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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 17

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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 17
Fists Go Flying

Based

on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the
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Sliding out of my truck, I

took a moment to try and just absorb the sounds and smells of the forest. Out
here, without the cut crew for the utility road working, I was as far from any
workers as I was likely to get on my old family land. I could almost pretend to
feel normal. Shaking my head, I opened my eyes and went to the raider truck.

It was an old piece of shit,

but it was a Toyota so it was the kind of old piece of shit that could run for
ages and go through a ton of abuse. I'd seen plenty of worse-off-looking Toyota
trucks being put to use overseas by civilians, terrorist cells and everyone in
between. Hell, I'd seen plenty of them with heavy machine guns mounted to the
bed to make 'technical' that could somehow still drive over rocky desert
terrain. The license plate hadn't gotten anything for Miriam, so I needed to
look for anything else that might be of use.

I started in the back bed of

the truck; the raiders had grabbed a bunch of the cutting crew's tools, which I
was able to quickly sort out and put over near the excavator for them to
reclaim. The back of the truck was otherwise empty other than some old filth
and dead leaves that tended to pile up in corners if someone wasn't diligent
about being clean; one of the many little things about living in a heavily
forested region, and entirely unremarkable.

Leaves and filth weren't

going to tell me anything, so I went to check the cab. The back seat had a
layer of garbage on the floor, stomped down by boots, and I quickly pulled it
out hoping to find something interesting. Generic coffee cups, fast food
wrappers from the most popular chains and the packaging from a brick of plastic
water bottles didn't give me any smoking guns. And not a single receipt that
might have told me where these guys frequented. Even a McDonald's receipt could
have told me where they had been on a specific day at a specific time.

The front diver's side didn't

give me much more of anything. The door had a couple of badly scratched-up CDs
in the pocket. One was a bootleg mix of popular country rock songs, and another
was the first Taylor Swift album. The center console revealed some more CDs in
better condition, some pocket change, several empty packs of cigarettes and a
couple of cheap BIC lighters. The passenger side had more trash on the floor,
similar to the back, but this was where I found the receipts I'd been looking
for. Not every receipt was the same, but I was able to quickly start putting
together a mental image of their haunts; not that it actually told me much
right away. A few of the oldest receipts were from before the previous owner
was supposed to have died, but the more recent ones were scattered all over the
region and crossing county lines. Mishawaka, Banks, Vemonia, even all the way up
north to Clatskanie closer to the Washington state line. Whoever was using this
truck had been travelling in the last couple of months and tracking those
movements was going to take a whole fucking murder board of work and
significant time. I bundled all the receipts that I could find and set them
aside.

I struck pay dirt with the

glovebox, pulling out a revolver in a leather holster. It was a basic Ruger of
some sort, worn and old but it had all the serial numbers still on it. A quick
check showed me it was loaded. It really wasn't that strange a thing to find
for a backwoods truck; it wasn't about to stop a bear in its tracks, but it
could be used in most wildlife-related situations to at least hurt and scare
something off, and was a decent little self-defense piece. Sure, folks in
Portland and some of the other cities would have scoffed or been shocked at the
need for such a casual carry in the truck, or they would have before the
pandemic, but in the backwoods you never knew when you might need to even just
make a loud bang to spook an angry deer, a bobcat or a wolf.

With luck, and some work

calling around, it might be possible to track who owned the firearm. It was old
but not that old, and firearm sales still needed to be tracked
at individual gun stores. I could start with the nearby vendors and circle out
from there.

Well, if the owners of the

stores were still alive and willing to go to the effort.

Under the revolver was the

old, tattered owner's manual for the truck. No insurance documents that I could
find, though I doubted the raiders were insurance kind of people on a regular
day. A couple of empty and crumpled water bottles in the passenger side door
rounded out my search.

I took a picture of the

revolver with the serial numbers clearly visible and sent it to Miriam, then
got back in my truck, rolled down the windows and turned it off again. I pulled
out the little notebook I'd brought with me and made notes about my search,
then flipped to a new page, opened up the maps app on my phone and started
searching for firearms shops and dealers, scribbling down their locations and
phone numbers.

I had some phone calls to

make once the rest of the world was more likely to be awake, but I could get as
much other work done as I could.

 

I got a few bites on the

call-out to the work crews and spent a couple of hours jumping from crew to
crew gathering descriptions of tattoos, facial hair, scars and particularly
identifying items of clothing. Nothing stood out as someone I could recognize
from around town, but I bundled it all up into a report and shot it off to the
State Troopers and Miriam just in case they could run the descriptions through
the criminal databases.

Not that I was going to hold

my breath on that; the Staties were still stretched way thin, and Miriam
couldn't detail too many people to help with this. She had an entire operation
to run.

Where I could get

some help was right there on the site though. When I checked in with Vanessa;
who had punched me in the arm for sending her the photo of me and Sexy Susan
the sex doll while she was just about to start work; she'd immediately been
able to grab a few of her new, untrained laborers women to start making calls
for me. I left them with the serial number, make and model for the revolver and
the list of shops I'd started putting together. The first dozen or so shops
they managed to reach had been dead ends, but about half the calls weren't even
being picked up. I left them to it with a script that should at least get the
owners to check their records unofficially.

Unless, of course, the owners

were part of the same militia group the raiders were from. That possibility had
darkened my mind, too.

Not having any good updates

for Kara, I had texted her that I was still working on things to try and keep
her spirits up, and got a brief update that they were locked up tight.

That drilled out the leads I

had immediately from the raid. Other than running down the receipt locations
and dates, at least, but that wasn't going to get me anywhere fast. There was
one more outside thread that I could pull on first.

"You're going to be

careful," Erica ordered me.

I was driving and had her on

speaker, though it was only from my phone. "Of course I am," I said.
"I've got my bulletproof vest on under my shirt, and I borrowed an
unmarked truck from the pool on the site."

"Oh, great," she

said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The redneck assholes won't immediately know
that you're a cop."

"That's Sheriff to you,

missy," I said.

"And that's Wifey to

you, Sheriff," she retorted.

"I'm going to be

careful," I said.

"Good," Erica

agreed. "And when you're done there, you're coming here. You need to make
sure your immunity is up."

"I'll head home first to

change and shower," I said. "If I do pick anything up there I don't
want to bring it with me."

"Okay, babe," Erica

sighed. "Call me when you're done though, yeah? I need to know you're
safe."

"I will," I

promised.

She made a kiss sound into

the phone and then hung up.

I checked the map on my phone

and sighed. Here was as good as anywhere. I pulled off the side of the highway
and put the truck in park. If I was going to be careful, I needed to scout the
location before I just drove up, and if I parked too close to the driveway
someone might take notice.

I was in for a hike.

Soon the truck was locked and

I was climbing up through the brush at the side of the road, my hunting rifle
slung over my shoulder and a camo hunting jacket giving me a bit of cover as I
started my trek. The early part of my hike was actually pretty peaceful as I
didn't have much to worry about, but after a mile I started checking my GPS a
bit more often and another mile in I slowed my pace as I started to really
focus.

The soft crunch of my boots

on the forest floor, and the sounds of nearby birds, were my only company until
I hit the first tripwire.

It wasn't exactly a

professional job, but the bent branch with the sharpened stakes would still
have fucked me up.

