"TEJAS" New by Donna M.

Donna M.

This is a sequel to PANDEMIC

�What are you doing in Tejas?� the old man asked, then when he saw my less than welcoming facial expression he added �I mean, I can tell you�re not from these parts.�

We were seated at a bar in a suburb of what used to be called Austin, Texas. Since the onset and subsequent eradication of the plague, followed by secession, the wars, and the formation of new countries, this area wasn�t known for tourism any longer, especially not for solitary women like me. I knew why he asked the questions, and that they weren�t as hostile-sounding as they may have seemed to others.

�I was searching for a friend, but I found that she died.�

�Sorry to hear that,� the man said before returning his attention to his beer. I figured he wasn�t a threat. I sipped my drink and contemplated the real reason I was here.

República Tejas was formed by the union of the old US state of Texas with the bordering Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila. Wars were fought and many men killed, yet there were enough Mexicans in Texas and many maquiladoras in the two old Mexican states to turn the tide and sour the politicians and business moguls to more fighting. Of course since the plague killed three-quarters of the world�s women, no woman was allowed to fight anymore, thus why men were the only ones killed in the Secession Wars. The economy of the new country was shaky but holding up so far, though the Tejas Peso remained a volatile currency highly dependent on trade with what was left of Mexico.

As for me, my world fell apart in 2022. I had survived the plague, as women and girls died all around me. Then came anarchy and the rustlers, bands of men who kidnapped women because of the scarcity of supply. No woman was safe. But no woman was without increased value either, like any scarce commodity, and I parlayed that fact into my means of survival, at least until �22. The man who brought the US back from anarchy because of the plague, Richard Fund, 46th President of the United States, was assassinated by a cabal of PETA and environmental radicals that year. The country, and soon the world slipped back into darkness as if Atlas had finally shrugged his shoulders for good. And I was screwed again. I lost Claire soon afterward to the �old plague��cancer. With both my lover and my presidential savior dead, I slipped away from my northeastern comfort zone and headed west. The friend I told the stranger I was looking for was Richard Fund�s daughter Lauren. That�s why I braved a visit to Tejas. Hearing that she�d been killed still didn�t sit right with me. I needed more proof but I wasn�t going to give that amount of detail to a stranger in a bar.

The main reason, though, for braving a visit to the new Wild, Wild West was that I was in search of my daughter.

My reverie was broken by my drinking buddy. �I hope you don�t mind me saying this, but you�re a mighty fine looking woman.�

I cut him off by adding, �For my age, right?� He looked sincere enough that I didn�t hear what he said as a pick-up line.

�I didn�t mean it like that. I guess what I was saying is that most of the women that survived the plague weren�t exactly the prettiest, at least in these parts. Me and my pals would joke that homeliness was a vaccine.� He chuckled but I didn�t think it was very funny. He went on, �You�re the prettiest lady I�ve shared a beer with in ages.�

�I accept the compliment,� I said, not wanting to let this conversation go any further. Contrary to what he said I didn�t feel pretty, just old and used up. Gladly he kept to himself as I sipped my beer and thought of Hannah.

When the plague was in full bloom and I was �acquired� by Perkins Clark I figured I was beyond my conception window, though not yet menopausal. With most women dying around me, I gave little thought to safe sex. Among Clark, Richard Fund, my eight common law husbands and my best friend Kevin, was the one who unpredictably impregnated me. I�ll never know who Hannah�s father was but to me it didn�t matter. I endured a rough pregnancy. However, my beautiful little baby girl made it all worthwhile.

Then my world ended. All the hopes and dreams I resurrected so late in life were gone. After President Fund was assassinated, his wife and daughter disappeared. Unfortunately, Fund�s daughter Lauren was babysitting Hannah at the time, and they all disappeared together. The rumor was that the entire Fund family was on the Gore Army�s hit list for �crimes against Mother Earth.� Whether they escaped or were killed no one seemed to know, and if they did they weren�t talking.

I�m quite a resourceful person. I picked up clues that they possibly ran to The Jefferson Republic in what was once Missouri, and from there slipped across the border into Tejas. I�d heard rumors about them going on to California but I didn�t believe them. There was still ethnic cleansing going on there so I doubted that�s where they would go.

I went to Tejas carrying with me the only hope I had.

As I left the bar, I remained alert. The plague may be over but women were still scarce, with a new breed of rustlers targeting the wave of young girls being born. Girls had real value, but the new rustlers weren�t averse to kidnapping older women as sex slaves. I wasn�t about to be enslaved again.

I returned to my crappy motel room and turned on the ancient TV, mostly for background noise so I didn�t feel alone. Cascading through the available channels provided me with nothing but idiotic �reality� shows and propaganda news. An NBC News spin-off was broadcasting a talking-head discussion on Israel, though there really wasn�t a point since the country was all but wiped from the map in the Second Holocaust. Ex-President Barak Obama was on another channel making points only he couldn�t find ridiculous on how his presidency shaped the US into a more �realistic� and �progressive� nation, without once mentioning anything about all the bloodshed and death that fractured the nation into something far from being �United.� The pompous bastard never publicly mourned the death of his daughters from the plague and I hated him for it, more so than any of the silly things like �universal healthcare� passed during his administration that did nothing to prevent the pandemic or curb its spread, and along with the Choice Act may have made its spread much worse.

I fired up my hand-held to find some real news. Reports were coming in that roving gangs of Mexican girls, some as young as eight, were patrolling Southern California and killing every man they met. A leader was quoted in Spanish that I loosely translated as �These men killed us so now we will kill them.� I guess that was one way to rationalize evening the odds. Holding two assault rifles in spite of the latest gun laws, she spoke fervently for someone who appeared to be no older than fourteen.

