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Message-ID: <27431asstr$974049005@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Al Steiner <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner-Chapter 4 (Mf) 4/5
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:10:05 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

AFTERMATH
CHAPTER 4 PART 4/5
Send comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Missing pieces can be found at www.storiesonline.net


It took almost an hour but he managed to meet and say a few words to
every single person in the room.  Names were thrown at him and he
promptly forgot them.  Faces smiled and flirted at him and he smiled
back.  His hand was shaken by soft hand after soft hand, only
occasionally with a rough, male hand thrown in for variety. He found
that Paul had not been exaggerating when he'd described the town as
being full of beautiful women.  Though not all of them would qualify as
centerfold material, a portion of them did.  And of those who didn't,
it was not by much of a margin.  There was not a single woman among
them that a reasonable, average male would consider to be grossly
unattractive.  If effect, it was kind of an exercise in sensory
overload.  Especially with the flirtations thrown in.  These
flirtations ranged from the barely subtle to the outright bawdy.  One
woman, a petite brunette of about twenty-five, actually invited him to
come to her house for "a proper introduction" after he was done with
the tour.  Several others made no bones about telling him that they
were unattached at the moment and looking for a man.  The only ones
that did not openly flirt in some way were the ones that were sitting
next to one of the males, usually in a protective stance.  And even
they were not unfriendly.  On the contrary, they seemed just as happy
to have him among them, probably to help occupy some of the unattached
women.

One remarkable thing that Brett noticed as he moved from woman to
woman, table to table, was the fact that they were all freshly made-
up.  Though their clothing was mostly jeans and sweaters or flannel
shirts, their faces all had carefully applied layers of cosmetics and
their hair was all neatly and fashionably styled.  Most had hair
ribbons or clips that matched their clothing and all had nail polish on
their fingernails.  Jewelry was also quite prominently displayed;
earrings, necklaces, bracelets, diamond rings; everything except
wedding rings, although many of them still had the fading tan lines on
their left ring fingers.  He also smelled many different varieties of
perfume wafting upward, some quite strong and nauseating, some soft and
arousing.  It was quite a culture shock to see and smell all of this
self-pampering less than twenty-four hours after he had been living and
eating and sleeping mud and filth.

As they moved from group to group, after the initial chitchat and
introductions were made, Paul, and, to a lesser extent, Jessica, would
explain what Brett's proposed place in the community was.  During the
first stop Jessica tried to seize the initiative by declaring: "This is
the man who snuck in here with a gun last night and scared us half to
death.  He's traveling with two small children that he left alone all
night out there so he could do that.  Now he wants to know if he can
STAY here."

Paul immediately took her aside after this statement and a heated,
though quiet discussion took place between them, ending with Jessica
frowning and pouting.  After that it was Paul who did most of the
talking.  "Brett is a former cop and a former army pilot," he would
say.  "He knows a lot about security and military matters and is
offering to help us defend this place against outsiders in exchange for
citizenship for himself and the two teenagers he's traveling with."
 From there, a brief discussion would usually ensue, although it was
fairly obvious by the third stop that most of the women didn't give a
rat's ass WHO he was, just that he was an available man.  Jessica did
manage to put in at least one snide comment per stop, usually related
to the fact that he had left Jason and Chrissie to fend for themselves
all night, but the sting of these words was usually muted by the
obvious fact that no one really liked her that much.  Not one person,
male or female, raised any objections to his staying and it became
apparent before they were halfway through the process that the
community vote on the matter that was scheduled for dinner that night
would be little more than a formality.

Finally, as the breakfast dishes were being carried into the kitchen
portion of the court and the groups began to disperse towards wherever
it was that they went when they weren't eating, Paul and Jessica led
him on a tour of the rest of the center.

"Hopefully Jason and Chrissie are all cleaned up and dressed by now,"
Paul said as they walked through the hallway next to the bath area.
"Baths start after breakfast for those that are scheduled today.  A
good way to get voted out of this joint is to put any kind of a kink in
the bathing schedule."

