Chapter 3: Matilda

Taking a page from Josella’s story, they parked the Suburban out of sight, and Mishka walked in shadows to the grocery store. A walkie-talkie speaker-mic was clipped to his collar, and a shotgun was carried at the ready. As he approached the store, he saw two small blond figures sitting on a shaded porch bench in front.

He stopped, when one of the figures called to him, “Hey mister, can you help us? We’re hungry, there’s no one around, and we don’t have any money. Mom never came home, and we ate everything in our house. Please mister,” she sniffled. ‘She’ was a café au lait ‘she’ sitting, legs spread, in a dirty yellow sundress.

Mishka was heartbroken. He sat on the bench beside her, and keyed his walkie-talkie, “Ladies, get here quick. I’ve found some kids that need parenting.”

He turned to the girl and told her, “My grandma named me Mishka, it means Teddy Bear. Of course I’ll help you. Can you tell me your names?”

“My name is Matilda and this is Mikey. He’s six.” Mikey looked up when she said his name.

“Nice to meet you, Matilda and Mikey. Listen, I have two nice ladies who will be here to help us in a minute,” Mishka told them. “I have some water, are you thirsty?” He was concerned that the kids might be dehydrated and wanted to get some liquids in them before they ate.’

He opened the first bottle, handed it to Mikey and followed it with another that he handed to Matilda. The kids were very thirsty!

The Suburban pulled up and Josella and Susan piled out. They looked at the two children now sitting close on either side of Mishka, and Susan asked, “You guys like PBJ sandwiches?”

“Yes,” answered Matilda as they both nodded, “but Mikey won’t eat the crusts.”

“Grape jelly okay?” Nods from both.

Prepared to break a window to enter the lightless store, Susan found the door unlocked. She entered with Josella close behind. Meat and produce were spoiling, and the smell was unpleasant, though not strong enough to suggest a rotting body.

Unfamiliar with the store’s layout, they used their flashlights to find the needed ingredients. The white bread, though a little stale, wasn’t moldy. On the checkout counter Susan quickly assembled four sandwiches, while Josella looked for small cartons of apple juice. Susan sliced off the crusts, then cut each sandwich into four triangles and placed them on the two paper plates that Josella brought her.

When Susan and Josella exited, they found Mikey and Matilda, each seated on a leg happily chatting with Mishka. With no table at hand, the pair sat on either side and fed the sandwiches to the hungry children. This kept the kids from eating too fast, and they were able to provide them sips of juice between each triangle.

When the children finished eating, Matilda led them to her home. As they walked, she told them, “Mikey doesn’t have much there. Mom brought him home, when Auntie - ah that’s Mrs. Hansen - died. She brought him some clothes, but he needs more.”

At the neat, two-story house, they gathered the children’s clothes into two suitcases and asked them to fetch anything else they wanted to keep.

She and Mishka loaded two boxes with a framed picture of Matilda’s mother, three small picture albums, and personal papers Mishka found in an open lockbox. Finally, he removed the hard drive from the family computer, and they left to place their findings into the silver, four-door Jeep Wrangler parked out front.

Matilda pointed out Mikey’s home, but when Mishka entered and found his mother’s barely decaying body in the upstairs bedroom, he had the others wait outside. He filled three boxes and a large suitcase for Mikey. Examining the boxes, Mikey asked for his rabbit and some storybooks. Mishka reentered the house and returned with another box and a large blue rabbit. Mikey’s possessions also went into the Wrangler.

Throughout the afternoon, they loaded canned and dry goods from the grocery. Matilda was always near Mishka, and Mikey was enamored with Susan. When it came time to assemble the convoy for the first trip back to the cabin, Mikey rode in the Suburban with Susan, Matilda was firmly planted in the Jeep with Mishka, and Josella brought up the rear in a newly acquired, full sized Crew Cab pickup. After their ‘shopping’ trip, there wasn’t much space left in any of the vehicles.

As they started up the road, Matilda turned to Mishka and calmly stated, “When I’m mature enough, you’re going to marry me. You’re going to sex me, and I’m going to have your babies.”

