Chapter 3

Day Three: Tuesday

Okay, I know you're waiting for me to tell you about how I woke up with three women in bed with me and in fact I think I had some dreams about that judging from the state of the bed covers. I was mighty disappointed when I woke up needing to pee at four in the morning and found I was alone in the bed. I went to the toilet in the adjoining bathroom and stood there thinking of how much more enjoyable it had been the morning before and how neglected I felt. Where had I gone wrong? Still, I figured that it would probably be better, at least for the first night, for Kari to not think we were a bunch of sex maniacs.

I had gone without sex for the prior six months or so and the constant presence of these two, make that three, beautiful women had my libido in an uproar. I guess I had misunderstood what Julie had said in the car last evening and the argument that I thought was for the privilege of sleeping with me must have been more along the lines of who is going to get stuck sleeping with the old guy. Hell, I wasn't old; I was 37. Still, to Kari and even to Irene and Julie I must seem like some ancient hick.

By the time I returned to bed I was feeling pretty damned sorry for myself. I lay there for a few minutes and heard something. It sounded like someone was restless out in the lounge. I went to the door and turned the knob and the lock clicked. I was so surprised to hear that click that I just stood there looking at the knob. I remembered finally that it was one of those door knobs that locked the door unless you set the lever on the door to keep it unlocked. That way the Navy could use the individual rooms for unrelated people. That was the same reason the lounge had the sleeper, so that they could cram more people into the BOQ during graduation weekends. I looked at the knob and started laughing. I had locked myself into my bedroom, away from the women who may have wanted me, but were too nice to wake me up.

I peeked out on the lounge to see who was rolling around on the sleeper sofa. It was hard to see in the dark but it looked like Kari. A moment later, just as I turned to go back into my bedroom she started thrashing again. She was crying out in her sleep. The words were unintelligible but heartbreaking nonetheless. I had lost my parents one at a time years before, but I still didn't have a hard time imagining how rough it must be to have lost a brother and father on the same day and in such a horrific manner. I sat down on the bed and took her hand, trying to give her peace through some contact. She was really a beautiful, tiny girl, almost a woman, and yet still a child in many ways. She was smart and ambitious, not like so many kids today. Her father must have been so proud of her.

She settled down with me holding her hand. I moved one leg up on the bed and leaned back against the sofa cushion. She had my hand held tightly and it made me feel so good and so needed that I was reluctant to let it go. How long had it been since anyone had really needed me for anything? I had always been a loner.

I fell back to sleep sitting there feeling sorry for myself. I rarely do that but there are times when I have deep regrets about the course of my life. My last thoughts were about Chuck and wondered if he had found his missus okay and what he had done if he hadn't.

The next thing I heard was, "Oh, doesn't he look cute, holding her hand like that."

I moved and my back immediately punished me for going to sleep in that position. My leg was still asleep and it also felt like knives were lancing through my calf muscles. I winced and I saw Irene laugh. About that time Kari woke up and jerked her hand back. The look she gave me let me know that she didn't take kindly to waking up with a strange man on her bed.

Irene walked up and handed me a cup of coffee and said, "Well I think it's cute." Looking over at Julie she said, "He can hold my hand if he wants. I may even let him lie down in the bed with me tonight."

Julie laughed out loud and replied, "You would have dragged him into bed with you last night if his door wasn't locked. Steve you should have seen the look on her face when she found you had locked the door. She must have grumbled for two hours after she finally came to bed. Kari finally gave up and came out here to sleep just to get away from her."

Kari, more awake than she had been a few moments earlier, spoke up and said, "I'm sorry Steve. You startled me when I woke up. It's my night to sleep with you tomorrow night. Julie got the rock but I had paper and so she has to wait two nights for her turn."

I was really surprised that Kari was talking about sleeping with me and a little unsure if she was talking about sleeping or something else. Still, I knew nothing would happen if she ended up in my bed so I wasn't really upset.

