Chapter 5: A Few Unexpected Guests

David awoke the next morning bright and early, as he normally did, to find himself cuddling both Alice and Ellen Parker. Alice was wrapped around his upper body, and Ellen was clutching his side. He suddenly noticed someone was holding his morning erection and he had a horrible vision of his daughter grasping him, but he quickly assured himself that she had both hands wrapped around him.

"You ready to get up?" she whispered.

"Yeah, keep it quiet, though. I don't want to wake our guest."

"Can we have blueberry pancakes this morning? I'm sure Ellen would like them."

"I think we can arrange that, hopefully we still have some blueberry bushes. Then we'll have to check the house and property for damage."

"Thanks for letting me stay here last night," Alice said, giving her father a quick kiss and a longer hug. "I appreciate it."

"Now let's get up before we wake Ellen," David suggested.

They both got up, trying to move gently so they wouldn't disturb their new guest. When they exited the room, they both looked out the large windows overlooking the valley and observed the local devastation for the first time. While the recent rains prevented any forest fires, there were large swatches of the tree cover which were missing or shattered. David noticed several trees were lying on their sides.

"I guess there was more damage than we guessed, huh?" Alice prompted him, as they both looked over the damaged landscape.

"Well, we knew there was going to be damage, and there's likely to be a lot more once we get out and look at it. As you saw last night, most of the meteors were small, so there's likely to be more small damage than major strikes. But the first order of business is breakfast. That way we'll be able to think about what we need to do. Besides, we don't want our guest going hungry if we're going to put her to work."

"The two of you really got along last night, huh?" Alice said as she trailed her father downstairs to the kitchen.

"Yeah, we did. She's really nice," he replied, smiling at the memory.

"I'm sorry I spoiled your night," she said.

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "Last night was hardly a typical night, and I think we all needed some extra TLC."

"Yeah, but thanks for putting up with me. You could simply have told me to go back to bed. I wouldn't have, of course, but I wouldn't have disturbed you."

"Come here, you," he said, grabbing her and giving her another big hug. After letting her go he continued. "Go grab us some blueberries and see how much damage we've suffered. We'll do a full inspection later, so don't get too distracted. I'll start the batter."

Alice hurried happily outside, anxious to see the damage to the house and property as much as she was excited about impressing Ellen with her father's fresh blueberry pancakes. He made it with a special organic flour batter he added herbs and nuts to, and she always loved it when he'd fix it for her.

Outside Alice briefly took in the view of the yard. She could see several small craters, and even some stones that had fallen from the cliff above, but by and large it looked like they'd missed much of the damage that had struck the nearby countryside. She'd lost a few of her favorite trees, but that was about it. She checked out the buildings as she headed over to the nearby blueberry bushes, they seemed pretty unharmed as well. She was sure there'd be some damage, but she couldn't see any from here.

She picked the blueberries quickly, took a quick tour of the outbuildings, the front of the house, the garage and the shed, but didn't see any more, then headed inside.

"Not too bad," she told her father as she handed him the blueberries, "looks like we missed most of it."

"Well that was just dumb luck. Guess the house was facing the right direction. Did you check the cliff?"

"Uh, no, I didn't think of that. You don't think it's damaged do you?"

"We won't know until we get a look, but I'd doubt it. It's overhanging with a gentler slope above it, so it was unlikely to have gotten any direct hits, so aside from a few rocks rolling over the side I wouldn't expect much."

"Expect much what?" Ellen asked, walking into the room in her underwear and one of David's spare shirts. David smiled. She was sending a clear signal, and he didn't mind what it said. It might be a bit presumptuous, but he hoped that meant she was planning on sticking around for a little while.

"Alice was checking out the front of the house. She said it looks relatively undamaged. We were lucky," he said as he approached her and gave her a kiss good morning.

"Ooooh, not in front of the kids, please," Alice teased. "Good morning, Ellen, we were just getting ready to make some homemade blueberry pancakes. You'll love them."

"I'm not likely to love much unless someone finds me a cup of coffee," she complained. "What the hell are you two doing awake at this God forsaken hour?"

