Chapter 27

Keri awakened and for a moment she felt disoriented, where was she now? And who was snuggled tightly against her back? Then in only seconds, she realized she was in Karl’s old cabin, but it was so neat and clean! Then she thought back to the previous day. Linda had cleaned the cabin and she’d done so much more. She wondered if Linda knew just how much it meant to her to be here and no longer under everyone’s eye. Say that was funny, she hadn’t realized before that she’d felt pressured by being in the other house, but now she realized she had felt cramped while she was there. It was a relief to be away from her family, knowing that they meant well, but still feeling that they were constantly watching her every move. Actually she felt so relieved in so many ways, it seemed almost like it had been weeks ago that she’d been attacked. For a moment she wondered if that was because of the medications she had been taking or if it was just that yesterday had been a day filled with good news for her and everyone else.

Meanwhile lying at Keri’s back, Linda was wide awake and didn’t dare move. She was worried what Keri’s reaction would be if she found that Linda was cuddling her so closely. Cuddling hell, Keri was wrapped tightly in her arms and Linda’s left hand was on Keri’s left breast, her right hand on Keri’s lower tummy. She knew that she had been awakened by some sort of loud noise and she’d heard Keri’s breathing change. Was Keri awake or was she still sleeping deeply enough that Linda could move away in relative safety? Moving might wake her, but not moving might mean Keri would be frightened by her position. She certainly didn’t want to frighten Keri, but what could she do?

Keri made the decision that she had to get up, either that or she was going to pee the bed. Maybe it was because she was pregnant, or maybe she simply shouldn’t drink so much tea late at night. Whatever it was, as soon as she awakened recently, she’d simply had to rush to the bathroom.

“Linda, are you awake?” she whispered and felt Linda tense and the hand cupping her breast tighten for just an instant, then start to slip away.

“Oh, I was wondering the same thing. Sorry I’m holding you so tight, I know that...”

“Honey, I don’t mind if you cuddle,” Keri giggled softly. “But if you don’t let me go, both of us are going to get peed on.”

“Oops,” Linda squeaked and joined Keri in giggling as she released her hold on Keri’s body. “I wouldn’t want that.”

Keri slipped out of bed and still giggling softly, she ran on tiptoe to the bathroom, causing Linda to laugh.

“Why tiptoe?” she snorted.

“The floor’s cold,” Keri squawked just as she closed the door to the bathroom.

“Oh,” Linda chuckled, then her feet touched the floor as she slipped out of bed herself.

“Aiie, you’re right,” she protested. “We need slippers or else we’ll have to get some rugs. What will this place be like in the winter, especially if the floors are this cold now?”

“Tea or coffee?” she called as she slipped on her shoes and a bathrobe.

“I can’t hear you,” Keri said, her voice muffled. “Just a minute, I’ll be out.”

When she did come out of the bathroom, Linda rushed to take her place, giggling wildly.

“Sorry, but I’ve gotta go now too, dammit.”

“Because I went?” Keri laughed, then realized that Linda couldn’t hear her.

“What was that?” Linda asked a few minutes later when she came out of the bathroom.

“Oh nothing,” Keri was laying back in bed, once more was covered by the blankets.

“Aren’t you feeling good?”

“I’m feeling fine, but I decided it’s too early to get up, it’s not even six in the morning.”

“But we’re wide awake, so ... what do you want to do?”

“Well, let’s see, what was that line Karl said you used on him? ‘I can be a good sleeping pill.’ or ... Well, it was something like that wasn’t it?”

“But I thought...”

“Stop thinking and com’ere. Waking up to that cuddle felt really good,” Keri smiled, her eyes bright. “I can’t promise how long I’ll feel this way, so you’d better take advantage of me while you can.”

“It’s not fair,” Linda giggled as she tossed of the robe and kicked off her shoes then slid into bed.

“What’s not fair?” Keri sighed as they wrapped each other in their arms.

“You’re feeling better and I’m on the rag,” Linda sighed. “I like sharing everything with you.”

“Well, it might be a good thing,” Keri kissed her ever so lightly. “I want to start out slow anyway.”

“Well, that kiss was a little too slow,” Linda sighed as she initiated another.

