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Message-ID: <28065asstr$977933406@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 03:18:47 EST
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 9 (MFf) 2/2
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 11:10:06 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner
Chapter 9, Part 2/2
Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Previous chapters can by found at www.storiesonline.net




The first thing Brett checked, before he even went into the hanger, was if
there was a fuel supply for the helicopter.  Without fuel to run it, the
chopper was about as worthless as tits on a bull.  He walked over to the
fueling area and found the pump where jet fuel, which the turbine engine ran
on, was dispensed.  Though the pump itself could not operate without
electricity, it was still possible to siphon the precious liquid out of the
tank with a hose inserted into the vent cap; IF there was any fuel in there
to be sucked and IF it wasn't completely contaminated with rainwater.

Their luck was in it seemed.  Using the measuring stick that he found near
the destroyed fueling shack, he determined that there was more than two
thousand gallons available for plunder and that there was only about a half
an inch of water resting on the bottom of the tank.

"If we get this thing running," Brett told his companions, "we're going to
have to fly a squad out here to secure this area and then transport this
fuel back to Garden Hill and store it."

"Transport it back?"  Jason asked.  "How would we do that?"

"A little bit at a time," Brett said.  "It will take a while to get it all,
that's for sure.  And we'll have to come up with something to store it in
back in town."

"Like what?" Michelle wanted to know.

Brett shrugged.  "That one is going to take a little thought.  But why don't
I see if the damn thing will even run before we start thinking that far
ahead."

While Jason and Michelle kept watch outside, Brett and Matt searched through
the hanger and the small office that was in the back of it.  Brett had
extensive experience flying the Apache, the Blackhawk, and the Bell that the
San Joaquin Sheriff's Department had owned, but he had never flown an MD 500
before, with or without a tail rotor.  He wanted to find the spec and
maintenance manuals to help familiarize himself with the aircraft systems,
capabilities, and limitations.  Ordinarily a three-day training program was
required for a pilot to be checked out on a new type of aircraft.  Brett
would have to figure it out on his own.

The manuals that he sought were found easily, as was a fairly good supply of
basic maintenance parts like fuel and oil filters.  That was about all that
was useful in the hanger though.  If there had been weapons, ammunition, or
food, they had all been carted off by those who came before.  Brett sat down
in a chair and used his flashlight to read through the maintenance record.

"All right," he said.  "We're in luck.  This thing was last given a routine
servicing on September 28.  That's just two weeks before the comet.  As long
as nobody's messed with it, it should be in fairly good shape."

"What about the next time it needs work?" Matt asked.  "Will you be able to
do it?"

"I think so," he said a little doubtfully.  "These manuals are not as
detailed as I'd like, but I think I'll be able to figure out the basic
stuff.  With any luck we won't need any parts that can't be found here for
more than six or seven months.  After that, who knows?"

He set down the maintenance manual and picked up the flight manual.  He
opened it up and began to page through the specifications for the model.
"Okay," he said, "here's the meat of the matter.  That chopper has a range
of 300 miles carrying a pilot and 400 pounds of fuel."

"How much is 400 pounds?" Matt wanted to know.

"About 64 gallons.  Pretty shitty gas mileage, isn't it?"

"I'll say.  So that means that we can go up to a hundred and fifty miles to
find supplies?"

"Well, not exactly," Brett told him.  "The 300 mile range is just with the
pilot and the fuel.  Let me see what the weighted range is."  He ran his
finger down the columns of numbers and specs, finally finding what he was
looking for.  "Here we go," he said.  "This thing can carry fifteen hundred
pounds of internal cargo, or two thousand pounds hanging from the hook on
the bottom.  However, that cuts the range down to about a hundred miles."

"A hundred miles?" Matt said, dejected.  "That's not even enough to carry
something back from Reno."

"Actually, it is," Brett said.  "Remember, we're talking about how the crow
flies, not the distance on the road.  Now Reno is seventy miles from Garden
Hill by driving on Interstate 80, but keep in mind that the Interstate
twists and turns up the mountain passes and back down the other side.  I'll
have to look at the maps, but I don't think its much more than forty miles
in a straight line.  And even if we have to go further away to find things,
we can either make extra fuel part of the cargo or reduce the weight of what
we carry.  There are conversion tables in this manual that will let me
calculate just how far with how much I can go."

Brett spent another 30 minutes going over the flight manual carefully,
familiarizing himself with the various features of the aircraft before he
even walked over and had a look at it.  Finally, though far from checked out
to his satisfaction, he knew that it was time to get moving if he hoped to
get the thing in the air by nightfall.  Taking the manual with him, he began
a complete inspection.  He poked about in the cockpit, in the engine
compartment, and along the tail, paying particular attention to the air
intake system for the NOTAR, which he was completely unfamiliar with.  He
found a ladder and climbed up to have a look in the rotor housing.  He
checked fluid levels, finding all of them to be within specifications.
Finally, with everything checked that could be checked without power, he
flipped on the battery, expecting that it would be flat as a pancake after
sitting idle for so long.

It wasn't flat, but it wasn't fully charged either.  The ready lights glowed
brightly but the power gauge was well into the red zone.  He turned off
every unnecessary component to conserve the juice, hoping that it would be
enough.

"Come on," he told Matt as he stepped out and shut the pilot's door.  "Let's
push this thing outside and I'll see if it will fire up."

