Chapter 5

It was early morning, a light rain falling, the sun shining weakly through silver-gray clouds. They had awakened to the plop-plop-plop of raindrops falling on their awning, pocking the sand around their shelter. At Matt's direction, the girls had quickly rolled the edges of the ground cloth over the sides of their sleeping bags, protecting them from the rain, then they lay cuddling with the big ex-Marine they adored.

With the two beautiful girls lying next to him, kissing, caressing him, it wasn't long before Matt became aroused again. He couldn't understand how his bout with the plague could have increased his sexual power so much, but he wasn't complaining, and neither were the girls.

Now, they were helping with his little (or not so little) problem, working to coax the semen out of his erect cock with their mouths and hands. Taking turns, each girl giving him about three strokes of her soft lips, her swirling tongue, her sucking mouth before surrendering his cock to her partner.

Ronnie was doing him now, her soft lips running over the surface of his hard cock, her hands stroking while she licked and sucked him. When he gasped loudly, his hands pulling Ronnie's head lower, signaling he was close to coming, Bree, her fingers caressing his balls and perineum, her lips and tongue on his thigh, raised her head, "Matt, please," she said, her eyes bright. "I want you to finish in my mouth... please," she begged.

Matt nodded his permission, then with an erotic, sucking sound, Ronnie drew her mouth up and off Matt's hard dick, holding the lower shaft for Bree. Bree looked into Matt's face, then with a broad smile licked the purple crown before opening her mouth wide, lowering her head, forcing her distended lips over the fat cock.

Now Ronnie's fingers were caressing his balls, stroking his perineum, while she whispered instructions to Bree. Matt could tell the difference between the two girls' techniques, but Bree was making up in enthusiasm for what she lacked in skill, and she was learning fast. Soon, his hands on Bree's head, "Uggh... suck it, baby," he gasped. "I'm gonna come." Then the thick semen was jetting out of him into Bree's sucking mouth, running down her chin as she worked to swallow it all.

Bree shared his semen with Ronnie, then together they pulled up his jockeys and joined Matt on the sleeping bag, cuddling together again. "Did I do good?" Bree asked, kissing his whisker-rough cheek.

"Great, did you like it?"

"Yeah, it's so erotic. It gets me all excited," Bree said, pressing close to him. Ronnie moved closer too, throwing her leg over his lower body.

He knew they were excited, he could smell their arousal. Shifting position a little, he ran his hands down their bodies, insinuating his fingers inside each girl's panties, stroking their swollen labia, caressing their erect clits, until both his girls were gasping in orgasm. Then they were covering his face with kisses, until finally all grew calm and they dozed a while to the soft sound of the falling rain.

When they awoke, the rain was gone and bright sunlight was drying the sand. "I'm gonna get some coffee," Matt said, quickly standing and heading for the back of the Rover where the camp stove was stored. He set up and lit the stove, then put the coffee on. By now the girls had joined him, getting food out, starting to make breakfast.

"Guess I better shave to keep my women happy," Matt said with a smile.

"You don't need to for us," Ronnie said.

"We love you, even with whiskers," Bree laughed, touching his rough cheek.

A few minutes later, Matt was standing on the shady side of the Rover, a small pan of fresh water in front of him, dressed only in his jockeys, carefully shaving nearly two days growth of beard. Bree, coming round the back of the vehicle, carrying a mug of hot coffee, paused for a moment to watch her man, a thrill running through her at the sight of his virile, nearly naked body.

After a moment, "Here's your coffee," she said, handing him the mug.

Thanking her, he paused to sip the hot, dark liquid.

Looking down, "Is that from bullets?" Bree asked referring to the long scar running up his left leg.

"No, that's from a helicopter I was in when it was shot down, in Venezuela, a long time ago."

"But it's from war?" she asked, looking into his face.

"Yeah, it was war."

"Is this a bullet wound?" she asked, touching the star-shaped scar on his shoulder.

"Yeah, that's from a bullet, but that was a long time ago too."

"The man who shot you, what... what happened to him?"

Setting the mug down, looking into Bree's wide-open, blue eyes, "I killed him."

"Oh Matt," she said shivering, coming into his arms.

"What is it?" he asked, trying to ignore Bree's pointy tits poking into his bare chest through the fabric of her t-shirt.