“Well, young lady,” Mishka responded, “You are certainly pretty enough, smart enough, and nice enough to marry; but I think you are going to have to talk to Josella and Susan about your plans. They have already claimed me and will certainly have a big say in plans like that.” He reached over, took her hand, and held it.

“And what do you know about sex, anyway?” he continued.

“Oh, I know a lot,” Matilda replied. “Lots of times I watched Mom and Carl - that’s her boyfriend - was her boyfriend - have sex when they thought I was asleep or somewhere else. I also found stuff on the Internet. My favorite was a girl that looked just like me,” she smiled.

“Did it bother you?” asked Mishka. “Our cabin is kinda small, and even if you don’t try to look, you are going to see things.”

“Nope, I liked it!” came the quick response. “Mikey might be a little spooked at first. I don’t think he knows what sex is, but I’m sleeping in the same bed as my future husband. I may not be quite ready for sex, but I’m also not about to sleep by myself. I think it will be fun to watch. Sometimes it makes me tingly...”

What was this instant attraction and marriage proposal with every female he was around? That wasn’t his prior life pattern before this mess happened!

Mishka, continued to hold Matilda’s hand and muttered, “We’ll see, sweetheart, we’ll see.”

Fifteen miles can be a long way for a caravan of heavily loaded vehicles on a winding, hilly road, especially if the journey culminates in a steep, narrow, gravel driveway over two miles long. Mishka, entertained by the almost non-stop soliloquy from the passenger seat, wasn’t aware how long the return trip lasted. He found himself charmed. When he withdrew his right hand because of driving conditions, it returned to hold the small brown hand as soon as it was no longer needed.

This girl was a winner! She was smart, funny, and for someone living in isolated conditions, Matilda was surprisingly aware and well informed.

She grew somber when she told him her history. “Mom was new to the city and met a man when she was already pregnant with me. She said that he didn’t seem to care and married her, but when she started to get big, he started abusing her. She was afraid that he would abuse me too. She set up cameras and recorded him beating and raping her.”

“Mom recorded other things, too. When she was ready, she walked into the local FBI office with a bulging belly, bruises and cuts, and those recordings. Her husband was pretty high up in one of a big city’s interstate drug and prostitution organizations. Mom’s recordings and testimony took out a huge chunk of that bunch.”

“Mom ended up with four things: a lot of reward money, a divorce, a new identity, and the promise of a brutal and certain death if anyone from his gang ever found her.” Matilda looked steadily at him, and forged ahead. “I’m sure you wonder how someone my age could know all this. Mom told me as soon as she thought I had a chance to understand, and she showed me her copy of the recordings. She wanted me to absolutely know what a danger that man and his friends were to her and to me. I was scared but I wasn’t traumatized. I loved her even more for being honest and protecting me.”

“I’ll bet you also wonder at my vocabulary and presentation,” she said smiling as he glanced over at her. “I’m smart, but that’s not all of it. Part of Mom’s new identity was a full-ride trip through the University of Georgia. She got a Bachelors in Chemistry - summa cum laude - and then she maxed her PCAT and went on for her Doctorate in Pharmacy.”

“Mom said she got pregnant in Athens when she was hitching rides north after high school. She knew all about UGA, but never thought she could get admitted. The witness protection identity got Mom’s toe in the door, but when she blew through all her entry placement exams, she was exempted with credit from a pot-load of courses and put into the Honors Program. In short, she was an instant pampered student. Upon my arrival, I became a pampered child of a pampered student.” She looked at Mishka to see if he was taking this all in.

“Mom was very protective, and we were rarely separated. I went to all of her classes with her. Though I was technically home schooled, the reality was that my education pretty much started at college level. In the evenings, when Mom was doing her homework, I was doing mine, and a lot of that was explaining what I had learned in her classes that day. By the time I was seven, Mom was having me find and pull books for her in the library.” She laughed, “You might say that I have a college level education in place of high school. I’m also older than I look - ‘late onset puberty.’”

“Jesus!” Mishka swore under his breath.