"Push it out?" Matt said doubtfully.  "Can just the two of us do that?"

"Easily," Brett assured him.  "It's lighter than a car."

They put their hands on the back of it and started pushing.  Slowly the
helicopter rolled across the cement surface of the hanger and out onto the
asphalt of the tarmac.  Michelle and Jason, seeing this, immediately came
over to help but Brett told them to maintain their positions.

"That's good," Brett said when they were about thirty feet from the hanger.
Michelle and Jason, unable to contain their curiosity, walked over despite
his orders.

"Will it run?" Michelle asked.

Brett let her insubordination slide.  "That's what I'm about to find out.
The battery is a little low but everything else seems to be in order.
Everybody stand well back while I play with it."

They all stood back about fifty feet and Brett climbed into the cockpit,
sitting in the right hand seat where the controls were.  He opened the
flight manual and, using the checklist inside of it, performed the start-up
procedures.  This took about two minutes to do.  Finally, the moment of
truth arrived.  With a silent prayer, he engaged the starter.

It was a very near thing.  It turned over very slowly, very sluggishly and
seemed about to peter out for a moment but it hung in there and, after a
brief hitch, the engine caught and began to emit the distinctive turbine
whine.  The cockpit lights flared brighter and the gauges all shot up as it
cycled higher.

"Yes," Brett said with a sigh of relief.  He left the rotor disengaged and
the engine in a low idle.  He began to check the gauges, looking for any
errant reading.  Everything seemed to be within parameters, except for the
fuel tank, which had less than a hundred pounds in it.  That would need to
be rectified before they tried to depart.

He flipped a page in the manual and began going through the pre-flight
checklist while the engine warmed up to optimum operating temperature.  It
took him about five minutes to run through it completely and he then took
another couple of minutes to familiarize himself with the controls, which
were marginally different than what he was used to.  Once he thought he had
the layout memorized, he looked out the window, which the wipers were
keeping clean, towards his three companions.  They were all standing there
anxiously, watching his every move.  He waved at them to get under cover,
not wanting them in the open when he tried to lift off for the first time.
They passed around a worried look and then trotted over to the corner of the
hanger.

"Okay," he said to himself as he clipped on his harness and put the helmet
on his head.  "Let's see what this thing feels like."

He powered up just a little and engaged the rotor, lugging down the engine
momentarily as its workload was suddenly increased.  Out the window the
blades began to spin, slowly at first, but rapidly picking up speed until
they were moving at full idle.  He checked the last few items on the
pre-flight list, finding nothing amiss, and then, with no more excuses to
delay, he began the take-off procedure.

The engine wound up and the entire vehicle began to hum with vibration and
noise.  The rotor blades became a blur and water sprayed all over the tarmac
from the downdraft.  Slowly the downward thrust from the rotor blades
overcame the force of gravity and the helicopter rose into the air, only a
few feet at first, well within the ground effect.

"Jesus," Brett said as he felt the tail sweeping back and forth.  He flirted
with the edge of control for a moment as his feet worked the pedals, which
controlled the amount of anti-torque thrust being delivered by the tail.  It
seemed the NOTAR system was a little touchier than a conventional tail
rotor.

Finally, after nearly thirty adrenaline filled seconds of wagging his tail
back and forth in twenty degree arcs, he began to get the feel of it and was
able to keep it from drifting.  Once he had firm control of the bird, he sta
rted experimenting a little bit.  Staying in the ground effect about six
feet off the asphalt, he moved forward slowly, practicing his maneuvering.
He found that the MD reacted more quickly to control movements than did the
larger Bell helicopter that he was used to.  It lifted quicker, dropped
quicker, and changed forward speed quicker.  Using the anti-torque pedals to
steer with, he moved further out onto the tarmac and then turned around,
heading back.  He set it back down on the ground momentarily to get the feel
of landing.

Finally, convinced that he was competent enough at maneuvering at a low
hover, he lifted up again and continued to climb.  The ground dropped away
beneath him and the altimeter - which had rested near 2300 feet on the
asphalt, began to wind upward.  He took it up eight hundred above the ground
and then began to move forward, slowly picking up speed until he was moving
at about fifty knots.  Below him he was able to see the mud pit that Cameron
Park had become and the broken ribbon that had once been Highway 50
stretching off towards the sea that the Sacramento Valley now was.

For the next ten minutes he circled around the airport, turning, hovering,
starting and stopping, familiarizing himself with his new machine.  He could
see the tiny figures of Matt, Jason, and Michelle below, looking anxiously
up at him.  Once he got over the fear of trying to control an unfamiliar
aircraft without formal training, he found himself exhilarated.  He was
flying again, something that he had loved to do since he was a child.  He
had thought that those days had ended with the comet strike but here he was
again, feeling the controls in his hand, feeling the responsiveness of his
machine, looking at everything on the ground from far above.  Flying was
what he had been born to do, what he had geared his life towards, and it
felt divine to be in the cockpit once again.

He made one more circle around the airport and then brought the machine down
to a gentle landing next to the fuel pumping equipment on the far side of
the tarmac.  He disengaged the rotor, letting it wind down and then shut
down the engine.  As soon as he opened the door to get out his three
companions were there, their faces excited and relieved.

"You did it Brett," Michelle cried, hugging him. "You flew it!"