He said this with a mocking tone of sarcasm that was plainly evident to
Brett but apparently not to Jessica.  She nodded in solemn agreement to
these words, as if that was the most serious offense that one person
could inflict upon another.

"Here's the nerve center of Garden Hill," Paul said, leading him into
an upstairs office that had once housed the homeowner's association.
Several desks full of paperwork and clipboards occupied its space.  In
a corner were the computer terminals and monitors that had once sat
atop them.  "In here is where we, the committee and a few helpers keep
track of inventories, work schedules, housing assignments, and just
about everything else that goes on here.  Jessica and Dale spend a lot
of their day here doing the paperwork and I spend about half of my day
here.  The other half I'm out breaking up fights and fixing whatever's
broke."

"You have work schedules?" Brett asked.

"Oh yes, there's a hundred things that need to be done around here on a
daily basis.  Food detail, water detail, hot water detail, wood
gathering and drying, child care, and of course the guard detail.  We
can also monitor the guard posts with the two way radio set there."  He
pointed to a CB that was hooked up to a car battery.  "It ain't much,
but it serves its purpose."

"How do you pick who is on what detail?"

"We try to rotate people from one thing to another on a regular basis,"
Paul explained.  "The people here tend to get kind of antsy if they're
stuck with one job for too long.  Everybody gets to try their hand at
everything, with a few exceptions like guard detail.  There are a few
women here who can't or won't learn to shoot a gun.  It's my feeling
that it's best not to force such people."

"Uh huh," Brett said.  "How many such people do you have?"

"I don't really see how that matters," Jessica said.  "You have to
remember that these are mostly women of breeding.  They never thought
they'd end up having to walk a guard post."

"And the rest of the world never thought it would end up dead either,"
Brett replied.  "So, how many?"

"About twenty or them," Paul said before Jessica could object any
more.  "And a good portion of the rest of them don't take the job that
seriously, as you've seen."

"Oh yes," Brett said.  "That's going to have to be the first thing to
change.  We cannot have people screwing each other on guard duty.  It
is completely unacceptable."

"For once I find myself agreeing with you," Jessica said.  "As Paul
told you yesterday, we have a bit of a problem with... well...
fornication here.  All of the women who are unattached..." she said
that word with a great deal of distaste in her voice, "...are
constantly flaunting themselves in front of the men.  That little fight
you saw this morning is a perfect example.  And the men are simply pigs
about it, showing very little restraint.  I am firmly of the opinion
that the only way to counter this problem is to exile a few people."

"Exile people for screwing?" Brett asked.  "Don't you think that's a
bit harsh?"

"Not at all," she said.  "We may not have the ability to perform
marriages here but the sanctity of the couple is still very alive and
well.  This is a sanctity that must be protected at all costs, wouldn't
you agree?  It is what civilization is based upon."

"There isn't any civilization any more," he told her.  "And I've been
out there, you haven't.  I'm not sure you quite grasp what you would be
sentencing people to if you booted them.  It's truly a fate worse than
death.  Now as a punishment for murder or for rape or something along
those lines, yes, that's probably a fitting response, but for
"fornication" as you put it, I don't think it's appropriate."

She smirked a little.  "So just HOW would you suggest punishing those
who threaten the fabric of our society with their wanton behavior?
I've been over this time and again with Paul and Dale both and what
happens is that nothing is done and the problem continues.  How would
YOU handle it Mr. Adams?"

"I don't know," he said honestly.

"You don't know," she said, shaking her head.

 "Obviously it is a problem," he said.  "Any time you have high class
women rolling around on the floor clawing each other's eyes out and
guards boffing each other at their posts because that's the only place
they can do it, you have something that needs to be addressed."

"They need to be punished harshly," Jessica insisted.

"You can't enforce a ban on sex," Brett told her.  "That would be even
more futile than prohibition or making marijuana illegal.  People are
going to do it no matter what you say and with sex, they don't even
have to distill anything or grow anything or buy anything to imbibe.
All they have to do is find a place to be alone."

