Chapter 6

Day 5 Tuesday April 17 2007 Impact plus 1

I started to hear people moving around upstairs, it must have been what woke me out of my slumber. I wouldn't normally hear anyone upstairs but with the power off, the fan that I usually run when I sleep wasn't on and all the other normal noises a house makes were also not there. I normally have a hard time sleeping when it is so quiet, but as tired as I was it was not a problem last night.

I didn't want to move at all, I still hurt from all the work we have been doing lately, which I am really not used to, but the main reason is what was in my arms or more to the point, who was in my arms. After the past few days of sleeping together, I was really starting to like waking up holding Betsy. Just holding her and smelling her shampoo and perfume was a great way to start the day.

The noise from people upstairs started to get louder, so even though I didn't want to, I reached over to my night stand and got my old battery operated clock to see what time it was. I could just make out the hands on the clock showing it was almost 7 am. I guess it was time to start the day whether I wanted to or not - damn I hate being responsible.

I rolled back over and took Betsy in my arms knowing how I would like to wake her up. I always liked those scenes in a story where the man or woman slips under the covers and gently performs oral on their partner until they wake up.

There are two reasons I didn't, even though I really wanted to. One, we are just not at that stage in our relationship yet and two, I did not have a shower yesterday and I am a bit ripe from all the work I did yesterday. So I don't think she would appreciate a smelly guy waking her up that way, but that probably would not have stopped me if the first reason wasn't there.

Instead I gently moved her hair out of the way and started slowly kissing her on her neck and ear while I started rubbing her belly while trying to stay away from her breasts and the promise land a little farther south. It didn't take long to get the first reaction out of her - it was a sound halfway between a moan and a groan.

"I'll give you five hours to stop doing that," Betsy said.

"I would love to continue this all day long but we have to get up and get to work," I said.

"I don't want to. I'm tired, I'm stiff, I'm sore and someone is kissing and rubbing on me and it's making me horny," she pouted.

"Well you better tell them to stop because people are starting to get up and we have to get back to work," I said laughing at her.

"No I won't! I like it when he rubs me like that, in fact I would like it if he did it more often," she said while rolling over to face me.

"That's good for him to know, but the problem is that there just isn't time this morning for him to continue his explorations," I said as my hand slipped around her waist and started in on her butt.

She smiled and looked me in the eye. "It already feels like he has started exploring on his own."

"Yes and he really likes what he is exploring," I said and leaned in for a kiss.

The kiss started very simple, just two sets of lips gently pressed together, then slowly went into a loving French kiss. I don't remember who started in with their tongue first. I don't care, I just knew it was very nice.

The first one to break the kiss was me though. "Come on we have to get out of bed or Lisa will come down here and kick both of our lazy butts."

"All right if I have to, I definitely don't want Lisa pissed off at me," she said laughing.

I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed as Betsy got out and headed for her clothes. I noticed that I didn't hurt as bad as the day before. When I used to lift weights all the time I noticed that when starting a new workout it took me three days to get use to the new workout. So I am hoping that my body is starting to get used to all the crap I am putting it through on a daily basis.

I got up and grabbed a clean pair of underwear and socks, and headed back to the bed to get dressed. I went ahead and put on the same clothes I wore yesterday, no sense in putting clean clothes on a dirty body.

After getting dressed I headed for my desk and my bottle of Aleve to get my daily dose. I looked at Betsy to see if she was about ready just to find her looking and waiting for me.

I just smiled "You ready to face a new day?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Great, let's go up and see if anyone has started breakfast,"

We went upstairs and it still looked dark outside, even though the sun should have been up already. It looked very overcast, when we got a look outside.

"Well it looks like it has started." I said

"It is awfully dark out there," Betsy said

"And it is just going to get worse," I said with a sigh, and, turning towards the rest of the kitchen, "Morning Lisa, ladies," trying to be cheerful.

"Well it's about time you got your lazy butts moving, I was about to go down there and drag your ass out of bed," Lisa said.

"We knew you would do exactly that or we would still be down stairs snuggling," I replied.

"So did you finally find someone to snuggle with?" Lisa said winking at Betsy.

"I sure did and she is very good at snuggling," I said and kissed Betsy on the cheek.

"That's great to hear, why don't you go cool your jets for a few more minutes and we'll have breakfast ready,"

"Great I like breakfast," I said and kissed her on her cheek.

"You just like food in general," Lisa stated.

"Don't you know it," I said laughing.

I reached into the fridge real quick and grabbed a soda and Betsy grabbed some coffee. I can't stand coffee and it didn't look like there was any hot water going for tea so I didn't want to bother with it.

We wandered through the house wishing everyone good morning and just waited for the breakfast to get done. I wanted everyone there for the morning meeting so I figured to wait until everyone got something to eat then sit down and plan for the day and make long term plans for us to work towards.

Lisa yelled that breakfast was ready and we all headed into the kitchen to grab a plate. They did a great job even with half the appliances not working because of the lack of power. We all chowed down and just spent some time joking and laughing while people got done with breakfast and got their refills on their beverages. Then we all eased into the living room for the morning meeting.

I stood up to get the meeting started. "Good morning."

"Well it looks like we made it through the impact of the asteroid. The Government had to come through in some shape or form because we are all still here. That being said we did not get off Scot free, just looking outside you can see the remnants of the impact, and take my word for it, it will just get worse from here on out," I stated

"The hard part is just beginning, and there is still a ton of work to be done before we can get back to some type of normal life. Basically we are going to busting our ass for the foreseeable future," I said letting it sink in a few seconds.