"That was awesome," Jason added.

"It looks like we're in business," Matt put in.

"Hey," he said, grinning at them.  "Was there ever any doubt?"


+++++


It took almost two hours to get the tank of the helicopter topped off.
Brett cut off a long piece of the hose that had been connected to the pump
and inserted it through the vent cap in the ground.  After nearly ten
minutes of frantic, nauseating sucking on the other end, the pungent fuel
began to trickle out.  Brett held his thumb over the end of the hose until
he could put it in the chopper's fuel port.  It ran in at a steady but
agonizingly slow rate.

"I wonder if Paul has got some sort of portable pump that we can use to make
this a little easier," Brett wondered aloud after an hour had gone by and
the tank was still only half full.

"I would hope so," Matt said.  "If not, it's gonna take us a year to get
this fuel back to town."

At last the process was finished and Brett removed the hose and allowed the
residual fuel in it to run back into the tank.  He stored the length of hose
where it could easily be found later and then looked at his troops.  "Shall
we blow this scene?" he asked them.

They all enthusiastically agreed that that would be a fine idea.

"How long will it take us to fly home?" Jason asked.

Brett chuckled a little bit.  "Maybe fifteen minutes or so."

All three jaws dropped in surprise.

"Do you mean," Michelle asked carefully, "that it took us eight fucking days
to walk here, but that it will only take us fifteen MINUTES to get back?"

"Isn't modern technology wonderful?" Brett replied.  "Come on, let's climb
aboard."

Michelle, executing her privileges as Brett's wife, claimed the passenger
seat.  She strapped herself in and put on the helmet.  Jason and Matt, on
the other hand, were forced to cram themselves into the small cargo space in
the back, both sitting atop the patient litter.  None of the three had ever
flown in a helicopter before and Jason had never flown in ANYTHING before.
Their enthusiasm changed to quiet nervousness as they looked at the cramped
confines of the small space and as they watched Brett going through the
start-up procedure.

It was as the engine wound up and the rotor started to spin above them that
Matt finally expressed this nervousness.  "You're SURE that this thing is
safe, right?" he asked with a broken voice.

"It's safe as long as we don't crash," Brett said mildly.

"That's comforting," Matt replied, gripping the handhold on the wall a
little tighter.

Brett put on the power, spinning the rotor up to take-off speed and the
aircraft shuddered as it left the ground.  Though the noise made
conversation impossible (except between Brett and Michelle, who were plugged
into the intercom system), there was a distinct groan of fright from Matt as
the ground dropped away beneath them.  Jason, on the other hand, seemed to
be thrilled with the sensation.

Brett took them up to about two hundred feet above the ground and then,
using the anti-torque pedals, spun the nose around until his compass read
045, or northeast.  He began to move forward, picking up speed as he
continued to climb into the sky.  The windshield wipers flapped steadily at
the raindrops and the scenery, such as it was, opened up below them.  He
leveled off at 2000 feet above the ground and ninety knots of forward
airspeed.  His passengers seemed to relax a little once the alarming jerks
and jars of lift-off were over with.

"Look at that down there," Michelle said, peering out the window.

Brett saw immediately what she was referring to.  From this height, through
the rain, they could see several miles in all directions.  Below them they
could see that every unvegetated hillside that had existed before the comet
had collapsed into huge piles of mud and debris.  Every low-lying area was
flooded.  Cameron Park was only thirty miles from Sacramento, well within
easy commute distance, and most of those hills had had expensive homes upon
them.  Most of those low-lying areas had had trailer parks or apartment
complexes.  Had all of those people that lived there perished in the
mudslides?  Or had they lived long enough to die of starvation or to be
eaten by cannibals?  And the highways and roads that criss-crossed through
the area.  Huge sections of them had been washed away as well.  Power lines,
which had once traced across the landscape in every direction were now
nothing more than collapsed towers.  Seeing these sights from ground level
did not convey the sheer scale of things like seeing them from the air.  It
wasn't just the area around Cameron Park that had been washed away or
buried; it wasn't just the hillside along the canyon edge in Garden Hill.
It was EVERYWHERE.

"That is some shit," Brett said softly.

Behind them, though they couldn't talk, Jason and Matt seemed to be having
the same thoughts.  They were staring out the side windows at the passing
landscape, their mouths hanging open, their eyes wide.

As the land around them rose in elevation, Brett climbed gently with it,
keeping the helicopter at a more or less constant 2000 feet above the
ground.  It took them about six minutes to come out over the rain swollen
Auburn Ravine.  Had he turned left, to the southwest, he would have been
over the town of Auburn in less than two minutes.  Instead, more interested
in getting safely back to Garden Hill than exploring the surrounding
landscape at the moment, he turned right, to east-northeast, and began
following the canyon towards home.

"There's the bridge," he said to Michelle about seven minutes later.

She looked and, sure enough, the ghostly specter of the Garden Hill span was
materializing in front of them through the haze of rain.

"I just can't believe how fast we got back," Michelle said in wonder.

He slowed a bit and made a pass directly over the span.  Looking to his
right he was able to see the sandbagged entrenchments that had recently been
built on the hill across the canyon from town.  By now, if the guards were
alert (and they probably were these days), they would have been spotted and
the word would have been passed to Chrissie.