"That's why we should exile them," she said, as if he were an idiot.

"And pretty soon," Paul put in, "we wouldn't have anyone left here."

"After you kick out the first one or two, the rest would fall in line.
Trust me on this."

"No," Brett said, shaking his head, "what you'd have would be an open
revolt.  Trust ME on this.  I'm very familiar with human nature."

Jessica scoffed at his views.  "Well, either way, the decision is not
in your hands.  We on the committee will find a way to deal with this
problem."


+++++


After the upstairs tour Brett checked on Jason and Chrissie finding
them sound asleep in rollaway cots in the same storage room where he
had spent the night.  Both were cuddled tightly under warm blankets and
snoring the snores of the nearly comatose.

"They didn't even get anything to eat first," Janet, Paul's official
companion and the woman that had taken charge of getting them bathed
and clothed, told him.  She smiled affectionately at them.  "They just
wanted to sleep."

"That's kind of how I felt last night," Brett replied.  "We've been
sleeping on the ground in the wind and rain all this time.  After that,
you can't imagine how nice those cheap rollaways and fresh linen look.
If I never see those arctic sleeping bags or a lean-to again, it'll be
too damn soon."

"Poor things," Janet said, shaking her head a little.  "Paul told me
what you've been through and what they went through this morning.  It's
a shame that people so young are forced to have experiences like that,
isn't it?"

Jessica, who was standing with them, gave a little snort of disgust -
she still seemed to think that Jason and Chrissie had made up the tale
of their gunfight this morning - but said nothing.  Janet shot her a
brief look of annoyance - a look that Brett had noticed nearly every
person they contacted give at some point - but kept her mouth shut as
well.

"Well," Paul said, "On that note, shall we go tour the outside now?"

"Sure," Brett said.  "Let's do that."

They went on a two-hour walk around the entire subdivision and its
guard posts, Paul showing him the defenses that he had set up and
introducing him to the guards that were currently on duty.  Though
Brett had been able to catch brief glimpses of the terrain on the walk
to and from the bridge that morning, he was now treated to a detailed
look of everything in Garden Hill.

Brett found that Paul, in setting up town defense, had not done too
terribly badly for someone without military of law enforcement
experience.  Even before the tour he had figured out that the former
firefighter had a healthy amount of good old common sense and seeing
what he had done for protection only served to reinforce this view.
For the purpose of keeping isolated stragglers from entering the walled
area where everyone lived and worked, he had covered every base,
leaving no part of the subdivision exposed to someone slipping inside
during the daylight hours.  Except for the bridge approach, all of his
guard posts were located in the upper floors of two-story houses along
the outside wall.  He had four of these positions, each manned with two
guards armed with scoped rifles and binoculars.  Between the four of
them, the entire perimeter of the irregularly shaped subdivision was
visible as long as the guards did their jobs and kept watch.

The problem with this set-up however, was twofold.  In the first place,
while it effectively kept stragglers at bay, it would be almost useless
against a concentrated attack by more than ten or fifteen people.  They
were simply allowed to get too close to the walls before they were
spotted.  Along those same lines it was a defense that depended heavily
upon the guards maintaining a diligent watch - something that they had
already proven themselves incapable of - since there was potentially
only a matter of a few minutes or so between when an invader would
first appear and when he reached the safety and invisibility of the
wall.  Another problem was that, when they did spot a straggler heading
in, the way they drove him or her away was to fire at them, not aiming
to hit, just to persuade them that they did not want to be there.  This
was a horrible waste of ammunition since it usually took two or three
shots to accomplish this goal.  Brett, as diplomatically as possible,
pointed out these flaws in the plan as he observed.  Paul seemed to
take it well.

As for the guards themselves, they tended to be male and female teams.
Of the four interior guard posts, three of them were coed posts.
Though they did not actually walk in upon any coitus in progress -
probably since the guards knew that they would be getting a visit from
the boss on that morning - it did not take extra-sensory perception to
figure out that there was a great deal of sexual tension between each
pair.  Nor did it take much to figure out that a guard position was the
ideal place to carry out an affair since they were located inside of an
actual bedroom and had an actual bed in them.