I put a sad face on, looked over at Julie and asked, "So what did you guys do after I went to bed last night, conduct a lottery or have an auction? I have never felt so cheap and humiliated. Is that all you think I am, a piece of meat, put here for your pleasure. I'm not just a pretty face you know. I have feelings."

It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Irene and Kari were puzzled but Julie had a smile that let me know she knew it was all a joke. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and I burst out laughing. Kari still looked puzzled but Irene got angry. She was looking around for something to throw at me. Suddenly, Kari got it and she started giggling. Soon we were all laughing, the tension broken.

As soon as we stopped Irene looked over at me with a serious face and asked, "So, why did you lock your door last night?" The other two also looked at me for an answer.

I answered Irene by taking her over to the door and showing her how it locks unless you set it not to lock and told her that I had forgotten that before I pulled the door to last night. Eventually we started moving and I showered, shaved and dressed. Irene made us a nice breakfast. I think she was trying to show us that Julie wasn't the only one who could cook. Then we all piled into the Pathfinder and headed out to find the temporary command post vehicle.

We had to drive around a bit and go through several offices to find the keys to the MCP. The duty office had changed location since I had last stood duty, and as a consequence, we spent two hours searching for the keys. When we found the MCP it too had changed since my last tour as Officer of the Day. What had been a small camper that was pulled by a pick-up truck was now a much larger bus-like motor home that had sleeping quarters for several people. The telemetry was also much more sophisticated than simple video feeds from cameras at the front and back gates. This modern vehicle had those, plus video feeds from other key areas on the base.

It also had real time fence sensor data feeds on all the perimeter fences surrounding the base. At first I thought this was just information that would show where someone was cutting the fences but during the operation of the equipment a deer came up to one of the fences and immediately a video monitor lit up showing the Bambi grazing by the fence. I could only imagine the cost of this setup but it was going to be invaluable to us in monitoring the base's defenses. Kari and Julie thought this was neater than sliced bread and I could see I was going to have to pry them away from the equipment. Kari was the one to point out that there were even portable two-way radios with wireless headsets that looked similar to cell phone Bluetooth devices that would sound a tone if anything was detected by any of the monitors and allow two way communications between listeners and the MCP.

We drove the MCP back to our room. Kari had clipped the headset to her ear as soon as she found it, and there it had stayed. We set the MCP up in the parking lot outside our rooms and went inside for lunch. I joked with Kari that she should be sure not to wear the remote in the shower. I fixed the sandwiches for lunch to show everyone that I could cook too, well such as it was. We were all excited about how the morning had gone and what we had accomplished. I suggested that the next item be a visit to the armory for small arms training. Julie argued that the longer we left the commissary the harder the mess would be to clean up. In the end, we agreed to go to the armory, locate the small arms and stock them in the MCP. Then we would spend the remainder of the day at the commissary doing drudge work.

When we got to the commissary there was plenty of room out front for the MCP. Julie and Irene watched as Kari and I set everything up for monitoring. The only thing we would have to do is refill the gas from the base gas station as it ran low. There was an auxiliary power supply on the RV that powered the A/C as well as the sensor array. It ran off of the same fuel that powered the engine. Kari handed me the remote when we were finished and I handed it right back to her. I told her that she was the duty officer. I explained that we would all rotate that so that we all got a feel for what was going on.

We then went to work cleaning up the mess in the commissary. We worked there for the rest of the afternoon. Irene and Julie cleaned the dairy and frozen foods area. I cut us some steaks for supper and then also ground some lean hamburger. Kari worked with me as I did this. She was a completely different girl from the day before. I knew I would never have been able to rebound so quickly from losing my entire family and I wasn't sure that shortcutting the grieving process wouldn't result in her having a breakdown at some later time. I just didn't know what to do about it. My people skills had always been my main shortcoming.