I joined the blogosphere looking to find more clues to Lauren Fund and Hannah. A couple of my contacts made references to public camera networks with facial recognition capabilities in San Antonio that �may� have sighted my daughter. I had my doubts because of the rapid growth kids go through at her present age, making these types of algorithmic identifications highly improbable. But I still had to go check them out. I had to. The next morning I headed toward San Antonio.

I was on a back road just south of New Braunfels when I got raped. The three of them weren�t much older than teenagers. They forced me off the road and boxed me in, their intentions quite clear. The tallest of the three seemed to be the leader. He leered and said, �It�s been a while since I�ve had some mature pussy. The meat still looks good.� He pronounced mature as �MAY-too-er� which must be an inside joke, since his two sidekicks both laughed like hyenas when he said it.

I said, �You�re not going to hurt me, are you?�

One of the others answered, �No, we�re going to FUCK you.�

�And that�s okay, as long as you�re not rough about it.� What else could I say with the obvious about to happen? Rape wasn�t new to me; I just didn�t want to be beaten in the process.

Two of them pulled me into their car�s back seat while the third drove my car and followed us down a rutted path away from the road. Once stopped and out of sight, they pulled me from the car and began ripping my clothes off. The kid who drove mine joined us, but couldn�t get it up to save himself so he eventually retreated off to the side as an observer. I was surprised his buddies didn�t razz him but I guess they were too busy with me. One guy nailed me from behind while the other one, the tall kid, choked me with his dick down my throat as he pinched one of my tits�strangely only one, never the other. When the kid behind me came in about 30 seconds, making enough noise to get his buddy out of my mouth and anticipating my pussy, I saw my chance.

The tall kid had a KA-BAR knife in a black sheath attached to his belt; his hastily discarded pants lying right next to me as kid number two stuck his cock between my cum-dripping labia. I wondered if the fools lost mothers or sisters to the plague. If they had, could they still be ambush rapists? I can�t say it was anger, but maybe it was. I can�t call it revenge, but maybe it was. I grabbed the knife and before they reacted I�d taken out both of my rapists. Limp Dick stupidly just sat there, stunned and unable to move as blood spurted everywhere.

�You�you�killed them,� he muttered.

Naked and covered in blood, I nevertheless rushed at him with the knife and said, �Do you want to be next?� Tongue-tied and eyes agog, all he could do was shake his head. It took me several seconds before I registered all the blood on me and what I�d done. Unlike the clothing of the two rapists, the third man�s clothes were blood-free. Trembling in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush, I said to him, �Hand me all your clothes�NOW!�

He was in shock, muttering �Oh God, oh God�you killed Pete and Joe�you killed them, don�t hurt me, please�don�t�kill�me, please�� as he handed me his jeans and t-shirt with a quivering hand.

They were a little big but they would do. I hollered at him to go. �Run, dammit, run!� I yelled. He looked down, taking in his own nakedness, saying �But�but�but,� and nothing more. I guessed in his stunned brain public nakedness was akin to death. I waved the knife closer and that tipped the scales, for he began running up the path.

I realized that a creek was nearby, so I walked to it on wobbly knees to wash off the blood before I dressed. I should have been afraid of remaining there and getting caught, but I figured Limp Dick would take a while before his naked self walked far enough to get someone�s attention.

As I drove away, I thought of three things: I better get as far away from here as possible; I better take some elusive routes to do so; and I better alter my appearance. I�d pondered the pros and cons of keeping the knife, but decided against it. If it happened again I�d be raped anyway and probably never get the chance to use it without being killed first. I buried the evidence by the creek before I left. Thankfully I didn�t see Limp Dick as I fled the scene.

By the time I made San Antonio, the shakes were back big time. I�d killed two men. It didn�t matter what they were doing to me. I murdered someone. I tried to remain calm as I checked into another lousy motel.

It wasn�t the filthy room that prevented me from sleeping. I remembered the decades-old story of Aileen Wuornos, who went on a killing spree against men who she claimed raped her. Would I become like that, a serial killer, or maybe like the vengeful Mexican girls? I thought of Kevin and my futile attempts to locate him. Was he, like many of my other pre-plague friends, dead? I dreamed of my lost baby and that guaranteed a fitful night�s sleep.

The next morning I checked in with a couple of my fellow bloggers in the San Antonio area. Both of them presented �evidence� that Lauren Fund and my daughter were still alive, but neither of them could say where they supposedly were. One of the men�I only knew him as �Snake��speculated that the sporadic news �out there� was that Lauren was being held captive and wouldn�t be killed because she had �value� due to who she was. Lauren was a pretty teenager, so I figured her last name wasn�t the only reason she had value in this new world order.

The other blogger, who went by �Butt� pieced together some chatter intel suggesting the two of them were at a fortress outside of Houston. Nothing could be corroborated, but what else did I have to go on?

Butt also told me he�d picked up some chatter about a couple of murdered men, and that the killer�s description sounded a lot like me. �Gwen, it�s not you, is it?�

I assured him it wasn�t me. Now I had to get away from here quickly. �Houston, we have a problem,� I muttered under my breath, and that�s where I had to go.

Houston, once the fourth largest city in the United States, was now one gigantic slum. Two industries which traditionally drove this city�big oil and aerospace�were long gone, and so went the city. The two presidential administrations preceding President Fund tried making this region the �Solar Energy Capital� of the US. Since both grand designs failed (the US now being 42 states instead of 50) Houston�s main employer was local government, and how was that working out for you? As rumor had it, República Tejas was getting ready to pull the plug on funding. How that wouldn�t lead to rebellion was anyone�s guess.