"Who makes the guard roster?" Brett asked as they left the final post
and began heading out towards the hilltop position that overlooked the
bridge.

"I do," Paul told him.  "I do it mostly on a volunteer basis since I
don't really want to send people out there that don't really want to be
there.  Of course the cost of that is that I end up having couples with
an agenda volunteering.  I do make sure that everyone who mans a post
is able to shoot their rifles and pistols, but that's about the only
qualifying factor at this point."

"Might I make a suggestion?" Brett said.

"Hey," Paul told him, "You're the new security chief.  You don't make
suggestions, you make changes."

"IF he's voted into town," Jessica said from her position right behind
them.  "And ONLY if the committee approves them."

"Right," Brett said.  "Well, the first thing that will change is that
male and female combinations will no longer be allowed on guard duty.
It's going to be either two males or two females.  That should cut down
on the "fornication" wouldn't you think?"

"People aren't going to like that," Paul said dubiously.  "You're going
to have a hard time getting volunteers if you implement that rule."

"Guard duty is not for people to like or dislike," he said.  "It's for
people to DO.  It is a job, not a fuckfest.  Nobody here seems to
realize that that is the most important job in town.  Without an
effective security force, you might as well just set all of your food
outside the wall right now because at some point, someone is going to
take it away from you.  We'll need to develop teams of people who
specialize in this duty and will take it seriously.  And they will then
be the only ones to do it.  We'll partner them together every shift so
they can learn to rely on each other and I'll train them up into an
effective fighting force that can back each other up if it becomes
necessary."

"These are not military people that we have in this town," Jessica
said.  "They're women of breeding and men who fix things or mow lawns."

"They're gonna have to be military people," Brett said.  "And in
addition to the guards, every person in this town needs to learn how to
shoot and fight.  Everyone.  If we're ever attacked in force the job of
the guard force is going to be to simply hold until the rest of the
town can grab weapons and man whatever positions are needed to fend
them off."

"You MUST be kidding," Jessica said.  "These people can't do anything
like that."

"If they want to live to see the sun again, they'd better learn," Brett
said.

+++++


"Well, let's find Brett and his friends a house, shall we?" Paul said
as they reentered the main office in the community center.  It was just
before lunch and the odor of cooking food - it smelled like some kind
of rice dish - was wafting upwards from below.

"A house?" Jessica immediately said.  "Don't you think that's a bit
premature?"

"Yeah," agreed Dale, who was going over some paperwork at his desk.
"We haven't had the vote yet.  We don't know if they're going to be
staying."

"They'll be staying," Paul said.  "You know that as well as I do.  So
how about we concede the inevitable and start figuring out a place to
put them."

"But Paul..." Jessica started.

"If I'm wrong," Paul said, giving a little roll of the eyes, "then how
much trouble is it to move them back out?  They don't have anything
anyway."

This argument seemed to do the trick.  Brett, who watched the
conversation from his position in the corner, wondered, not for the
first time, just what it was that Jessica had against him anyway.
True, he had upset her little power trip but he was not directly
responsible for that.  That had just been Paul insisting upon what he
knew was a needed addition.

"All right," Jessica said, opening a drawer on her desk and pulling out
a sheaf of papers.  "I guess we can at least look.  I think a small
house would suffice for them, wouldn't you?"

"By all means," Paul said.  "I certainly wasn't suggesting that you
give him a bigger house than yours.  How about the one on the corner of
Sycamore and Cypress?  It's one of the small, three bedroom models.
That should do them, don't you think?"

"That was Bob and Vickie Whalen's house!" Jessica immediately
protested.  "They were good friends of mine."

"And they're dead now, aren't they?" Paul said, quite exasperated.
"That's what they get for both being at work on that particular
Thursday."

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"And that house is empty and it's not a freaking shrine.  It's close by
the community center in case Brett has to get over here fast and it has
furniture in it.  All we'd have to do is move a couple of beds over
there for the kids and give them some linen and they're all set."

