Nikoli Krushev
Membership Revoked
CHAPTER 10 A TEST OF FAITH
After Richardson had left we picked up the nuke and disarmed it, then headed back down to the camp. I put the nuke in the back room of the CP and covered it with cases of beer, then locked the door behind me as I left. Deacon and I sat down in the rockers on the porch and talked for a good while about starting the Wal-Mart salvage operation the next day and drinking ice tea. About an hour before dark Amy came walking up and asked me if I'd like to hike down to the river with her for a little exercise. We walked down the hill holding hands, not talking much, just enjoying each others company and the beautiful evening. The meadow along the river had grown up into wild flowers of all colors and Amy ran among them scaring up meadow larks and looking gorgeous in her light summer dress. I hadn't noticed lately what a beautiful woman she was, and certainly hadn't been paying her enough attention. Well now that things were settled down for a while maybe I could make some of that up to her. "Nick, look." She said, pointing to several brightly colored hummingbirds which were all around her just suspended in the air. "They don't seem afraid at all"
"It's probably the flower print on your dress." I said, "They're trying to decide whether or not to eat you."
She ran at me and shoved me off the boulder to the ground, laughing as she threw her arms around me and gave me a kiss. We lay in the flowers for a while then I started to get to my feet, but a dizzy spell hit me and my vision blacked out for a second. I came too immediately with Amy leaning over me, a scared expression on her face. "Are you all right baby? Can you get up?"
"I think so, it was just a dizzy spell. I tried to get up too fast."
"You haven't been taking your blood pressure pills have you? I want you to go see Doc tomorrow and get a checkup, first thing you know you're going to fool around and have a stroke."
"I've been taking the pills Amy, my blood pressure was nearly nomal the other day when he checked it. I'm telling you I just stood up too fast is all, don't worry I'll be fine." We walked back up the hill to the CP as it was growing dark, and found Evers there waiting for us. He had a large manila envelope addressed to me from Major Richards that he had found in his desk drawer. I thanked him and went inside to see what it was. Amy went looking for Doc to tell him what had happened to me, she wasn't going to let it drop so I guessed I'd be getting a checkup in the morning.
The envelope contained a hand drawn map, a key, and a letter. I opened it up and read: Dear Nick; I just couldn't leave without telling you the whole story but Ives is almost ready to leave so I'm writing it to you in this note. I wasn't completely truthful when I said I didn't have an interest in what is going on reguarding the NWO and their plans. In fact I lied, I am currently working down through an assasination list of all the high level members based here in Branson, which is why I quit my job at Brigham Young University and came here before the war, having found out in advance this was to be the location of the new pentagon. After I found out they intend to release the weapons grade smallpox they have developed after the war is finished I just had to take some action. I do not think God will hold me to task for killing these vermin, but if he does then so be it. Someone has to do it and I guess I'm the best qualified for the job considering my background. Anyway I feel there is a good chance that the virus will be released early since the timetable for stretching the war out has been so badly disrupted by your actions. Don't feel bad about that, the purpose of stretching the war out was to burn up the remainder of our militaries munitions, concentrate as many people as possible into refugee camps, use up all the existing food stocks, and kill off most of the fighting age men who survived the initial attack.
Once it was completed the virus would have been released into the heavily concentrated populations of the refugee camps and the death toll would have been astronomical. By forcing the early release you have saved the lives of untold millions of people who otherwise would have been doomed. Of course millions will still die, just not as many millions and those who survive will still have weaponry available to fight the NWO takeover. This in turn will force them to delay the release of the virus in some other part of the world so they will have enough manpower to fight us. Hopefully by that time enough people will have awakened to the true nature of the situation that a popular revolt will develop derailing all their plans.
I feel God has led me to meet you, as you are certainly doing his work, and doing it well. The map will direct you to my safe house which is really a bunker built in a natural cave near Branson. The key will open either entrance in case we are not here if you should arrive, I know it's a little difficult right now to call ahead, haha.. If you and your wife need to get away feel free to drop in on me, my daughter would certainly enjoy the company as she is here alone a lot. She had flown in to visit me when the nukes started dropping and now is stranded here, thank God, safe and alive. We will remain here until the spring of next year when we will attempt the journey back to our home in southern Utah. In the meantime I will be killing as many of these vermin as possible, and looking forward to your visit. Your brother in Christ, Jason Richards.
I read through it again and then put everything back in the envelope and locked it in my desk drawer. His part about having to kill those vermin even if God damned him for it struck a chord with me, considering my own feelings over nuking the Russian base. Amy and I would certainly pay him a visit in the future when circumstances allowed.
The next day I flew over to Bentonville and sure enough the Wal-Mart warehouses were still intact but there were a few army trucks parked in the loading docks. I circled for a few minutes and then flew back to the airfield. Deacon was waiting down at the Command post when I got back and I told him what I'd seen. "Well," he said, "we got just as much right to that stuff as the army, it won't hurt to try and horn in on the action. All they can do is run us off." He left a couple of hours later with three semis and some men in one of the troop trucks.
It was the next day before they got back with a load of dented up canned goods, a bunch of heavy winter clothing, and some non prescription medicines. They rested a while and dropped the trailers, then headed out again. He said there were hundreds of empty Wal-Mart trailers at the warehouse and they would just bring some of those back on the return trip. The army troops hadn't given them any hassle about taking the stuff after he explained how many refugees we had here and who we were, they had all heard of us.