He banked to the left, skirting the eastern side of the subdivision, between
the wall and the cliffs beyond them.  He bled off more speed and dropped
altitude down to less than a thousand feet as he headed for the community
center.  Already he could see people emerging from the building, most with
guns in their hands in case, by some fluke, this chopper turned out not to
be the one they were expecting.  He could not see well enough to identify
individual faces, but he knew that Chrissie would be one of the gun
carriers.

He circled twice around the parking lot, checking to make sure that nobody
was near his landing site.  Finally he eased down, coming to a gentle
landing about eighty feet from the front doors.  As he shut down the engine
he saw that the townspeople were crouched behind cars in the parking lot,
their weapons trained on the chopper.  He beamed with pride as he saw this.
Chrissie was leading them well.

"Let's not make any sudden moves," Brett told his crew as he pulled off his
helmet and dropped it to the floor.  "They're covering us with guns.'

"Right," Michelle, dropping her own helmet, replied a little nervously.

"I hope they're careful out there," Matt, who still sounded a little shaky
from the flight, said.  "It would be kind of ironic to come all this way and
then get shot in the community center parking lot because someone's a little
loose on the trigger."

Brett slowly opened his door and, keeping his hands high in the air, stepped
out.  On the other side Michelle did the same.  As soon as they were in the
open and recognizable Brett yelled out, "It's okay, it's Brett, Michelle,
Jason, and Matt.  We're back and we're safe."

Chrissie was the first to emerge from cover.  She had an AK-47 in her hands
and a broad smile on her face.  She shouldered the weapon and came running
over to them as the rest of the gun toting townspeople came out.  She
slammed forcefully into Brett, her arms going around his neck, her face
showering him with wet kisses.  "You're back!" she squealed happily.  "God,
I was so worried!"  She let go of him with one arm long enough to pull
Michelle into the embrace as well.  "I'm so glad to see you guys!  Is
everyone all right?"

Before anyone could answer a complete crowd was around them, a thousand
questions being asked at once.   "How was it out there?" and "Did you find
any supplies?" and "Did you see any other people?" and many other inquiries
about the trip.  Stacy, who was wearing her dinner preparation apron, pushed
her way through the crowd and found Jason just as he pulled himself free of
the helicopter.  She slammed into him so hard that he DID fall over.
Maureen, Matt's significant other, hit him with a similar force.

It was a good ten minutes before the excitement died down enough to hold a
coherent conversation.  Each of the expedition members gave a brief summary
of the trip to those around them, all of them, for the moment, leaving out
the unpleasant details about the cannibals or the widespread destruction.

It was Chrissie who made perhaps the keenest observation.  After holding
Michelle and Brett closely, after kissing both of them on the cheeks, she
could contain herself no longer.  "My god," she said, wrinkling her nose.
"You guys really smell BAD."

Though this could have been taken as an insulting statement, laughter was
the only response.


+++++


Jason and Matt, more disgusted with the grime clinging to them then
concerned about hunger, headed off to the bathing area to clean themselves
off.  They flipped a coin to see who would go first (which was about the
only thing a coin was good for anymore) and Jason won.  Stacy, who had been
excused from dinner detail for the night (thanks to Paul, she and Tina now
had an additional staff of two town women to help on kitchen detail - one of
them none other than Jessica) joined him in there to "help with the
filling".  They were in there considerably longer than was probably
necessary for strict bathing and they went immediately home afterward.  Matt
didn't mind the wait however.  Maureen helped him fill the tub when it was
his turn.

Michelle and Brett took the opposite approach.  They were more anxious to
get their teeth on some real food for a change then they were to get
immediately clean.  Only Chrissie was brave enough to sit with them (and
even she had to sit two spaces over).

Just as the meal was finishing up - and as Michelle and Brett were working
on the second helpings that they had been granted as a reward for their
mission - Paul got behind the podium and flipped on the PA system.  He
publicly thanked the expedition crew (two of whom were conspicuously absent,
but this was not commented on) and invited Brett to come up and give a
general briefing on the mission.

Brett swallowed down the rest of his tuna salad and canned corn, drank the
rest of his powdered lemonade, and then walked to the front of the room.  He
was cheered as he made the trip but more than one person was forced to hold
their breath as he passed, so powerful was the odor of him.

"First of all," he said into the microphone, "I'd like to promise everyone
here that I'm going to bathe just as soon as I'm done talking to you all."

This statement was greeted with a burst of playful clapping and laughter.

"It is rather difficult to keep yourself clean out there," he said.  "It
seems all the decent motels have gone out of business."  He let the smile go
from his face, putting a serious expression on.  "Let me begin by telling
you what you probably already know.  We have managed to recover a highway
patrol helicopter from Cameron Park Airport.  As far as I can tell, it is in
fairly good shape, there are some basic spare parts and maintenance supplies
back where we found it, and there is about two thousand gallons of fuel
there as well."

A prolonged burst of applause greeted this statement.

"Now this helicopter is a McDonnell-Douglas model 500.  It had a range of
about 300 miles with only a pilot in it, and a range of about a hundred
miles full of cargo.  What this means to our community is that, if I can
keep this thing running, we'll be able to search for supplies or even game
from the air and bring them back here to Garden Hill.  We'll be able to
recon the surrounding area to try to determine if there are any friends or
enemies out there.  As a defensive tool, this helicopter will also serve an
important role since attackers will be able to be spotted from the air and
even engaged from where they least expect it.  With the forward-looking
infrared pod that's installed in it, we can even see people at night.  This
aircraft is quite possibly this town's saving grace."

