Chapter 23

It was an eerie feeling when we made landfall at last, finding ourselves back on the West Coast again. Not everyone had opted to stay with us, of course, with plenty of the cruise passengers preferring to touch down in places like Alaska, British Columbia, or Washington State. We lost over half the crew as well by the time that this was done, but we continued our voyage until we reached Oregon, which I had decided was the perfect place to get our land legs back, as it had been where we embarked in the first place. This also gave our little tribe a chance to deal with the grief and cope with it as we braced ourselves for a very changed world.

The calendar called the date 28 July, 2013, but several of us were now saying that this was Year One P.A. (post-apocalypse). It might take a little while to get used to the new dating system, but it actually made sense, and I had the feeling that posterity would have trouble seeing it any other way. There being no other place to stay just yet, we continued to sleep aboard the ship that we had renamed the Gwaihir (its original name didn't matter enough to mention at all), after the great eagle from Lord of the Rings, but we set foot during the day to explore the area and bring back reports. Something told me that future generations would remember the former cruise liner as the stuff of legend and history, an ark like that of the biblical Noah or something else, rather than the luxury ship that it was intended to be.

We were all rather quiet and busy the first few days, in awe of the fact that we were now the founders of a new colony or settlement, entrusted with the future of civilization itself, the light to remain in the coming Dark Ages. It was a heavy burden of responsibility and duty, and we had little time or energy to spend on diversions or pleasures right then. We dropped dead after supper, which now included a bit more variety since we reached the shore, but was still eaten more for nourishment than for enjoyment, and then we would start over at dawn with breakfast and our labors.

This somber mood thankfully did not last, and it was thanks to a miracle of sorts that reminded us that happiness and hope were not things of the past. On the morning of the fourth day, Ninve suddenly screamed in pain and fear, as she looked down to find a fluid of sorts hit the sandy beach. Her water had broken and she soon began to feel the cramps and contractions of her labor. Several of the ladies got to work right away on her, but Dr. Anne Higgins took over in short order, and while many paced and wrung their hands, the delivery was a success ... a long, bloody, and painful one, due to no drugs ... but a success even so ... a miracle.

My firstborn child was brought into this post-Doomsday world at slightly past 2 am, 1 August, 2013. Anne Arwen Schumacher weighed seven pounds, six ounces, and her mother was so drained that she had to sleep before she could actually see her. She had Ninve's grey-green eyes and my own dark brown hair. She was named after the doctor who delivered her and also saved her mother's life in the process of such a difficult birth, while her middle name came from her mother's favorite character from the films (don't get her started on the role of Arwen Undomiel in the books).

"Can I see her now, please?" Ninve begged when she awoke to meet her first baby ... already, her maternal instincts were kicking in.

"Sure, Princess. I knew that you would ask for her. Meet your daughter, dear. The first child born into this new age of ours. Anne, meet your mother, Ninve," I smiled as I carried our newborn and put her in her mother's arms.

"Our daughter, honey. Hard to believe that she was conceived in a men's room during a Halloween party, isn't it? That already seems like a very different life now, doesn't it?" Ninve smiled weakly at me and the little one.

"That it does, sweetheart. That it does. We were very different people back then, weren't we? I was a jaded, embittered, and middle-aged bachelor and white-collar worker. Now I'm a happy, albeit polygamous family man," I observed with a gentle peck to Ninve's lips and a butterfly kiss for little Arwen, as we started to call her to avoid confusion with Dr. Higgins.

"I was an underpaid, undersexed, and in-over-my-head supervisor, trying not to let the stress kill me with hypertension and gluttony," Ninve readily admitted, "I reached for a life preserver back then, and that was you, though I didn't know it yet."

"We saved each other, Princess. We came to each other's rescue, as we did for the others and they did for us. We were all meant to be together, to survive and thrive as a family and a tribe. If we hadn't, we would all be dead back there, the victim of looters, rapists, home invaders, thugs, and the new warlords of the new Wild West," I pointed out, "but let's not dwell on that. We're blessed. We've been too grave, too somber of late. We need to recall the miracle of this new soul, this new person who has a chance of a good life in spite of everything, if we work to give it to her."

"Very true. I'm inclined to agree entirely with you there," a voice from behind me interjected.

I turned and saw Marcy Swenson, Shelby's mother, who looked very much alive to me, despite having died a suicide.

"Marcy ... to what do I owe the pleasure, and the honor, for that matter?" I asked the angel.

"I told you that I would come for you, and here I am. Don't worry, I'll speak to Shelby, too, but later tonight, I want you to do what I've wanted from you all this time. We're going to mate ... repeatedly, in every position, until I've satisfied every fantasy possible between just two people. The orgies can wait," Marcy winked at us.

"Yes, as much as I've enjoyed the orgies, it will take a bit to get back into the swing of things. This whole mess has taken a wrecking ball to our libidoes, as you can imagine," I observed, "not that I will mind going back to a new normalcy of sorts. It will just take a bit of time and effort. Several of our ladies will be out of commission for a spell, too. That's the small sacrifice required for the miracle of birth and more than worth any temporary self-denial."

"That it is, and speaking of which, this must be the little doll herself," Marcy turned to the bed at the oceanfront house where Ninve had given birth ... yes, one of those vacation homes, "here she is, my little niece, Arwen, is it?"

"Officially, Anne Arwen Schumacher, but Arwen is easier to say when we don't want to confuse things," I explained as Marcy picked up the infant and held her close.

"Yes, here's Aunt Marcy, little one. That's right, Aunt Marcy. You'll see a lot of me, I promise, sweetie," Marcy spoke softly and lovingly to our newborn daughter.

"First child of the brave new world, Mom," Shelby said as she entered the room.

"That she is, honey. That she is," Ninve smiled at us as Shelby now took her into her arms, before handing her back to her mother.

"My little cousin, Arwen. So pretty, just like her mother," Shelby beamed and smiled as she saw me kiss the mother of my child on the forehead and push her hair back from her face.