They argued back and forth for a few minutes about the appropriateness
of that decision, Dale echoing everything that Jessica said, but
eventually they were worn down.  With only one warning that Paul was
"forgetting his place" it was agreed upon.  415 Sycamore became the
official residence of Garden Hill's unconfirmed security chief.

"I'll take you over to look at it," Paul told him.  "And after lunch
we'll get you all moved in and set up."

"Cool," Brett said, following him down the stairs.

He checked in on Chrissie and Jason, hoping that they would be awake so
they could go see their new home as well but they were still quite
unconscious in their beds, both in the same exact position that he had
last seen them in.  He shut the door on them, leaving them to their
slumber, and then donned his rain slicker once again, following Paul
out into the rain.

"Why does Jessica hate me so much?" Brett asked as they walked over.
"I mean, Dale, I can understand.  He's just pussywhipped and takes
whatever position Jessica does.  If she hates me, then he hates me.
But why DOES she hate me?"

"Ahh, Jessica," Paul said, a queer smile upon his face.  "She's a very
complex and interesting psychological phenomenon.  Are you familiar
with psychology at all?"

"Not really," he said.  "I mean, I know human nature from my job, I
know it all too well in fact, but as far as formal training goes, I
haven't had any."

"Well, neither have I, but I did take quite a few courses while I was
in college.  Jessica is the epitome of the classic, textbook,
inferiority complex.  Something, somewhere in her childhood has led her
to believe that she is worthless and inferior to nearly everyone else.
Now she is smart, crafty, and before the comet she was quite rich, but
still, she always compared herself to other people and found herself
lacking in some way.  So to compensate for this feeling of inferiority,
she tries to make herself look superior in everything to everyone, to
the point that she becomes quite annoying and possibly dangerous under
the right circumstances.  Her entire reason for living is to prove to
everyone that she is better than they are because she feels that she is
not.  Her husband was richer, her house was nicer, her car was more
expensive.  If someone bought something nicer than she had, she would
immediately go out and top it.  If you told her you had the flu and you
were in bed for three days with it, she would tell you that she had it
worse but that SHE didn't have to stay in bed at all.  If you told her
your kid got an A in school, she would tell you that her's got an A-
plus."

"Okay," Brett said, nodding.  "I'm following you so far.  I've known a
few Jessicas in my time, but that doesn't explain the hatred for me."

"Oh, but it does.  Don't you see?  Her position in this town is very
important to her.  She is a leader, a committee member, someone who
makes the rules and enforces them.  She helps control the food that we
eat and can potentially get someone exiled from town.  Having such a
position helps her to convince herself that she is NOT inferior, that
she IS somebody.  But at the same time, deep down inside, she realizes
that ANYBODY could do what she is doing.  She tries to come across like
only she has the strength and the smarts to help dole out food and make
decisions, but she knows that she doesn't and tries to hide that fact
from everyone.  And then you come along.  You are someone who DOES
possess skills and knowledge that no one else in this town has.  YOU
truly are an important person and YOU will be doing something that she
could not do or even pretend to do.  This town really does need you."

"But I am someone who can help this town," Brett protested.  "Doesn't
that mean anything to her?"

"No," Paul said.  "That's what is scary about this.  The terror she
feels at being exposed as just another person is greater than her fear
for the safety of Garden Hill and everyone in it.  In a way, her
response to you is almost sociopathic.  She would rather see our town
overrun and destroyed, all of our food gone, all of the men killed, all
of the women raped and captured, than admit that she's just another
citizen that relies on others to help keep things running."

"That is a rather scary thought," Brett said slowly.

"Yes it is.  And I'm going to be keeping a close eye on Jessica as
things progress here.  I have no idea how far she is capable of going
to protect this image she tries to maintain.  The more it slips, the
more likely she is to do something drastic."

"Drastic?  How drastic?"

"There's really no telling," Paul said.  "But just remember that YOU
and, to a lesser extent, ME, are going to be the focus of her
insecurity.  You saw her reach for a gun today down on the bridge.
Keep that in mind."