More applause echoed through the room.

"But there IS going to be some more work involved before we can start using
it for this purpose," he said next.  "First of all we're going to have to
figure out a way to get that two thousand gallons of fuel from Cameron Park
to Garden Hill and we're going to have to figure out a way to safely store
it.  We're also going to need to get all of the spare parts and maintenance
supplies over here.  What that means is that I'm going to have to fly enough
people over there to secure that airport long enough to make ten or fifteen
trips back and forth."

Though he had yet to ask anyone, dozens of volunteers immediately stood and
offered their services.  Many of them were the newest members of his guard
force.

"We'll figure out who is going to do it once we have the logistics of it
down," Brett said, waving them back to their seats.  "But before everyone
get too enthusiastic about this, I think that maybe I should explain just
what kind of thing we're up against out there."

They all quieted down and he told them, using his no nonsense,
this-is-the-absolute-truth, courtroom voice, about the destruction of the
land, the dead bodies, and the evidence that cannibalism was taking place
outside their walls.  Almost everyone winced as he described this last bit.

"Now what I just told you should serve to clue you in to the danger out
there before you volunteer," he said.  "It should also serve to clue you in
to the danger that just might show up on our doorstep one of these days.  So
think carefully about it before you put your name up for consideration of
this mission.  You'll probably have to spend at least one night in Cameron
Park, well armed but beyond the reach of help from the rest of us.  Keep
that in mind."

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.  Brett 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 Brett since his return, saw his oppurtunity
and stepped in before he could get away.  Brett dutifully sat back down,
Michelle and Chrissie 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
matter 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?"

Brett 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," Brett 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?" Brett 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."

Brett 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?" Brett asked.

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

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

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

"How about Sherrie?" Brett 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?" Brett 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 matter of
minutes."

Brett 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," Brett 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," Chrissie said.  "Wait until you see
her.  She looks like she's aged about ten years in the past two weeks."

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

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

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

"Me too," Michelle 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, Brett, Michelle, and
Chrissie heading in another.


+++++


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

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

Michelle 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 Brett."

She filled the bucket again and saturated Brett's hair.  By the time she was
done refilling it again, Michelle'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," Michelle 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 Chrissie pour buckets
over the top of them, Brett's legs were entwined in Michelle's still
unshaven ones.  It felt nice but it was eerily reminiscent of his first
night in town with Mitsy, a woman who was now dead and buried, a victim of
rampant sexuality.  Eerie or not, sandpaper legs or not, Brett'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," Chrissie 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," Michelle said with a giggle, reaching her soapy hand
out to give it a stroke.  "It seems that somebody wants to play."

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

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

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

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

"What?" Michelle 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 Michelle's talented hand.  "And she forced me to that
last night.  I was an unwilling participant."

"Unwilling?" Michelle 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," Chrissie said, carrying her bucket over.  She dumped it on
Brett, 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.
Michelle, 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.

Chrissie, after filling her bucket up for Michelle's final rinse, grabbed
Brett's erection and picked up where Michelle had left off.

"Hey now," Michelle 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," Brett groaned, his knees wobbling a little.

Chrissie, 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.

"Chrissie," Michelle 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," Brett assured her.  "I'm VERY interested."

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

"You know it."

Chrissie dumped her bucket on Michelle 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.  Chrissie sprayed it with the high-pressure fire hose
while Brett and Michelle 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.

Michelle bent over to put the hot water hose in place and Brett, 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, Chrissie 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," Michelle said, pushing back a little harder.

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

"We won't do anything you wouldn't do," Michelle told her as she headed out
the door.  The moment she was gone, she looked over her shoulder at Brett.
"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."

"Shouldn't you wait until Chrissie gets hers?" he asked, continuing to
finger her.  "You had some last night, she's been without for eight days.
Didn't we agree that I would spread myself around?"

"Just give me a couple of strokes," she pleaded.  "Please?  I'm so horny
right now!"

"Just a couple," he said, grabbing his cock in his hand.  "But Chrissie gets
me first.  Fair is fair."

"Fine, just do it," she said, reaching behind her and grabbing at his leg.

He pulled his fingers free and placed his cock against her wet lips, sliding
the head up and down her slit a few times, teasing her.  Finally, his own
urges got the better of him and he buried himself in her, holding onto her
hips for leverage.

"Oh god, yesss," she cried as she felt the delicious intrusion.

Despite his declaration that he would only give her a few strokes, he was
still pounding away in Michelle's pussy when Chrissie came back into the
room.  She watched them for a moment, feeling the now familiar combination
of arousal mixed with a tinge of jealousy that she felt whenever she saw
them going at it.  The fact that they were doing it in her favorite position
intensified her response.  She had an almost overwhelming desire to put her
hands in her pants and start rubbing herself but she suppressed it.  She
intended to have more than her fingers touching her there on this night.
But first she needed to pry them apart.

She walked over to them and put her hands on Brett's bare back, sliding her
fingers up and down.  "I'm starting to feel left out," she said, leaning in
and kissing his ear.