Amy was sick of living in the tent and so was I, so I set into working on the CP with Rick and Daniels helping me. We put in a hot water heater and a shower. Then wired in an electric range and insulated the walls before putting up paneling. We cleared the junk out of the bedroom and put in a bed and dresser from the furniture store in Jasper, and a couch and recliner in the living room. We cleared all the liquor out of the spare bedroom and put it in a semi trailer with a lock on it and I stashed the nuke under the house in the crawlspace. I moved my desk, map table, and filing cabinets into there and installed another door to the outside so people coming and going didn't have to walk through the rest of the house. We triple insulated the walls of this room to soundproof them, then put up heavy sheetrock over that. The whole project took us about two weeks, but it was worth the work to see the look on Amy's face when we finally moved in.
Deacon only got five more loads of stuff from the Wal-mart before it was emptied, but he continued to use the trucks to bring back empty trailers. We set them up in rows outside the defensive wall and crews began building porches on them as he brought them in. We had nearly a hundred of them before the plauge hit.
The C-130 crew was down at the camp for showers and Gunderson hunted me up to tell me the news. "Hey Nick, I see you're moving up in the world. You got this old house looking pretty good other than that olive drab paint job."
I shook his hand and invited him to have a seat in one of the rockers, and then he started in. "We have been out for several days on a pretty wide swing and the smallpox has broken out in Branson. It's all over the city and the Army has quarantined the whole area, we can't even land at the airport any more. I talked to a fella from down south and he said it's in Louisiana too. I just thought you might want to know, there aint any vaccine for it and it's deadly as hell. Evers has grounded us for a while till the Army gets it contained so we won't be bringing anything in for a while."
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, Richards had been right on the money in his prediction. Well this meant we would have to stop the trailer operation, it was too risky too continue now. "I would have thought the military or somebody would have vaccine for this," I said, "didn't they wipe this disease out years ago through the use of vaccines?"
"Yes, that's exactly why there aint any vaccine. It's been so long ago all the stocks went bad and they just never made any more. I figure the Russians or the Chinese cooked up a batch in their biological warfare labs and turned it loose. They probably have the vaccine for their own troops, but we aint got a lick."
"Well I guess we'll have to stop these long range salvage missions and just work the local area for now. We ought to be allright here being so isolated until the Army can cook up some vaccine to distribute."
"I imagine you're right, well I gotta run, got a hot date with a widder woman down in the other camp. It's going to be a long winter and I need to get my nest feathered." He said with a laugh.
"You need to make an honest woman out of her sarge, if you're planning on moving in. It sets a bad example here for the younger adults and there isn't much way of hiding anything in these close quarters. And we already have enough unattached women as it is with so many men being killed working late at the office when the attack came or in the fighting since."
"I'll take that under advisement Nick, Lord knows I'm ready to retire and settle down. This looks like a good place to do it."
He walked off as Deacons' string of trucks came driving down the road on their return trip, followed by a convoy of greyhound busses. I walked out to meet him as the doors opened and women and kids began piling out of the busses. There wasn't a man among them. I wondered if God had just been listening in on my conversation with Gunderson and decided to have a little fun with me. Deacon met me halfway and had a kind of sheepish grin on his face. "What you got there Deacon?" I asked.
"Well before you get all wound up just let me tell you I really didn't have any choice in the matter. It was either bring them here or let them starve."
"I'm not getting wound up, this is a refugee camp and these apparently are refugees, it's just a surprise is all. Where did you get them?"
"Off the side of the highway out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the smallpox has broken out in several of the larger remaining cities and all of the military bases. All of these women are military widows who were living in base housing until the army decided to move them to Branson. They came from Ft. Bragg on busses and when they got to Branson the city was under quarantine and wouldn't let them in of course. They asked for fuel to get back to Bragg but the soldiers at the roadblock said it had been quarantined too since they left. So they turned south to try for Ft. Polk and were stopped at Jasper because the area south of here is now being blocked off. The soldiers at that checkpoint told them about our camp and they headed back this way and got lost. We ran across them by accident on the way home. I didn't know what else to do with them. There's housing for them in Jasper but no food, and at the rate the virus is spreading that town will probably be closed off in a few days."
"You did the right thing. Let's get them all signed in and find them a place to sleep for the night. I'm sure they are exhausted and hungry after all that time on the busses so just ask them to pick one of the empty trailers to rest in for now if they need to. I'll get Amy and we'll go door to door to take care of the paperwork, and I'll see if I can get the mess hall to cook up something quick for them. As soon as the salvage teams all get back we'll seal the base and quarantine ourselves. We may have to ration the food a little until the crops are ready to harvest but I think we have enough planted to get us through the winter."
"Ok Nick, thanks for being so reasonble about this." Deacon replied. I left to get Amy, and Deacon started lining out the refugees. Within 30 minutes the mess hall team was passing out sack lunches to those who were still awake while Amy and I went from trailer to trailer taking names and medical conditions. We just skipped past the trailers where the kids had already gone to sleep and copied down the door numbers so we could check them later. It was full dark by the time we had gotten everybody. We had 168 widows ranging in age from 19 to 53, and 73 children from 3 months to 18. That brought the current population of the camp to 492 women, 156 children and teenagers, and 243 men, for a grand total of 891, including Evers men.