"Someone's been reading

some really stupid websites," I grunted to myself. I grabbed a stick and,
standing away from the danger zone, I triggered the tripwire. The branch swung
around and actually broke under its own weight.

From then on I slowed down

even more. I spotted three more tripwires made with the same trick, plus some
basic snares sized for small game and a couple of bigger ones that must have
been intended for larger game like deer, or people. I bypassed the most obvious
ones and tripped a few more of the basic ones while noting the surroundings so
I could remember a safe way out before pressing on.

I almost fucked up when I

spotted the trail cam. It was a basic one, camo patterned and tied to a tree.
In the dark, I would have probably walked right by it without noticing. As it
was, the cam had definitely got me on video. The good news was that, after I
took it down and pried it open, I found it was only recording and not
broadcasting. I took out the memory card and batteries, erased the internal
memory, and put it right back where it had been.

The next camera wasn't so

easy to deal with, but I spotted it early because I reached the tree line. It,
and several more like it, was mounted to a pole and had wires running back
towards the main building of the little compound ahead of me.

The Golden Beaver bar looked

like it had been a decent-sized hunting cabin at some point back in the 1980s.
It had one main building, two stories, and was made of thick logs. The windows
were shuttered and someone had reinforced them with sheet metal on the first
floor. There were also a couple of outbuildings around the back, one of them an
old doublewide trailer and another a small barn. Tarps had been erected and
tied down between the buildings now, and someone had started farming chickens
in the space as the birds pecked away at the ground, protected by a couple
layers of a chicken wire fence. The front of the building was packed with
almost a dozen cars and trucks, and someone had erected what looked like an
attempt at a log palisade gate at the throat of the driveway but had given up
halfway through.

I quietly skulked around the

edges of the property, staying back from the tree line to keep out of the view
of the security cameras. I scoped out the buildings and parking lot with my rifle.
The place wasn't exactly a hopping busy bar, but there were definitely people
inside and at one point a guy with a beard reaching halfway down his gut
stumbled out the front, strutted to the side of the porch and unzipped, taking
a piss off the end.

I circled back around the

property, scanning the other side. They didn't have any guards posted,
including in the upper windows of the building, but I did spot a cache of big
red fuel containers and propane tanks set back from the main house, so they
weren't complete idiots.

Part of me regretted the time

wasted even bothering with scouting; there wasn't any sign of the raw materials
stolen from the site, and none of the trucks in the parking lot had been shot
up so whoever Kyla and I had hit wasn't here. That being said, the truck could
have been dumped and the perpetrators were here after all.

Hell, the guys from the

shootout at Mary's could be here, even if the raiders weren't.

It wasn't a complete waste. I

knew that even if they were halfhearted, the men who were congregating
here were doing shady shit. The traps in the woods were an
important clue as to which way they were leaning.

I backtracked back out the

way I had come. Whoever came out to eventually check their traps would be
suspicious about several of them being triggered, but that wasn't likely to
happen until at least tomorrow and gave me time to follow through with the
second half of my plan. The hike out, once I was away from the Golden Beaver
'danger zone,' was pleasant again and I popped out of the woods about a third
of a mile from my truck and trudged my way back up to it. A year ago I would
have been passed by cars and trucks on that little stretch of highway; now I
didn't see a solitary car.

After a quick text to Erica

to let her know I was checking in and safe, I stowed my jacket and rifle and
got back in the truck. The drive up to the Golden Beaver was a lot faster than
the hike.

At the mouth of the driveway

up to the bar, I found that their little club had erected a second sign next to
the one that was stenciled with the same symbol as from the matchbook Barry had
given me before. The new sign was a laminated printout nailed onto a wooden
backing, and I pulled over to read it before heading up.

"Jesus Christ," I

grunted under my breath. It was a declaration of independence from the 'sham
governance of thieves, conmen and cheaters.' There was a bunch of mumbo jumbo
bullshit under it that I didn't bother reading because it was all the same
drivel that the Sovereign Citizens always spouted off.

The driveway was a winding

mess of gravel and dirt filled with potholes, and I could just guess at the
reasoning the lazy assholes had for not fixing it. Up at the top, I got a fresh
look at the unfinished palisade gate and drove right through and into the
parking lot, pulling up at the end of the rough 'row' of vehicles and making
sure to back in so that I could manage a quick getaway if needed. I parked, got
out, and walked up to the main doors of the bar without a single person
stopping me.

That's where I stopped,

taking in a breath and swallowing. I could smell the cheap beer and sour sweat
smell from outside. Or maybe that was the piss from the guy earlier along with
whatever else was staining the old wooden porch. It wasn't what stopped me
though. What stopped me, for a moment, was the risk I was taking.

I walked into the bar without

a mask.

The interior of the main

floor was mostly one large room, or had been converted into that at some point.
There was a bar splitting off a third of the room with a small kitchen area
behind it. The rest of the space was mostly seating, though there was a small
stage along the back wall with a stripper pole mounted in the middle; unless
the good ol' boys had been hiring proper strippers to come out here back before
the pandemic I had a feeling I didn't want to know the women who made use of
it.

The walls of the building

were crowded with taxidermy trophies, old posters that would make a mechanic's
break room blush, and various maps and printouts that seemed to be all about
the sovereign citizen movement. A 'Don't Tread On Me' flag was slung over the
bar right beside a Confederate flag. How either of those belonged in Oregon, I
couldn't say. There were also boxes and palettes stacked with supplies jammed
into the corners of the room, and under the rickety set of stairs that led up
to the second floor. Most of it seemed to be food or beer, though I also noted
a crate of what might have been looted valuables.

The bar also happened to be

populated by about thirty men, women and several children, all of whom turned
and looked at me as I walked in and the door swung shut behind me.

"Who are you?" one

lady, a redhead who looked like she'd probably lost a fight with an oxy
addiction, asked me.

"Is Barry here?" I

asked the room.

A couple of guys stood up

from a table near the middle of the room, the clatter of their chairs was only
covered by the scratchy audio from the boom box behind the bar that was
playing Born in the USA, which I found highly ironic.

The pair stalked towards me,

both glowering heavily with a hand on the pistols holstered at their hips. The
taller one was bald and had a longer, coppery-colored beard while the shorter
one had a slicked-back head of hair and an old scar that split his lips. The
scar and the beard didn't stand out from my notes from earlier.

"Barry ain't here,"

the bigger one said, his voice rumbling a bit in his chest. "What do you
want him for?"

Fuck, I thought. "Oh," I said. "Well, he

invited me to come out here. We went to high school together."

The short guy sneered a

little but I couldn't tell what the big one was thinking; he had the sort of
face that barely moved and showed very little beyond gradations of
disgruntlement.

"Barry ain't been here

for a week or so," the shorter guy said. It wasn't really fair to think of
him as 'short' per se, considering he was about average height, but the big guy
made him seem smaller than he really was. "You know anything about that?"

"Not a clue," I

said. "He gave me the invite a month ago or so; he'd invited me before
too, but I've been busy."

"He might be a

Federal," the red-headed junkie spat.

I snorted derisively, but

that didn't seem to impress anyone.

"We ain't used to folks

just walking' on up here," the shorter man said. "And Barry knows he
can't just hand out invites when the Government is making' people disappear and
the social fabric of our community is falling' apart. You some kind of a pinko
Commie? Or are you a fascist, tax-paying pig?"