They pulled into the clearing and stopped. Matilda refused to release his hand while she turned to him and said, “Mishka, you already know that with me things aren’t always what they seem?” He nodded and she continued, “Well, Mikey might be shy, but he’s a real math and spatial analysis prodigy. His vocabulary’s pretty good, too. He’s going to train up really well as a second husband in this family.”

“When you came to town, we weren’t all that hungry. The store belonged to Mikey’s momma, though my Mom bought it for her. They were college friends, and Mom was her Lamaze coach when Mikey was born. Anyway she ran the pharmacy, so when we ran out of food at home, we just went and got some. I kinda fibbed on that, because we were checking you out. We were on the way to the store to get stuff for lunch when we heard your car.”

Matilda released his hand and pulled on her skirt, saying, “Did you wonder why I was wearing a sundress? Mom was always concerned that the bastard or his friends would show up, so she taught me how to shoot, who to shoot, and when to shoot! She started me with a .22, and I’ve carried since I was six.” She flipped her skirt higher to reveal her panties, a few curly blond hairs poking out, and a holstered .38 revolver, butt out on the inside of her thigh. It looked to be much like the one he now carried. “If you had been that abuser or any other bad man, you would be dead now.”

She smiled at his shocked expression and told him, “But you are a good man and great husband material, so we are going to marry and have lots of really smart kids.” Then she opened the door and bounced off to calmly negotiate bed rights with her future wives.

They managed two additional trips to the crossroads before stopping for the day. During the first of these return visits, Mishka discovered a body that he assumed was Matilda’s mother. He had brought the pickup to the rear of the grocery to use the small dock to load cases of canned goods and other needed supplies. At the end of the dock, on the ground near the stairs, the remains of a blond haired, black woman were sprawled.

Not for the first time, Mishka noticed how little the bodies of plague victims had deteriorated, and though there was a smell of decay, it was nothing like his readings had caused him to expect. Scavengers should have been at her, but there was no sign. In the days since the plague began, he had seen animals approach bodies and retreat. Apparently, there was something about the plague-killed bodies that made them unpalatable.

He walked to Luke’s Outdoorsman’s store, where Josella was surveying the gun safe, and Susan, Mikey, and Matilda were gathering clothes to load into the Suburban. Mishka entered and approached Matilda. He swept her into his arms and carried her over to a bench in the shoe department.

“I found your mother,” he began, softly, “I’m so sorry.” He waited for her tears.

Matilda sniffled, and said, “I knew she had to be dead, but I didn’t want to believe.” She sniffled some more and asked, “Was she behind the store somewhere? I kinda thought that she must be, so I never went in back.”

“She was by the stairs of the loading dock,” Mishka answered. He paused and asked, “Do you want to pick a place for her grave? We can bury her and Mikey’s mom side by side so they won’t be alone.”

“I think I’d like them to be together,” Matilda told him, “but I think maybe we should take her to Mikey’s house and have a big funeral pyre. Will you take me to see her?”

The newly formed family walked back to the grocery. When they approached the body, Matilda broke into tears and clung to Mishka and the others in turn. After a while, Mishka asked Matilda, “What was her favorite color?”

Upon learning her color was red, Mishka returned to Luke’s and found a large, red blanket. He appropriated a pair of heavy-duty gloves and returned to his waiting family. Donning the gloves, he wrapped the body in the blanket and carried her to Mikey’s house. He laid her beside her friend on the master bedroom’s bed.

“Let’s make a final check of the house, and tomorrow, if the wind is not too high, we’ll set the fire. There’s enough empty space around that I don’t think there is a danger of the fire spreading.” It didn’t take long, as the only things they decided to remove were a few more of Mikey’s toys, games, books, and the remainder of his clothing. Then they returned to their previous gathering of supplies.

The outdoorsman’s store was not exactly a Cabela’s, but Josella found a variety of firearms, including two AR-15 type rifles - one by Colt and the other a Diamondback DB15. There were enough .22 rifles of various makes that everyone could have one for small game, and there were more than enough pistols and rifles for any purpose. She made a cursory selection, knowing they could return, and then began loading cases of ammunition into the Suburban. When she had loaded cleaning supplies and several hunting knives, she turned to help the others finalize the selection and loading of clothes. The Suburban was full!