It was Linda’s voice squealing that Able Seaman Mathews heard a few moments later as she approached the door and recognized the sound for what it was. Inside the little house Keri was grinning as Linda slowly calmed down.

“See, and I didn’t even disturb your precious rag, only it’s a tampon, I felt the string,” she chortled as she sat up, then bent to kiss Linda on one breast.

“Damn, where did you learn to do that?” Linda sighed. “I feel like I got run over by a truck.”

“I had two good teachers,” Keri giggled softly. “Don’t tell me that Karl and Ely haven’t shown you that.”

“I never let Karl get that far. I get too impatient. If you’d been a man, and were playing my clit like that, I’d have yanked you up so you could ... well, drive me home,” Linda laughed softly. “ As far as Ely and me, well we’ve never...”

“Not yet?” Keri looked at her in surprise.

“One day, there’s no rush,” Linda sighed, then decided it was her turn to make Keri squeal.

For several minutes, she gently worshipped Keri’s face with her lips and tongue, then she began to work her way south. It was moments later when she paused at breast level. As she gently caressed both of Keri’s breasts, she looked up into Keri’s eyes.

“When you get closer to your due date, I guess I won’t be able to suckle you, will I?”

“I guess not in the last little while,” Keri whispered. “Will you still want to? By then my tits will probably be all stretched and bloated.”

“I’ll still love ‘em,” Linda declared and sucked on first one nipple, then the other.

“Oh damn, you do that nicely,” Keri sighed.

Linda didn’t respond. She was too busy. Keri felt as if she was having her breasts worshipped and didn’t think there was a square inch that Linda missed kissing or licking. After paying homage to those lovely full breast, she slowly worked her way downward. Several minutes later Linda was extremely busy when she thought she heard someone on the front step, but she never even paused.

Able Seaman Mathews’ knuckles were just poised to knock on the door a second time just as Keri squealed in delight at Linda’s attentions. Instead of knocking, she paused and stared at its blank wood surface.

“Damn, do they ever stop?” she whispered, then grinned and shaking her head, she backed away to take a seat on the steps.

“Orders or not, I know they’re safe, and I refuse to disturb anyone who sounds like they’re having that much fun,” she giggled to herself.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon and it looked like it was going to be a decent day, at least weather wise. Karl hadn’t heard the weather forecast for the day as yet and he sighed again. He suddenly realized that he’d been so involved with the happenings in his immediate surroundings for the last few days that he really hadn’t listened to any of the news. He didn’t know what was happening around the province or around the world. There was at least some reason for that, he’d been staying away from his radios since they were in the room that George and Trudy had been using. After all, he’d wanted to give the two of them as much privacy as he could.

He’d been expecting George to keep him posted and he realized that George hadn’t really been passing any news along unless he was asked directly. He decided that he’d brace George about that later. Contemplating that, he thought it might be an idea if he moved the radios back into the corner of the living room where he’d had them before. That way, as well as putting the radios out in ‘common’ territory, it’d mean that after George and Trudy moved back to their house, David could have that bedroom as his own.

Shifting slightly, he glanced around and noticed that the grass in the goat yard was showing signs of darkening in colour in the day or two that the goats had been in the lower pasture. Thinking about that, and about the fact that Raymonde had felt the cow was going to calve soon, he decided that the cow and calf should be moved back into the upper goat yard. As soon as the cow had her new calf, they could milk her, then no one would have to worry about having to try to catch and milk a nanny goat when they wanted fresh milk. He realized too that he was going to have to do some calculating about the feed situation. There were so many grazing animals on the island now that he didn’t think there was going to be enough hay from George’s meadow to feed them all through the winter. He sighed deeply, maybe keeping the cow and calf wasn’t such a good idea after all, but then keeping cattle might be better than raising goats. He’d have to think about that and consider all the ramifications of changing from one to the other. For now it might be an idea if he just kept fewer goats and slimmed down their numbers.

He paused then, thinking about the fact that he was worrying about mundane everyday problems and he felt a surge of relief. At the moment others were doing the worrying about everyone’s safety and it felt good to relax into the mundane for a moment.

