The day after: An apocalyptic morning (8 page)

              But he didn't. When she was safely in her sleeping bag he excused himself, claiming he had to take one last leak before turning in. Moving entirely by feel, he walked thirty feet away from the shelter, out into the driving rain and the wind. He unbuttoned his pants and pulled his rigid cock free, grasping it in his right hand. As he stroked himself he thought of Christine; of the feel of her breasts against his chest, of the way they would feel bare against his hands, of the way she had smelled just before climbing into her sleeping bag, of how it would feel to slide into her tight warmth. The orgasm that resulted came quickly and with a power he was unaccustomed to. His knees became wobbly and he fell to them, spurting his seed upon the wet ground.

              By the time he stumbled his way back into the shelter, Christine was sound asleep, her breathing deep and regular. Feeling more than a little ashamed of himself now that he had relieved the pressure, he stripped off his own clothes and set them to the side. He climbed into the relative warmth of his arctic sleeping bag and made himself as comfortable as possible on the rocky ground. Though he was exhausted, it was a long time before his troubled mind allowed him to sleep.

              They made almost five miles the next day, moving steadily uphill and keeping the roar of the canyon at a low rumble to their left. Though they saw no other human beings as they trekked over rises and through gullies, they saw plenty of signs that others were nearby. They saw old food containers, a few lean-to structures such as the ones they slept in, even the remains of a failed campfire once. Skip suspected that others were leaving them alone because of the firepower they were packing. Having the entire group carrying military assault weapons like they knew how to use them was a great deterrent to anyone who spotted them and thought about trying to take their supplies.

              That was all fine and dandy to prevent direct assaults upon them, but what about an ambush? Most of the people stuck up here had probably been hunters. That meant that most of them were probably carrying hunting rifles. Would it occur to someone to try and take them out from cover, such as the way he had taken Ricky and the others out? If a person was hungry and desperate enough, it just might seem a good gamble. And people would be hungry and desperate. As they had moved along Skip had seen precious little that could be used as food. They had seen plenty of dead and rotting animals along their way but not many living ones. Not even squirrels or raccoons, perhaps the most abundant pre-comet life forms in the mountains besides bugs, showed their furry faces, let alone deer or bears. If he and his group had not secured canned food from the trailer, they would be starving now as well.

              He could think of no way to counter this perceived threat of ambush other than to keep a sharp eye out for anyone tracking them or following them. Such a person would more than likely shadow them for a while, waiting for the best opportunity to strike. Skip knew that if the attack were to happen, he would be the first one shot, probably through the head during one of their breaks. It would be quite obvious to anyone plotting against them that he was the leader of the group and the most dangerous one with his rifle. He did not mention any of these fears to Christine or to Jack, not seeing any advantage in it, but he did obsessively check their rear and their flanks as they hiked. The fact that he saw nothing did not make him feel any better.

              As they went, he continued to instruct the two kids on basic combat techniques applicable to small unit action in a wooded environment. He made them learn hand signals, various voice commands, and the difference between cover and concealment. He explained about covering fire, shooting and moving, and flanking maneuvers. Most important of all, he explained to them how to make a fighting retreat.

              "We're not trying to hold any ground here, you understand?" he said. "Our objective is to stay alive. In any fight situation, if we can get the hell out of where we're at, then that's what we'll do."

              As had been the case with their firearms instruction, he realized that he was not exactly giving them a complete knowledge base. Nor was there any real way to have them practice the techniques since he figured that staying in one place for any length of time was just too dangerous. But, as had been the case with teaching them how to use the M-16s, it was better than nothing. Perhaps, if push came to shove, the things he had taught them would save them and keep them from panicking. You had to take any advantage that you could get in this new world.

              They made camp that night a little earlier than usual, while the meager light that penetrated the cloud cover was still in the earliest stages of its long fade to black. Again, Skip had the kids pick out the spot and construct the lean-to. He was gratified to see that they required little instruction from him during this second attempt. While they were working on it he walked around the perimeter, checking out every conceivable vantage point that an enemy (which, in his mind, consisted of anyone who wasn't them) might use to spy on them and plot an attack from. He found nothing amiss.

              As he had done the previous night, Jack went directly to bed after dinner. Skip wished him pleasant dreams and told him, in a man to man voice, to keep his weapon close by, just in case. Jack very seriously assured him that he would do just that. Skip had realized as the day had gone by that Jack was developing an attitude very much like hero worship towards him. He tried to do everything as Skip did it - the way he walked, the way he talked, the way he carried and stored his rifle. This attention sometimes made Skip feel proud but mostly just scared him. He was no hero. He was simply a man trying to survive.

              Again, Christine stayed up with Skip after her brother had gone to sleep, staring out of the shelter at the approaching darkness and listening to the water roaring through the canyon. Their conversation was not nearly as somber as it had been the night before. They stayed away from the subjects of dead family members and friends, of the dead world they now lived in, and talked instead of neutral things.

              "So it sounds like you were one of the high school elite," Skip told her as he sipped from his can of beer. "You were a cheerleader, honor roll student, I bet you were homecoming queen too, weren't you?"

              "I was not the homecoming queen," she giggled, slapping playfully at his arm.

              "No?"

              "No," she confirmed. "I was runner-up."

              "Ahh, so you were a loser then, were you?"

              They had a laugh about that for a moment and Christine took a few sips out of her own beer. "What about you?" she asked him, edging a little closer to him. "Were you a preppie back in high school? Were you in the happening clique?"

              "No," he told her, noting her lateral motion but doing nothing to discourage it. "I was actually part of the stoners."