The �fortress� my friend Butt told me about was supposed to be just a bit north of Katy. Not knowing what I�d find, I stopped in Katy and did some reconnoitering. I found the redneck bar with the fewest Harleys outside and went in.

A quick look at the three women among the men in the bar told me I picked the right place. Like my drinking companion of a couple of days ago said, seems like the ugliest ones survived around here. Every man wanted to buy me a drink, and therefore every one was a source of intel.

Coming at the topic obliquely, I got several of the men to provide details of what this so-called fortress was all about. One of the men, a rawboned guy with workingman�s jeans and a dusty cowboy hat, lamented how he�d lost all the women in his life to the plague and that he hated �those people� for harboring all the �good� women now. He told me all this over a beer (my fourth or fifth, but who was counting) without any hint of it being a come-on. The picture that was emerging of this �fortress� wasn�t paramilitary so much as a commune of sorts, though a commune that was armed and didn�t cater to strangers, except for desirable women it seemed.

I stifled a laugh when my latest drinking partner said his name was Tex. Rawboned like I said, but handsome in his own chiseled way, I imagined myself lying under him and liked the image and the moisture in my panties the image elicited.

�Seeing I don�t have a place to stay tonight, where do you suggest?� I said to Tex, hoping for a certain reply.

He didn�t disappoint me. �Most of the motels around these parts are flea and bedbug havens,� he said. �You can stay at my place if you�d like. I�ve got extra rooms, and no evil intent.�

Sounded good to me.

He didn�t live that far away from the bar. Evil intent aside, Tex was obviously sex-starved and attracted to me, though he tried not to show it. Instead, he showed me to a bedroom that once clearly was a teen girl�s room, a daughter perhaps, still decorated as it must have been when she died. I didn�t pry.

�You interested in some supper?� he asked.

�You don�t have to put yourself out on my account,� I said, though I really was hungry.

He said it wasn�t a problem and suggested I shower �or whatever� while he cooked. I retreated to the bedroom and surveyed my mostly dirty clothes, which still included Limp Dick�s jeans and t-shirt. I�d have to ask Tex if I could do some wash. While I was showering, he projected his voice into the bathroom from just outside the door, saying �Supper�s about ready. You almost done in there?�

�Be out in a sec,� I called out. I assumed he�d hover around to get a glimpse of my nakedness so I hurriedly grabbed a towel, quickly drying myself before wrapping it around my body. He was hovering, but whether or not he got a good look I couldn�t tell. I walked by him with a smile, went to the bedroom and put on the cleanest t-shirt and jeans I had.

We ate in silence. He had a difficult time trying not to stare at my braless breasts under the thin t-shirt. I found myself looking back at him. Clean him up a bit and he was a good looking man, not so much rawboned as my initial impression but lean and sinewy like a big cat. My stiffening nipples didn�t go unnoticed as I decided I�d let him pounce on me all he wanted.

After dinner I used his washing machine as he showered. When he stepped from the shower, I was waiting for him much more brazenly than he�d waited for me. All I did was nod my head, and without any hesitation, and still dripping wet, he picked me up in his arms and carried me to his bedroom.

On the big bed as I removed first the t-shirt and then the jeans, he stared at me with a lust well beyond any an old lady like me deserved. His cock was ramrod straight and ready for action as I guided him between my parted thighs. In his mind, I knew he wasn�t fucking me. For now he was back between the legs of the woman he lost, and that was okay. I thought of my losses too. Both of us climaxed long and loud.

After Tex caught his breath, he said, �You�re a special woman there, Gwen. I don�t think I�ve ever�felt like this.�

I put a fingertip to his lips and said, �Don�t say that. Have no regrets except for forgetting what it must have been like with your woman. Her memory deserves more than to be supplanted by one night with a stranger.�

My comment hit home, and he began to cry while I held him to my bosom.

Later, we talked about why I was in Tejas, and why Katy specifically. He told me more about what he called �the compound� which was located on unincorporated land north of here near what he called �Farm to Market Road,� if that was indeed an official name instead of just a local moniker.

�Some people think it�s some sort of paramilitary fort,� he said, �but I know differently. The place is run by a bunch of women who either survived the plague or harbored girls born after it was cured. It ain�t a fort, but I�m not saying they don�t have a passel of weapons to keep rustlin� men out. They do have men living there, I happen to know, but they don�t run things.�

�Do you really know all this, or is it local speculation?�

�I know,� he said but didn�t elaborate. So I pressed him. Finally he told me the rest of the story. �My youngest is there. She ran away when her mom and sister died because some lady said they could keep gals safe. Then I heard that lady had died too, and another one kind of took over running the place, one that used to be somebody famous. What�s it to you anyway?�

I told him about searching for Hannah and Lauren, and the clues my blogger buddies dug up that led me here. �Have you heard from your daughter?�

He silently shook his head, the sadness plainly on his face. He didn�t know anything more about the �somebody famous� or whether they�d even let me in. He told me about some men who went out there and never came back, speculating that they�d been murdered.

�Those women are probably a bunch of lesbians anyway. Maybe that�s what my Susie wanted in life. I for sure wanted more for her.�

He cried again, and this time when I held him, things progressed further until he was erect and penetrating me once more. Again with his eyes closed, I gave him the fantasy a good man like him deserved.