The door behind him opened and he turned to glance back. It was Fran, carrying a plate and cutlery.

“Pancakes and your morning arthritis medication,” she offered them to him.

“I’m not really hungry,” he replied.

“Karl, right now, I’m your doctor, whether you like it or not,” she sighed. “You’ve been driving yourself very hard, mentally if not physically, although you haven’t exactly been sitting still. You need the calorific intake of the food and you need the pain relief from the medications, so eat, please.”

Rather than argue, he swallowed the pills and began to eat the pancakes. Fran walked over and rested her hands on the porch rail, leaning out and sighing softly.

“Something wrong?” he asked between bites.

“Nothing I can do anything about right now,” she whispered. “There are times when I dislike my life choices though.”

Karl couldn’t help but smile. “I think at one time or another we all get to that place, Fran.”

“Even you?” she turned her head to look at him. “I mean, look at you. Of all the people I know it seems to me you have your life set out so well.”

“Oh my no, not really. Every day there seems to be more to worry about. I imagine you’ve noticed yourself that once people find they can rely on you, they start to do it more and more, simply because they know they can. Well, like you, that’s what has happened to me. It seems to me at times that I get called in to help people make even the smallest decisions, and at times it gets to be a bit much, like it has recently,” he shook his head. “I’ll be honest, I’ve been quite happy to have had the military here, yet I’ve found that they’ve asked me my opinion a fair bit too.”

He waved a hand toward the bay. “I was just sitting here and realizing that the action being taken right now is a relief for me. I don’t have to worry about what’s going on and I’m actually quite happy with that. I know that I’m not going to be consulted, so I can completely relax for once. I can honestly say that it feels damn good.”

“I never looked at it that way, but I suppose in a way you’re right,” she looked at him strangely for a second. “And in a way, you’ve hit on what’s bothering me. I’m doing two jobs and sometimes they conflict.”

“I suppose,” he made a wry face. “On one hand you’re making people feel better, healing them and in effect giving them more freedom. Occasionally however, your other job requires you to restrict people’s freedom and force them to follow the government’s wishes.”

“That’s an oversimplification, but it does give you an idea of my personal conflicts,” she smiled wryly as well. “As an example you could look at the other day, I was holding a weapon on a man with one hand while saving his life with the other.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“Oh, you didn’t hear about that?” she arched her eyebrows. “When Springfield and Winchester found Chenkovich, he looked to be in quite bad shape. So I rapelled down to tend to his injuries. I’d started to set up an IV when he awakened and grabbed at me, knocking me back into a weak sandstone outcropping. It was unstable and broke free. Of course it was big enough to have killed both him and me, but Springfield knew what to do, as always. He blocked it’s fall, even if he got hurt while saving us from being crushed. From that point on, all the way to the hospital, I kept one hand near my gun while the other hand was working on saving Chenkovich’s life.”

“That’s a fair example,” Karl smiled. “So, what do you plan to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “My term of enlistment is up in another three months. At the moment I’m not planning to re-up. However it’s hard for a military doctor to make it in the outside world, people seem to think that all we treat are gunshot wounds and they don’t want to trust us.”

“Oh I think folk would soon learn to trust you,” Karl smiled. “I’ve noticed that since you’ve been here you’ve only treated one gunshot wound. Other than that, you’ve treated us for lots of other things and done it darn well.”

“There were two gunshot wounds and has anyone ever told you that you’re a smart ass,” she snapped and spun around to go inside.

“I did it again, Bruno,” Karl sighed deeply as he looked down at the dog. “And this time, I don’t even know what the hell I said.”

After petting the dog for a moment or two, he was about to get up and go inside, but Ely came outside with two cups of coffee.

“Hi slugger,” she smiled, handing him the second cup. “I think you should stay out here for a while longer.”

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily. “It seems that today is my day for putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t think you said anything wrong so much as you said too much right.”

“Whoa, run that by me again,” he turned to stare at her.

“Well, basically from what I’ve heard Fran say, you agreed with her that she shouldn’t be in the Navy and that she’s a damn good doctor.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, didn’t you realize that the Navy paid for her education, so in effect they put her through medical school?”

“Ah, I see, so she feels an obligation to them?”

