Chapter 46

The snap of the firing pin striking the breech face caused Linda to jerk and cry out in terror. She slowly opened her eyes and took her mouth off the barrel, letting the shotgun fall to the floor as she slid off the edge of the bed. Loud, heaving sobs shook her body and she screamed at the top of her lungs. Then she reached for the shotgun and pulled back the forearm. The sight of the empty breach made her cry and scream even harder.

Tossing it aside, she dragged herself into the bathroom with her belly heaving and lurching. Making it just in time, she lifted the toilet seat and puked her dinner into the porcelain bowl. When her stomach was empty, she collapsed onto the tile floor and stared up at the ceiling.

Her house was dead. No electricity, no heat. No conversation or laughter. No love. No Kristin. She squeezed her eyes shut and choked on her sobs. She’d never felt so alone.

Oh god, that video. They all reviled her now. She was no better than that lowlife child molester, Mike Messina. Worse even, because she’d been the loudest voice against him, riling up anyone who would listen. Urging them to grab their torches and pitchforks and join with her in the lynch mob.

Her credibility and reputation were destroyed. No one would ever listen to her now. At best, she was the worst kind of diabolical hypocrite imaginable. At worst, she had projected her own sick depravity onto poor old Mike. Either way, the presumption of his innocence was now assured. He would be viewed as the victim, and she the villain.

How did things ever get so far out of hand? It was never supposed to be this way. She never intended to fire Mike that day in her office. When Kristin found the packing slip from the medical distributor behind Mike’s lab, and the order was determined to have been delivered to his office, Linda had been alarmed, but also intrigued. Everything on that list was intended for use in a sexual context. What was he planning to do with it all?

Of course, she’d heard the rumors floating around campus that he was sleeping with some of the students, but she assumed they were just that. Rumors and gossip. Wishful thinking and speculative fantasizing among the desperate little sluts whose panties soaked whenever they looked at their gorgeous teacher.

Then Anne-Marie came to Linda’s office, crying hysterically, and showed her Mike’s porn videos. Linda knew immediately it was him. The resemblance was unmistakable, especially the tattoo. She went home to watch them all. Stripping down, she lay in her bed and fucked herself with her dildo to countless orgasms. She was enthralled by him. The way he commanded those young women. The way he fucked them with that huge, magnificent cock of his.

Linda saw a golden opportunity. A chance to connect with the man who’d previously spurned her. She understood the unspeakable urges the compelled him. He was, after all, just like her. A teacher who was sexually attracted to his young teenage students.

The idea had been to confront him with the overwhelming evidence of his depravity, then use it as a wedge to open up a dialogue. She would play the part of the sympathetic colleague and concerned friend, a forgiving mother, and encourage him to talk about it openly, without fear of judgment or reprisal. She’d hold his hands and look into his eyes. I completely understand, Mike. How could anyone, especially a man as attractive and virile as you, ever be expected to resist such delicious temptations?

Once she had secured his full confession, secretly taped of course, she would have felt safe enough to share her own dark weakness for young, innocent flesh. A fortuitous bonding of two people consumed by their illicit desires. She would have promised to keep his secret. No one else would ever have to know. You’re safe here, Mike. Free to partake of any of the young girls here who catch your eye.

Then, after giving him permission and a private space in her house to indulge his appetites, she would use his taped confession as leverage to insist on joining him in bed, so that they could share in such forbidden delights together.

It would have been paradise. But it all fell apart with his angry, vociferous denials. She was taken aback. How could he stand there and lie in the face of such overwhelming evidence? Then he brought up that damn party, and her temper got the better of her. She overreacted without thinking, because she was still hurt and angered by his rejection.

After that, nothing else mattered. She wanted him gone for good. He was too deep in denial, and would be a constant reflection of her own forbidden yearnings. She needed to force him out, but then he escalated it by involving that lawyer, Rachel’s father. By then, it was too late to back down. She had created such an uproar, that to reverse her stance would have been seen as weakness, and an admission of fault. Her vanity, arrogance, and self-righteousness killed any chance for reconciliation.

