Chapter 13

I wasn't through with Martha. She woke me up sometime in the middle of the night wanting another sex session. I was pretty tired, but I figured that I really ought to do everything I could to encourage Martha to keep to her current attitude. She didn't need any foreplay, she was sopping wet and raring to go. To save some of my strength, I had her straddle me and do all of the work. The advantage of doing it this way was that she enjoyed the orgasms just as much as in the missionary position, but she was not quite as loud in expressing her appreciation. I guess that she didn't wake anybody because no one visited us with demands that we cut the noise level.

Martha was really into this getting pregnant thing. For the second time, she propped up her hips before going to sleep. I still was not through with her; the next morning, she demanded another round of sex before I could even go to the john. Dammit, that woman was insatiable, but she did prop up her ass for 30 minutes before she left my bed.

I must really have made a good impression, since she was disgustingly cheerful for a whole week after that. Not only that, she started doing chores without being asked to do them, first. I swear, Martha had become downright likable!

John's expedition to salvage stuff from the boats was in trouble almost from the minute they left the cave. They had been on the road for about two hours when they ran into their first problem. There were so many people and carts that it was impossible to move with any semblance of quiet. They were crossing a large open meadow-like space when they were spotted by an unfamiliar dinosaur. It resembled a T. Rex, but it was not quite as large as they usually were, and it had a different arrangement and color to its feathers.

This creature turned toward them and waddled over to investigate. The animal was too big to ignore and looked like it had as many teeth as a T. Rex, so it had to be destroyed before it got too close. One of the women said that they should call it a Johnny Rex. This brought a laugh, but several of the women started referring to the animal by that name, and it stuck.

They pulled the carts back to give the ballista a clear field of fire, and the women prepared the weapon for use. As a backup, John pulled the salvaged BAR from the supply cart and loaded in a clip. Liz, Sarah, and Joan had the ballista ready to fire by the time the J. Rex came within useful range. John nodded, and they fired the first dart at the J. Rex.

They scored a hit, but it was not fatal, of course. In fact, the hit may not have done more than annoy the animal. The dart scraped along its side and tore loose some skin, but that was about the extent of the damage. Another dart was launched, and this one was a much better shot. It hit the dinosaur in the chest and buried itself almost all of the way. Only some of the fletching was still visible.

The J. Rex tried to pull out the dart, but that was impossible. It staggered about a bit and then came charging toward the humans. Fortunately, it was too badly wounded to charge very fast, so the ballista crew had plenty of time to ready another dart. Sue let it get uncomfortably close before she fired. Either by incredible skill or by incredible luck, the dart entered the mouth of the J. Rex as it opened up to roar.

The dart hit the roof of the animal's mouth well toward the rear. The dart roared through the skull and blew out the rear part of the skull, taking the brain with it. The hydraulic pressure of the hit was enough to pop out both of the dinosaur's eyes, effectively blinding it, had that been necessary. The J. Rex took a few more steps toward the humans and collapsed at their feet. Finally, everybody could breathe again! They took the time to salvage the darts and resumed the trek.

That afternoon, it started to rain. It didn't rain very hard, but it was enough to be annoying as hell. Everybody was wet and miserable by the time they decided to pitch camp. John had planned for the rain, so he had a shelter-rig which could be used to cook under and keep the rain out of the food while they were eating. After supper, they all went to bed in the wagons. They had enough canvas covers to keep out the rain, but it put something of a dampener on the sex, though nobody abstained.

The next morning, they ate breakfast and broke camp, but the ground was now wet enough that the carts were harder to pull over the muck. However, they pressed on. They saw some velociraptors who didn't see them, so the humans were saved a fight. Camp that night was much like the previous night, except that the ground was wetter and more uncomfortable.

Toward morning, they were disturbed by a juvenile brontosaurus that blundered into one of the empty carts. The cart was destroyed; fortunately, it was empty. Nevertheless, it was a piss-poor way to start the day. By then, everybody was awake, so they decided to eat breakfast and resume the march.

On this day, they were not so lucky when they saw some velociraptors. There were four of them, and they decided that the humans would make a nice mid-afternoon snack. The velociraptors attacked so fast that the ballista could get off only one shot before the beasts were so close that there was nothing to do by try to escape by hiding under the wagons.

That shot had wounded a velociraptor badly enough that it was no problem, but three velociraptors were still too much for the humans to overcome with their crossbows. Fortunately, John had the BAR. He was able to use the bipod to help him hold the gun steady as he poured bullets into the raptors. He didn't shoot to kill, instead he shot to disable. He aimed for the hip joint, intending to shatter that joint and keep the beasts from jumping on the humans and ripping them open with those toe claws that were like sabers.

It took at least five shots, and usually 10, to disable the animals, but it was worth the expenditure of ammunition under the circumstances. The lower velocity and larger size and mass of the .30 caliber BAR bullet could do more damage than the smaller, though faster, AR-15 bullet when it came to shattering bone. Thank God, they had plenty of ammunition!

They had to leave the wounded animals where they lay, since it was simply too dangerous to try to finish them off without shooting them, and they did not have that much ammunition to waste. However, they were able to recover the ballista dart which had been fired at the first raptor.

Fortunately, that was the last time they had to fight dinosaurs before they reached the boats. It was damned inconvenient to work in the rain. The humans were all naked, so they didn't have to worry about wet clothes, but they did have to worry about keeping the cargo dry. It took three days to strip Bill's boat and one day to fill out the loads with stuff from John's boat. Bill's boat had used sails as well as a diesel motor, so they stripped the sails for the cloth, which they could not hope to duplicate with their current level of technology.

The main thing they took from John's boat was a small diesel generator which Bill said would be very useful. They also pulled the two outboard motors from the drug smugglers boat to be used for air compressors. Bill had an idea of how to make a refrigeration unit, which they would need for making nitroglycerin.

Finally, they were ready to return to the cave. All of the carts were loaded almost too heavily to make the trip back, but they sure were going to try. At least, on the trip back, they did not run into any carnivores. It took seven days to make the trip back, so they were in for a pleasant surprise when they reached the cave. Angie had her baby while the expedition was on its way home, so they got in just at the tail end of the celebration.

The baby was a girl whom Angie named Maryanne, after her mother. They said that I was strutting around as if I had done the whole thing all by myself. Now I was the father of the only two children currently in residence.

The monsoon set in with a will. Not only did it rain every day, it rained HARD every day. We joked that, if the rain didn't ease off, our mountain was liable to float away.