"There's more than enough for two," he replied, his voice not quite steady
as he felt her touch upon him.  Despite the relative innocence of Chrissie's
caress, it was the first time in his life that he had been touched by a
woman while he was making love to another one.  It sent chills up his spine.

"Yes," Michelle said, just as breathless, "there's no need to go without.
We're all married here aren't we?  Take those pants off Chrissie.  Join the
fun.  We share, remember?"

Now it was Chrissie who felt a shiver running through her.  What Michelle
was suggesting sounded so incredibly dirty, so forbidden, yet, at the same
time, the very thought was blackly exciting.  True, she had seen Michelle
and Brett making love many times now and true she had been seen by Michelle
while SHE was making love many times, but to do it at the same time?  In the
community bathing room?  She couldn't do anything like that... could she?

"Come on Chris," Brett whispered, taking one hand off of Michelle's waist
and putting it around her shoulders.  He pulled her against him.  "Take 'em
off.  I've missed your body.  Don't make me wait any more for it."

She trembled a little in desire, feeling her wetness seeping out of her,
feeling her nipples harden.  She ran her hand down Brett's back to his
gyrating ass.  She felt his cheeks clenching and releasing as he pushed and
pulled in and out.  "That's nasty," she said, very little conviction in her
voice.

"Yes," Michelle agreed, panting now.  "It is.  But sometimes married people
are nasty with each other.  That's what makes it exciting.  Be nasty with us
Chrissie.  I can see that you want to."

"And I can feel it," Brett said, letting his hand slide over her chest to
the swell of her breast.  He began to caress her nipple through her shirt,
twisting it with just the right amount of pressure.  Tingles of pleasure
began to spread along her nerve pathways.

A second later she was kicking her shoes off and unbuckling her pants.  They
fell to the floor the moment they were undone, the holstered pistol thunking
on the floor.  She stepped out of them and pushed her wet panties down,
flinging them off with her foot, hardly noticing that they landed in the
filling bathtub.

"That's the way baby," Michelle said, taking her by the hand and pulling her
over next to her.  "Bend over and let him give it to you.  Fuck him with
me."

Feeling like the most sordid slut in the world, feeling incredibly depraved,
feeling NASTY, Chrissie leaned over the tub next to Michelle, sticking her
ass up into the air.  She felt the cold air on her wet pussy and shuddered a
little.  Michelle's arm came up around her back and pulled her closer
against her, so their shoulders were touching.  She leaned into her co-wife,
enjoying the feel of her body despite the fact that she was another female.

She felt Brett's hands touching her butt, sliding over the cheeks, playing
with her legs, spreading her a little wider.  God how she loved to be taken
this way.  It gave her such a comforting feeling of being possessed by her
man.  The head of his cock touched her center for the briefest of instances
before he slid it all the way inside of her in one fluid stroke.  It went in
easily, despite her tightness, and she could feel that it was already hot
and wet.  Those were Michelle's juices that were helping lube her, she
realized with a start.  His cock had been dripping with her musky secretions
and he had just buried it in her body.  This should have made her feel ill,
should have disgusted her.  It didn't.  Instead, she moaned loudly, gripping
her co-wife a little harder.

"You love it when he fucks you like this, don't you?" Michelle whispered in
her ear, her voice soft and sexy, her breath hot upon her skin.

"Yesss," she groaned, barely audibly.

"And I love watching him fuck you," she said next, her hand rubbing her back
through her shirt.  "It turns me on so much to see him pounding you, to hear
you moaning, to see him coming in your body.  Isn't that nasty Chrissie?"

"Yesss," she panted, thrusting her butt back at Brett now as she felt him
powering in and out of her, filling her.  "It's very nasty."

"Does it turn you on to watch him fuck me?"

"Ohhh," she grunted.

"Does it?  Tell me baby.  Tell me how you feel."

"Yess," she cried, giving in to her depravity.  "Yes, I love to watch it."

"Because it's nasty, isn't it?  Deliciously nasty and secret?"

"Ohhh, yesss!"

Brett, standing behind the two women and feeling his cock going in and out,
was feeling pretty nasty himself.   He could not believe what was happening,
could not believe that he was fucking Chrissie seconds after pulling his
dripping cock out of Michelle, could not believe that both of them were
holding onto each other, leaning over the tub and giving themselves to him.
Two pussies, one covered in blonde hair, one covered in black, were gaping
at him.  Two firm asses, one light completed, one dark, were being presented
side by side for his pleasure.  He had never been so turned on in his life
as he was at that moment and he was struggling mightily just to keep his
orgasm at bay for a few more minutes.  Listening to the lewd words that they
were saying to each other made this struggle even harder.

"Do you play with your pussy after you watch us?" Michelle asked next, her
lips now touching Chrissie's ear.  "You do, don't you?"

"Yes," Chrissie said, feeling more chills, more shameful arousal as she felt
the feminine lips grazing her skin, "you know I do."

Suddenly Michelle's tongue was licking at her neck, kissing and sucking the
flesh there.  She knew that she should stop her from doing that, that she
was flirting with lesbianism, but she couldn't.  It felt too damn good.

"Oh goddd," Brett groaned almost painfully as he saw this.  His control
slipped considerably as he watched Michelle's pink tongue lapping at
Chrissie's neck, leaving glistening trails of saliva, as he saw Chrissie
leaning into it, her body language demanding more.

