Chapter 13

I asked, "Mr. Thurston, what are your plans now that you have a few hours of safety?"

"I don't know, Mr. Hillcrest. Before the disaster, we had a dairy and pig farm about seven miles west of town. Most of the stock was killed during the earthquake and fire, but we did save two cows and the bull. All of our pigs escaped, so we lost all of them. Since then, we have lived off hunting and scavenging, but some bastards chased us off what was left of our farm a week ago. Since then, we have been living in town.

"By the way, please call me Abner."

"Sure thing, Abner, and you can call me Joe. We all go by first names in our community. And that brings us to why we happened to be driving down this road. We are members of a community of just over 40 souls, counting the babies, and we are looking for recruits to join us. Do you think that you might be interested?"

Sarah Thurston piped up with, "Abner, don't you dare turn him down before we can see this place! I'm tired of being scared every breath that I take!"

"Well, I guess my wife has answered for all of us. Yes, we would like to see what you are offering. What do we have to do to take a look and be accepted if we decide to join you folks?"

"You don't have to do anything except to say that you want to join us. We do have a little problem at the moment, though: we have a surplus of 26 women that has forced us to double up on wives. Well, actually, I have four wives until we can find other men for three of them. Sue is my original wife, and I don't plan to lose her if I can help it.

"Your two sons should have no problem picking up one or more wives from that surplus if they are interested. Of course, the woman has to agree, too, but I don't expect that they will have much trouble."

Sarah popped up again with, "Abner, don't you start getting any ideas about replacing me with a different wife, but I guess that you could have an extra wife if it will help these nice people out. But don't start getting your hopes up about starting a harem."

"Sarah, I'm 44 years old, dammit! What chance do you think that I would have of collecting a harem?"

"Ha, just let some of them women see your equipment, and I expect that you would get some offers from the older ones." Sarah laughed to let us all know that she was just teasing her husband.

The two sons had their interest aroused when they heard about the surplus of women. I was pretty sure that they had seen very few women, if any at all, since the earthquake.

Finding the Thurstons had kind of jiggled our schedule, but I asked them if they would be willing to wait a few hours before seeing the cave. I explained that we had a few more miles to go before we were ready to turn around and head home. Naturally, they agreed, so we helped them gather up what little they wanted to keep and loaded it into our pickup. I wanted to keep the two young men away from Angie because I was still partial to Eli. I split up the family so that Bob and Ed rode with us while Sarah and Abner rode with Eli and Angie.

We rode for about 45 minutes until we came to the outskirts of Bellmont. Oh, shit! The town was as near a complete wreck as any that we had seen. One or more fires had turned Bellmont into a good representation of Hell on a bad day! There were very few buildings left standing, and all of them were built from brick. There did not seem much prospect for finding anyone in Bellmont, but we figured that we might as well ride around a little since we were already here.

We drove toward a building that had survived the fire or fires and looked like a courthouse or city hall. Anyway, it was a good starting point, so we walked through the building just to be sure that it was empty. Nothing was found to suggest human habitation.

There were four more buildings that looked like they might be worthwhile prospects, so we split up to check them out. The first building we checked out turned out to be a furniture store. Some of the stock was still in fair condition, so we made a point of checking everywhere in the building. With all that furniture available, there was a reasonable possibility that one or more persons might actually be using it.

We started at the front of the building's display area and worked our way toward the back. We looked under tables and beds, just in case there was someone hiding from us. Bingo! Ed let out a shout that he had found somebody. In just a moment, Ed and some woman were shouting at each other somewhat hysterically. Bob, Sue, and I all converged on the bed that Ed was looking under. There was a female somebody under the bed, and she wanted nothing to do with Ed.

He was getting nowhere with trying to talk to the young woman from under the bed, so Sue gave it a try. If she had no luck, we were going to tip the bed over and force whoever was hiding on their to face us. Sue talked to to the woman under the bed for about 10 minutes before she could seem to get the woman to react in any way other than pure panic. Another 10 minutes of talking got the woman to come out from under the bed.

When she did, both Ed and Bob reacted with complete surprise and astonishment. This was somebody they knew from the consolidated high school that they all had attended. When the woman had calmed down enough to recognize who the two young men were, she collapsed back on the bed in tears. She cried for at least 10 minutes so hard that she had trouble breathing. Sue was finally able to calm her down to the point where communication was possible.

It turned out that this girl and her sister had been attending a picnic some distance from home when the earthquake struck. They were not physically hurt, but they did run away in panic. In the process, the sister sprained her ankle and was not able to walk. There appeared to be no solution to the problem the girls faced until three men wandered by. This girl, Sheila, called out to them for help. The men approached and assessed the situation. They did not offer any help, but did rape both girls. The sister, Donna, who had the sprained ankle was raped until she bled, but Sheila managed to come out of the horrible situation with no further physical injury.

Both girls were now naked, and their clothes had been ripped to shreds, so that there was literally nothing for them to wear. There was nothing for the girls to do but to spend the night where they were, but the next morning presented an even more serious problem. They saw a forest fire in the distance, and it looked as if it was approaching them. Sprained ankle or not, they were going to have to move. Sheila supported Donna as well as she could, and the two of them struggled to escape the fire.

They got lucky, and the wind shifted so that the fire veered away from them. They didn't know what else to do, so they headed toward Bellmont. Naked or not, they had to have help, since both girls were wracked with hunger and thirst. They came into town and headed toward the office of a doctor they had known. Two naked women were bound to attract the attention of anyone they met, and they had the misfortune to meet a small gang of looters.

Looting suddenly became a minor issue for this gang, and they attacked the girls. Sheila had no idea how many times she and her sister were raped, again, but this time, both girls were bleeding from the vagina by the time the gang was satisfied. Despite the fact that both girls were in such pain that they could hardly move, they managed to drag himself to the doctor's office. Of course, nobody was there, so the girls had to do something else. They did the best they could to treat the bleeding and donned the paper smocks that women were given to use while they were otherwise undressed. These paper outfits did not do much to protect the girls from the elements, but they did conceal the facts the girls were not wearing any other clothing.

This was enough to keep the girls from being molested any further as they hunted for something to eat. The earthquake had played hell with most of the structures in the town of Bellmont, but there were a few places that had survived. One of those places was a burger joint, and it, strangely enough, had escaped the notice of any looters. The girls went in and were able to find some food and drink to satisfy their immediate needs.