"It's... it's just the idea of you almost dying, and then... and then you killing him," she mumbled into his chest.

Kissing her head, "Bree baby," he whispered, hugging her to his broad chest. "This might be a hard world we're entering. You might need to kill too, to protect yourself, or Ronnie, or me. Now I know you can do that if you need to." He pulled back a little, staring into her eyes.

"I can for you and Ronnie, and... and I will if I need to," she whispered.

"And I can, too," said Ronnie, who had come up behind Matt, touching his bare back.

"Good," Matt said, looking into his girls' faces.

"Breakfast's ready, so hurry up and finish shaving so we can eat," Ronnie laughed.

Soon, Matt was shaved and dressed, and they had their breakfast together, again enjoying each others company, happy just being together. In less than an hour, the girls were dressed, the Rover packed, and they were ready to begin their journey again.

"Matt, can I sit up front with you now?" Bree asked. "Ronnie got to sit with you all day yesterday."

He looked at Ronnie, seeing her give him a small nod along with a slight smile. "Alright, he said. "Let's get going. I want to have lunch in San Carmena if we can make it in time."

They were making good time now on the empty road. There weren't as many villages around here, just fewer, larger collections of buildings clustered around the occasional roadside store. They had given up stopping to look for survivors, slowing down when they passed a settlement, hoping for any sign of survivors. Once, they scattered a pack of dogs feeding off the carcass of some unidentifiable creature at the side of the road. There was no way to know if it had been hit by a vehicle or brought down by the dogs.

They stopped at another empty store for gas and cold drinks. Matt didn't bother leaving money this time. He knew now that there was not enough civilization left for pesos - or dollars - to matter. Driving away from the store, not yet at full speed, they were rounding a curve when suddenly a figure jumped into the road ahead of them.

"What's that?" Bree called out, Matt quickly stepping on the brake, bringing the Rover almost to a stop.

"Get ready," he said, glancing around to see Ronnie getting the AR-15s from the back.

Standing in the middle of the road, his hands above his head, was a man. Matt inched the Rover forward until they were about ten meters away. When he brought the Rover to a stop, Matt could see now that it was very young man, probably a teenager. He was dressed in dirty shorts and an even dirtier shirt, and was wearing tennis shoes. It didn't look like he was carrying any weapons, or anything at all except his clothing.

Matt surveyed the surroundings 360 degrees around them. To their left was a cleared area edging the road, then the jungle. On their right was a small strip of sandy beach leading to the ocean. As far as he could tell, the road ahead and behind was clear.

"When I get out," Matt told the girls. "You get out too, Ronnie on my side and Bree on the right. Use the open doors to shield your bodies. Make sure your safety's off and there's a round in the chamber. Don't worry about the kid," nodding toward the teenager still standing in the road, his hands raised. "I'll take care of him. You two watch our sides and behind us."

"Is it really that dangerous?" Bree asked taking one of the AR-15s.

Matt smiled at her, "I think it's gonna be okay, but better safe... "

He exited the car, his forty-five in his hand, waiting behind the open door until the girls were in position. Holding the pistol across his chest, not pointed at the boy, but ready at the first sign of danger, he walked toward the teen. As he came near, the teen said, "Senõr, agua por favor, " his voice raspy. When he took a step forward, moving his hands down, Matt gestured with the forty-five, the boy quickly stopping, raising his hands again.

The boy stood still while Matt searched him. He was very dirty, his white shirt gray now and spotted with mud and other things, his canvas shorts and tennis shoes probably just as dirty, but not showing it as much because of their color. In his pockets were some candy bars and a large clasp knife. Using his broken Spanish, Matt learned the boy was named José, he was eighteen years old, he was a fisherman, and he was very thirsty.

Sure now the boy was no threat, Matt told him to lower his hands and led him back to the Rover. He let the boy sit in the shade while Bree brought him fresh water. He was hungry too, only having eaten some candy bars he got from an abandoned store, so they gave him some bread and cheese, which he wolfed down with the water.

Ronnie, whose Spanish was a lot more fluent than Matt's, told José who they were and where they were going before questioning him. She learned that he was a fisherman, out on the family boat with his father and uncle when the plague struck. With his father and uncle sick, José couldn't control the boat by himself while trying to care for the sick men. After about a day and night with the plague, his father and uncle died. The next morning their bodies turned to crystals. José didn't like doing it, but he disposed of the crystallized bodies in the sea.