Mishka took Matilda with him into the grocery’s pharmacy, and set her the task of identifying and gathering all the various medical supplies she thought might be needed. At the top of the list were birth control pills and pain medicines. After loading groceries and supplies until the truck would hold no more, Michael and Matilda walked to the large barn/storage building behind Luke’s.

In the barn was a variety of rental equipment that included a garden tractor, chain saws, and a powered log splitter. Things were looking up.

They walked out the barn’s back door and around to the propane tank farm. In addition to the three storage tanks, two Freightliner propane trucks were parked side-by-side. The larger version was clearly used to supply the tank farm, and the smaller was the delivery truck to fill local customers’ tanks. At the rear of the larger tanker was a body. Apparently, a delivery was about to be made when the driver died. The rear compartment was open, but no hoses had been connected.

Mishka decided that he would drive the larger of the trucks back to the cabin when they made their final trip for the afternoon. He would fetch the smaller one in the morning.

When Susan learned of the rental equipment, she had insisted that for the third and final trip of the day, the pickup was to be used to ferry the gardening equipment. Mishka rode down with her on this final trip. Under Susan’s direction and with her assistance, he hefted two tillers, several chainsaws, and assorted other tools to the truck bed. The tractor would have to wait. After they attached the log splitter to the hitch in back, Susan redirected her attention.

Shadowed by Mikey, and assisted by Josella, she happily located and loaded every type seed that she could find, including several sacks of seed corn and wheat. Susan was adamant that they would not be limited to commercially canned vegetables, but when she found the store’s supply of canning equipment, she could barely contain herself.

As a final act before departing, Mishka left a note on each checkout counter, inviting peaceful visitors to stay in Matilda’s house and wait for their return. He was reluctant to give the cabin’s exact location before vetting any newcomers, but he did not want to miss any survivors.

For the return trip to the cabin, Susan and Mikey took the lead in the pickup, and Mishka followed her at some distance with the propane. Matilda rode with Josella in the Suburban, again at some distance. Mishka reasoned that if his lack of familiarity caused him to be stuck somewhere, there would be a vehicle in front and one in back of him that could be used to retrieve anything they might need to get him unstuck.

He had no real concept how dangerous an untrained driver would be, but knew it wasn’t safe. Luck and cautious, slow driving got him to the cabin. He circled the clearing and parked as far as possible from the cabin.

It was late afternoon, and they were all tired, sweaty, and hungry. They washed up and collapsed on various chairs and the floor.

As the evening meal began to wind to a close with green lime Jell-O and chopped pecans, Matilda turned to Mikey and addressed him. “Mikey, except for presents and surprise parties, you and me have never had secrets, right?” The youngster nodded. “There will be no secrets in this family.” She looked a question at the others and asked, “Agreed?” With three additional answering nods, she told him, “So when you are done with your dessert, I need to tell you some things.”

Table cleared, Matilda took Mikey to the sole recliner, sat, pulled him into her lap and spent a few moments cuddling. Then she began to speak softly. “You and I both know our mommas are not coming back, but we still have each other, like always.” A tear leaked, and he hugged her. “Mishka and Josella and Susan are our new family. They will love us and take care of us, and one day they will marry me and probably you.”

“For now,” she continued, “You get your own room. You can decorate it any way you choose - except no painting it black.” He giggled and she went on, “Tonight, after I read you a story and tuck you in, you will sleep in your own new bed. I’m going to sleep with the adults. They are going to do sex stuff, and you probably wouldn’t like it. Some day you will, but not yet.”

She looked at him to see if he understood and thought that he did. She added, “If you get lonely or frightened, you can always ask one of us to sleep with you, at least for a while, and you are always welcome in our bed - even if you don’t like the sex stuff.”

Mikey turned his blue eyes on her, then looked at the rest of them and declared, “It’s okay, I understand.” Then he got up and walked over and hugged each of them.