All of Ricks salvage teams had returned by the next afternoon, with news the quarantine was tightening around us. I had visited with Evers the night before and we agreed the best course of action was to completely seal ourselves off from any outside contact until such time as the military provided us with vaccine or the virus had run it's course. He continued to fly combat missions but it was with the understanding that if a plane had to make an emergency landing elsewhere it was to remain there with it's pilot for the duration. But as the old saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men...
The second camp of Jasper residents was our undoing. Within another week the plauge hit Jasper and relatives of our people who had remained there began walking up the river valley seeking refuge with us. Of course we had posted guards to prevent this from happening but when those guards were confronted with brothers, sisters, and even parents who they would be condemning to almost certain death they a little at a time began sneaking them into the camp. With so many people here they blended in pretty easily for a day or two and by then the damage was done. The dying began. A few cases the first week , dozens the next, hundreds by the third.
At the end of the third week Amy came down with the pox, Doc had long since died along with the entire medical staff. We had run out of chem suits and mask from burning the dead and the medical supplies were exhausted. I sat by Amys side bathing her in cold water trying to hold the fever down, and had ordered Ray and Maggie to take some camping gear and move down to the river in an attempt to keep them uninfected. Other people followed their cue and by the third day of Amys' illness only those who were tending loved ones remained. I began to become feverish myself and lightheaded, as I prayed constantly for Amy's survival. She was unconscious by the fourth day and I lay beside her too weak to get out of the bed. Sometime during the night she died and I just quit trying. I don't know how many days I lay there, I had lapsed into unconsciousness and when I fiinally awakened Amy's body was gone and Wilks was sitting at the bedside. I opened my eyes and looked at him for along while before speaking. Finally I asked, "Maggie, and Ray, did they make it?"
"Just rest Nick, we'll talk later." he said .
"Tell me Wilks, I have to know."
"I walked down to the river and found Ray and Maggie dead in their tent, I have already burned the bodies, along with Amy. I'm sorry Nick. I have the girls wedding rings for you when you get better."
I rolled out of the bed and was trying to get a gun to kill myself when Wilks stopped me. He had been one of the first infected and the first to recover and even in the best of health I was no match for him. He kept me locked in a trailer for another two weeks while he and the other survivors burned the rest of the bodies. A few more survivors came trickling back in, others I guess were too scared to come back,and still others had died beyond our reach. When it was all said and done there were 32 of us left out of 891 and we knew at least 754 had died. Evers had loaded his men on the C-130 and left for parts unknown when it became apparent the situation was out of control, the fate of his men was unknown and they accounted for 43 of the missing. I prayed they had found a safe haven and been uninfected when they left.
Wilks finally let me out when he decided I was just going to sit in there and rot away if he didn't get some spirit into me. What finally snapped me out of it was when I realized Wilks and I were the only two men in the entire camp. All of the other survivors were women and children. "I can't do this alone Nick, if you don't help, these few who are left probably won't make it through the winter and certainly not next winter." he said. We set about harvesting what crops were ready as the women canned them, of course we didn't have the ability to gather all we had planted but we gathered enough to get us into the next season. The children who were able helped and we got by.
I fell asleep every night and dreamed of Amy standing in that field of wild flowers with the humming birds hovering around her, a smile on her beautiful face. For some reason that moment had frozen in time in my mind, and I had difficulty visualizing her in any other setting even when awake. The dream was torture, but it was also joy, for those moments every night were all that I had to look forward to even if the pain of remembrance returned anew each morning at dawn, made whole again. I began to feel I was living in two separate worlds and was slowly losing my mind. The winter set in and it rained for months. We didn't get any snowfall until February and by mid March the winter was spent.
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We entered a period where the weather was warm enough to be outdoors but it was still too early to plant. I got to thinking I had to get away, I had an obsession with it. If I could just go away for a while everything would be better when I returned. And the place I wanted to go was Richardsons house. Wilks listened me out when I told him and agreed I probably would be better off to take a vacation so we loaded what little stuff I had in the humvee and I set out for Branson the next morning. I hoped desperately Richardson hadn't left for Utah yet. Using the map he had left for me I had no trouble finding the place.
It was 2:15 in the afternoon when I pulled into the gate. It was locked so I jumped over and began walking up the drive. The house was about a half mile back in the trees, it was a concrete block wall built across a large natural indentation into a cliff face. He had said it was built in a natural cave, so I guessed it probably went back into the ridge a lot further than it appeared at first glance. There were steel shutters mounted on the windows and the door was also steel. There didn't seem to be anyone home, but I walked up and knocked on the door anyway. After a moment the door swung back and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen with the exception of Amy was standing there. Something lurched in my chest and the world seemed to pause for a moment, I couldn't seem to get my breath. Her eyes widened and my heart pounded faster as a flush crept up her cheeks. From behind her I heard a voice, Richardson, but I couldn't make out the words. Finally I got some control back and stammered, "I'm Nickloi Krushev, your father invited me to stop by when I could." She just nodded and Richardson appeared behind her shoulder. "Why don't you let the man in Melinda, I told you it was Nick." she backed away from the door and I was drawn forward as if by a magnet. In less than a minute I had fallen hopelessly in love. Richardson had realized something was wrong and he was looking back and forth from Melinda to me as he stretched out his hand. I took it in mine and tore my eyes away from Melinda as he asked, "Where's Amy? Don't tell me you didn't bring her. Melinda was really looking forward to having some female companionship." That brought me firmly back to reality.