There was so much to

unlock from that, but I couldn't correct him.

"He's got a gun!"

shouted a man down the room, pointing at me.

Immediately both men had

their pistols out and pointed at me, and I raised my hands. "I thought
this was the kind of crowd who believed in the right to bear arms," I said
slowly, trying my best not to show my nerves. I could feel a drip of sweat
slowly crawling down my spine.

"It is, for true

sovereign citizens, fighting the oppressive, illegal DC dictatoriate," the
shorter man grunted. "Now don't fuckin' move, ya' Commie Fascist."

I didn't move, and the big

guy closed the distance with me and pulled my pistol from the holster I had
strapped to my belt in the center of my back. "Sit," he ordered,
gesturing for me to take a seat at the nearest table. It looked like the chairs
had been liberated from someone's kitchen table.

Things were quickly sliding

out of control; I'd been hoping Barry would be here to vouch for me like he had
at the grocery store months ago, but now I needed to try and prove myself
somehow to these assholes if I was going to get out of here.

"Look, fellas," I

said, letting my wording slip a bit into the slightly slurred, lazy way the
rednecks spoke. "I'll admit, I ain't exactly an old hand at the Sovereign
movement, but I'm here 'cause I want to learn my real, God-given rights. I used
to own some land over on the other end of Jewell, did what I thought was right
and supported the government with my taxes and shit. But now, after all those
years of shellin' out my hard-earned cash, they go and fuckin' steal my land
right out from under me. My family has been livin' there for generations, and
now they've gone and hoovered it up with their legalese crap."

There were some murmurs and

mutters in the crowd as different people commiserated with my story. The
shorter guy, who still had his pistol trained on my kneecap, eyed me carefully.
"They hit you with that imminent domicile shit?"

"Yeah, that," I

agreed readily even as I cringed internally at the butchering of 'eminent
domain.' "They didn't even give me a choice. Just up and took it from
me."

The taller man grunted and

spit on the floor in disgust, and the shorter one sighed and then holstered his
weapon. "Alright," he said. "That all might be true, and there's
always space to learn the truth here at the Golden Beaver. But
we ain't in the business of just inviting any old Joe up into our community.
What's your name?"

There was a big part of me

that wanted to lie my ass off and tell them something like 'Gary Blake,' but if
I was going to use these assholes as a source or for clues I couldn't burn
myself with them. Barry would eventually need to vouch for me all over again
once he came back around here; unless he was dead, of course.

"Harrison Black," I

admitted. There weren't any immediate flashes of recognition among the people I
could see, but I did notice the shorter guy glance and nod over to someone
else, who started typing on his phone.

"Well, Harrison Black,

if that's your real name," the shorter guy said. "You're going to
need to prove to us you aren't a commie, a fascist or a cop."

"Just tell me what to

do," I said agreeably. "I need to figure this shit out."

The two men put their heads

together and muttered back and forth before both nodding. The big one stood
straight and looked down at me as I sat in the chair. Then he pulled a combat
knife from the sheathe on his belt and stabbed it into the table. "Put
your hand flat." I followed his direction, but tensed, ready to pull away.
"Now take the knife."

I took the knife in my hand,

and then he leaned in close and wrapped his bigger hand around mine, prying the
knife from the table and lifting it up. He started moving it, digging the tip
into the wood in between each of my fingers, one gap after the other, and then
back again. It was the 'knife game' or whatever people called it. I could feel
his breath on my face and had to stop myself from gagging; not because of the
smell, which was bad because the guy clearly used dip, but just from knowing
the asshole went around all day without a mask. He could have been breathing
Duo Halo all over me.

"Keep going," he

grunted, and let go of my hand. After a small falter, I kept going with the
knife game at the same speed he had set.

The shorter guy pulled out

the chair opposite from me and sat. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Harrison Black," I

said, and quickly realized what they were doing. I had to concentrate on the
knife or risk stabbing or nicking myself, which would make it harder for me to
lie. Any hesitation would be suspect.

"How do you know

Barry?"

"We went to high school

together," I said.

Thunk-thunk-thunk, went the knife.

"When was the last time

you saw Barry?"

"Last month, at the

grocery store," I said.

There was a grumble from

someone behind me.

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

"How long ago did the

Government take your land?"

"They first showed up a

few months ago, offering me money. I tried to say no," I said, watching
the knife as I dug the tip into the tabletop over and over. "Now the house
my grandfather and father built is gone."

More grumbles behind

me. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk.

"What do you do for a

living?"

"I'm an artist," I

said, and it was my immediate response. I wasn't technically being paid to be a
Sheriff. "Before that, I was in the military."

That got more reactions.

"What branch?" the

big guy asked from over my shoulder. I had a feeling he was holding his pistol
pointed at my back.

"Army," I said.

"Two tours as an infantryman."

"Where did you

deploy?"

"Iraq," I said.

"Spent some time in Afghanistan, too. Plus some stops in Europe."

"Did you kill anyone

over there?"

"I did."

"Saw a lot of your

friends get killed?"

I nodded, trying not to lose

focus on the knife by thinking of the friends I'd lost.

"To stupid orders made

by political assholes?"

"Obviously," I

grunted.

"You ever take some

revenge on one of them?"

That made me smirk a little,

thinking of the standoff with the Air Force Colonel after I caught him
assaulting Miriam.

"I'll take that as a

yes," the shorter guy said. "You looking for some more revenge on the
Pols?"

I grit my teeth and looked

away from the knife and up into his eyes, my hand keeping the knife moving in
its path. Thunk-thunk-thunk. "What do you think I'm doing
here?"

"You can stop," the

shorter redneck said.

I dug the tip of the knife

into the wood beside my hand and pulled back from it.

"My name is Rodrik

Nell," the shorter man said. "My friend with the beard is Big
Paulson." Then he turned to the rest of the bar. "Someone get Harrison
a drink!"

The music got turned up, and

the chatter started as people stopped watching the spectacle, though there were
a lot of glances my way. Big Paulson sat down heavily in another chair at the
table, while Rodrik got up to go get us all a beer. I noticed that the guy who
had been checking on his phone went and whispered with him at the bar briefly;
I had to assume he'd been Googling me and he probably had some info. I was
trusting that Miriam's communication teams had been keeping the site quiet on the
internet so there was nothing easily accessible to tie me to it at the moment.

Rodrik came back over and

handed me and Paulson our beers, and then sat down and started in on a diatribe
that lasted a full half hour. He only stopped talking to take a swig of his
beer or to suck in a breath. The man was all over the map; he hated liberals
and what they'd done to the cities, but he also hated conservatives because the
bad ones were fascist religious freaks and the 'better' ones were too
weak-kneed to stand up for what they wanted. He hated immigrants for stealing
jobs, natives for being lazy, and capitalism for turning people into wage
laborers. He despised every level of government from federal down to local, and
he respected the military but wanted to see it dismantled because it was
unconstitutional and could be turned against the people.

He was a man caught in a web

of his own distrust, with a ready finger to accuse anyone other than himself
for the problems around him.

Paulson spoke little, and

once Rodrik ran himself out of his monologue I endeavored to keep him speaking.
I asked questions, leaning into the idea that my land had been taken by eminent
domain. What could I do? What recourses did I have? Who should I blame?