The world had changed, but she refused to change with it, and the deep, crushing regret she now felt for her prideful choices rended her soul. Her relentless pursuit of vengeance destroyed what could have been a beautiful partnership with Mike. Instead of lying on her bathroom floor as a pariah, she could have supported his cause and become his most trusted ally. She could have lived the rest of her life in sexual bliss with him, only without the terrible stigma that her dark desires and fantasies had carried in the world before.

Was it too late? Was there any chance, no matter how miniscule, to salvage something from this disaster? It didn’t seem possible, but Linda was a survivor, and she was smart. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to turn back the clock thirty days, but she didn’t need to do that. She only needed to go back thirty minutes. Before that awful video.

It would take a superhuman effort on her part to undo the terrible damage that had been done. They all saw her as a vindictive monster. A hypocritical, pedophile rapist. How could she possibly overcome that?

Then she saw it. Her path to redemption! It had been in front of her the entire time, staring her in the face! Linda scrambled to her feet and began to tear off her clothes.

“ ... Raptor’sh Roosht, thish ... is Cedar Keep. Over.”

Kali and Draper had both heard the cries and yelling coming from Overton House, but figured it was just the crowd reacting to Mike’s movie. It wasn’t time for a check in yet, so something must be up. Kali fumbled to put on her headset, then simply held it against her ear and thumbed the push-to-talk button to respond to Charmagne’s call.

“Go ahead, Cedar. This is Roost. Over.”

“ ... Roosht, we goatta shituation ... brewin at the Keep ... Linda took off running and shhe ain’t come back, but I ... wan put eyes on her house in case she ... does. Over.”

The latest software upgrade on the static filters had improved the sound quality by an order of magnitude, which was fortunate because the Staff Sergeant liked to talk fast. Kali looked at Draper, who’d managed to get his headset in place to listen and was already sighting in on the sniper rifle. He hissed.

“Shit, come on! Move, you stupid fucking clouds! Alright, here we go. Okay, I see it. No movement. Scanning the perimeter.”

“Copy that, Cedar. We’ve got eyes on it. No movement. Anything specific we should be looking for? Over.”

“ ... Jusht keep your eyes open ... n let me know if you ... spot her. Keep out.”

“Did you copy that, Draper?” Kali asked.

“Loud and clear, Sarge.”

What the hell was going on down there?

Mike was livid. He pushed his way through the crowd to confront Endora, who was unplugging her laptop from the rear of the AVR. He hadn’t noticed her plug it in, but she could have done it at any point during the evening after he’d set up the equipment.

“What the fuck did you do?” he demanded to know.

Endora casually coiled the HDMI cable around her hand and regarded him dismissively. “You didn’t want to do it the other way, so I came up with something else.”

“I fucking told you not to get involved! That I’d handle it myself!”

“It didn’t have anything to do with you, Mike. This was between me and her.”

“You fucking drugged her!” he yelled, his fury drawing the attention of others. “You drugged her and you raped her, just like you drugged and raped me!”

“No,” she said cooly. “That was different. Besides, you already forgave me for that. Now, and for all time. Remember that?”

His face twisted into an expression of shocked disbelief. “Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a fucking sociopath, you know that?”

Endora merely shrugged, then gathered up her laptop. “Now you’re safe, Mike. You’re welcome.”

He pointed at her and said, “Just stay the fuck away from me, from now on. You hear me? Stay the fuck away!”

Mike turned away from her before she could respond, and stalked back to where Charmagne and Rachel stood waiting for him.

“What was that all about?” Rachel asked, noting the scowl on his face.

“She’s going to cause a fucking riot,” he said bitterly. He looked at Charmagne. “I need to say something to them. Before they go down there and burn her house down around her.”

