

              "Meaning they probably won't break and run," Christine said sourly, "or shoot shotguns at people two hundred yards away."

              "It's a start," Paula said cheerfully.

              "How about Sherrie?" Skip asked next. "How is she doing?"

              "Still bedridden," he said. "But no signs of infection or blood poisoning yet, and I've got her off the narcotic pain killers and onto strict Tylenol for the pain. I think the worst danger is over for her now as far as infection, but there's still the danger of pulmonary embolism."

              "What's that?" Skip wanted to know.

              "It's a common thing that happens when people have bone injuries and they're bedridden. Little clots form on the bone ends. If they get big enough, they can break loose and travel through the blood stream to the lungs. Once they get there, they block the pulmonary arteries and keep the oxygen exchange from taking place. The person suffocates to death in a Micker of minutes."

              Skip winced a little. "Is there anything you can do to prevent that?"

              "Blood thinners," Paul replied. "They keep the clots from forming in the first place. Fortunately there were a couple of bottles of Coumadin in storage." He smiled a little. "They used to belong to Jessica's husband. He had a heart condition. Kind of funny that something from her house may be what saves Sherrie's life."

              "That is pretty funny," Skip agreed. "And speaking of Jessica, how have things been with her? I didn't see her here tonight. Any problems?"

              He shook his head. "She's been keeping to herself, just like before you left. Doesn't have much to say to anyone, not even if they say something to her. She does the kitchen duty right alongside Stacy and the others and then she goes home until the next morning. She doesn't even complain about it."

              "She's looking pretty haggard though," Christine said. "Wait until you see her. She looks like she's aged about ten years in the past two weeks."

              "How hard they fall," Skip said without much sympathy.

              "She's scheduled for the firearms class day after tomorrow," Christine said. "That should be interesting."

              "Something to look forward to all right," Skip agreed. "Well, on that note, I think I'm long overdue to get cleaned up."

              "Me too," Paula agreed. "I've never felt so filthy in my life."

              "I'll leave you two to that then," Paul said. "God knows you need it. I'm gonna go check on Sherrie and see how she's doing."

              They left the gym, Paul heading in one direction, Skip, Paula, and Christine heading in another.

              "This is thoroughly disgusting," Paula cried as she looked at the brown, muddy water that had been formed in the bathtub. She and Skip had pumped the tub full of steaming hot water and climbed in together while Christine stood by outside, filling their rinse buckets up for them.

              "That's about how bad we all were when we first got here," Christine told her. "Close your eyes, here comes the water."

              Paula closed her eyes and had two gallons of warm water dumped over her head, turning her hair into stringy brown lumps. "Gross," she complained, running her fingers through it.

              "Get some shampoo in there while I fill this for Skip."

              Christine filled the bucket again and saturated Skip's hair. By the time she was done refilling it again, Paula's head was covered in brown, frothy soap lather. She dumped another load on her, getting much of it off and then ordered her to shampoo one more time.

              "Yes, mother," Paula said with gentle sarcasm.

              In all, it took them almost fifteen minutes just to get the first layer of grime off. As they sat in the muddy water, letting Christine pour buckets over the top of them, Skip's legs were entwined in Paula's still unshaven ones. It felt nice but it was eerily reminiscent of his first night in town with Missy, a woman who was now dead and buried, a victim of rampant sexuality. Eerie or not, sandpaper legs or not, Skip's penis didn't seem to mind. It was standing up at rigid attention, wondering why it hadn't been placed somewhere soft and warm yet.

              "All right," Christine said next. "Pull the drain and stand up. I'll give you each one more rinse and then you get out to clean the tub."

              It was when he stood that the state of his penis became apparent to his team of wives.

              "Well look at that," Paula said with a giggle, reaching her soapy hand out to give it a stroke. "It seems that somebody wants to play."

              "Hey," Christine said lightly, "don't be making that thing fire off. I have uses for it tonight."

              "You have uses?" Paula said. "What about me?"

              "You've had him the last eight days," Christine complained. "I've had nothing but my fingers. I need the real thing, and soon."

              "Eight days in the filth and mud," Paula countered, continuing to stroke up and down. "And he only performed his husbandly duties with me once - on the last night."

              "What?" Christine said, turning on him. "You only did her once out there?"

              "I didn't want anyone to hear us," he said defensively, suppressing a groan at the friction of Paula's talented hand. "And she forced me to that last night. I was an unwilling participant."

              "Unwilling?" Paula cried, letting go and giving the head a playful slap. "You asshole. You loved it. But I need the no-holds-barred kind. It's not in my nature to be quiet during sex."

              "No kidding," Christine said, carrying her bucket over. She dumped it on Skip, washing all the clinging suds free and leaving him mostly clean. "Out with you," she told him.

              Dutifully he stepped out, standing next to her, shivering in the cold. Paula, with nothing else to do with her hands, picked up the bar of soap that they had been using and rubbed it all over her legs. That done, she grabbed the disposable razor that was sitting on the edge and began to scrape the accumulation of hair free.

              Christine, after filling her bucket up for Paula's final rinse, grabbed Skip's erection and picked up where Paula had left off.

              "Hey now," Paula told her. "Don't you go making it fire off either. I can see that we're both going to have to utilize it tonight. Let's conserve our ammo, shall we?"

              "I'm just checking out the merchandise," she said with a smile, gripping it a little harder. "Making sure it's clean."

              "Mmmm," Skip groaned, his knees wobbling a little.

              Christine, a naughty smile on her face, dropped down to her knees at his feet. Though she ordinarily disliked giving blowjobs, she slowly slurped him into her mouth, giving a long, teasing suck of the head while her hand continued to jack.

              " Christine," Paula said, feeling her juices starting to flow in earnest now, "don't you dare make him come!"

              Her lips popped free and she gave the head one final lick. "I'm just keeping him interested," she said.

              "Oh, I'm interested," Skip assured her. "I'm very interested."

              Christine stood back up, removing her hands from his organ. "You ready for a rinse, Shellie?" she asked.

              "You know it."

              Christine dumped her bucket on Paula and then ordered her out. The mood of sexuality faded a bit as they were faced with cleaning the accumulation of mud out of the tub. Christine sprayed it with the high-pressure fire hose while Skip and Paula scrubbed away the filth with towels. It took about fifteen minutes before it was presentable again. As soon as it was, they began to refill it for the final rinse.

              Paula bent over to put the hot water hose in place and Skip, seeing her tight ass and her puffy pussy lips peeking at him, could not resist touching her. He slid his hand over the firm cheeks, running it down to the upper thighs. He probed between her wet lips with a finger.

              "Oooh," she said, pushing back at him. "You naughty man."

              As he began to push and pull his finger in and out of her, making her wetter by the stroke, Christine utilized the fire hose to fill the tub with its allotment of cold water. When it was at the proper level, she shut down the nozzle and then turned towards the two naked people. She shook her head a little as she saw what they were doing. "You guys are perverts," she said, her tone mockingly indignant.

              "Mmmm, we are what we are," Paula said, pushing back a little harder.

              "I'm gonna go shut down the fire engine," Christine told them. "You two behave yourselves while I'm gone."

              "We won't do anything you wouldn't do," Paula told her as she headed out the door. The moment she was gone, she looked over her shoulder at Skip. "Put it in me," she told him.

              "Put what in you?" he asked, adding a second finger to her wetness. He began to twist and turn his hand back and forth.

              "Your cock, you asshole," she barked. "Fuck me."