David and Alice both chuckled. "Sorry, but this is the time we normally get up around here. But I'll get that coffee for you, because we've got a lot to do today," David said.

"Oh, yeah? What are you planning on doing? I still need to contact my sister and maybe travel back into the city to check on my apartment."

"Don't worry about the apartment," David advised her. "The rental company is responsible for any damage, so hopefully they'll do a quick assessment before you can even get there. Speaking of which, the roads are going to be shot to hell. You'll have a hard time getting anywhere today."

"We did last night," she argued.

"Yeah, but you saw how much trouble we had, and how much destruction there was. Chances are the towns are going to be clogged with rescue vehicles, and the streets won't be cleared for several days. I think you're going to be stuck with us for a few days."

"Hmm, I don't suppose there's any chance of renting a vehicle, is there?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Nope, although I've got a pickup out in the garage that I use to carry building supplies. You're welcome to use either it or the SUV, but I'm hoping you can wait for a few days. It'd make things much easier, and you'll have an easier time of getting back."

"You aren't going to leave yet, are you?" Alice asked, sounding worried.

"Nah, I think I'll stick around for another day at least. But I do have a life, and I'll need to find out what's going on."

"That's the first thing I have planned today. As we saw last night, there isn't much news getting out any more, so I'm planning on finding out just what's going on."

"That sounds great," Ellen responded as she looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing, picking up a spare blueberry and popping it into her mouth. "Damn, those are good," she told them, despite the fact he and Alice both knew just how good they were. "So how are you going to get the information the news stations don't have?"

"Watch the language, please," David reminded her. "There's an impressionable minor nearby."

"Hey, this 'impressable miner' can watch out for herself," Alice replied. "Besides, you say worse all the time," she reminded her father.

David ignored her, knowing it was true, and continued making the pancakes, occasionally swatting Ellen's hands away from the blueberries. "You'll find out soon. I figured we'd all go, so we can evaluate how widespread the damage in town is. But let's focus on breakfast first. Alice, you know how I like my coffee so how about you get it started."

"Yeah, Alice, make that coffee real quick. Otherwise I'll be a bitch all morning and mess up my chances with your father," Ellen told her with a laugh. But Alice didn't worry about that too much. For as much as she complained, Ellen hadn't stopped smiling since she came downstairs, and her father wasn't much better.

When Ellen commented how ravenous she felt, David suggested that Alice take her out berry picking so they could make more pancakes, though he doubted she could eat as many as she thought she could. She didn't know just how filling his pancakes were, but he figured she'd appreciate picking berries along the forest line. "And take a couple pans of water with you," he called after them. "I'm sure the animals have been as disturbed as we were. They're probably afraid to venture very far this morning, so let them know they're welcome here. I'll put some corn out for them when we leave. I don't think it will reach any hurt animals, but at least it will help those that survived." David didn't really think either girl heard his entire tale, but he assumed Alice had heard the water suggestion at least.

Ellen was fascinated to be picking berries. They grew abundantly among the base of the cliff and along the edge of the forest where they got a mixture of sun and shade. There were berries everywhere, but Alice had to tell her how it was worth the time to pick the very ripest berries, since they'd only spoil if left, and their unripe cousins needed time to ripen so they'd have more later in the week.

"So, Alice," Ellen hesitantly began, "just how much did you hear last night?"

"Oh, I heard enough," she laughed uneasily. "It wasn't hard to imagine what you were up to. Especially when you started giving him detailed instructions."

Ellen blushed, but tried to hide it. "Sorry about that. I never would have—"

"Don't worry. There was no reason to expect someone to be eavesdropping outside your door," Alice reassured her.

"I guess I'm not used to having kids around," Ellen replied. She hesitated a moment then continued. "Listen, I'm sorry if you think I'm infringing on your mother's role or something."

Alice stopped her picking and regarded Ellen. The sunlight highlighted her blond hair, giving her an apparent halo that made her look even more beautiful than she normally was.