In the morning I headed north. Tex couldn�t say I�d be safe, but he did give me a message for his daughter if I saw her. I didn�t remind him I was desperately looking for mine too. I followed his directions and knew I was in the right area as soon as I saw the first sentinel. She was in a modified Jeep Wrangler and had what looked like an M20 assault rifle that shouldn�t have been in non-military personnel�s hands. I waved as I drove by. She didn�t wave back. She didn�t shoot or make any move to stop me, which I classified under so-far-so-good.

Another mile down the road, and another sentinel, this time a man, with a walkie-talkie radio to his lips. They certainly knew I was coming. A mile farther and they were more than sentinels. They were a bona fide roadblock.

I took my hands off the wheel and showed them. They had guns but weren�t overtly waving them around, although at least one was trained on me every second since I pulled up. A plain looking woman with the air of leadership and a manly walk came up to the driver�s side window and motioned for me to open it. I was nervous while lowering one hand in order to hit the window switch. I did what I was told, though very slowly.

�What brings you here? And before you answer, I don�t want to hear �just passing through,� because I�m not an idiot.�

�I�m looking for my daughter, Hannah.�

She gave me a discerning look, which gave me hope. �What makes you think she�s anywhere around here?�

�I heard rumors, and basically that�s my last, best hope.�

�Did she run away?� she asked.

�No, she was kidnapped, more or less. She�d be three-and-a-half now.�

�How can someone be kidnapped �more or less�?�

She�d given me another one of those telling looks. She wouldn�t be very good at poker, I surmised. Deception would get me nowhere and maybe killed, so I explained everything: the Funds, Lauren�s babysitting and subsequent flight, and all the hints of death and hopelessness. �All I want is my baby girl,� I said as plaintively as I could.

�I can�t promise anything, sister, but follow me and I�ll introduce you to everyone else in the colony.�

�It�s Gwen,� I said. �My name is Gwen. And my daughter�s name is Hannah. Remember it.� First �fortress,� then �compound� and now �colony.� I couldn�t wait to see what this supposed congregation of mostly women actually looked like. She didn�t reciprocate and tell me her name but simply beckoned me to follow as she got into one of the old Jeep vehicles and sped off down the road.

I expected a heavily guarded fort. Instead, I got a small town much like any other in these parts, although this town�s entrance had one more checkpoint to skirt. My guide stopped in front of a no-nonsense building so I pulled up next to her vehicle. Without a word I followed her into the building. She introduced me with �This is Gwen,� emphasizing my name as a reminder that I�d emphasized it to her at the roadblock. �She�s looking for her little girl who was kidnapped from back east,� she said to the now assembled group. �Do y�all know if we have a three-year-old girl named Hannah in town?�

All either shook their heads or did nothing, a few adding a mumbled �No.�

I spoke up. �More than one person has heard she was here, but she may not be going by Hannah.�

A young blond woman of around twenty asked, �Who kidnapped her? Was it rustlers?�

�She was with her babysitter when she disappeared. The sitter�s name is Lauren, who would be sixteen now, but I can�t say for sure if they were kidnapped or just ran away to avoid rustlers and then were kidnapped later.�

A couple of women asked if I would be staying in town, making it sound like I was a germ they�d just as soon see vanish. At least I now knew the name of the woman who brought me here, since they called her Ruth. They all turned back to me and wanted to know more about me, peppering me with questions. I tried to answer all of them.

A man entered the room, and everyone including Ruth became deferential to him, which surprised me since I figured the place to be purposely female-centric. He stared at me in an intimidating fashion and said, �Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?�

I wasn�t intimidated, and I opened my mouth to tell my story all over again. When I did though, Ruth beat me to it and explained everything to the man she called Joe. While she spoke he didn�t look at Ruth but continued to stare at me. I always possessed a bit of perspicacity so I picked up a vibe; this guy was Ruth�s man and now he was checking me out. Ruth didn�t look happy.

The unfolding soap opera once more made me think about what the old dude had said about the plague. I glanced around the room to see that except for one of them, the women weren�t exactly above the mean in the beauty or body distribution. So when a woman of my age enters the room and becomes the second best looking piece of ass there, one could wonder about the veracity of the plague�s selectiveness.

Joe got close, invading my space a little, and began asking questions about Hannah. He didn�t try subtlety, openly ogling my chest all the while.

�Look, I don�t want to crash your little party. I heard rumors that my baby daughter and the girl who disappeared with her were here. If they�re not, I�ll go away and look for them elsewhere. Right now this place is my only hope,� I said, more uncomfortable with Ruth�s dagger-eyes than with Joe�s presumed familiarity.

�I don�t know your daughter or this other girl Lauren, but then again I don�t know everyone in this colony or the surrounding county, so you�re free to hang around and look for them. You just better not be bullshitting us, Gwen.�

I assured him I wasn�t, and immediately turned to Ruth to mend the fences that I didn�t break. Based on how Joe had reacted to me, I calculated that Ruth would want to keep a close eye on me. �Thank you, Ruth, for bringing me in, now I�m stuck on where I can stay the night. Is there a hotel in town?�

�Nope, no hotel here. I suppose you could stay with me for a night or two.� Before I answered her, she snuck a peek at Joe, who was talking animatedly with the young blond, and added, �I think my couch will be okay.� I assured her it would be, figuring that it wasn�t her couch�s level of comfort she was really worried about and knowing I played her into keeping me close. My perspicacity again; I needed an ally, and if Joe was actually a leader around here, Ruth was a good choice. As Kevin always warned me, I had to be careful.

Ruth�s house was typical of the area, I was learning. Not exactly ramshackle, what once had been a farmhouse was poorly maintained, with several added on sections making the place seem like a mismatched jigsaw puzzle. However, inside it was clean and uncluttered, showing some pride of ownership that the outside failed to show.

