Chapter 9

Day 128 - September 26

Syl and I were sipping coffee, naked for a change since we were just family in our RV again, when she came over and sat on my lap. "Could we make a run to a drug store this morning, Ed?" she asked.

"Sure, what do you need, Sweety?"

"A pregnancy test kit. I know it's early, but I should have started my period the day before yesterday. I'm never late, but I am."

I kissed her until our toes curled. Sometime during the kiss, Evie came in. She just watched us until we'd finished then looked at us quizzically. "Syl may be pregnant," I said.

Evie laughed. "If that kiss is any indication, I can understand why."

We were still laughing when Chris came in, looking for coffee. We had to explain to her what we had been laughing about.

"I'm not set up for it yet, but I want to keep close track of you if you are pregnant, Syl," Chris said. "I know of at least two other women who think they're pregnant as well. One thinks she's about three months along. I'm not saying this to scare anyone, but we don't know if IT had any side effects that would carry on to our children. Most likely, there wouldn't be any since you didn't come down with IT yourself, but I'd still like to keep track."

"You know, Chris, I was just thinking. You were talking about fixing up that RV as a mobile hospital. Why don't we look for a mobile hospital that is already fixed up instead? I'm sure the military has them, and there are probably private ones as well."

"That's not a bad idea, Ed. The military ones probably have generators in place to run the equipment as well. I wonder where we might find one."

"Let's ask Rob before he goes hog hunting today. He was in the Army. He might know."

"That sounds good. Say, I have a question for you. Do you realize that you and Syl are naked?"

"Yes, we're that way most of the time. We wore clothes while Alicia, Bonnie and Evie were staying with us because we didn't want to force them to be around nudity if it bothered them. We figured us being nude; especially when Evie woke up might have been traumatic for them due to the situation they had been in. I guess that's a little hypocritical because we are saying nudity is appropriate at any time."

"Well, as I told you before, I don't have anything against it. I was just wondering why you were naked now and hadn't been before."

"Syl, why don't we do the interviews in the nude today? It might help to get our point across."

"Not a problem," Syl said. "Tina and Tiffany won't mind and Sandy will be thrilled." Syl turned to Chris and said, "It's hard for us to get Sandy to put on clothes, even when she's cooking."

Chris and Evie laughed. "I'll join you in the nude for the interviews, if you'd like," Evie said. "I do believe you're on to something about being nude helping us to be more open with each other."

"No, at least for today, I'd like for you and Chris to stay clothed. This lets people know that nudity isn't mandatory."

"Okay, than makes sense."

It wasn't long after that when Rob came in. I asked him about mobile army hospitals. He thought for a minute then said, "The closest army hospital I know of is at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. If I remember right, it's about a hundred and fifty miles from here. I'd bet anything they have mobile hospital units."

"Do you know how to get there?" I asked.

"No, I was there once, a few years ago. I think it's on I-44."

Tina, Sandy, and Tiffany had come in by now, so we explained to them what was going on.

"Ed, do you think you could do without me in the interviews today? I'd really like to see if I can find one of those mobile hospitals." Chris asked.

"I think we can," I said. "One of the women we interviewed yesterday is a nurse. Maria something. We'll see if we can get her to do the exam. Actually, I'd like to go with you. I'd like to see if there is any military equipment we could use. Syl, do you think the four of you and Evie could handle the interviews?"

Syl looked over at Evie, who nodded her approval. "Yes, Ed, but I'd ask for you to take Tina with you. We have no idea what you might come up against, and I'd feel better knowing your back was protected."

"I agree. Are you willing to accompany us, Tina? We might have to spend the night there."

"Sure. The interviews are boring anyway. Besides, I don't know if I'd trust my virile husband spending the night alone with this gorgeous creature." Tina was grinning when she said it, but I wondered if there might be a little truth in it anyway.

Everyone got a laugh out of that then I asked Rob if he'd find us a car we could drive over to the fort. He took off immediately.

Rob was back within a half an hour with a nice Lincoln Town Car. "Might as well go in style," he said. He had filled it with gasoline and had two-five gallon cans of gasoline in the trunk. While he was gone, Tina and Chris had put together enough food to last us for the trip.

We got on I-44 just outside of St. Louis and headed west. The drive was pleasant and although it took us a little over three hours to get there, it wasn't boring at all.

We found that Chris had been an internist. "An internist specializes in internal medicine," she told us. "It's the closest thing to a general practitioner there is today. I've done everything from treating a cold to delivering a baby and I've even done some minor surgery. I liked it because it was so diverse."

I told Chris about my specialty and of how I'd survived IT. Tina told her of how we had met and how we had met Syl.

"You had those flyers printed up before you met Syl?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, we'd already distributed quite a few of them before we met her," I said.

"You two are truly amazing then. You are truly non-prejudiced."