“Maybe that’s what she deserves,” Charmagne said with a shrug.

“No! Christ, are you listening to yourself? She didn’t do anything that I haven’t already done. Should they come after me next?”

“It ain’t about the sex, Mike,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Shit, I know exactly what them fucking girls did to her. No, the problem is, she’s a fucking cunt, and one of these days, she’s gonna do something that gets one of us killed. One way or another, she’s gotta go.”

“I don’t disagree, but I won’t kill her, and I won’t just toss her out to starve to death or worse,” Mike said. “Maybe we can set her up with those refugees from FreshVale.”

“You’d really inflict her on those poor people?” Rachel asked, then raised her hands when she saw his reaction. “Alright...”

Mike looked around, noting the many heated conversations, angry faces, and fingers starting to point toward Linda’s house. Shit.

“Let’s talk about this later,” he said. “I need to do something before this gets out of hand.”

He started to move toward the karaoke machine, but Charmagne grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Wait. Maybe it’s time to get this out in the open.”

“Get what out in the open?”

“Emancipating them girls, Mike. All you gotta do is declare it, like it’s already a done deal. Cause it is. They’ll listen to you.”

Mike slowly nodded, then resumed his course, picking up the microphone. He switched it on and banged it several times to get everyone’s attention.

“Hey, people! Listen up! Everyone, I need you to listen right now!”

“HEY! QUIET DOWN!”

Marcus’s booming voice cut through the din, and everyone quieted and turned to look. Mike gave him an appreciative nod and lifted the mic.

“I understand you’re all concerned about what we just saw, but let us deal with that later. Right now, I need to talk to you all about something much more important.” He looked around the crowd until he spotted her. “Alexis! Alexis Campbell, would you please come up here? And anyone else supporting the Freedom Now movement, please make your way forward.”

He decided not to use their slogan, seeing no need to further agitate those against the movement, and especially not those still sitting on the fence. Alexis came forward. She was still naked, but wrapped in a blanket for warmth. She gave him what had to be the sexiest, most wanton look he’d seen in a very long time, and quickly pulled open the blanket to flash him, but thankfully she didn’t reach for him or try to kiss him.

When a dozen girls had gathered in front of the projection screen with him, including Endora, who wisely stood at the very end, he put his hand on Alexis’s shoulder and took a deep breath.

“I’m sure no one has failed to notice the protest that’s been going on inside Overton House in recent days. These ladies, and many of their supporters,” he said, looking directly at Haylee, who was also naked and bundled in a blanket, “including Haylee, myself, Charmagne, Rachel, and Eric have started an important conversation that we all need to pay attention to and take seriously.”

He paused to look down at Alexis and smiled at her. Then he surveyed the crowd and lifted the microphone.

“Most of you know me as Mr. Messina, the science teacher here at Scirewood Academy, but that’s not really who I am anymore. I’m just Mike. A fellow survivor, no different than any of you. One of many. But we’re not just survivors of a catastrophe. We’re also the architects of a new beginning.” He looked up at Overton House and swung his hand out to indicate it. “Every single one of us standing here tonight has worked and sacrificed to make this the place we now call home.

“I look around this crowd and I see young people, those the old world might have called children, carrying responsibilities far heavier than their years. They’ve shown courage that demands respect, and strength that deserves recognition. These young women you see all around you are not kids. They helped find and secure your food, they built your radios, they cooked your meal tonight, and some of them even keep watch over you while you sleep. They’re living as adults, making choices that shape our little society here every single day.”

Mike pointed to the sky and lowered his voice. “Asterius changed our world forever. It’s deadly ray didn’t just kill hundreds of millions of people. It tore the very fabric of our civil society into millions of tiny pieces. The moment that happened, the rule of law we once depended on for our safety and security evaporated into thin air. But it didn’t stay that way for long. A different law took its place. Not a new law, but an ancient one. A law as old as life itself. The Law of Nature. And believe me when I tell you, Nature is a cruel and unforgiving lawmaker.