"Actually it doesn't bother me. I've known that Dad's been alone for a long time, and I have no illusions of my parents getting back together. My mom has gone through too many boyfriends for me to ever expect she'd stop now."

"Sorry if I said the wrong thing," Ellen apologized.

"Hey, didn't I hear something about not apologizing so much last night?" Alice asked. Ellen grinned, feeling a bit more relaxed.

"So tell me, just between us, did you just sit out there quietly or did you ... uh..."

"Or did I, uh, what?" Alice asked, knowing exactly what she meant but wanting to force Ellen to say it out loud. She knew that adults liked to pretend that kids didn't know anything about sex; despite the fact it was on the television and the radio all the time.

"Look, I know it's awkward, but a lot of girls have fantasies about their fathers. I'm not going to give you a hard time about fantasies, but I'm just curious."

Alice sighed, figuring there was no easy way of avoiding this conversation.

"I didn't initially. I mean, I know Dad is good looking and all, but it's just a bit too uncomfortable to think of," Alice carefully explained. Ellen simply nodded her head, choosing to remain quiet while Alice said whatever she needed to say. "But while I sat there listening to the two of you I started to think of it more and more. I tried to think of boys from school, or famous movie stars or something, but when you kept repeating his name I couldn't keep denying who it was I was hearing."

Ellen found herself about to apologize again but stopped herself. When Alice didn't continue Ellen pushed her a little.

"So that's a yes or a no?"

"Yeah, it's a yes," Alice admitted while she blushed. Ellen loved the way Alice's face lit up when she blushed. Her face was clear and blemish free, showing the freshness of youth while displaying an array of emotions when she smiled. Ellen admired that, and told herself once again she hoped she'd never fall victim to the desire to ever use Botox to deaden her facial muscles just to look pretty for a few more years.

"So am I terrible for thinking of my father that way?" Alice asked nervously.

"No, I don't think so. As I said, it's a fairly common thing. A girl's father is the one person they feel safe experimenting with. You can flirt with him and hopefully he won't try to take advantage of it. I know sometimes fathers do try things you don't want, but most fathers are perfect foils for us to practice flirting with. They love us unconditionally, they like to be flirted with, and it's wonderful to watch their reactions. I did it myself," Ellen admitted.

"Wait. You flirted with your father or you fantasized about him?" Alice asked.

"Both actually," Ellen replied, fighting the temptation to blush. She wanted to be as open and as honest as she could, while still not exposing David's daughter to anything she wasn't ready for yet. "I was like you. My father was both my ideal, and 'way too old' for me to consider. Whenever I'd think of the ideal guy in my mind, I'd always see the very traits that my father had. So whenever I'd start thinking of sexy guys, my mind would inevitably flick over to him. It would freak me out, but after a while I'd just go with it. And just between us girls, and I'll kill you if you ever tell your father this, when I did play with myself imagining my father, it was always much more exciting than it was with anyone else."

"Really?" Alice asked, astounded that an adult would admit this kind of thing to her.

"Well, there's a big difference between fantasy and reality," Ellen hurried to explain. "I'd have freaked out if my father had ever tried anything with me. Again, it's a trust thing. It's one thing to imagine it. After all, you really can't control whom you fantasize about, but if you can't trust your own father your whole world would fall in on itself. Women who have problems with their fathers often end up having all kinds of problems throughout their lives, all from no fault of their own."

Alice considered that, both the thought that Ellen had masturbated to images of her own father, and to her warnings of what would happen if it ever went beyond that. She was too busy thinking about the topic to say anything farther.

"Well, I think that's enough for now," Ellen said, thinking she'd already said way too much and afraid if they stayed out here she may say even more. She didn't think she'd crossed any lines, but she didn't want to chance it. It's one thing to bond with a new boyfriend's daughter, but it's another to actively corrupt her. David would never forgive her if Alice ever said anything about this discussion to her father. "Let's go inside and see what your father's pancakes are like. I've never known many men who could cook as well as they think they can."