+++++


The house was a simple, 1600 square foot, three-bedroom single story.
It had a two-car garage and a muddy backyard with soggy, dying grass.
The smallest model available in the Garden Hill subdivision, it had
probably been worth close to 250 thousand dollars before the comet
impact.  The previous owners - Bob and Vickie according to Jessica -
had decorated it tastefully if slightly effeminately.  The carpet and
the padding were top of the line, the kitchen appliances - useless as
they all were now - were of the highest quality, and the furniture was
all name-brand and expensive.  In the bedroom was a large, King-sized
bed with a canopy over it.  One of the other bedrooms had been used as
an office and contained a computer desk and some bookshelves.  The
third bedroom was decorated with a mobile and had a large, oak crib in
it.  Brett tried not to think too much about what had happened to the
baby that had once slept in that crib.

"Now the bathroom," Paul said, as he led him through the tour, "is the
most important room in the house."

"Oh?" Brett replied, wondering if he was kidding or not.

"Yes indeed.  It is where your water supply, your bodily functions, and
your laundry are all accomplished.  Now the toilets are just like the
ones in the community center."

"Meaning that you can still use them," Brett said.

"Right.  As long as you dump enough water down in them after you finish
your business, they will still drain down into the septic system and
you will still be able to refill them with fresh water.  We'll have
Ted, he's our resident plumber, come out later today and rig up a hose
assembly from the rain gutter for you.  He's devised a little device
that lets you tap into all of that water draining off of the roof.  It
plugs into the bottom of the gutter and gravity feeds through a hose
and a nozzle right into the bathroom through the window.  That will be
your toilet water and your laundry water, but I wouldn't advise that
you drink it straight.  For drinking water you should fill up a five-
gallon bucket with rainwater and don't let it sit for more than a day
or two.  We've been putting a few drops of bleach in our buckets just
to make sure we don't catch any nasty bugs.  Remember, we don't have a
doctor here and we don't have a lot of antibiotics either."

"You say we do our laundry in here?  How does that work?"

"It's not a power Maytag, that's for sure.  Every household is given a
laundry soap ration for the week.  Just fill the tub with some water,
throw in some soap, and then let your clothes soak for a while.  Squish
them around a little bit and then rinse them off until the soap is
gone.  Then rig yourself a clothesline someplace in the house.  Most of
us use the formal living room part since that's pretty much a useless
waste of space anyway.  I'd advise doing your laundry every day.  If
you let it build up and then try to do it all at once, it takes a long
time for it to dry and the house gets unbearably humid."

"Amazing," Brett said, feeling a little bit of unreality wash over him.

"What's that?"

"It's just kind of strange," he said.  "Not too long before I was
wondering if I was going to be able to survive from day to day.  Now,
I'm pondering the best way to go about installing a clothesline in my
new Garden Hill home.  It's probably the way my dad felt when he came
home from Vietnam.  They kept him in combat in the jungle right up
until his very last day.  And then, on day 365, a chopper came and took
him out and flew him to Saigon.  He climbed on a plane and eighteen
hours later, he was in Seattle waiting for a flight home.  I never
understood him before when he tried to tell me how weird that was,
going from a deadly jungle where VC are trying to kill you to the
streets of Sacramento in the USA in less than 24 hours.  Not even when
I came home from the Gulf War did I understand it.  The Gulf War was
pretty much a pussy war in comparison.  But I understand now.  I really
think I do."

"Yeah?"

He nodded.  "Yeah.  I only wish my old man were still alive so I could
tell him.  It's unreal.  It's hard to grasp."

Paul looked at him, his face deadpan.  "Molly bolts," he finally said.

"What?"  Brett said, having no idea what he was talking about.

"Molly bolts," he repeated.  "That's the best way to install the
clothesline.  We have a supply of them back at the community center."

Brett started to laugh.  Paul, dropping the straight face, joined him.
Within a few seconds, both were in hysterics.

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