Rodrik was happy to give his

thoughts on the matter; completely unfounded as they were. I stayed away from
asking about their group and looking like I was digging into their 'operation,'
if it could be called that. I focused on his thoughts on my situation;
I empowered him and made him feel important.

It wasn't my usual

interrogation technique or one that I had used outside of theoretical classes
from my MP days. I wasn't a spy, and I hadn't been an MP investigator long
enough to have gone undercover. But I had the basics, and Rodrik and Big
Paulson weren't sophisticated enough to really identify that I was easing them
along the conversation.

"But what can I do?"

I asked again.

"Well, short of tracking

down and laying a beating on whichever politicians signed off on the land grab,
you're stuck while the Federals have the whole country on lockdown,"
Rodrik said. "Not that the false courts would listen to you anyway. But
unless you're willing to really stand up for what you believe, it's better to
go off-grid as much as you can."

I leaned in, frowning.

"What if I am willing to stand up?" I asked quietly.
"I heard there was a thing that happened a couple of days ago over on that
big construction site. That's why I came looking for Barry; I wanted to know if
he knew anything about it 'cause that's the kind of thing on my mind."

Rodrik and Big Paulson

glanced at each other briefly and then turned back to me. "It was
yesterday," Rodrik said. "And we heard about it, too. Someone...
organized, I guess you could say, took a shot at raiding that big construction
site. Sounds like it worked, too."

"Do you think that's

something... interesting?" I asked, trying to clearly hint that I wanted
it to be while trying not to make it obvious. It was a weird verbal dance.

Another glance between the

two. "Not for this group," Rodrik said. "We've got plenty of
folks who would defend this place, but they aren't hungry enough for something
like that yet."

"Not every Sovereign

Citizen is the same though," Big Paulson said. "We've had visits. A
couple of guys looking for help on certain things."

"Really?" I asked,

leaning back and trying to smile in a way that said I wanted to talk to those
people.

"We don't have any

contact info for them," Rodrik said. "And they don't tell us when
they're coming. But your background is definitely something they would be
interested in. If you hang around more, come by every once in a while, I can
hand off your information to them. You got a burner phone?"

I shook my head.

"We'll get you one and

give them the number," Rodrik said. "Whether they call you, or take
you in, is up to them though. If you're serious, wait to do anything. They hate
it when someone does something that might disrupt their own plans."

"Who are these

guys?" I asked. "They aren't neo-Nazis, are they?"

"No," Big Paulson

shook his head firmly. "Just Americans. Real ones. A lot of them are
ex-military, we guess, and pissed off. You'd fit in."

I grunted and nodded, then

stood. "More beers?" I offered. They nodded, and I headed to the bar.
When I got back my pistol was on the table, and I re-holstered it without a
word. I wasn't one of them, I didn't have their full trust, but I had enough.

 

"I'll let the FBI

know," Miriam said over the phone. I was driving back to the site, having
left the Golden Beaver and the very talkative sovereign citizens in the late
afternoon. After a quick text to Erica to assure her I was Okay, I had pulled
over a couple of miles away from the bar and checked over the truck for GPS
tags or recording devices. I'd been in the bar for a few hours, which would
have given them plenty of time to plant something. Thankfully I hadn't found
anything though, even crawling under the truck to check the undercarriage, so I
felt safe heading home.

"Hopefully they'll have

some sort of a lead," I said. "The best I could figure it, this group
is like a feeder cell for the more militant one. Recruitment and basic
necessities. They don't know much of anything about the militant cell, which
makes me think it's gotta be some militia group."

"If I can get someone on

the phone, they'll get me what they have," Miriam said. "The main
problem is going to be getting them on the phone at all."

"Please tell me I don't

need to go ransack their offices or something," I sighed.

She snorted. "No, it's

not that bad. It just might be some phone tag before I can get someone who can
actually release the information to me."

"The real problem is

they might not even have anything useful," I said. "From the receipts
I found, they are moving all over the region. The raid might have even been
more than one cell in a network. Narrowing these guys down to a specific
location is going to be a problem."

"Time for some

out-of-the-box thinking," Miriam said. "Where are you headed
now?"

"I need to decontaminate.

I was just in a room with over thirty people who opposed the most basic of
government safety guidelines. They probably ignore 'Careful, Hot' warnings just
to be contrarian. Then I'll head over to Erica and the girls."

There was a beat of silence

from the other end of the call. "Alright," Miriam said. "Just
stay safe, and get healthy. I'm going to need you for more than your sneaking
and stealthing, soldier."

"Got it," I said.

"Everything Okay on your end, Miriam?"

"Just a lot of pressure

coming down from the top," she said. "And not enough time or
resources to handle everything at once. And, Harri, I haven't forgotten about
your ask earlier. I haven't been able to shake loose any more vaccine yet, but
I'm looking."

"Thank you," I

sighed. "Keep me updated if anything does come out of it. I'll take 'fell
off the back of a truck' if I need to."

"I will," she

promised. "Stay safe."

"You too," I said,

and we hung up.

Back on the construction site

I stayed masked as I signed back in with the airmen at the gates, then drove
the truck around the main office site and down to our RV compound. I sent
Vanessa a message that I was done with the truck and it would need a thorough
decontamination scrub down, then headed in and stripped off my clothes. I hesitated,
considering throwing my clothes directly into the fire pit, but ended up
bringing them into the RV and shoving them into the little washing machine that
was built into the expensive vehicle. It was a good thing Grierson had sprung
for some of the highest-end units on the market because if we'd needed to do
our laundry at a laundromat one of us would have been down there every day.

After a quick but thorough

and rough scrubbing in the shower, I got dressed, hopped into my own truck and
headed out.

Pulling into the Valkyrie

Falls driveway, I felt a sort of tension release from between my shoulders as
the trees on either side of the driveway loomed over me. There really wasn't
all that much of a difference between the driveway to the Golden Beaver and the
one to the Falls, other than the lack of potholes here, but as I smelled the
air through my open windows I found myself calming down and feeling more
centered.

I pulled through the gate,

hitting the remote to close it behind me, and as I reached the parking lot I
had to grin. As soon as I could I hopped out of the truck and Ivy was leaping
into my arms, kissing me as she wrapped her arms behind my neck and hugged
herself to me.

"Mon amour,"

she laughed breathlessly, still planting little kisses across my cheeks.

"Ma Chére,"

I grinned back, holding her tightly.

"Fuck me," she

demanded, pulling back a little so she could look into my eyes. "I spent a
whole night without you, and now most of a day. I miss you. I miss your taste,
and your smell, and your laugh. I need you."

"I need you too," I

groaned. "Am I carrying you all the way to your room?"

She laughed and brought one

of her hands back to show what she was holding. A small bottle of lube.
"Outside," she said. "Up at the waterfall. Then Erica will meet
you in our room later."

I kissed her again then

pressed my lips to her neck, smelling her soft, clean skin. Soon she, and the
others, would make me feel clean again, too.

The feeling of Ivy's naked

skin under my hands, especially after the day I'd had, was like stepping into a
calm pool. Every soft squeeze and caress made me wonder again at how perfect
she was.

"Oh, mon amour,"

Ivy moaned as she leaned her back against my chest, sitting a little further
down onto my cock. Her ass, with just a little lube, always astounded me at how
quickly it could take me.