"Oh, I don't know," Alice said, as they both picked up their buckets and headed in, "my father's pancakes are the best. Best of all, he has so much fun making them for us ... I mean me. He always plays with them, making cute faces. I'm sure he could make a blushing one of you talking to me if I give him some of the raspberries I found." Ellen took off after Alice as she ran away laughing. This was a really nice way to start the day, especially since it was so far removed from the previous day.

"So where are we going?" Ellen asked for the third time, even though David had yet to answer her directly.

"I'm going to meet a friend. He's good with technology, so he's got some tools that would be perfect for this sort of situation that most people don't use any more."

"Old technology?" Alice asked from the back seat. "What's he got, a tickertape?"

David and Ellen laughed. "Honey, tickertape is what they used to report stock market numbers with. The little paper fragments left over were what they used to use for the New York City ticker tape parades."

"Oh, you know what I mean. When the people in the old west used to tap on those little things," Alice explained in exasperation.

"You mean a telegraph," David explained. "And no, I don't know anyone quite that old. But there has been a lot of technology since the 19^th century that's still useful in the right hands, especially when the rest of modern technology decides to suddenly stop working."

Both Ellen and Alice were curious, and continued to pester him with questions and guesses, but he didn't say any more, instead teasing them and using it to test both their knowledge of early technologies.

It took a while, but they hadn't really traveled far. The roads were indeed in a mess, and they had to drive around a couple of fallen trees that took a while to circumvent. They finally arrived at a nice little house. As they pulled into the driveway Alice pointed at the roof.

"They've had some damage. The roof over there has collapsed and there are holes all over the roof and the walls."

"Yeah, we can see," David replied in a gruff voice. "Still, it doesn't look like enough damage to have injured anyone."

"Unless they were stupid enough to go outside, or stand by a window, or by a wall that wasn't thick enough," Ellen reminded him.

"Don't say that. That's what I'm afraid of," David replied uneasily.

He got out of the car and the two women followed him as he walked up and knocked on the front door. It took a few minutes, but someone called out from the back. Alice, who took to peeking through a small hole in the wall by the door said, "There's a woman coming."

"That's Mary. She's the wife of the guy I came to visit," David explained.

The door opened and an attractive but slightly older woman looked out, and seeing it was David threw her arms around his neck. She was a redhead with bangs that hung over one eye, and she had a genuine smile that was reflected in her eyes. She seemed to be relieved to see David.

"Oh, it's good to see you, David. Man, it was hell yesterday."

"You had a hard time of it, huh?"

"I'll say. But pardon me, where are my manners. Who are these two beauties with you? Would you like to come in? Get something to eat or drink, perhaps? You might as well; we've lost our electricity so it'll be going bad soon anyway."

"Mary, this is my daughter Alice, and a new friend we helped rescue on the road yesterday, Ellen Parker."

"Well come on in. We can't have you standing around outside like that, now can we? My name is Mary, though everyone calls me 'Ma'. Bobby is downstairs, as you'd expect," she told them.

They filed into the house, where they could see the couple had been trying to cobble together patches to the numerous gaps and holes in their walls and roof. Mary headed off to the kitchen to get them something, so they followed her in.

"Ma, huh? Is that what your kids called you?" Ellen asked.

"Oh, no, never had any kids. They just weren't in the cards for us, I guess. No, Bobby just always called me that. Claimed it always took him too long to call out 'Mary' when he wanted to yell at me. After a while everyone else started to call me that, too."

Ellen wasn't about to touch that with a ten-foot pole, so she remained silent.

"I've got tea, water and beer. I guess you'll want a beer, David, and tea for Alice?" she asked.

"Actually, given what's been happening and what we're likely to encounter, I'd rather keep my wits about me. I'll just take a tea as well. But Ellen might want one," he suggested.

"What? You expect me to start drinking on our second day together, when you're abstaining? I'm still trying to make a good impression. No thanks, I'll have a tea as well," Ellen told Ma with a grin.

Ma poured them their drinks and then led them downstairs. "I expect you're here to talk to Bobby, huh, David?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. "I was wondering if I could possibly talk him out of a radio we could use. Seems most of the communications we rely on have all cut out."

"You still have electricity?" she asked, turning and looking at him questioningly.