After cutting the meat, we removed all of the wrapped meat from the cases and carried it in buggies out to the dumpster. I knew someday soon I would have to take that dumpster to the transfer station on base, but that was a job for another day. After making the dumpster run I started looking around for something else for us to do. Kari said something about it being a shame that we were going to lose all of that fresh bread in just a few days. We both had the idea of freezing it at the same time. We used shopping buggies and boxes from the back and managed to put all the bread we weren't going to use right away in the ice cream freezer. That place was really packed out when we finished.

As we brought the last boxes in Kari rooted around and found a box of multi-packs of ice cream bars and ran out to give one to Julie and another to Irene. She couldn't find them on the dairy aisle and ended up finding them in the produce section. They had decided to go through the fresh produce with an eye towards something for supper to go with the steaks. All of us ended up carrying several cartloads of marginal produce to the dumpster before calling it quits near six o'clock in the evening.

We were surprised when we got to the dumpster to find two large dogs sniffing and barking around it. I was especially surprised as they seemed to be German Shepherds, a breed often used as military police dogs. Whiting Field was unusual in that the base housing was in downtown Milton, so there were normally no pets on base. I had stopped at the Security Headquarters on base earlier and found the kennels there empty. I can only assume they were patrolling the area when The Collapse occurred. Military police dogs are different than civilian police dogs in that they are trained to obey different handlers. I had never handled this type of dog but these two seemed friendly enough.

Before I could stop her Kari was down on one knee and had the two dogs licking and nuzzling her like she was a long-lost friend. I guess the dogs were starved for affection as well as food. Pretty soon we were all petting and touching the dogs. We realized that the dogs were trying to get at the meat I had thrown in the dumpster. I knew that the meat was probably safe for them but didn't want to take a chance on one of them becoming sick. We enticed them to follow us back to the store. Kari and Irene waited outside with the dogs while Julie and I went inside and grabbed a large bag of dog food and some food dishes from the pet food aisle. I carried the bag of food outside while Julie put water into two of the bowls from the water fountain at the front of the store.

The dogs ate like they were starved. That was normal, I guessed, because they had been abandoned for two days. They drank the water but not with the relish that they had given the dog food. They had probably found water easily but food would be hard to come by foraging on the base. I wondered about leashes but decided against it as they seemed willing to follow us now that we were feeding them. I decided that the dogs would make good security. Even if they didn't, the way Kari's eyes seemed to sparkle while playing with the dogs made them worth their weight in gold to me.

We put the steaks, ground meat and other items the girls had selected in the MCP along with the dog food and dishes for the dogs. I stopped by the garden center attached to the exchange. The exchange is sort of like a department store with a little bit of everything. In the army they call them a PX which is short for Post Exchange, but in the navy it was simpler to say the exchange than NX or NEX. I remembered that they had quite a few outdoor items and I was hoping that they had a gas grill. I found what I wanted in the garden center and even found a rack of full propane bottles outside. Now we could eat the steaks the way they were meant to be eaten, grilled by a manly man surrounded by beautiful women.

The girls had followed me into the exchange and were looking at the clothing items as if they hadn't been shopping in weeks. They looked at the selections of books and magazines and then found the DVD rental area. Knowing that we had a DVD player in the lounge I suggested that they pick out a few titles. There was a lively discussion about what to choose and several romantic comedies were selected. It was sad to think that most if not all of my favorite actresses and actors were now gone, vanished with the rest of humankind to God knows where. Still it's hard to be too depressed when you are with three giggling and very alive women.

When we arrived back at the BOQ we divided the chores. I set up the grill and cooked the steaks while the dogs supervised. While I was doing that, Kari set up the MCP and started an inventory of everything in the storage areas underneath. Irene and Julie went inside and started the potatoes and prepared a salad with the vegetables that they had brought home. It was the closest that I have ever been to a true family setting. The beautiful thing was that there was no argument or discussion, it was like everyone knew what they should be doing and then just did it.