�I don�t know when Joe�ll be back, so I�m gonna wait on supper, but make yourself comfortable anyway.�

That question was now answered. I pulled the tablet from my pack and asked if they had wi-fi. I expected a no and so was surprised when she answered yes. �Is access encrypted?� I asked.

She looked at me like I had two heads. She wasn�t tech-savvy, and that sent me toward depression once more. What happened to this once great country? Why did the people in charge, who were supposed to be so progressive and forward-thinking, kill our spirit of knowledge and innovation? Why was it that if you wanted a high-tech problem solved nowadays you had to find someone Indian or Chinese? Moot questions anyway, since what once was one country were now parts of four, with one part, the Pacific Northwest, basically foreclosed and now owned by China to pay off the national debt that nobody worried about just a short decade ago.

I was fighting back tears when Ruth said, �I don�t know much about computers and such. Joe is always asking Susie questions like that. She�s the expert here in the colony.�

Mmm, Susie�that was Tex�s daughter�s name, I thought. I was about to ask when Ruth said, �Though I�m sure Joe talks to her �bout other things.�

I got it. �Susie is the blond I met earlier?�

�Yeah. We don�t have many men around here, but the ones that are, all LOVE Susie.� She didn�t have to say it; implying that the young, good-looking Susie loved them all back�while probably on her back.

I was able to connect�no encryption�so I checked the blogs and real news sites while asking Ruth more questions about the colony. She couldn�t, or wouldn�t tell me much more than I already knew. She reiterated that she didn�t know anything about Hannah, although she acknowledged she didn�t know the folks �to the north.� I pressed her for more information about those folks, how far they were, and whether they were considered part of the colony. She wasn�t forthcoming.

Though the mainstream blogs painted their usually rosy picture, others were scary. The ethnic cleansing going on in southern California was making Bosnia seem like a picnic. Muslims who ran things under fiqh and sharia law in Newark held a public hanging, stringing up dozens of young men for crimes like pickpocketing, �coveting virgins� and �uncleanliness,� whatever that meant, while several teen girls were killed because they �shamed� their families somehow. What had they done, I wondered; lamenting that their sin was probably trying to be independent in a dependent world.

When I had first heard of a �fortress� and later approached Farm to Market Road and saw the armed sentinels, unlike in the big cities I figured it was overkill. However, as I heard more news on what was happening on this continent and in the world, I wasn�t so sure any security was carried too far nowadays. Lost in my depressing world view, I didn�t hear Joe come in until he stood before me and said, �You seem to make yourself right at home a bit too easily for my taste.�

�Ruth invited me here, but I�ll leave if you want me to.�

He didn�t bother hiding the fact he was ogling my chest, Ruth�s presence be damned. He didn�t bother hiding the bulge in his pants either. I was a poor substitute for the much younger woman, but maybe Susie hadn�t put out for him and I was his fallback position.

The well-worn sofa was my bed for the night after all. I didn�t sleep much, proverbially keeping one eye opened in case Joe decided he couldn�t resist a new piece of ass, even if the ass was far from new. After Joe left for somewhere in the morning, Ruth was more forthcoming on what the colony was all about, how it was formed, and what they feared the most.

She told me about a family of women from �far away� who hid in a farmhouse north of the tiny town, eventually taking in other surviving women and girls much as the Underground Railroad hid and helped blacks in the 1800�s before the Civil War. �I lived outside of town with my dad and uncle then,� Ruth said wistfully, �after my mom passed from the plague. Some rustlers came through and killed them but I escaped. Those women helped me, especially Sarah, who was supposed to be somebody real special before all the wars began. It bothered me at first, but they kinda trained the women who they helped like me to fight back, and we killed lots of men who tried to rape and kidnap us. Sarah had this baby girl, the cutest thing you ever did see, and she would tell me �Ruth, this is the future, and I�ll do anything, even kill, to keep her safe.� I didn�t know who Sarah was but I knew before the shit hit the fan she was somebody important, like in government or something. She was so beautiful, like a queen to me.�

I listened, taking it all in, wondering who this Sarah woman was and where she was today. I let Ruth keep telling her story. Eventually I�d ask my questions.

�Pretty soon we were like this commune of women here in town. We collected guns and ammo, mostly from the men we either killed or run off, with more and more women who were running away joining us. We knew there was a myth spreading around these parts like we were some kind of army, and we sort of encouraged it. Kept bad men away.�

�But now you�re not all women here. What about Joe and the other men?�

�We�re not man-haters, and we do have our needs, you know.�

Yes, I knew all too well about those needs.

I asked the questions I was dying to ask. �Where is Sarah now? Is she still here in the colony?�

�She still lives in the same house she did when she got here. North of town a bit. I haven�t seen her in ages, though. Heard she was sick.�

�Do you think anyone would object if I went up there to see her?�

�I don�t know,� Ruth said. �Like maybe the folks there are even more vigilant than we are, and not fond of strangers.�

�Should I ask Joe?�

�What would he know? He�s only interested in a couple things, not people who don�t live here.� I figured one of the things was pussy, specifically Susie�s. I wouldn�t speculate what the other interest was.

I left Ruth�s place and headed back to the building where I met everybody the day before. Sure enough, on the building�s stoop were Joe and Susie. They either were about to kiss, or I�d just missed one. Whichever, I interrupted them.