"Yep. We really weren't hit too badly. We're escaped largely unscathed," David replied.

"What about water and sewage? The water cut off mid-way through the day yesterday, and the plumbing doesn't work very well without incoming water. And if you walk by the side of the house you can smell where the drainage field got hit."

"I've got my own private well that has plenty of water, and the septic system works well on its own, although it's built near the base of the cliff which drains down into the valley, so it should have escaped damage better than most people's septic systems," David told her. No one volunteered to go smell her damaged septic system.

"Well, good for you. Bobby's been running on battery power in the basement. Pardon me while I get a light for us to see with. Otherwise I'd kill myself going down the stairs."

She got a flashlight out and led them down into the basement, where a bald paunchy man sat huddled over an assortment of older electronics. He had a microphone in his hand and was busy talking to someone.

"That's a fact, Tommy. I heard from Wailing Eddie that Mexico City is shut down. Not a thing is working," he said to whomever he was talking to. Ellen regarded the man facing away from them. She could see mottled splotches on his overly pale skin, and thought to herself that it didn't look like he got out all that much.

"Bobby, David is here and he brought a couple of young lovlies with him," Ma said by way of introductions. Bobby waved a hand at them as he told whoever he was talking with goodbye before he turned around. He looked like a jovial sort, kind of a big man with a good sized belly. He wore a bright red T-shirt that was hard to miss, with the message "Show the blind man your boobies" on it. Ellen did a double take. She hadn't expected him to be blind, and he didn't really look like it, although it would certainly explain his having been sitting here in the dark by himself working on electronics. She glanced at Alice, worried about how the young girl would react to the inappropriate message on his shirt.

"Bobby, I'd like to introduce my daughter, Alice, and a friend we met on the road yesterday, Ellen Parker. Girls, this is Bobby Lind. He's a master of many tasks. He's a professional singer at several nearby clubs, he's a member of the local Lions Club, he works as an interpreter for several corporations around the world, and as you can see, he's an expert at both computers and short wave radio."

"Computers?" Alice asked. "How can you see what's on the screen?" But Bobby just laughed.

"I don't need no stinking screen," he assured her. "I let the computer talk to me. I'm a computer whisperer."

"Don't listen to him," Ma told them from the back. "He installs software that lets the computer say what's happening to it."

"Yeah," Bobby replied, giving them a bit more detail, "most computers can read text, but you can't hear the incessant warning messages, so there are some tools that work on the driver level to circumvent what the original programmers forgot to include."

"So what do you do with computers?" Alice asked, intrigued enough to ask what Ellen was afraid might be a pointed question.

"I do all kinds of things. Before this damn disaster, I was changing out the processor on an older Intel Dual core system. Seems the thing shorted out, but I was able to cobble together a fix and get it set right. I had to borrow some components from some other machines I had lying around."

"You actually open the computers and do your own repair work?" Alice asked unbelievingly.

"Hell, yeah," he replied. "I do a fair little business for the people in the community. Most can't afford the newest machines every couple of years, so I take in broken computers and fix them, and then sell them at a cheaper price to the people that need them. I also fix people's computer problems, which is a never ending problem for them but a great hobby and an additional source of income for me."

"Wow, I'd never have expected that," Alice said, echoing Ellen's feelings on the matter, even though Ellen wouldn't have expressed it quite so bluntly.

"The blind are generally much more tied into technology than most people expect. They open whole new worlds for us. Without computers, about the best I could hope for would be to sing a few songs or possibly get a job selling newspapers at a stand someone else financed for me. However, with the use of computers thousands of us can communicate with businesses, with services and get information, read books and newspapers, and order the things we need. You can't afford to not be computer literate if you're blind. There just aren't that many books being printed in Braille anymore."

"You don't really want to see my boobies, do you?" Alice innocently asked.

"Hey, if you want to show them, I won't complain, though I'll have to read them like I do Braille, that is, by reading all the little dots that poke up," he replied with a laugh. "Actually it's a shirt I had printed when I visited New Orleans a while back. Ma and I went, and the shirt was a big hit. Women would walk up to me and flash me. When I wouldn't respond they'd ask if I was really blind. When Ma would tell them I really was, they'd offer to let me feel them. For a blind guy, that's about the only way to check out strangers taa-taas without getting divorced or catching some nasty disease."