We were naked, up the trail

from the Valkyrie Falls parking lot, and Ivy had practically scattered her
outfit across the small clearing as she pulled her clothes off to get naked.

"I love you, ma

chérie," I groaned, sliding my hands from her hips. The first I
brought up her smooth stomach to her tits, palming one firmly and feeling the
rubbery little nub of her nipple against my palms. The other I slid down across
her shaven mound, pressing my fingers against it as I slowly inched them
towards her cunt lips.

"I love you too,

Harrison," she mumbled, throwing her head back with her eyes closed,
resting it against my shoulder as she sat that last little way down to press
her ass cheeks to my hips and lap. Her thick, dirty blonde hair smelled of the
shampoo she shared with Erica, filling my senses with thoughts of them both.

We fucked slowly like that,

me holding her and teasing her as I sat on my knees and heels and she bounced
forward and back. When she'd met me in the parking lot I'd thought Ivy would
want to fuck, but this was making love. Anal, but still making love. I
didn't mind one bit that she was still holding onto her fear of getting
pregnant; it had been drilled into her psyche for years due to her family
situation; not by any forceful or abusive means, but just by what she'd
experienced. A father who loved her and her half-sister, but had to rely on
their grandmother for childcare.

I thought she would make an

excellent mother herself, with how loving and emotionally attuned she was.
Sure, she had a playful side that was a little immature at times, but she was
still in her early twenties.

For the time being, however,

I was more than happy for her to be my little anal queen.

As we sped up our fucking just

a touch, her asshole slick from the lube and squeezing my cock tightly every
time she pulled away, she grunted and paused, a small orgasm already rolling
through her.

"Can you fuck me harder,

mon amour?" she asked me, looking over her shoulder hopefully.
"Your leg will be Okay?"

I slid my other hand up so I

could grab both her tits, massaging them. "I can," I told her.
"How do you want me to fuck this perfect little ass, baby?"

"Doggy," she

grinned. She pulled off of me, her asshole winking for a moment as she went
forward onto her knees, but she spun around and sucked my cock into her mouth
in a slurping ass-to-mouth spectacle. It didn't surprise me anymore after the
dozens of times she'd done it, but it still struck me as such a nasty but
intimate act. She kept herself clean down there religiously since we generally
did anal almost every day, but it was still... It was like her telling me she
would do anything for me. And I knew she would.

"Fuck," I grunted,

gathering her dark blonde curls up in both hands as I got up onto one knee and
started thrusting into her mouth. She hummed a laugh around my cock, dropping
her jaw a bit so I could start face-fucking her. "God damn, Ivy," I
said. "You're so fucking pretty."

Her eyes were trained on me,

and I could tell she liked the dirty-talk compliment. She pushed herself
forward a little and on my next thrust between her lips she easily swallowed my
cock into her throat.

"God, fuck;!" I

moaned and pulled away, grabbing my slimy cock hard. "Baby, you almost got
me there."

"Hmm hmm hmm," she

laughed through her broad-lipped smile as she came up on her knees as well and
shuffled closer. She kissed me lightly. "I missed you last night,"
she said.

"I know," I said.

"I missed you too. But getting time with Vanessa alone was good, too. We
need to do that soon for you."

"I would like

that," she smiled, softly kissing her way around my cheeks. "I love
Erica, and I like our bed, but once in a while being alone with you would be
good too."

"Soon," I promised

her.

"Bon," she

said. "Now, fuck me like ta petite salope, mon amour."

I wasn't exactly sure of the

translation, but I figured I got the gist of it as she turned on her knees and
went to her hands, pointing her booty back at me. It took me only a moment to
get back into position and start wedging my cockhead into her ass as we both
groaned happily. This, I knew, was her favorite position. She liked being on
top, but getting bent over and slammed from behind was peak pleasure for her.

"I fucking love you,

I’ve," I groaned as I started to rock forward and back, getting her ass
ready for a pounding. Looking down at her back I realized that within months of
meeting her, I couldn't see myself without her. She was unique. She was my
heart. Her pale skin, her body split in half by the thin navy line that
separated her 'clean' half from her tattooed half. Her hair, sometimes
shimmering blonde, sometimes golden brunette, and sometimes almost ginger,
always with her thick, wavy curls.

I even loved her moans, and

out here in the woods we both let loose as I sped up my thrusts and she tilted
her hips and bounced them back to meet me. Our skin was smacking together, the
clap a dull rhythm in the trees. We were surrounded by nature; greens and
browns on most sides, warm and close. To our right was the grey-brown of the
ravine wall glistening with the broken thunderstones embedded in it who knew
how long ago, and the cool reflection of the waterfall.

Ivy moaned and growled

loudly, letting herself go as she came again. I could feel my own coming soon,
but I tried to hold it off by focusing on the tight pinch of pain in my leg
from my gunshot wound. After the hike I'd made to scout the Golden Beaver bar
and the sovereign citizens who called it home, I wasn't sure if I was going to
be able to put on this sort of a performance for all three of my girls at the
Falls.

But I didn't have time to

think of Erica or Kyla, because Ivy was moaning and mewling as she went from
her hands to her elbows while I drilled her ass.

"Fuck, Ivy," I

gasped. "God, you feel so fucking good. You're so fucking; uh,
amazing!"

"I'm yours, Harrison.

All yours. Take my ass. It's yours forever," she groaned. "Yes! Use
my ass. I love you. Use my ass, mon amour."

"I'm close," I

gasped.

"I want it," she

begged. "I want it, I want it."

"Where?" I asked.

"On my face. In my

mouth. I want to taste you."

I pulled out of her roughly,

giving her ass a hard smack on the tattooed cheek with enough force to leave a
red handprint, and she turned and sat on her knees, putting her beautiful face
right under my cock and opening her mouth as she stroked it with both hands.
Her wordless sounds of pleading, and the eagerness in her eyes, pushed me over
the edge as I exhaled with a heavy grunt and came, one ropey glob after another
spurting onto her face. Her aim was a little rough, only two of the five
strands of cum landing on her tongue and the rest dripping across her cheeks
and nose.

"Huh uh uh," she

laughed as the taste of my cum made her body lurch and rock, rolling into a
fresh, chemically-induced orgasm. As soon as it finished, she pulled my
half-wilted cock to her mouth and sucked, getting trace spikes of pleasure with
every new taste. Then, keeping one hand on me, she used the other to fish the
cum on her face between her lips.

It was a vulgar, disgusting

display of love, and I was 90% sure it was Ivy being her filthy, perverted self
rather than it all being the vaccine.

When she was done, cleaned up

as well as she could without a mirror, I scooped her up from the ground and
carried her over towards the edge of the overlook. I swept some loose stones
and pine needles out of the way with my booted foot; we were both still wearing
our shoes; and then laid her down and spooned up behind her as we looked out at
the little waterfall.

"Now, mon amour,"

Ivy said quietly. "Tell me what's wrong."

"What do you mean?"

I asked.

She laid her head low and

turned it so she could look back and up at me. "I could tell something was
bothering you when you got out of your truck, Harrison. You were... how do you
say it; Melancholic. Your smile when you saw me, I love, but before that
something was wrong."

I sighed and leaned in to

kiss her cheek softly. "You know me so well, mon cœur."

"That one is new,"

she said with a smile and snuggled back at me a bit firmer. "I like that
one on your lips. My heart."