�I�d like to visit this farm where the Sarah lady is,� I said. �Can either of you give me some advice along with directions?�

Joe snidely said, �I�ll give you advice. Get the fuck away from here. Sooner the better, before you poison my Ruthie�s mind with feminist crap.�

�Sorry, Joe, but the world�s changed and it left macho-man bullshitters like you behind.� I turned toward Susie, but Joe stood up to confront me. Unfortunately, he pulled up a pistol as he arose.

�I should�ve shot you the first time I saw you, bitch. Now�s not too late.�

He pointed the gun at me with a little more purpose, and I thought I�m going to die underestimating a coward like this. When the explosion of a fired bullet echoed down the empty street, my second thought was why no pain? Then my eyes focused on Joe as he slowly crumpled to the ground; inexplicably seeing that part of his head was damaged, and Susie was screaming.

�She�s right, the world has changed,� Ruth said, a big, old and smoking revolver in her hand and a crazed smile on her face. Susie continued her screaming, probably because she�d been splattered with blood and brain matter rather than because Joe was dead. Ruth hollered at her to shut up.

I figured it was a good idea to get Susie away from Ruth for the time being, so I urged the now sobbing young woman into the building. When I heard a second �BOOM� behind me, I realized that I�d made another error in judgment, my second in just a few minutes.

Crying out to no one in particular �Aw, Ruth, why?� I didn�t look back, instead pushing hysterical Susie into the building and toward the ladies� bathroom. Attending to the living was my calling now. Not waiting for her to settle down, I washed the gore from her as best I could.

Ignoring the commotion outside, I asked Susie if she was Tex�s daughter. Through sobs she told me yes, Tex was her dad, and that she never would go back. I said, �You know he�s all alone. You�re all he has in the world. Maybe it�s time for a fresh start with him.� I�d planted the seed. She�d have to make up her mind. I couldn�t do it for her. Before I left her alone, she asked if I�d slept with him. I told her I had, but that he never would forget her momma. �I was only a poor substitute for her. Don�t let that color your opinion of who I saw as a fine, though lonesome man.�

When I went outside, I filled in the rest of the story for the assembled congregation of women, most of them crying. Thankfully, the murder-suicide tableau was somewhat self-explanatory; thankfully because otherwise I would have been under a lot of suspicion, though I couldn�t escape all of it.

�Was it over Susie, or you?� one of them said to me between sobs.

�Susie. I butted in and Joe was about to kill me when Ruth showed up. That�s why his gun was out.� Nodding heads told me that�s how they saw it in their imaginations anyway before I spoke.

Another said, �That fucking Susie. I knew it would come to this sooner or later.�

A third woman added, �Yeah, Ruthie shouldn�t have taken up with that good-for-nothing�man,� spitting out the last as if it was a four letter word. After all, maybe in the world of today and tomorrow, �man� was a dirty word to women.

In the silence that followed, I realized that after they figured out how to handle the bodies they would go after Susie. When scapegoats are needed, we can always find one, I mused. I walked back inside, caught Susie trying to sneak out the back door, and once again urged her to return to her father. Before I let her go, I got cursory directions to the farm where the mysterious Sarah was supposed to be, though I figured Susie�s knowledge of its whereabouts was basically hearsay.

I said no goodbyes, driving north and out of the compound. I passed two armed checkpoints, apparently all women. They didn�t bother me since I was going instead of coming. The rural roads were empty of travelers. Very soon I realized the directions I got from Susie were useless, so I made some dead-reckoning decisions and soon was lost. I stopped along the way at a couple of old homesteads, but they were abandoned. War and secession could do that to an area.

Like some sort of karma, I saw a road sign for the May the Blessings Be Foundation. Even with all the strife in the world, people at a place with that name had to be good people, but when I finally found where this Foundation was supposed to be, it was desolate and deserted. So much for karma. I cleared my mind of desperation and distraction and looked around. The land was fairly flat for miles. I only saw one sign of habitation: a plume of chimney smoke to the east about a mile to a mile-and-a-half away. That�s where I needed to go.

The rutted road that appeared to lead to the smoke was unmarked and un-gated, so I tamped down my fear of the unknown and made the turn. By the time I approached a house I also saw two people, a solidly built man and a teenage girl, pointing rifles at me. I braked hard. Then I went crazy, crying like a baby.

�Lauren! Bryan!� I cried out, stumbling from the car as a shot was fired.

Mercifully, young Lauren proved to be a poor sharpshooter, though she missed me by only inches.

Bryan called out, �Gwen! I don�t believe it!� as he ran to greet me. Lauren was more tentative until she recognized who I was and joined us in a group hug.

I whispered �Hannah?�

�She�s inside,� answered Bryan, and that was all I needed to hear to be transported to heaven. I was too quick in running inside and scooping up my girl, now a toddler; and she started bawling as any child would do with a stranger�even when the stranger was her mother. Lauren gently took Hannah from me, and soon she wasn�t crying. It broke my heart, but I had found her, and that was what counted. The rest would take time.

I won�t go into all the details of our catching up. These are the highlights:

As was rumored, they had escaped the attempted hit by the assassins who killed Lauren�s father, the President. They ran and kept running. As my sub-conscious mind must have figured out, �Sarah� was the former First Lady Sofia, Lauren�s stepmom. She�d passed away from natural causes several months ago, leaving only the three survivors of the journey. Bryan and Lauren were still fearful of being found, and it showed.

What also showed was the relationship between the teen and the man who for a short while had been one of my common-law husbands.

�Are you two�?� I said. When they admitted that they were lovers, I told them not to worry and that it was okay by me, as if my opinion meant something here in the wilderness. The more important question was could I stay with them. I wasn�t about to suggest taking Hannah away, although I wouldn�t leave her either.