"She's dead Jason. Nine months ago tomorrow of the smallpox. We were wiped out, my whole family is gone." I said in a flat voice.
Melinda covered her mouth with her hand as Jason stepped back and said, "Oh God Nick, we had no idea your camp was hit. I'm so sorry, you must be devastated."
"I was, I guess it's been long enough now that it really doesn't seem real anymore. More like a bad dream."
Melinda reached out and took my hand, a spark jumped between us. I could see she felt it too. "Come in and sit down Nick, I'll get you something to drink." her voice was like music. I tried to visualize Amy in her flowered dress to stop this insanity, but the image wouldn't come. She led me by the hand into the house while Jason walked alongside with his hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad you came, I just wish it had been sooner."
I sat down at the table in the chair he pulled back and said, "I couldn't leave sooner. There were only two of us men left alive at the camp and all the rest were women and children. We had to get the crops in and see them through the winter. I'll have to go back in a couple of weeks to start the planting."
"Good Lord Nick, how many died?" He asked.
"Over 750, we don't know the exact number, a lot of people fled and never returned." I replied. Richardsons face paled and Melinda gasped.
"How many survived?" he finally asked.
"Thirty two that we know of, counting me, but we had another baby born seven months afterward.." I said, my voice broke at the end. "He was severly deformed but he's still alive."
No one said anything for a while and finally I asked, "So, how's things been going up here?" As a tear trickled down my cheek. Melinda was tearing up too, and I saw that Richardson was on the verge of it. She layed her hands over mine, then got up and hugged me, running her fingers through my hair. With her cheek pressed to mine. I could feel her tears running down the side of my face and her breath warm upon me. And the pain began to fade.
After a while she went to fix us something to eat and drink and I could breathe again. Jason watched her as she walked away, a curious expression on his face.
He turned back to me and said, "She's really quite beautiful isn't she?"
"She looks like an angel," I replied, "you must be very proud."
"Yes a man isn't supposed to have favorites among his children, but I have to confess she is mine. Of course I love all the others but somehow Melinda has always been special, and she was my firstborn by my first wife."
"How many children do you have?" I asked.
"Twenty one." He replied.
"Did you say twenty one?" I asked in disbelief.
"He smiled and nodded, "I get that reaction a lot. We are fundamentalist Mormon and I have four wives. We don't believe the government has any authority to tamper with Gods laws, especially when it comes to family matters."
"I'll have to digest that for a bit, I have heard of your practices before but you are the first member of that sect I have ever met. Doesn't that lead to a lot of jealousy between the women, I mean sleeping with so many of them?"
"It can if the choices of wives are not made wisely. After my first wife I wouldn't marry another unless she was approved by the others. Mostly we marry women who have been raised in our faith and it comes naturally to them. It would come naturally to everyone if the governments of the world hadn't outlawed it and brainwashed people into thinking it was unnatural and perverse. A process actively endorsed I might add by the Roman Catholic church even though it is direct opposition to the teachings of the Bible."
I couldn't argue with him, not that I wanted too. I wasn't much of a Bible scholar but even I knew the Bible was full of instances of men having multiple wives. David and Solomon had dozens. "Personally I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other," I said. "If all the parties involved are comfortable with the arrangement and are legally married I kind of feel like it's no ones business but their own. On the other hand I can see the potential for some abuse there if the man of the family is the overbearing type."
"There is potential for abuse in any relationship. The advantage of our situation is that the wives usually have huge families and a miscreant will usually mend his ways when a dozen men show up at his door to take him to task. Sort of like that song "Attitude Adjustment". If you know what I mean." He smiled. "We also raise our children with a strict set of morals, which eliminates that kind of behavior ever cropping up in the vast majority of cases. Almost all Fundamentalist Mormons had gone to home shooling long before the war, when we saw what cesspools the public school systems were becoming."
"Is Melinda involved in one of these multiple marriages?" I asked, "I'd be interested in hearing a womans point of view on the subject. I know Amy would have never gone for it, but then I would never have asked her too either."
He smiled and said, "Melinda has never married. She is a little too picky I'm afraid, no man has yet met her standards. I fear at 28 years old and in light of what has happened, no man ever will. There are so few good men left now, you understand?" He was looking at me with that pointed expression again. "How old are you Nick, If you don't mind my asking?"
"No, I don't mind. I am forty two as of last December. It is hard to believe a woman as beautiful as her hasn't been snatched up. I bet she has left a trail of broken hearts that would reach from here to Utah." I said with a smile. Jason looked up over my shoulder and laughed as I felt a hand squeeze the back of my neck, then slide to my shoulder to be joined by its mate on the other one. Melinda massaged the bunched muscles in my upper back as she said, "If their hearts broke it wasn't my fault, I never led them on. I haven't given up, one day the right man will come along." She emphasized it with a harder squeeze and a tingle ran up my spine. I could smell the scent of her and I was suddenly aware I was becoming aroused. I shifted my position so no one would notice and tried to will it back. I looked up at Melinda leaning over me and she was smiling, her long golden hair hanging down around my face. Across the table Richardson was looking amused.
She gave me a final rub and left to get the dishes, I began to get myself back under control. "Melinda seems quite taken by you." Richardson said in a low voice. "I have never seen her act this way with a man before. Perhaps mr. right has finally come along?"
I reddened and said, "Jason I will leave, I don't want to cause any trouble. Other than Wilks you are the last friend I have left on the face of the Earth. I didn't come here looking for a woman."