"Mon cœur,"

I said again with a soft smile.

"Now, tell me," she

urged.

I told her. About the idiots

at the bar, and the kids I'd seen there. I didn't care so much if the adults suffered
from their own delusions and stupidity, but when it finally hit them the kids
would be in danger. And I told her about how my investigation was stalled; the
easy leads had already run out. If I was going to find any of the people who
attacked the construction site, my land, our home, it was going to
take a hell of a lot of luck, risking myself by going back to the Golden Beaver
and sitting 'undercover,' or piecing together the fast food receipts and hoping
to track down security cam footage to put together faces and start tracking
names.

And then I told her about the

Rez, and Kara, and the outbreak.

"You need to help

her," Ivy said.

"I know," I said.

"No, Harrison," Ivy

said pointedly. "You know, but you are hesitating."

"She won't let me save

her if it means leaving her people behind," I said. "I can't make her
take the vaccine and pick someone."

"She doesn't need to

pick someone," Ivy said. "She would have you."

"She would pick a man

from the tribe," I said. "Someone who needs to be saved."

Ivy just sighed and shook her

head. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," I

said. "I've been trying to think of something, but nothing... nothing I
can do, no favor I can call in successfully, would stop their outbreak."

"Mon amour,"

she said softly, turning on our rocky bed so that she was facing me. She put
her fingertips on my chin and jaw, wiggling them in my beard, making sure I was
looking at her. "You are trying to save the day, when you can only save
the hour. What can you do for her?"

I took a breath, thinking of

what Kara had told me. She was holed up in her place with her second cousin and
her neighbor. Half the places on the Rez were double-wide trailers, and the
other half were small homes; I wasn't sure where she was living now, but either
way, she was in tight quarters with three women. That meant three people living
off of whatever supplies she had, and knowing Kara she would have been donating
anything extra she had to the Rez relief funds. Especially after the fire took
out their community center.

"Food," I said.

"Water. Other supplies."

"You can bring those to

her at least," Ivy nodded. "Then come back to me. To us. Just to be
sure."

"Just to be sure, or

because you want another round?" I asked with a little smile.

"Maybe both," she

grinned impishly. I kissed her and she moaned softly and then patted my chest.
"Kyla next," she said.

"What if I want you

again?" I asked. "My little minx. My sexy Quebecoise queen. Mon
cœur."

"I could never say

no," Ivy sighed, smiling sadly. "But it wouldn't be fair. Go to
Kyla."

"Okay," I whispered

and kissed her again.

We almost didn't get up.

Almost.

 

"It's dinner time,"

Kyla said, groaning as she stretched. Her bed was a little small for the two of
us, just a twin since Valkyrie Falls wasn't exactly built with the expectation
that people would be sharing rooms. I had no idea how Leo, Dani, Aria and India
were making it work. Still, after our time in the RV, two people in a twin bed
was comfortable and cuddling with my naked girlfriend was always welcome.

"Guess that means we

should get dressed," I sighed.

She smiled and shifted so she

was on her hands and knees overtop of me, looking down to kiss my lips lightly.
"Well, I think I need to get dressed. I'm not sure how many
people would complain if you came down naked."

I snorted and shook my head.

"Well, Leo would for one."

Kyla smiled and gave me

another peck on the lips. "That's fair."

We got dressed, me in the

loose clothes that I'd arrived in and Kyla in a cute, comfortable outfit of
loose sweatpants that hung low on her hips and a simple tank top with an
unlined bralette that supported her tits but left them basically loose under
the thin, stretchy fabric. Just hugging her from behind before we left the room
made me smile as I squeezed her tits and could feel her nipples through the two
layers.

"Pervert," she

snorted and laughed.

I kissed her neck and she

groaned, pushing her ass back at me. I felt like a horny teenager again, first
with Ivy and now with Kyla, dreading the need to stop the intimacy.

We made it downstairs without

too much more groping and kissing and found that the open cafeteria area with
the big exposed kitchen and the bench seating was almost full. With the
addition of Leo's family and my own, Valkyrie Falls was almost at its regular
capacity even if we weren't taking up all the rooms.

Dinner was an interesting

affair; many of the women were on specific diets and Sara, acting as the
nutritionist, had weighed and plated their portions. Some meals were
vegetarian, one was even vegan, and some had no qualms about what they ate. Our
families were also spread out around the room, not congregating together, which
was nice to see. Kyla grabbed a seat talking with Spencer and another woman,
and when I passed by Ivy at a table with Aria and two of the athletes I felt
myself flush and didn't look over because I could hear her discussing anal sex,
which probably meant she'd either been teased or asked about our time up in the
forest. Other than Ivy's conversation, however, I got the feeling that the
general emotional climate was a little depressed compared to most of the times
I had seen the ladies in a big group. Many of them were at least trying to put
on a good face for the others, but reality was hitting everyone hard again; the
last time that had happened it was after we'd had to tell them about how deadly
things really were out there. Now, after the bad news from my trip down south
for Melina, and the looter attack on the construction site, and probably me
getting wounded again... I couldn't blame them for getting some
emotional whiplash. They lived here at the Falls in relative safety, but their
homes and families and communities (not to mention country and world) were in
chaos. Anyone they couldn't get a hold of for a call or who didn't reply to a
text was another person who was more likely dead than alive. We'd brought that
reality to them again, and morale was suffering.

I ended up sitting down at

the end of a table with Erica, Leo and Abi. Erica welcomed me with a sweet
little peck on the lips, which brought a faux-disgusted gag from Leo, which
just encouraged Erica to kiss me more fully as Abi smirked at their sibling
antics.

"Ivy told me about the

Rez," Erica said quietly once the kiss and teasing was over. "I'm
sorry."

I sighed and nodded.

"I'm going to try and at least do a supply run for her. I don't know what
else I can do for them."

"That's more than you

should do," Leo said but held up his hands when I looked at him
with a furiously confused expression. "Not like that," he clarified.
"I mean you shouldn't be driving into an outbreak area at all. Wasn't the
outbreak on the site enough to see how dangerous that is? And just because you
have the vaccine doesn't mean you're immune."

That... was something I

hadn't considered. In my head, I'd been thinking of being vaccinated as being
safe, but that wasn't what that meant. Probably. I needed to call Miriam for
more info on that.

"Abi, that face right

there is my man realizing he's going to do something heroic even if it's more
dangerous than he thinks it is," Erica sighed, gesturing to my expression.

Abi smiled a little and shook

her head. "Harrison, if you were not a Sheriff, I would say you should
leave such things to the police."

I hadn't had a chance to talk

with Abi really about what she thought about everything we'd revealed to the
Valkyrie Falls women last night about the vaccine and our relationships. My
girls liked to tease me that she was interested in me, based solely on the fact
that she showered with us after our workouts, but I still thought it was just
her being more European, or Nordic, in her temperament about nudity.

"I would have been

helping even if I wasn't a Sheriff," I said.

"Hell, he was helping

people before becoming a Sheriff," Erica pointed out, then turned to look
at me full-on. "Just be careful. And, actually, if you're doing a supply
run, we're going to need more frequent runs for here, too. We just added seven
more mouths to feed that we didn't account for on the last run, plus you when
you eat here."

"Okay," I nodded.

"I'll do that first thing tomorrow once the grocery store is open. Just
get me a list together."