They welcomed me and made me feel at home. Food was prepared as I spent time with Hannah, letting her get to know me. After we ate, Lauren and I took Hannah outside, where we talked for a while, woman-to-woman.

�Are you sure you�re not mad at me for taking her?� she asked me.

�How can I be mad at you for saving my little girl�s life?� I asked in return, tickling the chin of my now-smiling daughter.

�And Bryan too, I guess. I mean, like we have sex and all but it�s not like we�re in love or anything.�

I chuckled, �I was married to the guy and I can�t say it was love either.�

She laughed and said, �You were married to seven other men too! How did you do it, having sex with all of them? Christ, I was sore for a week after the first time.�

There wasn�t any time in this new world for girls to grow up. Lauren was sixteen, maybe seventeen with both her parents dead, one by the plague and the other murdered in cold blood by radicals; then she loses her stepmother too. She should be thinking about proms and college, not putting out for a man twice her age (even if he was a great guy).

�Otherwise, you�re okay now? Being with Bryan?�

That�s when I was floored. She answered me with, �Yeah, I�m okay with Bryan, though it�s been a couple of weeks since we did it, but I miss other girls. Gwen, can I sleep with you tonight?� It took me a while for my brain to stop misfiring.

I told her that yes, she could sleep with me as long as it didn�t piss off Bryan. I didn�t want to start a war. Bryan wasn�t happy but he took it like the man he was. I had difficulty separating the image of the young girl introduced to me by her father with the one eager to get between my legs, but she proved ravenous for pussy when we hit the bed. She was a woman now, and a skilled one at that.

�Ooooooooo, yes, sweetheart, right there�oh God, yes!� I mewled as she dined on me.

After I came with an explosive orgasm, she licked her lips and said with a chuckle, �You don�t taste like an old lady!�

�Let me check,� I said before I pulled her to me and licked her lips, wet from my orgasmic juices, before kissed her fully. While we kissed with dueling tongues, I slipped a finger into her pussy, which was already hungry, soaked and swollen. Meanwhile, her hands were all over my breasts. I pulled my mouth away from hers and trailed it down her body until I was sucking lightly on one of her puffy little nipples.

�Oooooooooooo yes!� she purred. �Take me�take me!�

Before Atlas shrugged and the world lost its balance, I never would have allowed myself to have sex with an underage teen�boy or girl. That was then, and this was now. I ran my tongue down her tight belly and right into the sweetness that was her wet pussy. I worked her clit until she screamed, bucked her hips and convulsed in climax.

�You two look perfect together,� a voice spoke up from the bedroom doorway.

Bryan stood there, naked, with an erection so stiff it had to ache.

Post-orgasmic Lauren giggled and said, �Hi, Bryan. I guess you were watching us, huh?�

I wasn�t sure if a threesome was a good idea but I knew I still hadn�t scratched all my itches. I reached my arms out to him and said, �How about you and me for old time�s sake? We are still married, after all.� The threesome ended up as Bryan doing me missionary while still-giggling Lauren lay to the side of us and caressed my breasts and achingly hard nipples. With my orgasm quickly approaching, I didn�t realize Lauren was feverishly fingering herself until all of our grunts, groans and cries mixed together in sweet harmony.

The bed proved big enough for all three of us. Sometime just before dawn I awoke with my hand on Bryan�s hard cock. He stirred and whispered, �You�re an amazing woman, Gwen; you know that?�

�Amazing enough to ride that cock of yours?�

Of course, no answer was required. I straddled him, slid myself down on his stiff pole, and fucked him hard enough to make the king bed bounce off the floor. Whether from happiness or simply unreleased tension, this orgasm was an earthquake, shaking me to my bones. Lost in my own pleasure I never felt or heard Bryan cum. Nor did I realize right away that Lauren hadn�t been in bed with us until I fell spent from my cum-coated man-perch.

Missing Hannah more than missing Lauren, I left the bed and tiptoed into the room they�d turned into her bedroom. Like a young, naked Madonna, Lauren was asleep in a rocking chair with sleeping Hannah clutched to her breast. I tiptoed back out of the room. I knew I couldn�t easily take Hannah and leave. I couldn�t break the obvious bond between my little girl and the young lady who saved her, and besides, where would I go?

After dawn, Bryan showed me how to use a special satellite uplink device he still had from his too-short stint in government service. While inexplicably taciturn Lauren fed Hannah her breakfast, Bryan and I surfed the Internet for spin-free news we could trust. Pundits were speculating that Iran, having successfully (along with its Middle Eastern allies) crushed Israel and annexed Iraq (killing hundreds of thousands in doing so, as some news stories have suggested) was planning an invasion of Turkey over the Syrian annexation, a move many in the non-mainstream press predicted would lead to World War III.

Closer to home the news wasn�t any better. Ethnic cleansing in Southern California had escalated, as those of Mexican ancestry were supplied with more and deadlier weapons by leftists of the Eastern Elite. �Taking it back,� referring to the land, became the rallying cry as more and more Anglos were slaughtered for no reason other than their non-Hispanic origins. Some were calling it the Battle of California. It sounded like more civil war to me.

In the meantime, there was a buzz among East Coast bloggers that the Muslim leadership of Newark had gone into hiding. Mosques in the New York/New Jersey area were strangely silent.

Bryan said while I read another speculating blog, �I think some of these guys are right. Jihadists have something planned for New York and the fucking �peaceful� Muslims know it�s coming, like rats leaving a sinking ship.�

I was thinking more of escaping animals sensing an earthquake as metaphor, but I kept it to myself. Why quibble when essentially it all meant the same thing�NYC was probably about to join Tel Aviv and Seoul as cities wiped from the map.