"No, there won't be any trouble, if something does develop between you I will be very happy. You are a good man and your ages are close enough together. I can plainly see that you are attracted to her as well, perhaps it is time for you to put your mourning behind you and move on with life."
I heard the door to the kitchen swing open so I remained silent as Melinda set the table, she made it a point to press her hip lightly against me as she placed my plate, trying to make it look accidental but lingering in the touch for along moment.
We ate and talked then moved to the living room to sit on the sofa and drink coffee. After a while Jason started yawning and said the dinner had made him sleepy, and would I mind if he took a nap. I said no, I thought I might walk a little to settle my meal and I would talk to him later when he woke up. After he had left Melinda turned to me and said, "A walk would be nice, do you mind if I join you?"
"I wouldn't mind at all, I would enjoy the company." At least I had reached the point I could talk in front of her without stuttering. Not so it showed anyway. She led me through the house into a room with no back wall, it just turned into a cave which ran on into the ridge. There were electric lights strung at intervals along the way, powered by a solar system. After about two hundred yards we reached another concrete block wall with a steel door and beyond that an open field ringed by large oaks. There were two airplanes parked under the overhanging branches of the trees nearest to the cave and a humvee was pulled up near the door. "We keep the humvee parked around here so it will look like no-one is home." Melinda said. "We have a hidden camera and motion detector covering the front gate, that's how we knew it was you coming up the drive." She pointed into a nearby tree, "There's one of the cameras in that birdhouse, we have several more scattered about."
She took my hand and we walked down to a clear stony brook and sat down on a large flat boulder. We watched the water flowing for a while in silence, then Melinda quietly said. "Nick, I know I've just met you, but I felt something pass between us at the front door. I could tell you felt it too. Father has talked of you many times and I trust his opinion in people, he says you are a good and decent man. I realize you are in mourning for your wife, but I want you to know that when you are ready, I will be here for you."
I was just inches away from her as she spoke, and my soul lifted inside me at her words. I slowly raised my hand to the back of her neck and bent to kiss her lips. She met me without hesitation, her eyes closing as we touched and after a moment her lips parted and her tounge sought mine. For the first time in nine long months I was happy in the light of day. We broke the kiss and she leaned back against my chest while I encircled her with my arms and hugged her to me. "I don't understand what's happening here Melinda, but if this is a dream I want it to continue. I feel as If I have known you for a thousand years, or have been waiting to meet you for that long."
She pulled away and looked at me with a strange expression on her face. "That's funny, I was thinking almost exactly the same thing." She reached up to my face and lightly traced the scars left behind by the pox, completely unselfconscious in doing it. I held still and closed my eyes while she explored every one with her fingers. I could feel the healing power in her touch flowing into me. The scars on my face would remain unchanged, but the scars in my mind were slowly melting away. "Open your shirt." she said gently. I unfastened the buttons with my eyes still closed and she began to work on the ones on my chest, then pulled my shirt off of me and started on my back. I could feel her breast brushing against me as she worked, and she began to hum Rod Stewarts old tune "Maggie". "That was always one of my favorite songs when I was young." I said "I named my youngest daughter Maggie when she was born. It was her grandmothers name as well."
"Would you sing it for me? Dad only knows a few of the words and I would like to hear it all." She said. She began to knead the muscles in my back as I tried to remember exactly how the song went. I started to sing it softly as she hummed the tune, knowing she wouldn't mind my rough voice. When I had finished all that I could remember she sat in my lap and gave me a long deep kiss as I cupped her breast in my hand. She pulled back after a moment and looked down at the rings hanging around my neck on a leather shoelace. "I see you have two sets of rings, I wasn't aware you had a second wife." I picked them up and looked at them a moment, then pulled the thong over my head and untied it while I said, "I didn't, the second set belonged to Maggie. She had just recently gotten married and was pregnant with her first child, my first grandchild, when she died." I pulled Amy's engagement ring off the thong as Melinda watched me in silence, then retied it. "Will you marry me Melinda?" I asked.
"Yes, if you are sure you are ready. I want you to know that I want a child as soon as possible though." Melinda replied. I put the ring on her finger and pulled her back to me, kissing her again. I was rapidly growing aroused as her weight pressed against me and her tounge explored my mouth, once more I fondled her breast as she wiggled in my lap. I slipped my hand inside her dress and under her bra, feeling her nipple grow taught as I caressed.
She laughed pulling my hand back, and said, "There will be time enough for that later, when we are married and a little more alone." She nodded towards another bird house I hadn't noticed mounted on a nearby tree. I could barely make out the twinkle of glass inside the door. "I don't think dad would intentionallly spy on us, but you never know when he may be flipping though the cameras or checking to make sure we are all right."
Jason watched for a moment and turned the monitor off, a smile on his face. Maybe he would see Melindas firstborn before this bad heart gave out after all.
We walked back to the house arm in arm as the sun grew low in the sky and found Jason building a fire in the wood heater. It had grown chilly since we left and the cave was naturally cool anyway. We entered the room holding hands and he looked from one to the other of our faces, a smile on his own. "You two seem to be getting along very well." he said.
"Jason, I want to ask for Melindas hand in marriage. I have been too long alone and she is too wonderful a woman to waste time in an extended courtship."
He looked at me for a moment then turned to Melinda, "And how do you feel daughter?"
"The same father, I wish to be married right away. With your blessing of course."