“Right, and of course her superiors are playing on that to try to get her to reenlist.”

Karl chuckled softly. “Well of course they are.”

“Karl, it’s not funny,” Ely said firmly.

“Oh, but it is, don’t you think the Navy has accountants?”

“What has that got to do with her moral problem?”

“Just forget the morality for a moment, but instead, let’s first go back to basic economics. A trained doctor is worth ‘X’ dollars an hour and she has worked as a trained doctor in the Navy for ‘Y’ years. I’d be willing to bet that ‘X’ times ‘Y’ is a lot higher sum than the cost of educating her was or the Navy would never have done it in the first place. In other words, by serving out her full term of enlistment after training, she has already paid back their investment and a reasonable amount more. From now on anything she does for them while serving as a doctor is a pure profit on their investment.”

“Well, economically perhaps,” Ely frowned.

“Huh, I’m trying to see it not only economically, but ethically. There’s something else you ought to think about as well, the government probably got a discount on her education since the government funds the schools that teach medicine in this country. The person who really put in the investment in her education is Fran. She’s the one who studied and worked and slogged out the time. Besides, in the months that she wasn’t in med. school, I’ll bet she had to work twice as hard as the other people around her, just to learn how to be a decent officer in the Navy. Why don’t you ask her that too?”

“Hmm,” Ely stared at him quizzically, her right hand drifting up to play with the lobe of her ear. “Would you mind if I told her all that?”

“Nope, I don’t,” Karl grinned. “But, I’ll be satisfied if you agree with me.”

“Oh I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think it makes enough sense to repeat it to her and see her reaction. That will tell me if she agrees with you, which is the important question,” Ely smiled as she stood up.

“I’ll tell you what, ask George to do some research on it for her. I’ll bet that by asking a few of his professor friends, he can find out exactly how much the actual cost of her education was. Then she can relate that to how much money a doctor makes in the real world. Compare a regular doctor’s standard of living to hers in the Navy and she can see what’s what.”

“You’re that confident?”

“Yep,” he grinned, handing her his two empty cups and the plate that Fran had brought him. “As for me, I’m going to take my dog for a short walk and check out the lean-to that Lyle and Raymonde built to put the cow in.”

“Is it okay for you to be walking around?” she asked. “I thought we were under orders to restrict our movement.”

“I wasn’t told that directly, but I’ll find out, won’t I?” he grinned and before she could say anything more, he got up, quietly called Bruno to come with him, then stepped down off the porch.

Karl knew that the military really didn’t want him watching as they retrieved the smuggled box of radioactive material from the bay. Still, he wanted to know just how far the Navy would go to limit his freedom of movement, so while eating his breakfast he’d decided to check it out. Reasoning that they would at least warn him if he was going too far from his front door, he set off across his front yard, moving toward the old goat shed. He and Bruno had only walked a few steps when he saw a figure in a Navy uniform, someone must have been guarding the old cabin where Keri and Linda were now staying. In seconds, the figure was moving toward him and he instantly recognized that it was Gillian Mathews.

“Good Morning,” he called softly as she approached, noticing that she was still walking stiffly, and assumed by her movement that she was still feeling considerable pain from her ribs.

“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, then sighed. “I’m sorry Karl, but I need to ask, where are you planning on going?”

“Well, I was going to check out the work that had been done yesterday at the goat shed and around that area,” he smiled at her. “I promise I won’t attack the troops down by the bay. I won’t even go over to the edge of the gorge and peek.”

“Oh. Well, like I said, I had to ask. Do you mind if I come along? I was supposed to keep an eye on the small cabin and the two young women there, but...” she giggled. “Well, from the sounds I heard, I don’t think they’d like to be disturbed right now and I doubt very much if they are going to run off either.”

“Oh,” Karl chuckled, then paused and looked thoughtful. “You know, if it weren’t for your ribs and the present situation, I’d give you a hug for telling me that. That’s very good news.”

“It is?” she stared at him in surprise. “I was somewhat worried about telling you the truth, thinking that it might upset you.”