When the boy started crying at the memory of what had happened and what he had been forced to do, Matt said in his rough Spanish, "José, you must consider it a burial at sea," placing his arm around the young man's shoulder.

"Many thanks Senõr Comandante," he answered, bowing respectfully. "I know I must consider them as lost at sea, as happens with so many fishermen."

José, calmer now, continued his story. The boat had drifted far out to sea, and when he tried to reach shore with the small outboard motor, he used up all the fuel and could only drift in the small boat. Luckily, the boat eventually drifted onto the beach, but far north of his village.

"When I reached the shore and was finally able to step on solid ground, I kissed the earth and praised the Lord that I had been saved, but I could not understand what happened to the people. Every village I came to was bare of inhabitants, every store empty of people. I knew something terrible must have happened, so I began walking on the road toward my village. I knew that it would take many days to walk there, but I hoped someone in a passing vehicle would take pity on me and give me a ride, at least part of the way, so I could find out if my mother and brothers and sisters had survived this terrible thing."

When Matt and Ronnie explained about the world-wide plague, that the majority of the earth's population had been wiped out, and that they had checked all the villages to the south and had not found even one survivor, José began crying again. And again, Matt placed his arm around José's shoulder for a moment, while Bree, in her halting, high-school Spanish said, "José I saw my father die too, just like you, and probably my mother and brother are gone too."

"I am sorry for you, Senõrita," José said. Then, seeing Bree wrap her arm around Matt's waist, "Or Senõra, should I say?"

Ronnie, smiling at the young man, placing her arm around the other side of Matt's waist, "Senõra, senõrita, it doesn't matter. Just so you understand we are both women of Comandante Warden."

"Si, of course, such a man as the Comandante surely must have many women to love and serve him," José said, smiling at Matt, then lowering his eyes respectfully.

"Tell us how you came to be here," Matt ordered.

"Si Comandante, yesterday I was walking south along the road when a jeep containing a man with a gun - a very big gun - and two women came down the road toward me. I didn't know the man or the women, but I thought the man might be policía. The man demanded I join them, and promised many women for me. I told him I needed to return to my village, to my mother. But the man insisted again, and again I refused. When to threaten me he reached for his gun, quickly I ran into the jungle before he could shoot his weapon.

"Comandante, believe me, I was frightened. I ran as fast and as far as I could. I heard two shots of the gun. Whether that man was trying to kill me or just shooting to frighten me I do not know. But I know I was much frightened.

"I spent the night in the jungle, alone and very frightened, and wet and dirty from the rain." Looking down at his dirty clothes, "I am ashamed to be in your presence like this Comandante." At Matt's reassuring smile, José continued his story, "In the morning, I was still frightened, too frightened to even go back to the road. I moved through the jungle alongside the road, but I didn't go on the road.

"I was watching that store to see if anyone was there because I was so hungry and thirsty, Then your vehicle arrived and I saw a man with two women again and I was afraid that you would be like the other. But watching you Comandante, I saw you were a good man, a strong man, a jefe, a leader I could trust. I went back to where the road curved and waited in the road for you, and that is how I came to be here Comandante."

Matt was quiet, thoughtful for several minutes, then, "José that man, why did you think he was policia?"

"Comandante, he had on a cap that looked like it was the kind our local policia wear. But it was very dirty and without insignia, so I wasn't sure he was policia."

Then his eyes on José, "How many other members of his group did he say there were?"

"Comandante, I am sorry but I don't remember if he said how many are in their group. I... I was so frightened that I don't remember," he looked at Matt, his eyes wet with tears.

Matt smiled reassuringly, "I understand, José, and no one thinks any less of you. Now about the future, we are going to San Carmena to find more survivors of the plague. Of course, you are free to continue your journey to your village, but as we said, we found no survivors in any of the villages south of here. You are the first survivor we have met. If you want to come with us, you are welcome to."