"And you have it." Jason walked over to the bookshelves and pulled down an ancient family Bible bound in cracked leather. "Nick, I am an ordained minister of God if I am acceptable to you to perform the ceremony. I think under the circumstances we can dispense with the goverments paperwork and technicalities, not that they ever had any authority in such matters anyway"
"I would be honored for you to perform the ceremony Jason."
He smiled and opened the book and began. When he finished I took Amy's wedding ring from the leather thong around my neck and placed it on Melindas finger, And Jason gave her a wedding band from his own hand for mine. Then we kissed and added our names to the long list in the back of the Bible. I saw that there were blanks for more brides beside the space in which I had signed as the husband. They wouldn't be needed, I had all the woman any man could ever want.
As I expected Melinda proved to be a virgin. I was patient and gentle with her, trying not to inflict any more pain than could be possibly avoided. I wondered at how rare a 28 year old virgin was in todays world, especially one so beautiful as this. Afterwards we lay talking and caressing each other, then made love again in the midnight hours. When it was finished I once again gently washed the blood from Melindas thighs and we went to sleep in each others arms.
The sleep was not to last, I was wakened by an intense light filling the room and a buzz of static charge in the air. I was spooned against Melinda, both of still nude on top of the covers. I opened my eyes to find an electric blue mist hanging in the air beside the bed, and started at the sight, awakening Melinda. Her breath gasped as she too watched the mist materialize and then solidify into an angel with a flaming sword in his hand. His face was terrible to look upon, so fierce was his countenance, his wings were like those of an eagle and his sword was double edged and drenched in blood. In his other hand was a battered shield of bronze with a crimsom crucifix in its center painted in blood, the only part unmarked by slashes and dents. I pulled Melinda to me protectively, encircling her in my arms and atempting to protect her with my own body.
He began to speak and his voice rumbled as thunder in the night while the flames from his sword illuminated the room like a torch. "Nicoli of the line of Noah, I bring unto ye a blessing from our Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen. Because ye have been tested in the fire, and your temper is sufficient, and because your heart is true yet to your first love, and also to your second, and because ye hath yet retained faith in the Lord through your travails, and because Melinda of the line of Judea and of Mary has maintained her covenant of chastity until wed in service to the Lord God Almighty, Amen, and because her heart is pure, a male child will be born unto ye both and his name shall be called Rale. Lo the first part of the word is is fullfilled." He lowered his flaming sword and touched the tip to Melindas abdomen and fire flowed into her belly as she gasped in pain. He withdrew the sword leaving a red mark in the shape of a cross on her where it had touched, and began to speak again.
"This child shall be annointed a prophet of God and his counsel shall be followed in all things great and small. No mortal hand shall prevail against thee and thine so long as this covenant with the Lord is maintained. Because ye both have passed the test, and because the Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen, finds favor in ye, He hath seen mercifully to restore that which hath been lost to ye. No plagues shall touch thine people, and further the Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen, Commands ye to gather his remnant about ye from his many churches, fearing not unto the death. And Lo the second part of the word is fullfilled. Sleep ye now and waken from Whence it began, remembering all that hath passed before." A clap of thunder and a flash of lighting shook the room as the angel finished, and shot up through the solid rock roof with shield and sword raised above him.. I fell back in a coma, as Melindas hand clutched mine.
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After Richardson had left we picked up the nuke and disarmed it, then headed back down to the camp. I put the nuke in the back room of the CP and covered it with cases of beer, then locked the door behind me as I left. Deacon and I sat down in the rockers on the porch and talked for a good while about starting the Wal-Mart salvage operation the next day and drinking ice tea. About an hour before dark Amy came walking up and asked me if I'd like to hike down to the river with her for a little exercise. We walked down the hill holding hands, not talking much, just enjoying each others company and the beautiful evening. The meadow along the river had grown up into wild flowers of all colors and Amy ran among them scaring up meadow larks and looking gorgeous in her light summer dress. I hadn't noticed lately what a beautiful woman she was, and certainly hadn't been paying her enough attention. Well now that things were settled down for a while maybe I could make some of that up to her. "Nick, look." She said, pointing to several brightly colored hummingbirds which were all around her just suspended in the air. "They don't seem afraid at all"
"It's probably the flower print on your dress." I said, "They're trying to decide whether or not to eat you."
She ran at me and shoved me off the boulder to the ground, laughing as she threw her arms around me and gave me a kiss. We lay in the flowers for a while then I started to get to my feet, but a dizzy spell hit me and my vision blacked out for a second. I came too immediately with Amy leaning over me, a scared expression on her face. "Are you all right baby? Can you get up?"
"I think so, it was just a dizzy spell. I tried to get up too fast."
"You haven't been taking your blood pressure pills have you? I want you to go see Doc tomorrow and get a checkup, first thing you know you're going to fool around and have a stroke."
"I've been taking the pills Amy, my blood pressure was nearly nomal the other day when he checked it. I'm telling you I just stood up too fast is all, don't worry I'll be fine." We walked back up the hill to the CP as it was growing dark, and found Evers there waiting for us. He had a large manila envelope addressed to me from Major Richards that he had found in his desk drawer. I thanked him and went inside to see what it was. Amy went looking for Doc to tell him what had happened to me, she wasn't going to let it drop so I guessed I'd be getting a checkup in the morning.