“Well, after Keri got attacked, she didn’t want anyone touching her. From what you’ve just said, I jumped to the conclusion that they might have been...” his quietly voiced comment trailed off for a second or two. “Well, perhaps ‘getting to know each other better’ would be a good description?”

“Only perhaps?” she broke into a giggle. “To be honest I think it might be a bit more than that. I don’t know for sure, but when I knocked on the door a short while ago, they ignored me, so you could say I was making assumptions. From the sound of things though, someone was sure ‘getting to know’ someone else, and quite well too!”

“Well, consider yourself in my debt for one big hug,” he grinned. “But you might want to collect it sometime when I’m not afraid to touch you for fear that I’d be encroaching upon the essential space of a military guard on duty.”

“Hey, I most certainly will take you up on that, sometime in the future though. Like you said, right now wouldn’t be a good time,” she giggled. “Besides, let’s wait for my ribs to heal, huh? If all I’m going to ‘get physical’ with you for saving my life, I want to have it be comfortable, not painful. If you even hugged me a little bit now, I might scream in pain, then we’d probably both be sorry.”

He just grinned and began to walk slowly toward the goat shed with her near his side. They looked inside it when they got there and Karl was amazed at how organized it looked, then he moved on to check the lean-to that the ‘boys’ had built.

From the looks of it, it had been built from scraps of lumber and short timbers that he’d had lying around. Actually, when he looked closer he could see that the five uprights holding the walls were actually small trees that had been topped, and limbed, but left standing and used as vertical supports. The rafters of the roof were made up from lengths cut from saplings, trimmed of branches and cut to length. Then they’d been covered with an old tarp, which was held in place with old boards, branches and ropes. Two of the walls were made using small logs and large branches, laced to horizontally positioned timbers, which were tied to the five vertical tree trunks with ropes. The goat shed served as a third wall and the fourth wall was simply a tarp strung on a rope, which could be slid aside to serve as a door. The resulting shack wasn’t fancy, but it would serve to keep a cow and a calf or two out of the weather, at least temporarily.

“Well, they did say it was temporary, but considering that it’s made out of junk and whatever they could find lying around, it’s pretty damn good,” Karl chuckled as he looked it over.

“It is, isn’t it,” Gillian grinned. “So, where else do you plan on going?”

“Well, I don’t suppose Don, I mean Commander Davis, is in the command tent is he?”

“No, I’m afraid he left almost an hour ago, since he wanted to be as near as possible to the dive team when they went down,” she smiled. “The only person in any of the tents is Peacock, and he’s here to keep a radio watch.”

“Well I won’t bother going down there then. Besides, I suppose I should actually go back to the house, and allow you to carry on with your guard duty,” he grinned. “I hope you realize that the ladies may not be out for a while.”

“That doesn’t bother me. Actually I should head back there though. You are heading right for your house, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m being lazy is all. You see I’m only on limited duties because of my ribs and walking is a bit painful, so...”

“And mean old Karl had you walking all over hell’s half acre,” he sighed. “I’m just not using my head today.”

“Oh no, don’t think that,” she protested. “I can walk, it’s just that I’m slow and moving around does hurt a bit. Do you really think Lieutenant Baker would let me do anything if she felt that I’d hurt myself?”

“No, I suppose she wouldn’t,” he smiled at her. “However, now I insist on walking with you back to the girl’s cabin. I wouldn’t want to have one of Fran’s patients come to harm because I screwed up or was inattentive.”

“Hey, who’s guarding who here?” she grinned.

Oh, you’re guarding me of course, but Bruno is guarding both of us,” he smiled and gestured toward the dog. “Actually, I’ve never had him spend so much time around the house before.”

“As I understand it, he was injured though. I can see he’s still limping.”

“Yeah, but he’s usually a very independent dog,” Karl explained. “Generally he doesn’t even eat the dog food I give him. In fact, I don’t know what he lives on. Look how close he’s staying to us, that’s not normal, not even for the last few days. He knows something unusual is happening.”

“I just hope it’s not a presentiment of problems,” Gillian sighed as they reached the steps to the smaller cabin.

“Oh, I doubt it. I think he’s just being protective and pretending to be a tame dog right now, as opposed to the half-wild dog he usually is, but I imagine he’ll only do that while he heals,” he responded. “Now, here you are safe and sound. I’ll see you later.”