República Tejas wasn�t immune from strife either. Reports were surfacing that old Mexican factions in Chihuahua weren�t happy with the new status quo, or the new peso. The Tejas government was taking a laissez faire attitude toward drug trafficking, something the old US government tried at times too. It didn�t matter, really, the gangs were king, and since the plague they were cornering another market�girls�in spite of the recent recovery of that �market.� There were plenty of reports of renewed kidnapping beyond what the rustlers were doing. Bryan and I speculated on how long we had before we had to run. I pushed all thoughts from my mind of Hannah as nothing more than a glorified farm animal, bred to be defiled.

That night I bathed as well as I could with the water we had. As I was drying off, naked Lauren came to me. �I need you, Gwen,� she said barely above a whisper.

I guided her to the bedroom and gave her what she wanted. I sucked on her swollen and hard nipples for a while, and when she couldn�t stand it anymore I moved to her sweet vulva and let my tongue do what my tongue does best. While she was squirting all over my chin I remembered Claire and what we�d shared for too short a time. I fought back tears as I kept Lauren cumming in one wave after another.

�You�re not gonna leave and take Hannah with you, are you?� she asked me once she came down from her orgasmic high. I looked into her lovely young eyes and knew I couldn�t leave for several reasons.

Reason one: She saved Hannah�s life.

Reason two: She was now as much Hannah�s mother as I was.

Reason three: The three of us had to remain a team to stay safe.

Reason four: We all need some loving.

�No, I�m not leaving, sweetheart,� I said just before she went down on me. Oh God, it was my turn to cum!

We lived our solitary life for several months. Bryan had his odd jobs to keep us in food. I picked up some odd jobs in the area too, so we made ends meet. Hannah had two mommies, and was overall a happy child. I became the sex connection, alternately sleeping with Bryan and Lauren, though Bryan worried so much about the future his sex drive waned considerably. However, Lauren�s remained in overdrive. She was insatiable. It was hard for me to keep up with her in bed but I tried.

The world news didn�t get any better. A nuke in NYC and wars being fought seemingly everywhere put everyone on edge. California grew worse by the day, and now fighting broke out along the border between what used to be Louisiana and old Texas. That was almost too close.

As I said, Bryan�s sex drive had waned but it also became unpredictable. He spontaneously demanded sex at any hour of the day or night. Tantamount to rape, I acquiesced regardless of my mood, worried that if I didn�t he�d rape Lauren, who wouldn�t sleep with him since I�d arrived. That day he followed me outside with a hard-on in his pants, unceremoniously pulled down my jeans and panties, draped me over an old stable fence rail and took me from behind, grunting like a wild pig until he filled me with cum. I let him; not a peep out of me. I considered it another grand irony in my life: like a battered wife, while championing the rights of women in the post-plague new world order I allowed a man to use my body to hold a family unit together. Later that night, Lauren went down on me and commented on how red and sore things down there appeared to her. I didn�t tell her about what Bryan had done.

As more and more of the best bloggers reported trouble coming our way, I spoke with Bryan about possibly heading south, maybe into Coahuila. He didn�t like the idea.

�Why do we have to run?� he said. �Those Cajun rednecks still have a long way to go to get anyway near here. And I think the reports of new waves of rustling are exaggerations. With the numbers of girls coming back to normal, I don�t see the threat.�

He made girls sound like a crop to be harvested. I said, �You�ve been the worrier all along and now you�re not worried? We�ve been lucky so far but with all the new fighting going on to recapture what was once Texas, I think that waiting to move on may be wrong. We may end up being too late. I�m thinking of my daughter, dammit! I don�t want her bred to be some toothless bayou slob�s fuck toy!�

Lauren decided for us. She wanted to go. Perhaps it was because she was tired of, and maybe a little bit afraid of Bryan, nonetheless she insisted once I told her of my worries. All the fight was out of Bryan, so he surrendered and helped us get gas and pack my car.

My Internet buddies advised me on directions and places to avoid, so when the three of us set off on our journey I felt minimally hopeful. During the first leg we were quiet, Lauren tending to Hannah as I drove and both of us lost in thought. Bryan was a good man and I knew I would miss him. I thought of everyone I�d lost and everything I�d overcome. Now I had a new purpose in life beyond survival. Against all odds I found my daughter and Lauren Fund, and now I had to protect them any way I could.

We jokingly called our journey �finding black stones� since our destination was Piedras Negras. I heard about another type of �fortress� there that would take us in and keep us safe. I�d have to earn my keep though, and I certainly didn�t share that secret with Lauren.

How we managed to avoid rustlers and other criminals along the way I�d never know but we managed to cross the Rio Grande into Piedras Negras without any interference. The directions were good and I easily found Consuela�s heavily guarded establishment at the end of an old maquiladora industrial park. The guards were all women, and they let us in with little questioning; my Spanish serviceable enough to get through. The building had been refurbished, with the interior much more lavish than the exterior. It was a bordello, after all.

Consuela met us and showed us around. I reiterated that I�d work but that Lauren wouldn�t. It was okay with the madam. Lauren tended after a fussy Hannah as I spoke with Consuela.

�We meet the desires of men in this area, but only good men, not banditos. Those who work and live here in this place are not las putas. We are simply using skills we know best. Do you understand? We will not make la senorita work on her back. She can do other jobs around here. She is a pretty one, so el clientes will never see her or they will not want others,� she said with a wide grin.

We had a deal.

Lauren, Hannah and I had a new home.

Donna M.

You can e-mail me at boredbutstillhot@yahoo.com

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