"They really did that?" Alice asked in surprise.

"Hey, they go down to Mardi Gras to have some fun. They don't mind letting others have some fun as long as they aren't obnoxious about it. The rule of thumb is: don't get pushy, don't demand and don't expect, but if they offer, I'm not about to refuse their generous offer."

"It's something girls do during Mardi Gras in New Orleans," Ellen tried to tactfully explain.

Alice sighed heavily. "I know what Mardi Gras is about," she replied.

"That's not what Mardi Gras is..." Ellen started to answer before she caught herself. When she thought about it, she knew that there weren't many kids who gathered at Mardi Gras for religious reasons, so Alice's understanding of the event was probably more accurate than the one that Ellen was going to provide her with.

"And what about you, Mary?" Ellen asked, hoping to change the topic.

"Hey, they do all the heavy lifting," she said with a laugh of her own. "They get dressed up. They provide enough fantasy to keep my husband going for months, and all I have to do is lay back and accept his enthusiastic response. I don't really see a downside. Plus I get all kinds of fancy alcoholic drinks I don't normally imbibe in. But please, call me 'Ma', everyone else does."

"I meant, what do you do, Ma?" Ellen asked.

"Oh, I'm a nurse. I work out of the regional hospital."

"Don' they need you during this emergency?"

"Oh, they're well aware that my husband is blind. I'm not about to leave Bobby alone. He's fine without lights, but I'd be a mess if anything happened to him. And if he had to leave the house due to structural damage, he'd be lost.

"I'll have to go in later once I'm sure he's OK, but I'm sure the hospital knows how much trouble everyone's been having moving around. I'm not likely to lose my job over it. I'm anxious to help out in a crisis, and I can imagine what a mess the hospital is. It's like a giant glass box with a lot of fragile sick people in it, so it's got to be a mess."

"So, you come to shoot the breeze or did you come here for something specific," Bobby asked. "Somehow I doubt you stopped by to volunteer to repair my roof."

"Well, actually I was hoping you'd set me up with a Ham radio of my own. It seems most of the news media are down, and no one seems to know what's going on."

"You're right about that," Bobby answered. "I heard what they were broadcasting on the radio. Those people don't have the slightest clue what's happening. You realize it's still going on, don't you? It hasn't stopped. It's hitting most of Europe as we speak."

"How extensive is it?" David asked. "Is it just a short swath, or is everyone getting it? And more importantly, is anyone being spared that's likely to cause trouble, thinking they can exert their will on other countries devastated by a natural disaster?"

"It's pretty widespread. It's bypassed much of Canada and a few South American Countries, but it has reached Russia, China, and it's reached into the Indian Ocean, so most of the major countries of the world have been affected. It's really widespread. There was no forewarning. The scientific community is in a twitter, since they can't figure out how they missed it. Unfortunately, no one can look to see what they missed, so all they can do is sit around asking questions."

"So, do you think you can set me up?" David asked. "There might be a nice case of whiskey in it for you."

"Ha," Bobby barked a short laugh, "it's going to cost you much more than a simple whiskey delivery."

David looked at his friend in surprise, not having expected he'd take advantage of people in a time of trouble, but he quickly laid that worry to rest.

"Let me explain; we're without power, we have holes all over the house, and if it rains we're going to be in trouble. I can hire someone to fix the place up for me, but I suspect they'll be otherwise engaged for a bit. What I'm suggesting is that, instead of my having to teach you how to operate a Ham radio, that maybe you could put us up until we get over this hump? We'll cover whatever expenses you incur, but we could really stand a hand here. I'm pretty handy with my tools, and I'm not afraid of climbing on the roof to fix it, but Ma here isn't very enthused about me doing that, and she's not about to get up there to tell me what needs fixing, and without her assistance I wouldn't know which parts of the roof are secure enough to hold me up."