"Yep," Tina and I both said.

We took exit 161 to Fort Leonard Wood and found we were only about three miles from the entrance to the base. It seemed strange to drive up to the gate and not have a sentry challenge us. We found a map of the base posted on a board just inside the gate and it showed us how to get to the hospital. We'd have found it anyway because there were hospital signs pointing the direction.

The hospital itself was impressive. It looked like a hospital in any city in the US, not just a care facility for an army base. We drove around it first and didn't see anything that resembled a mobile hospital. I was feeling a little let down, but Chris suggested we go inside and see if we could find anything out.

We searched through the offices and found several references to a mobile hospital and a mobile lab. It took us almost two hours before we found something that gave us their location.

The vehicles were located in a huge hanger like building. There were actually two of the patient care buses and two mobile labs. I had never seen vehicles like these in my life. Each of them looked like a huge, white bus with a large red cross on the top, sides, front and rear. They were about twelve feet wide and fifty feet long. The first patient care vehicle had two examination rooms and six beds. Both of them had portable x-ray machines and ultrasound machines along with every type of diagnostic equipment imaginable. The other patient care vehicle was a surgical unit and was set up with a complete surgery that would handle anything from removing a splinter to bypass surgery. Each lab was a complete, functional medical laboratory. Chris said we could get by with one of them, but we decided to take them both anyway.

I was impressed and Chris was like a kid with a new toy. She bounced back and forth from vehicle to vehicle making unintelligible noises and smiling so bright she could have lighted the vehicles.

"You know we're going to have to make another trip, don't you?" I asked Chris.

"Yeah, I guess so. I hate to think of leaving these things after we found them, but I don't think I could drive one of them."

"Since there are only three of us and since our policy is that every vehicle will have a guard, we'd only be able to take one even if we could all drive them."

"Okay. Are we going to sleep in the one with these beds tonight?"

"Probably, unless we find somewhere on the base that would be more comfortable. Are you ladies ready to do a little exploring of the base?"

We drove around for a while and I finally found what I was looking for, the armory. It didn't look like anyone had been around it. The doors were locked and I couldn't see any immediate way to get in.

"We need to bring a large group back with us on the next trip," I told the ladies. "I don't expect we'll have trouble from other groups for a long time, but it's best to be prepared. There are a lot of things that would make our village more secure stored in this building, and I mean to get some of them."

Chris seemed uncomfortable with that, but I thought I noticed a little gleam in Tina's eyes as we talked about weapons. "You know, there's an airfield attached to this base. I wonder if Rob could get a helicopter going. It might be nice to have one available to us."

"That would be very cool," Tina said. "I've never ridden in a helicopter."

We looked around a little more, but didn't find any place we wanted to spend the night, so we drove back to where the mobile hospitals were stored. After we ate the dinner meal they had packed for us, we made it an early night and sacked out on the hospital beds.

Day 129 - September 27

You know, I had gotten so used to my creature comforts that I woke up grumpy because I didn't have my morning coffee. Ain't life a bitch? We ate some granola bars and had a warm soda for breakfast.

The first order of business was to get the (for want of a better word to describe the mobile hospital) van running. I had noticed the night before new batteries of the type that all you had to do was add acid to the batteries and they would be fully charged. I charged a new one and exchanged it with the one in the van.

I'll give the old army credit. Their maintenance had been superb. The vehicle started with little effort. There was only about a quarter of a tank of diesel in one of the two tanks the van sported and the other one was near empty. I suggested we scout around a little more while the van warmed up. I had an ulterior motive.

I drove us to the PX and just smiled when Chris asked me why I was breaking in. Once inside, I found us a new automatic coffee maker, a can of coffee, some travel mugs, and a five-gallon jug of water. Chris and Tina were smiling too as we pushed our cart out to the car and loaded it in.

We had coffee brewing within five minutes of getting back to the van. While the coffee maker was doing its thing, I pulled the van over to the fueling area, which was, fortunately, gravity fed and started filling the tanks.

We sipped coffee while the tanks filled and I was in a much better mood when we pulled the monster vehicle out onto the street. This thing was huge and very different from driving an eighteen wheeler or the RV. I had to take corners much wider and I ended up using the entire road.

After we got out on I-44, things were much smoother. The trip back didn't take any more time than the trip out had, until we got onto city streets. We were back at the Wal-Mart shortly after noon.

There were at least five or six more RVs in the parking lot when we got back. One of them was Bill's and two more belonged to the women he had rescued in Muncie, Indiana. I talked to Bill for a few minutes and he agreed to tell us about everything they'd done later in the day.

My wives and Evie had interviewed four families yesterday and two more this morning, so we talked to them first.

"We didn't find any problems with any of them really," Syl told us. "There might be a potential problem with one group, but we decided to invite them anyway."