"Everyone will have to pull together if we are going to see this through. What I want everybody to do over the next few days while you are working and getting to know people here better, start thinking who you would like to see running this place."

"I think you are doing a pretty good job of that right now," Tony stated

"That may be so, but I don't want to be a dictator, I was thinking of seven or so people who would run the day to day operations here, and if something really serious needs to be settled then the whole community can vote on the matter, I don't think one person should be in charge," I stated

"That sounds like a great idea, but how about eight people and someone like a mayor," Cathy injected.

"Or six and a mayor," Lisa added.

"Whatever the number we come up with think about who you want to fill those positions, over the next few days, and then we'll nominate people and have a vote. But since we don't have them running things yet I guess I'll play dictator for a while," I said while giving my best leer and grin.

"Oh shit, we are in for it now!" Dad said with a grin

"Don't you know it," I replied and broke up laughing.

Once we all got settled down again, "Well let's get down to business and see if we can get organized and get to work putting this place in some type of order," I continued.

"The first thing we need to do is to get the power back up and running, which would mean getting a generator out of storage and getting it hooked into the house power supply." I said.

"I suggest hooking up 2 generators, one that can power the whole house, and a second that would just do the refrigerators and freezers. That way we would not use as much fuel keeping things chilled. The bigger generator would not have to be run all the time only when we need to power lots of things - like in the evening when people want to take showers, and have working lights, and doing laundry. The little generator would just be used on the things we have to keep running all the time. Even if we have to run two smaller generators to run the freezers, it would still save us fuel," Tony said.

"In the long run I was thinking about using the batteries that we have as our main power supply. Then only once or twice a day would we have to run the generator to recharge the batteries," I added.

"We can also tie in the wind generators that we have and cut down on the generators even more. We can also hook a generator up to the stream by the house and get hydro power from that," Mike through in.

"All the alternate energy sources might make it so we don't have to run the generators at all. But, even if we do, it will probably be only a couple of times a day during peak usage," Tony said.

"Next we have to see if we can get the reefer trailers working again, and if we can't we need to get the freezers we have up and running and put as much meat into storage as we can while we continue to can and dry for later use, if we don't do something a lot of it will go bad before we can use it," I stated.

"And that would really be a waste," Betsy said.

"Yes it would, and what really needs to be done is some type of inventory. We have all those trailers outside and we have no idea what everything in them is and we definitely don't know where it all is located, and that especially goes for the weapons that we collected, they need to be gone through and sorted as well," I stated.

"We also have to teach everyone how to use the various weapons so if needed they can use them. And on that note everyone should be armed, at least with a pistol, if you know how to use the rifles or shotguns then one of those should be close by for you to use," I said being very serious.

"Why should we be armed?" Mom asked.

"Because we have a lot of items here that are valuable and getting more valuable by the day. We have some of the few remaining running vehicles in the area, and in a week people are going to start running out of food, they might be out of water now. They just might try to come here and take what we have worked hard for and they won't care who they have to hurt to get it," I said.

"Can't we just take care of them and add them to our community?" Mom asked.

"Well we do need more people for this to work, but we can't take care of everyone, we just won't have the resources. It's going to take a ton of work just to keep us alive let alone take care of everyone who walk in off the street," I stated.

"But yes we do need more people to make sure that it will work. We need to find doctors and nurses, electricians, plumbers, and just general laborers. One we can't leave out are farmers as we are eventually going to have to start to produce our own food, whether it is in a green house or a converted trailer with grow lights it will have to be done," I stated.

"The whole thing seems too big to deal with," KC added

"That it does. Look, the Government has spent millions of dollars, and had hundreds of managers and scientists and engineers spending years putting plans like this together. We got this going and off the ground in four days, and so far I think we are doing a good job. Are we going to miss stuff? Of course we are, we are just going to have to work around those problems and survive. That is the main goal," I stated.

"Well we already know what our first priority for today is and that is getting the power back on which will also fix the water problem, but I want everyone to get together now in small groups of three or four people and make a list of things we need to do or get for us to survive this mess," I said

Everyone agreed and started to form small groups and started heading off into different parts of the house to start their lists. I was trying to get my mind on things I wanted to add to the list my team was working on and I was staring out the window thinking when I saw a convoy of trucks turn up our driveway and head for the house.

"Looks like someone is coming to visit," I said as I grabbed my MP5 and headed for the door.

I headed down the driveway to meet our guests, Betsy by my side.

I got a quarter of the way down the driveway when I recognized the driver of the first truck. It was my best friend Tim from Florida.

"Damn I am glad he made it and is here," I said.

"Who is it?" Betsy asked.

"It's Tim, you should remember him from the times you visited the Zodiac," I said.

"Yeah I do recognize him," Betsy said.

I turned and yelled. "IT"S ALL RIGHT, THEY'RE FRIENDS OF MINE."

We stood and waited for the trucks to come up the driveway and for Tim to jump down from the truck.

"Timothy how the hell are you?" I asked as I pulled him into a hug.

"Great to fantastic to outrageously good, and you?" Tim said smiling.

"The same with me, I am damn glad you made it though," I said.

"We would have been here sooner but we stopped at a couple of military bases along the way and picked up some toys. And you know how we like our toys," Tim said smiling.

"Yes I know."

"So who do you have with you?" I asked.

"Anita, and little Anita, Christopher, his wife Robin and their two kids, Timothy and Jenny, and a couple of friends of little Anita's from school, Becky, Jill, and Mandy," Tim stated.