That evening, they all played Yahtzee, and Mikey (who won every round) proved that he really was a math prodigy with a lightning fast ability to calculate odds. After Matilda supervised his bath and tucked Mikey in, it was actually Mishka who read Mikey’s bedtime story from one of the books he had brought with him. Mikey was fully capable of reading for himself, but at bedtime, he wanted to be read to sleep.

While they were giving Mikey time to fall fully asleep, the remaining four sat squeezed together on the sofa. They all felt an intense need to be in contact and sat quietly listening to a series of CDs in the glow of soft, solar-battery-powered lights. After a while, Matilda looked up at Mishka and asked, “So what do we wear to bed?”

“We?” Mishka teased and received a smack on his arm. He persisted, “I don’t remember Josella or Susan inviting you.”

Two additional hands simultaneously smacked the back of his head, and Josella told him, “Stop baiting our sister. It’s gonna happen, and you’re gonna love it!” Turning to Matilda she declared, “Birthday suits, we wear birthday suits. If you get cold feet, socks are optional, but he likes to suck toes - you’d miss out.” Her eyes turned to Mishka, and trying to appear serious, she continued on, “One more time, buster, and you are in negative nookie for the night.”

Recognizing the tease, Mishka was nevertheless curious and asked, “Negative nookie? What’s that?”

It was Susan who answered, “You’d get to lick and suck pussy, but you can’t dip your wick.” She paused for effect, “Actually, we’d never do that to you. It’s such a vengeful, manipulative, cunt trick, but you need to remember that we are all new to each other and to the sex game. Teasing like that might hurt.”

“Duly noted and filed,” Mishka replied. He bent down and kissed Matilda’s upturned face, seeking her soft, full lips, and told her, “You will always be welcome in bed with us, little one! Always!”

Matilda returned the kiss with more than a little ardor, giggled, and replied, “I know. I knew, even without my sisters’ permission. I could feel it.”

Eventually, and not very late into the evening, time came for bed. It had been a long, sweaty day, and a shower was in order for everyone. Mishka, Josella, and Susan were already familiar with the contours of each other’s bodies and wondered how Matilda would handle the nudity and familiarity of the communal shower. No worries, like Susan, she dove in and began washing the various reachable body parts belonging to her new partners.

Curves and the appearance of body hair above her cleft showed clearly, if Matilda hadn’t yet reached menarche, it was not very far off. The surprise for the women was her blond pubic hair - they had assumed that her hair was dyed, but clearly she was a natural blonde.

They looked, and then proceeded on the road to cleanliness. Each head of hair was washed in turn, and protuberance and indentations were again explored. There were many giggles and squeals until the water started running cool. Toweled dry, teeth cleaned, the quartet adjourned to the king sized bed.

Susan declared that she wasn’t ready to lose her cherry until she had her period and got started on the pill. Matilda informed them that her full participation was likely further out. With Josella the designated main event, Mishka was determined that Susan and Matilda, to whatever extent they were comfortable, would nevertheless be included in meaningful demonstrations of affection.

He started with Matilda, first sitting her across his lap as he sat against the headboard. Well, he thought he was going to be the one to start, but she immediately reached up, drew his head down and placed an incredibly sexy kiss on his lips. His response was instant, but he restrained himself, at least the parts that he had voluntary control over, and whispered, “Easy, sexy lady, or we may get further along than you said you wanted.”

Matilda wiggled in his lap, giggled, and whispered back, “You’re fun to tease, and I know you are safe. Wanna know how I know?” She continued without waiting for an answer, “‘Cause you haven’t fucked Susan, and she is much sexier than me; and ‘cause you have Josella, who wants to jump your bones every chance she gets. I can rub and tease all I want - and I want a lot!” She reached up and kissed him again.

Mishka let her rub and wiggle while he kissed her some more, then he handed her over to Josella to cuddle and reached for Susan. Susan almost leapt into his arms and nuzzled her head up under his chin. He kissed the top of her head and told her, “I’ve become awfully fond of you in this short time - each of you, in fact - it seems almost magical.”