"Don't you come yet," Michelle said, breaking her lips free long enough to
look at him.  "Don't come until Chrissie has."  She looked back at her.
"Are you close baby?"

"Yess," Chrissie, thrusting back spastically, grunted.  "Oh yesss!"

"Let me help you," Michelle told her, kissing on her neck again.  She
twisted a little towards her companion, tucking her right hand under her
body.  She touched Chrissie's lower stomach, moving her fingers down until
she was moving through the kinky curls of her pubic hair.

"Shellie," Chrissie said uncertainly as the touch of another woman neared
her most private place.

"It's okay baby," she said.  "This is just between the three of us."

And suddenly those fingers were on her swollen clit, rubbing it in short,
firm circles.  "Ohhhh," she barked, jumping as orgasm reared up from nowhere
and hit her like a ton of bricks.  "Ohhhhh, I'mmm, I'mmm, oohhhhhh!"

"Yes baby," Michelle cried, biting her neck now, her fingers still rubbing
her clit around Brett's driving cock.  "Do it!  Come for us!  Come for us!"

She came for them, as hard as she ever had in her life, even harder than the
first time Brett used his mouth upon her.  Her pussy clenched like a vise on
Brett's member and suddenly she was kissing Michelle on the mouth, her
tongue plunging between those soft lips and dueling with the tongue it found
there.  Michelle, with a squeal of delight, kissed her back
enthusiastically, sucking on her lips, running her tongue over her teeth.

This was all quite enough to push Brett over the edge.  The moment their
lips came together and he saw their tongues touching, he exploded, nearly
going into seizure with the sheer power of his orgasm.  His cock began to
shoot blast after blast of hot sperm into Chrissie's body.  It seemed he
emptied pints, gallons into her before the spasms faded away.

And even after he finished, even after his cock wilted down to a dripping,
semi-hardness, the two women continued to kiss each other, their mouths
making wet, slurping noises as their tongues entwined.  When he pulled free
of them they twisted into each other's arms until they were standing chest
to chest, legs to legs, face to face.  Chrissie's hands roamed up and down
Michelle's bare back, her fingers touching the feminine skin delicately.
Michelle's hands dropped to Chrissie's ass, where her fingers attacked the
cheeks.

Brett watched in amazement, his dick already beginning to twitch and resume
its hardened state.  His hand dropped down to it and began to stroke
absently.

Chrissie finally pulled away, her lips swollen, her face flushed.  Michelle
let her go after giving one final, lingering kiss.

"I've... I've never done anything like that before," Chrissie said, her
voice cracked.

"Nor have I," Michelle said.  She was just as flushed.  "I mean, when I was
in junior high school a girlfriend and I felt each others boobs once, and
she even sucked mine a little before we got embarrassed and stopped, but
I've never... you know... touched another woman like that, or kissed one."
She took Chrissie's hand in hers.  "I kind of liked it though.  It was...
different.  Exciting.  You're very soft Chrissie, very touchable and
kissable."

"Are we..." she hesitated.  "Are we... lesbians?"

Michelle laughed a little.  "No baby," she told her.  "We're not lesbians.
We were just playing a little.  There's nothing wrong with that in the kind
of marriage that we're in.  I'm just surprised it took us this long to do
it."

"But... well... how do we KNOW?  I mean, maybe we've always been lesbians
and we just now are..."

"Chrissie," Michelle said, giving her hand a squeeze.  "Did you like it when
Brett was fucking you just now?"

"What?"

"When he was fucking you," she repeated.  "When he was sticking his dick in
your pussy?  Did you like it?"

"Well... of course I liked it.  I loved it."

"Then you're not a lesbian," she said.  "And neither am I.  You're just a
sexual creature that responded to an impulsive urge.  That's all that I am.
We're living together in the same household, sharing a man, seeing each
other naked all the time, being part of a marriage.  If we get the urge to
touch each other or kiss each other once in a while during the height of
sexuality, it doesn't need to have any dark meanings.  You just go with it."

"Go with it," she whispered, confused, feeling both shame and desire.  There
was no denying that she had liked it when Michelle had put her hands upon
her.  And there was no denying that she had been the one to kiss her first.
Was it just a wicked impulse as Michelle had suggested?  Or was it something
more?

"I love you Chrissie," Michelle said tenderly, leaning forward and giving
her a gentle peck on the nose.  "I love you as a friend and as a co-wife.
You're my ally in this relationship.  It's only natural that we'll feel the
urge to express ourselves physically sometimes.  Let's not get all hung up
in pre-comet morality again, okay?  If you don't like touching and kissing
me, we won't do it.  But if you enjoyed it and desire it again in the
future, don't let the old prejudices and social norms keep you from doing
what you want to do.  Remember, it's a different world."

"A different world," Chrissie repeated, her mind and body both on overload.

Michelle, leaving Chrissie to sort it all out, turned to Brett, her eyes
dropping down to his dripping cock, which was now nearly fully erect again.
"In the meantime," she said, "I've worked myself up into quite a frenzy."
She stepped up to him, letting her hand drop to his member.  "I think the
tub is about full now, isn't it?"

"I... uh... believe it is."

"Then why don't we get in?" she asked.  "We have a final rinse to take care
of don't we?"  She gave him a soft, sensuous squeeze, smearing Chrissie's
secretions.  "And I know just where I want to sit too."