              "The stoners?" she said, disbelieving. "But you're a cop."

              He shrugged a little. "You'd be surprised how many cops and nurses and paramedics and firemen came from the stoner clique in school. I stopped smoking it when I graduated and that's why the department didn't reject me when they did the background check, but I probably smoked a pound or two in my glory days. I went through the majority of my junior and senior year in the freakin' stratosphere. My grades were barely high enough to let me graduate. If I hadn't of tested so high on the ASVAB the army wouldn't have even accepted me into flight training when I signed up. I almost ended up a grunt instead of a pilot."

              She looked at him in wonder, her blue eyes shining. "It's hard to imagine you as a stoner," she said. "You're so serious now."

              "I'm serious because survival depends on it. Catch me sometimes when we're not in the middle of a global catastrophe and you'll notice a startling difference."

              They shared another few moments of companionable silence, during which Christine took the opportunity to inch even closer to him, until her left hip and leg were in contact with his. Without stopping to think much about the ramifications of his actions, Skip put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. She cooed a little and snuggled into him, her head resting on his shoulder.

              "This feels nice," she said softly.

              "It does, doesn't it?" he replied, feeling pleasant chills surging through him as he felt her closeness. The chills were accompanied by a strong sensation of guilt. What, his mind demanded, did he think he was doing? Why was he putting his arm around the girl he had vowed not to touch the night before? Why?

              Almost before he realized it was happening, he was kissing her. She turned her face up to his, offering an expression of surrender as old as the kiss itself, and he responded to it, touching his lips to hers. Their kisses were gentle at first, light pecks of affection. But gradually they became deeper, more passionate. They lingered sweetly and he allowed the tip of his tongue to poke out and touch hers. At this first contact of tongues she twisted in his arms, turning her body into his. Her arms came up around his neck, pulling him tight against her. Once again he felt her breasts pressing against his chest through their shirts.

              He pulled his mouth from hers in fear and guilt, breaking the kiss but not letting go of her with his arms. He saw desire in her eyes, wanting. "We can't do this," he whispered, feeling himself trembling in her arms, feeling his erection building in his pants, feeling his resolve already slipping.

              "We can," she whispered back, sliding her hands up and down on his back. "It's all right. I like it when you kiss me. I want you to kiss me."

              He shook his head weakly. "You're just sixteen," he said. "I'm more than twice your age."

              "So what?" she said. "I'm a woman and you're a man. We don't have anyone else. What's wrong with what we're doing? Who does it hurt?"

              "It hurts you," he told her. "I'd be taking advantage of you."

              "I don't feel like I'm being taken advantage of," she said, giving him another soft kiss on the mouth. "I feel like I want to do it some more."

              " Christine..." he started.

              "It's not like I haven't done this before," she said next. "I know what I'm doing and I'm old enough to know who I want to do it with. Now kiss me. Please?"

              He opened his mouth to give her a firm "no" but she covered it with hers, sliding her tongue back between his lips. It was only a second before he became lost in her embrace, his resolve not just slipping but free-falling to a nasty death. He pulled her tightly against him and kissed her back, swirling his tongue against hers, sucking it gently into his own mouth.

              They kissed for more than five minutes, both of them rapidly heating up as their passion built and then he let his lips slide down to her neck. He began to kiss the soft flesh there, nipping at it with his teeth, giving it gentle sucks and licks, unmindful of the occasional speckles of mud that he encountered. She purred in his arms, her arms dropping down to his lower back.

              "Why don't we get in our sleeping bags now?" she panted in his ear as his own hands slid beneath the back of her shirt, feeling her bare skin.

              He had one last moment of doubt that was abruptly squashed when she began to unbutton her shirt. The white T-shirt that she wore beneath it rode up a little, baring the skin of her midriff and exposing her belly button to him. Though he still felt it was wrong, though he still felt he was taking advantage of her, the sight of her pale, smooth stomach in the fading light decided him. He wanted her as bad as he had ever wanted anyone before, even Julie. He wanted her and she was willing to give herself to him, so he would have her.

              He watched her undress for him, not making any move to take off his own clothing just yet. Underneath her T-shirt she wore a simple black sports bra. It molded to her breasts, accenting the fact that her nipples were hard beneath it. She gave him a nervous smile, clearly unaccustomed to a man watching her disrobe, and then she pulled it over her head, baring her breasts. They were as close to divine as a set of breasts could be. About the size of grapefruits, they sagged not an inch, standing up firmly and proudly as only the mammaries of teenage girls can do. They were capped with pink aureoles that were barely darker than the surrounding flesh itself. The nipples were small but rigid, just begging for his mouth to suckle them.

              "You're beautiful, Christine," he told her, letting his hand reach out to run over her right breast. She took in a sharp intake of hair as his palm crossed the nipple.

              "Thank you," she said, blushing, breathing quickly.

              After kicking off her muddy boots and her filthy cotton socks, she lay on her back and began to unbuckle her pants. She snapped the button open and pushed the zipper down, revealing the front of her panties beneath. They had once been white but seven days of constant exposure to mud and water had turned them a dirty brown. Skip didn't mind. He grabbed the waistband of the pants and pulled, bringing the pants and the panties down in one motion until she was able to kick them off. She now was completely naked before him, lying on her back; her beautiful cheerleader's legs lightly spread. Her pubic hair was only a light covering of blonde fuzz, just a half shade darker than that on her head. He could see that her vaginal lips were swollen with arousal. The odor that he had noted the night before struck him again, only more powerfully and with a heavier tint of sexual musk.