"There are four women in the family and no men," Evie said. "The leader is Jan Hastings. She is one hundred percent pure lesbian. There's nothing wrong with that, especially since there are so many more women than men now. The potential problem exists because the other three women in the group are all bisexual. If any of these women decide at some point they'd like to hook up with a man and start a family, we don't know how Jan is going to react to that."

"You did right to invite them," I said. "There are probably enough other women who would like to hook up with Jan that they would more than replace any of the group who wanted out. We'll just have to see what happens."

Rob and John had found the tranquilizer guns they wanted, but not soon enough to do any hunting. I asked Rob to go around to all of the people we had interviewed and find out if any of them could drive an eighteen wheeler. John said he had worked as a driver part time.

"John, do you know if any of these people are aircraft mechanics?"

"Not that I know of. Would you like for me to check?"

"Yeah, talk to everyone. I see there's some new RVs in the lot. You might want to talk to the new people as well."

"Will do," John said as he got up to leave.

"So, Evie," I said after Rob and John had taken off, "How's the arm and ribs feeling?"

"Much better, Ed. My ribs still hurt a little when I get into some positions, but nothing I can't live with. I'm completely off any type of pain killers now."

"Good. Evie, you didn't deserve what happened to you. None of you did. It's good to see all of you are in such good spirits."

"Part of that is because of you, Ed. Before IT happened, there was a stigma attached to a rape victim. People looked at a victim as if they must be at least partially at fault. That's why many rapes were never reported. Even when they were reported, trials took months and sometimes years. The woman was spotlighted during the entire time. You, on the other hand, had a trial the very next day and justice was meted out at the end of the trial. Alicia, Bonnie and I were never submitted to the tortures that women prior to IT had to suffer." Our eyes locked again and this time held for some time.

"That's exactly why I want our new laws to be set up the way we talked about. If a potential offender knows that he or she is going to be punished if they're caught and that the punishment is going to be immediate, it might make them think twice about doing something."

"Why the hell did you have to have so many damned wives already, Ed? You're the kind of guy I could really fall for." Oh, those eyes. They can certainly get you in trouble.

I laughed. "Evie, I was hesitant about taking up with Tina, because she was so young. I was hesitant about taking up with Syl, because I was already with Tina. I hardly fought at all when Sandy wanted to join out marriage, and I was almost anxious for Tiffany to become our wife. I think I fell in love with you the first morning we talked."

"You really mean that?"

"Talk to my wives, if you're serious."

Evie just nodded, with a very serious look on her pretty face.

Rob found several people who claimed to be able to drive an eighteen wheeler, but John didn't have any luck finding an aircraft mechanic. He did find two people who had been auto mechanics.

"What I want to do, guys, is make another trip to Fort Leonard Wood. I want to get the surgical van and the mobile labs. Since we're going to be there anyway, I'd like to load up on weapons. I'm thinking a couple of heavy machine guns and all the M-16s and M-16 ammo we can manage. I'd also like to load up on anti-personnel mines. It'd be nice to put a band of them outside our fence."

"That makes sense," Rob said. "Have you given any more thought to getting a helicopter?"

"Yeah, I'm sure we want one, but would we be better to get a military one or a civilian one?"

"Actually, we'd probably be better with a civilian one. Maybe a big Sikorsky sky crane or something like that so we could do some heavy lifting."

"We might want something smaller, too. Something we could use to scout around with."

"A lot of police departments flew the Bell Jet Ranger. It only has room for four passengers and not a lot of cargo space, but it would be great for looking around at things."

"Okay, so we'll wait on the helicopters until we get home. Do you know anything about weapons, Rob?"

Rob nodded, then said, "A little. One of the guys I was talking to this morning was a Navy Seal. I'll bet he knows more about them than anyone else."

"Great. Go back and talk to him again. I'll get set up and we can interview him and anyone else in his family group this afternoon. I'd really like to take him with us tomorrow."

We did interview the Navy Seal, Glen Adams, that afternoon. If I had seen him before, I'd have known at a glance that he had been military. He carried himself with a confidence and grace that spoke well of his training. There were two women in his family group, Cassie Miller and Althea Winslow. All three of them were people we'd love to have with us.

We decided that Rob, John, Glen, Bill and I would be the drivers on the way back. Tina would go with me as my shotgun rider, and each of the other guys picked one member of their family to go with them and act as a bodyguard.

Everyone retired to their own RVs early. We all knew we'd be spending at least one night away from our families and we wanted an evening with them before we left. I was a little surprised that Evie and Chris decided to spend the evening with us.

We didn't do much. In fact, dinner was soup and sandwiches. Biscuit sandwiches at that. We did do a lot of snuggling though. Each of my wives and Kammie spent at least some time on my lap. When Evie came over and slid on my lap, I had to laugh at her.