With that, Karl turned and walked back toward his cabin. He’d hardly reached the bottom steps when he heard the sound of a helicopter. From the sound it was actually a very large, multiple-engined helicopter, so he turned to look for it. He couldn’t see it from where he was standing and decided it wouldn’t be worth his while to try to hurry to get glance at it. He knew it would be going to the lower area anyway, rather than landing in the goat run. He surmised that it was probably bringing in the haz-mat team and would be flying off with the sunken box that the Navy divers had found.

Instead of concerning himself with that situation right now, he climbed the steps and went inside the cabin. Surprisingly, George was the only person in the kitchen or living room, and he was simply sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee.

“Morning George, where’s everyone at?” he asked.

“Oh, David was upstairs looking out your bedroom windows and called down about a big helicopter that he could see. Mary-Beth immediately wanted to see it as well and I suppose the women followed her out of curiosity. At least all of them hurried upstairs,” he smiled, then tried to look apologetic. “By the way, please accept my full apologies for disturbing you and Ely this morning, there are times when I simply forget that others do not live by my schedule.”

“I guess that happens to all of us George, but it wasn’t just you,” Karl sighed, then glanced around feeling sheepish about his earlier annoyance. “It’s just that in the last few days it seems to me that I’m getting screwed out of ... Well, out of enjoying life.”

“Oh, I understand that. But, indeed, last night was certainly an early enough night for everyone. Since you two were alone upstairs for the first time in days, I would have thought you would have taken advantage of that circumstance,” George actually looked slightly embarrassed. “I had supposed...”

“Hah, Ely and I were both so damned exhausted by all the happenings of the last few days that we fell asleep,” Karl snorted, interrupting him. “But, that’s not important right now, and to change the subject, have you heard the weather forecast this morning, by any chance?”

“Yes, actually there is a clearing and warming trend predicted for our area. It seems the low pressure area that was bringing us all the rain and stormy weather is moving off and we should have several days of fine weather,” George smiled. “As well, I heard that Mount St. Helens has stopped rumbling and is now only smoking. However, there have been severe mud slides and massive flooding in the downslope areas of the rivers that drain that area.”

“Anything further in the way of earthquake activity that might affect us?”

“Well, there have been a few minor aftershocks, but nothing major for several days. I’m of the opinion that the tectonic plates have settled into a relatively stable attitude. Of course how long that will last is anyone’s guess,” George sighed deeply then. “However on the medical front, things seem to have degraded even further. It would appear that the influenza outbreak is running rampant, virtually worldwide. There have been hints and rumours that it is spreading even to nations that closed their borders as fast as they could. I have fears that the disease is becoming a pandemic.”

“A pandemic?” Karl questioned.

“Yes, a pandemic, in other words a world wide epidemic. It seems that Canada has been the only country which has produced a vaccine which has any effect on reducing infection. Unfortunately even the Canadian vaccine is only effective in the range of sixty to seventy percent of the time. On top of that, they seem to unable to fathom the reason why Canadian virology procedures are producing a more viable vaccine while the efforts of other countries are failing.”

“Aren’t the procedures the same everywhere?”

“They are relatively similar. However, it seems that each country’s labs and production facilities do vary,” George sighed. “The last news I heard, the scientists were suspecting that there was a difference in the feed used for the hens that produced the eggs which were used in culturing the original antiviral agent. I must admit that I am at somewhat of a loss as to understanding why that would make a difference however.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t on the radio trying to find out,” Karl smiled.

“To be frank, after several days of hearing bad news from all over the world, I have decided to take a short break,” George frowned. “Even I can only stand hearing a certain amount of depressing news.”

“Well, that’s good news for me then,” Karl smiled. “I was going to suggest that we get the radios and the radio desk moved back out into the corner of the living room by the fireplace. That way everyone can get at them and no single individual will need to listen to all depressing news. At the same time, it would mean that you and Trudy can have a room of your own for now and once your house is repaired, David can have his own bedroom. Since the military would probably prefer us to stay inside until they’re done fishing for the box, I thought today would be a perfect day to tackle the job.”