The envelope contained a hand drawn map, a key, and a letter. I opened it up and read: Dear Nick; I just couldn't leave without telling you the whole story but Ives is almost ready to leave so I'm writing it to you in this note. I wasn't completely truthful when I said I didn't have an interest in what is going on reguarding the NWO and their plans. In fact I lied, I am currently working down through an assasination list of all the high level members based here in Branson, which is why I quit my job at Brigham Young University and came here before the war, having found out in advance this was to be the location of the new pentagon. After I found out they intend to release the weapons grade smallpox they have developed after the war is finished I just had to take some action. I do not think God will hold me to task for killing these vermin, but if he does then so be it. Someone has to do it and I guess I'm the best qualified for the job considering my background. Anyway I feel there is a good chance that the virus will be released early since the timetable for stretching the war out has been so badly disrupted by your actions. Don't feel bad about that, the purpose of stretching the war out was to burn up the remainder of our militaries munitions, concentrate as many people as possible into refugee camps, use up all the existing food stocks, and kill off most of the fighting age men who survived the initial attack.
Once it was completed the virus would have been released into the heavily concentrated populations of the refugee camps and the death toll would have been astronomical. By forcing the early release you have saved the lives of untold millions of people who otherwise would have been doomed. Of course millions will still die, just not as many millions and those who survive will still have weaponry available to fight the NWO takeover. This in turn will force them to delay the release of the virus in some other part of the world so they will have enough manpower to fight us. Hopefully by that time enough people will have awakened to the true nature of the situation that a popular revolt will develop derailing all their plans.
I feel God has led me to meet you, as you are certainly doing his work, and doing it well. The map will direct you to my safe house which is really a bunker built in a natural cave near Branson. The key will open either entrance in case we are not here if you should arrive, I know it's a little difficult right now to call ahead, haha.. If you and your wife need to get away feel free to drop in on me, my daughter would certainly enjoy the company as she is here alone a lot. She had flown in to visit me when the nukes started dropping and now is stranded here, thank God, safe and alive. We will remain here until the spring of next year when we will attempt the journey back to our home in southern Utah. In the meantime I will be killing as many of these vermin as possible, and looking forward to your visit. Your brother in Christ, Jason Richards.
I read through it again and then put everything back in the envelope and locked it in my desk drawer. His part about having to kill those vermin even if God damned him for it struck a chord with me, considering my own feelings over nuking the Russian base. Amy and I would certainly pay him a visit in the future when circumstances allowed.
The next day I flew over to Bentonville and sure enough the Wal-Mart warehouses were still intact but there were a few army trucks parked in the loading docks. I circled for a few minutes and then flew back to the airfield. Deacon was waiting down at the Command post when I got back and I told him what I'd seen. "Well," he said, "we got just as much right to that stuff as the army, it won't hurt to try and horn in on the action. All they can do is run us off." He left a couple of hours later with three semis and some men in one of the troop trucks.
It was the next day before they got back with a load of dented up canned goods, a bunch of heavy winter clothing, and some non prescription medicines. They rested a while and dropped the trailers, then headed out again. He said there were hundreds of empty Wal-Mart trailers at the warehouse and they would just bring some of those back on the return trip. The army troops hadn't given them any hassle about taking the stuff after he explained how many refugees we had here and who we were, they had all heard of us.
Amy was sick of living in the tent and so was I, so I set into working on the CP with Rick and Daniels helping me. We put in a hot water heater and a shower. Then wired in an electric range and insulated the walls before putting up paneling. We cleared the junk out of the bedroom and put in a bed and dresser from the furniture store in Jasper, and a couch and recliner in the living room. We cleared all the liquor out of the spare bedroom and put it in a semi trailer with a lock on it and I stashed the nuke under the house in the crawlspace. I moved my desk, map table, and filing cabinets into there and installed another door to the outside so people coming and going didn't have to walk through the rest of the house. We triple insulated the walls of this room to soundproof them, then put up heavy sheetrock over that. The whole project took us about two weeks, but it was worth the work to see the look on Amy's face when we finally moved in.
Deacon only got five more loads of stuff from the Wal-mart before it was emptied, but he continued to use the trucks to bring back empty trailers. We set them up in rows outside the defensive wall and crews began building porches on them as he brought them in. We had nearly a hundred of them before the plauge hit.
The C-130 crew was down at the camp for showers and Gunderson hunted me up to tell me the news. "Hey Nick, I see you're moving up in the world. You got this old house looking pretty good other than that olive drab paint job."
I shook his hand and invited him to have a seat in one of the rockers, and then he started in. "We have been out for several days on a pretty wide swing and the smallpox has broken out in Branson. It's all over the city and the Army has quarantined the whole area, we can't even land at the airport any more. I talked to a fella from down south and he said it's in Louisiana too. I just thought you might want to know, there aint any vaccine for it and it's deadly as hell. Evers has grounded us for a while till the Army gets it contained so we won't be bringing anything in for a while."
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, Richards had been right on the money in his prediction. Well this meant we would have to stop the trailer operation, it was too risky too continue now. "I would have thought the military or somebody would have vaccine for this," I said, "didn't they wipe this disease out years ago through the use of vaccines?"
"Yes, that's exactly why there aint any vaccine. It's been so long ago all the stocks went bad and they just never made any more. I figure the Russians or the Chinese cooked up a batch in their biological warfare labs and turned it loose. They probably have the vaccine for their own troops, but we aint got a lick."