They shut off the hot water supply and climbed into the steaming bath.  They
did not bother with scrubbing or rinsing.  Brett sat with his back against
the far edge, submerged to his nipples, and Michelle sat on his lap, facing
him.  They kissed hotly, their tongues playing hide and seek in each others
mouths while their hands touched hot, soapy skin.  Michelle grabbed his cock
and slid her hips forward, placing the head against her swollen lips.  With
a quick, forceful push of her body, she drew him into her, sinking to the
hilt.

"Ahhh," Brett moaned as he felt himself encased in yet another hot sheath.

"I want it hard baby," she told him.  "Fuck me hard."

He put his hands to her ass and began to power his hips up and down, driving
like a piston within her.  She grunted and moaned out her approval as water
splashed over the side and onto the floor.

Chrissie watched this from the edge of the tub, still standing in the same
spot she had been when she'd kissed Michelle, still naked from the waist
down.  She watched them intently, her tongue reaching out to lick her lips
every now and then, her pussy already starting to juice up again.  Soon,
though her mind was still full of confusion and wildly conflicting emotions,
her right hand dropped between her legs and found her saturated slit.  She
began to rub herself.

Her left hand, with nothing else to do at the moment, reached into the tub
and found Michelle's shoulder.  She began to caress the soft skin, sliding
her fingertips back and forth, up and down.  It really was a pleasant
sensation to touch the softness of a woman.  A woman felt so much different
than a man; not better, not worse, just different.

"Mmmm," Michelle said, putting one of her hands atop Chrissie's.  "That
feels nice."

Soon Chrissie's hand worked its way down between the chests of the lovers
and was cupping Michelle's breast.

Chrissie came first, her knees wobbling, her juices soaking her fingers.
Michelle followed right after.  Brett, since he had already come once,
managed to hang in there for another five minutes, long enough to give
Michelle yet another peak before he too finally succumbed and filled her
with his sperm.

While Chrissie put her pants back on, Michelle and Brett finished the job of
rinsing themselves off.  They then drained the tub and climbed out, drying
off and putting on the fresh clothes that Chrissie had fetched for them
earlier.  Once dressed they did a final clean up of the bathing area.  They
talked little during this process, all of them lost in their own thoughts.
Finally, arm in arm, they left the building, headed for their marital home.

None of them had seen Jessica, who had just finished her final kitchen
duties of the night and who had been watching them for more than twenty
minutes from the edge of the doorway.  She had slipped away just before they
exited.

Nor did any of them see or sense her staring after them as they moved down
the street and disappeared into the darkness.  Had they seen her they would
have noticed that her hands were clenched into fists and her face was
twisted into an expression of hate.

While they returned to their house, Jessica returned to hers.  She locked
her door behind her after she entered and then she went to her bedroom,
lighting a few lamps and candles along her way.  She took off her clothing
and then sat naked upon her bed, her mind seething at the depravity that she
had just witnessed.

She could not believe how low her town had sunk in the past two weeks.  Not
only had her people rejected her as their leader they were now allowing
blatant perversions to take place right under their noses.  First that
pregnant hussy molested the young boy in the bathtub and then, not an hour
later, the same tub was used to facilitate the disgusting sexuality of Brett
and Michelle and that child!  At the same time!  Several of the townspeople
had KNOWN that they had gone in there; they had seen them.  And had they
been outraged at it?  Had they demanded it stop?  No, they had simply made a
few comments under their breaths, elbowed each other a few times, winked,
and allowed it to go on.  What had this town come to?

Brett was the man that was corrupting everyone, he was the one that had
somehow, someway, managed to turn everyone against her, to twist the role of
leadership right out of her grasp just as she was on the verge of securing
it for all time.  He was the one that was promoting deviant sexual behavior
of all kinds on the basis that it just didn't matter anymore.  And the town
women, once her staunchest supporters (or so she thought) were now following
him, were now sinking down to the same level of depravity as him.

Despite the fact that she had not talked to anyone in the last three weeks,
her ears were as sharp as ever and they missed little.  Already she had
heard discussions from others about the possibilities that polygamy
represented.  Though no one besides Brett had yet made such a drastic step
into the land of damnation, it seemed that more than one set of quiet
negotiations were under way.  Instead of seeing it as the sick and twisted
perversion that it was, they were actually starting to look at it as
something that made sense.  She knew it wouldn't be long before other groups
started to pop up and declare their status as triples or even quadruples.

She had to put a stop to it.  She simply had to.  And she had to regain the
power that she had lost.  Without her role as a community leader, she was
nothing.  She could not command the respect that she once had, could not
shape the way the community was evolving.  Her destiny in this life was to
be in charge, to be a decision maker, to be the one who commanded others.
But in order to do that, she had to wrestle that power back from the man who
had taken it from her, the man who was now enjoying the respect and
admiration that was due her.

She reached over and opened the drawer in her nightstand.  Inside of it was
a .45 pistol, the same one she had carried on her hip when she had been a
committee member.  She reached out and touched it, feeling its cold steel.
She smiled a little.

There was only one sure way to put a stop to Brett's influence in her town
and regain her favor.  She would have to remove him permanently, silence him
so his words could not counteract hers.  It was the only way.




Al Steiner
Chapter 10 to follow.

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