"Senõr Comandante, I agree my mother and my brothers and my sisters are probably gone, muerte, as you said. It seems like most of the world is gone now. I will be honored to travel with you to San Carmena. Perhaps I can be of service to you. I am young and strong, I am good with boats and know the sea. It is true that I know nothing of fighting and guns, but I can learn, and I will be a loyal and fierce fighter in your service, Comandante, if you will have me. And maybe some day, I will discover what was the fate of my family."

They found clean clothes for José, shorts and a t-shirt of Ronnie's. They didn't tell him he would be wearing a woman's clothes. They discarded his dirty shirt and shorts by the side of the road, though he insisted on wearing his filthy tennis shoes instead of the flip-flops they offered.

While José was changing clothes on the other side of the Rover, Matt and his girls talked quietly in English. "Do you think his story is true?" Ronnie asked.

Matt looked at the girls, "I think he believes it. Whether it happened a hundred percent like he said, well... you know, our emotions can alter what we perceive, and José was upset and very frightened. But for now, I tend to believe him."

Ronnie, touching Matt's chest, "So you think there's danger?"

Looking into Ronnie's dark eyes, then turning to look at Bree, "If civilization is breaking down, there could be a lot of danger."

"Oh Matt," Bree said, giving a little shiver, pressing herself to the big ex-Marine, then growing calmer as she felt his strong arms tighten around her. Looking up, "What does it mean when he calls you Comandanté?"

Looking into her big, blue eyes, "In Spanish, Comandanté means an officer with the military rank of major," Matt said.

Bree smiling up at him, "I like that, it sounds like commander." Pressing herself tighter against his broad chest, "I'm glad you're our commander. You can command us any way you want."

At the sound of José scuffing his feet to signal his presence, they turned to see him coming around the Rover in his clean borrowed clothes. Matt moved a little away from Bree. "José, you look a lot cleaner now," Ronnie said.

"I washed my hands and face," he said. "I would like to take a bath too, but unfortunately it is not possible now." When she asked if he wanted more to eat, José answered that he would prefer to begin travelling with his comandante to San Carmena. So they started their journey again, this time with a new companion, Ronnie in front, her revolver in her lap, Bree in back practicing her high school Spanish with José, her AR-15 close by.

They arrived at their destination a lot later than Matt had planned. It was past two when Matt halted the Rover after they rounded a long curve and saw the bay spread out before them. Directly ahead, on a long peninsula jutting into the sea, stood the new Colcon Palace Hotel, constructed to resemble the cross section of a Mayan pyramid, shining white in the afternoon sunlight.

There weren't many other buildings yet close to the hotel, it had been open only a little more than a year. The town of San Carmena was about twenty kilometers up the bay from the hotel. It wasn't a large town, probably with a population of less than three thousand before the plague. Wonder how many are left now? Matt thought.

"Looks like there's some life at the hotel," he said, glancing at Ronnie and Bree. "Let's head for there, maybe we can get lunch."

"And a room with a bed and a bath," Ronnie laughed.

When Bree haltingly translated for José, he said, "Si, a bath is what I want also, and then lunch, or maybe lunch and then a bath."

As they laughed with José, Matt putting the Rover in gear said, "Be on your best guard. We don't know what the situation is here."

"We will," Ronnie said, her hand on her revolver. "Yes sir," Bree echoed, holding her AR-15. José, guessing from their actions what was happening, watched carefully as they approached the hotel.

Matt pulled the Rover close to, but not under, the cantilevered concrete awning in front of the hotel. He got out, heading for the big open entrance way, when a girl, young, pretty, a little chubby came out. When she saw Matt, she gave a shriek of surprise, then turned and ran back into the hotel.

That's an unusual reaction to seeing another survivor, he thought. He looked into the hotel, but unwilling to risk entering an enclosed area when he didn't know who might be inside, he walked around the side of the big building, still without drawing his pistol, but keeping his hand close to the butt.

Turning a corner, he saw toward the rear of the building a large truck backed up to a loading dock, with several young women and teenage girls and one young man working hard moving boxes, probably of supplies, from the truck to inside the hotel. Matt stopped, watching them working so intently they didn't notice him for a while. Then, one of the girls saw him, and quickly turned to the young man.

They all stopped their work, watching as the young man jumped down from the loading dock and walked toward Matt. As he got closer, Matt saw he was even younger than he thought, probably another teen, like José. When he came up to Matt, "You're American, uhh... I mean North American, aren't you?"