"I'll go with,”

"No," I interrupted

my fiancée. "I'll do it alone. We don't know who might be around, or if I
might run into the sovereign citizens. For now, I should be the one to do
it."

There was a bit of argument

back and forth, with Erica pointing out that if I was taking time to do supply
runs I wasn't working on the investigation and getting them home faster, but in
the end Erica reluctantly agreed when Leo pointed out that her being with me if
something did happen would put me in more danger. After that she let it drop
and we were able to move on to small talk. Slowly, as dinner finished up and
the ladies filtered into the kitchen to help with cleanup or out to other parts
of the compound, our little group became the last one sitting down.

"Ready?" Erica

asked me, her hand having slipped under the table a while ago and rubbing my
leg.

"One more thing," I

said, knowing what she wanted to get to. "I'm worried about morale here,
honestly. Things feel different."

Abi frowned and nodded.

"It's been a lot, lately. Many of the ladies are worried and starting to
become stressed about..." She paused for a moment to take a breath, then
gestured generally. "Everything."

"The last thing I wanted

was to make this place feel unsafe," I sighed.

"It's not that,"

Erica said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"Erica is right,"

Abi said. "We are happy to host you, after how you've been helping us. And
your family is doing more to raise spirits than hurt them. Your little wiener
dog could do that all by himself."

I smirked a little and shook

my head. Macho was living up to his name. From what little Ivy and Kyla had
told me, practically every woman in the compound was stealing him away to play
or snuggle for a bit. If we weren't careful he'd go from being a little hotdog
to a bulging bratwurst, he'd get so fat from the snacks he was getting.

"Well, I was thinking

maybe we could do a little more," I said. "To make you all feel more
safe, and to raise spirits in general. If you're open to it, Kyla has most of
our firearms stashed safely in Erica's car and in her room. She could run some
basic firearms safety courses for anyone interested, and some people find
shooting a little therapeutic or stress-relieving. And I bet between Dani, Ivy
and Kyla you could have a pretty good beginner dance class for some more active
fun. And I could grab supplies for an art class if you're willing to do some
teaching, babe."

"That's a great

idea," Erica said, turning to Abi. "What do you think?"

Abi nodded. "We can use

the cafeteria here for the art class, and we have all the space for a dance
class. I will need to talk with Sara about firearms... We weren't sure about
you bringing them here to begin with."

"Whatever you're

comfortable with," I said. Then I turned to Leo. "Sorry I can't bring
out a full woodshop for you, buddy."

He snorted and chuckled.

"I wouldn't mind teaching, but I think we only need so many birdhouses."

That made me laugh, as it had

been a long-running joke that he'd started his custom woodworking career making
intricate birdhouses but had moved on to furniture because the market for
birdhouses wasn't actually very large. The market, he'd said, belonged to
middle school shop classes and summer camps.

More ideas got thrown around;

India could do a passable Yoga class, Leo could organize a Euchre tournament
(after teaching the game to anyone who didn't know it.) I could have done an
art class as well, but I wasn't going to be around enough.

"You could always teach

sex ed," Erica said with a laugh. "I'm sure your signup list would be
full almost immediately."

"And on that note, I

think we're done for now," I said, standing up from the table. "Abi,
I'm sorry for her. Leo, she's your sister, so it's partially
your fault for her having the mind of a 14-year-old boy. Come on, babe."

Erica whooped as I hefted her

up bodily from the bench we'd been sitting on and tossed her over my shoulder.
Erica was a full-bodied woman and nowhere near as dainty as Ivy or even Kyla,
but even with my leg twinging, once I had her up on my shoulder I could carry
her pretty well. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans and had been walking
around barefoot inside so, as she laughed and shouted to 'put me down, you
barbarian!' she kicked her feet playfully even while hanging on to me. We
passed several of the ladies, including Melina, on our way to the stairs and
got some looks and smiles. I thought, for a moment, I saw a sadness in Melina's
eyes as we passed even though she was laughing lightly.

At the stairs I set Erica

down, not wanting to risk my leg carrying her up just for both of us to fall
all the way back down and break our necks or backs. Once I got her on her feet,
though, I gave her a solid crack of my hand on her ass through her tight jeans.
"Go on," I said. "Get."

In any other context, Erica

would have probably bit someone's head off for slapping her ass that way. But
between her being horny, our playfulness, and the fact that we were so fucking
down the rabbit hole of being in love, she just darted up the stairs giggling
as I chased after her. Up on the second floor in the dormitory corridor she let
me chase her all the way to the room she shared with Ivy before I caught her
and pinned her to the wall, kissing her firmly as we kept laughing into each
other's lips. Thankfully no one was in the hall or I would have felt too
embarrassed to do that in front of them. Instead, it took us a couple of
minutes to even twist the door handle and work our way halfway into the room.

"Wait," Erica said,

a teasing smile on her lips as she pulled away from me. I was holding her ass
with both hands and she'd been pressing her chest against me; she was wearing
one of my T-shirts and I'd realized quickly that she wasn't wearing a bra
underneath.

"What is it?" I

asked.

She smirked. "Let me go

get Josie. I bet she'd,”

"No," I said,

pulling Erica into the room and kicking the door shut.

"Why not?" Erica

asked.

"Because," I said,

scooping her up in my arms again but this time in a princess carry that only
travelled the few steps to the bed, which I tossed her onto heavily.
"Josie is sexy as hell and fun, but I want time with my wife. Not
a threesome."

"I'm not your wife

yet," Erica smirked even as she started to undo her jeans and wiggle out
of them.

"I'd have married you

the day after you asked me if my sister could get up here," I growled,
peeling off my shirt and shucking my shorts.

"I know, babe," Erica

said, and I grabbed the jeans and helped pull them off her lower legs and feet.
She switched to taking off her shirt, revealing her glorious tits to me. I got
the jeans off and growled as I fell on her, getting my mouth on those tits as I
ran my hands from her bare waist and up to her tattooed arms, which I pushed
above her head. "I would have, too."

I loved on her tits for a

bit, then kissed up to her lips as we made out like teenagers, rolling around
on the bed. She ended up on top, both of us just wearing our underwear, and she
took a turn and pinned my arms above my head as she looked down at me with a
smile and her tits hung brushing against my chest.

"Why shouldn't I get

Josie to warm you up?" she asked. "She wants you, and she's been
asking all three of us little questions about the vaccine and how it works. She
could blow you for a bit, then watch us fuck."

"Why are you wearing

your full makeup?" I countered. "And walking around in one of my
shirts?" Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth, but wasn't sure what
to say. "You're staking your claim, babe," I said. "You're
letting them know that, even if they've been allowed to look, even if they're
ripped and athletic, you're the queen of my castle. You wear my clothes, and
you do yourself up for me in a way they don't, or can't. God, I love you,
Erica. And for all that I love the others, you were first. You'll always be
that. And sometimes, even if we have fifty women, or a hundred, in this thing
that's going on I'm still going to want just you sometimes."

She kissed me, soft and deep.

Her lips, painted that deep red, were soft like rose petals and she smelled a
little like vanilla as her hair fell around us. Her tongue teased against my
lips, asking to be let in, and I let it. We weren't making out like teenagers
now, we were kissing like lovers.

"I love you," she

said as our lips parted and she sighed, lying flat against me.