“Despite this undeniable truth, however, we still cling to the old rules. Like the one that says you’re not an adult until you’re eighteen. Why? That rule doesn’t match the reality we live in now. It’s like using a map for roads that no longer exist.”

Sensing that he now had the crowd, Mike stepped forward and raised his voice.

“Our reality is that if you’re contributing like an adult, then you are an adult. It’s that simple. We don’t need ballots to affirm what we see with our own eyes. We don’t need old laws to tell us what’s right. What we need is to make it official in the way we live and the way we treat each other. If you’re here, contributing to this society, then you’ve earned the fucking right to be called an adult. Period!

He held the microphone with both hands, the intensity and conviction evident on his face and in his voice.

“It’s not just about age! It’s about life, and choice, and survival! It’s about recognizing those among us who’ve stepped up! Who’ve proven themselves time and again! We need to let go of the old rules! Let’s look at each other and see the truth of what we are: a community of equals, fighting together, living together, loving together, and making this new world of ours ... TOGETHER!”

Mike raised the microphone in the air, and the girls in the crowd erupted into screaming cheers and applause. Alexis shrugged off her blanket and thew herself against him, hugging her naked body tightly against his. She was quickly joined by others, until he was completely swarmed by naked girl flesh.

Bringing the microphone lower, he held it out to the crowd. Their cheers intensified, and they surged forward to join with the rest. Then he brought the microphone to his lips and began to chant.

“My pussy, my choice! My pussy, my choice!”

The crowd of girls fell in with him, screaming the refrain at the tops of their lungs. My pussy, my choice! My pussy, my choice!

“What the fuck is going on down there?” Kali wondered aloud, leaning over the railing to peer through tiny gaps and thin spots in the swirling mist.

“Kaylee’s naked right now, that’s what’s going on,” Eric said bitterly.

With the crowd whipped into a churning mass of support, Mike lifted his hands to quell them until the twenty-seven former students stood quietly, their eager faces hanging on his next words. He lowered the microphone but kept his other hand in the air, and directed his next comments to the former teachers, staff, and national guardsmen standing at the periphery.

“We don’t need to take a vote. These young women have made the decision for themselves, and have taken what is rightfully theirs. But I want to let them know that the rest of us support their choice. Who here is willing to publicly stand with me and recognize their status as fully capable and responsible adults?”

Charmagne, Haylee, and Rachel immediately raised their hands to several claps and cheers. Then Theresa and Marcus’s hands slowly lifted into the air to join them, eliciting praise and gratitude from the students. Adrián and Fulton shared a look, and Adrián knocked him softly in the ribs with the back of his hand.

“Come on, Sarge,” he said and raised his hand. Several students catcalled and whistled their appreciation.

Only Renata and Fulton remained. They looked at each other, then Renata crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.

“I cannot and will not support this, Mike! It’s wrong!” She was nearly drowned out by boos and hisses, but Mike quieted them down so she could speak. Renata appealed directly to the students. “I’m sorry, but you’re all just kids. Girls. For god’s sake, some of you are the same age as my daughter! Your bodies and your brains are still developing. Why are you all in such a rush to grow up?”

Fulton crossed his arms as well. “I agree with Renata. I can’t support this either.”

Adrián looked at him with shock and disappointment. “You serious?”

“I am,” Fulton said with a resolute nod. “They’re too young.”

“Mike!” Endora said, drawing his attention. She held out her hand. “Give me the microphone.”

Despite how disgusted he felt about what she’d done to Linda, Mike wouldn’t prevent her from advocating for herself and the others. He handed her the microphone. Then he noticed Fulton grow ashen. He held up his hands and shook his head with a look of terror on his face.

Endora looked right at him. “You didn’t think Amelia was too young when you fucked the shit out of her in my room during the movie earlier tonight, Fulton.”