"I love you too," I

said, hugging her to me.

"Alone time," she

agreed softly. "Make love to me. Then fuck me. Fuck me like I'm your
whore-queen. You know what I mean."

"I do," I said with

a grin, kissing her cheek as my hands travelled down from her bare back to her
panties-clad ass, sliding underneath to grab her bum and then lower to tease
her cunt. "Jesus, you're wet."

"I get that way every

time I see you, Harrison," she said. "Always have, for years. It's
not the vaccine, it's you."

We kissed again, and I

started easing a couple of fingers inside of her as she wiggled and moaned. It
was going to be a good one.

 

The alarm going off reminded

me, once again, that I loved Vanessa but I really hated her work hours. I got
up with her, made her a quick breakfast, kissed her goodbye and collapsed back
into bed. The evening before, after I returned back to the Compound with a
ready-to-heat meal sent on from the women of Valkyrie Falls for her, I'd had
barely an hour to myself before she came home at 9 PM on the dot just like
she'd promised. I heated her food, massaged her feet as she ate, and she'd let
me know that her Phone Bank ladies hadn't turned up any immediate leads from
their calls to the gun shops hunting that revolver serial number. It was just
as likely that the old piece had belonged to the dead man who owned the car
rather than the dead men who had been driving it, so I wasn't hanging on the
hope that something turned up there, but it was still another frustration.

Then Vanessa asked me to tell

her about my day, and I did. By the time I was finished, talking in graphic
detail about my sex with Ivy out in the forest and Erica in her room at
Vanessa's request (but not talking about Kyla, since she was more private),
Vanessa got on her hands and knees and sucked my cock, then she fulfilled the
other part of her promise of 'at least twice every night.'

I woke up a second time, alone

now, with sunlight blazing through the cracks in the shades of the RV back
window, and got myself moving. It took me a minute, when I checked my phone, to
realize that the girls were teasing me again. This time, instead of naked
photos of them in bed, they were sending me thirst trap videos. But it wasn't
videos of them, it was videos of the women at the Falls. Some of them were
obviously planned and staged; Josie skipping rope as the video circled her,
then suddenly doing the same thing topless as the camera rotated around her
back; and Melina doing squats with perfect form, her amazing ass and tits both
tightly encased in workout gear that would probably be illegal in several
states for indecent exposure. Or causing heart attacks. Then there was one of
Abi in the middle of what looked like a yoga class, smiling and a little goofy,
but it was cut with clips of her lifting impressive amounts of weight and doing
other super-active CrossFit exercises with grim determination on her face with
a hard, pumping music beat overtop. I doubted she knew they'd done that, and I
would also bet that they'd been a little scared to ask her permission.

Those I could handle, along

with a couple more of women I'd been friendly with at the gym. The one of
Spencer, though, made me feel weird. On the one hand, she was extremely
attractive in a wholesome, lovable way. On the other, she was barely in her
twenties and had shared such an intimate story with me that it felt wrong to
even think of her like the way their thirst trap video made me think. She, like
Abi, didn't seem to realize she was being filmed during her workout and she did
the move that made me think 'classic Spencer,' finishing a set and pulling off
her bulky sweater to reveal her fit torso and big tits encased in an athletic
bra. But then she seemed to notice whoever was filming her and she blushed and
smiled, and then winked, at the camera.

I called Miriam.

"Later start this

morning," she noted by way of a greeting.

"Yeah, well, I'm running

out of the fast leads quickly and soon I'll be into the weeds for real," I
said. "Any luck on the FBI front?"

"Nothing so far. And,

Harri, I haven't been able to squeeze anything out yet on the vaccine front
either. I'm sorry."

I sighed and nodded, even if

she couldn't see me. "Okay, thanks for keeping me updated. I'm going to
take some time today to do a supply run; the ladies up at the Athletic compound
need more stuff since I added seven more people to their numbers, and I'm going
to grab stuff for my friends on the Rez at the same time before I dig into the
receipts. But those plans brought up some questions that I think only you can
answer."

"I'll tell you what I

can," she said. "But; and this is awkward to ask; did you re-up your
vaccination with the ladies since yesterday like you planned? If you go out and
you're infected from the dumbass sovereigns, you could be spreading it."

"That's one of my

questions," I said. "When we're talking about me being vaccinated, or
safe, what does that actually mean? Like, how safe are we talking?
If I have four partners, am I good to go?"

Now it was Miriam's turn to

sigh. "Technically you only have three and a half partners," she
said. "Vanessa's numbers haven't changed. I've been keeping a tag on her
studies; it looks like she's still only getting mid-thirties coverage. It's
enough that they don't want to try re-vaccinating her unless there's an
emergency, but she's not in a great spot and isn't providing you with the
coverage the others are. And, to answer your question, the most recent math I'm
seeing is that one partner still only nets a man 70% efficacy, the same as a
month ago. Each additional partner only adds a fraction of that though. The
current model says the best coverage will come from seven partners, so until
you hit that point you're taking real risks. With three and a half you're still
in the 85th percentile of efficacy, I think the number was, but..."

"Seven?" I asked, a

little dumbfounded. "I thought we were done adding..."

"Getting tired of all

that cunt, Black?" Miriam asked. I could hear the smirk on her lips.

"It's just a lot,"

I said. "What about all the construction workers?"

"They'll get there

eventually too," she said. "Our rollout still isn't starting though,
or else I could do something about the Rez. Harri, the death tolls...fuck,
never mind, I can't tell you that. Especially not over the phone, and probably
not in general."

"Okay, don't," I

said, though I had a pit of dread in my stomach from that small hint. Grierson
and his OGA team had hinted at apocalyptic being the level
they were responding to, and I couldn't spend time brewing on that.

"What was your other

question?"

"I've been having

these... God, this sounds a little fucked up. Every once in a while, I've been
having these weird possessive urges," I said.

"Over Erica and the

girls?"

"No," I said.

"More like... I feel like I'm a horny nineteen-year-old with the world as
my oyster sexually, and I get these flashes of wanting to fuck people around
me. Not like, violent urges or anything, but weird feelings. Like I'm jacked up
on testosterone or something."

Miriam was quiet for a long

moment, and then I could hear the telltale sound of keyboard keys from her end
of the call. "Alright," She said. "I'm not seeing any reports
about that in the studies I have access to. I'll put in a call, see if I can
get one of the head brainiacs on the phone and run it by them. Are you
Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I

said. "And it's not an urge that I start to act on or anything. It's just
a sort of animal feeling that I've been equating to my lizard brain."

"Well, we've seen a

general uptick in libido for men as well as women from the vaccine,"
Miriam said. "You might just be having a bigger reaction to that than
normal. Are you, um, getting enough? Sex?"

"I would have thought

so," I said. "I mean, to be frank, Miriam, it's more than I could
have accomplished in a day when I was a horny
nineteen-year-old fucker."

She snorted softly.

"Well, keep it in your pants unless it's one of your partners. We still
don't know what set of circumstances specifically caused Vanessa's situation
and whether something about you was the catalyst or not."

I gulped a little, thinking

of the blowjob from Josie. I hadn't come in her mouth, and my cum had hit her
ass and back and washed off in the showers. I'd need to be extra careful with
Erica's machinations.

To be continued, Based on

a post by Break The Bar for Literotica

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