"Well I guess we'll have to stop these long range salvage missions and just work the local area for now. We ought to be allright here being so isolated until the Army can cook up some vaccine to distribute."
"I imagine you're right, well I gotta run, got a hot date with a widder woman down in the other camp. It's going to be a long winter and I need to get my nest feathered." He said with a laugh.
"You need to make an honest woman out of her sarge, if you're planning on moving in. It sets a bad example here for the younger adults and there isn't much way of hiding anything in these close quarters. And we already have enough unattached women as it is with so many men being killed working late at the office when the attack came or in the fighting since."
"I'll take that under advisement Nick, Lord knows I'm ready to retire and settle down. This looks like a good place to do it."
He walked off as Deacons' string of trucks came driving down the road on their return trip, followed by a convoy of greyhound busses. I walked out to meet him as the doors opened and women and kids began piling out of the busses. There wasn't a man among them. I wondered if God had just been listening in on my conversation with Gunderson and decided to have a little fun with me. Deacon met me halfway and had a kind of sheepish grin on his face. "What you got there Deacon?" I asked.
"Well before you get all wound up just let me tell you I really didn't have any choice in the matter. It was either bring them here or let them starve."
"I'm not getting wound up, this is a refugee camp and these apparently are refugees, it's just a surprise is all. Where did you get them?"
"Off the side of the highway out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the smallpox has broken out in several of the larger remaining cities and all of the military bases. All of these women are military widows who were living in base housing until the army decided to move them to Branson. They came from Ft. Bragg on busses and when they got to Branson the city was under quarantine and wouldn't let them in of course. They asked for fuel to get back to Bragg but the soldiers at the roadblock said it had been quarantined too since they left. So they turned south to try for Ft. Polk and were stopped at Jasper because the area south of here is now being blocked off. The soldiers at that checkpoint told them about our camp and they headed back this way and got lost. We ran across them by accident on the way home. I didn't know what else to do with them. There's housing for them in Jasper but no food, and at the rate the virus is spreading that town will probably be closed off in a few days."
"You did the right thing. Let's get them all signed in and find them a place to sleep for the night. I'm sure they are exhausted and hungry after all that time on the busses so just ask them to pick one of the empty trailers to rest in for now if they need to. I'll get Amy and we'll go door to door to take care of the paperwork, and I'll see if I can get the mess hall to cook up something quick for them. As soon as the salvage teams all get back we'll seal the base and quarantine ourselves. We may have to ration the food a little until the crops are ready to harvest but I think we have enough planted to get us through the winter."
"Ok Nick, thanks for being so reasonble about this." Deacon replied. I left to get Amy, and Deacon started lining out the refugees. Within 30 minutes the mess hall team was passing out sack lunches to those who were still awake while Amy and I went from trailer to trailer taking names and medical conditions. We just skipped past the trailers where the kids had already gone to sleep and copied down the door numbers so we could check them later. It was full dark by the time we had gotten everybody. We had 168 widows ranging in age from 19 to 53, and 73 children from 3 months to 18. That brought the current population of the camp to 492 women, 156 children and teenagers, and 243 men, for a grand total of 891, including Evers men.
All of Ricks salvage teams had returned by the next afternoon, with news the quarantine was tightening around us. I had visited with Evers the night before and we agreed the best course of action was to completely seal ourselves off from any outside contact until such time as the military provided us with vaccine or the virus had run it's course. He continued to fly combat missions but it was with the understanding that if a plane had to make an emergency landing elsewhere it was to remain there with it's pilot for the duration. But as the old saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men...
The second camp of Jasper residents was our undoing. Within another week the plauge hit Jasper and relatives of our people who had remained there began walking up the river valley seeking refuge with us. Of course we had posted guards to prevent this from happening but when those guards were confronted with brothers, sisters, and even parents who they would be condemning to almost certain death they a little at a time began sneaking them into the camp. With so many people here they blended in pretty easily for a day or two and by then the damage was done. The dying began. A few cases the first week , dozens the next, hundreds by the third.
At the end of the third week Amy came down with the pox, Doc had long since died along with the entire medical staff. We had run out of chem suits and mask from burning the dead and the medical supplies were exhausted. I sat by Amys side bathing her in cold water trying to hold the fever down, and had ordered Ray and Maggie to take some camping gear and move down to the river in an attempt to keep them uninfected. Other people followed their cue and by the third day of Amys' illness only those who were tending loved ones remained. I began to become feverish myself and lightheaded, as I prayed constantly for Amy's survival. She was unconscious by the fourth day and I lay beside her too weak to get out of the bed. Sometime during the night she died and I just quit trying. I don't know how many days I lay there, I had lapsed into unconsciousness and when I fiinally awakened Amy's body was gone and Wilks was sitting at the bedside. I opened my eyes and looked at him for along while before speaking. Finally I asked, "Maggie, and Ray, did they make it?"
"Just rest Nick, we'll talk later." he said .
"Tell me Wilks, I have to know."
"I walked down to the river and found Ray and Maggie dead in their tent, I have already burned the bodies, along with Amy. I'm sorry Nick. I have the girls wedding rings for you when you get better."
I rolled out of the bed and was trying to get a gun to kill myself when Wilks stopped me. He had been one of the first infected and the first to recover and even in the best of health I was no match for him. He kept me locked in a trailer for another two weeks while he and the other survivors burned the rest of the bodies. A few more survivors came trickling back in, others I guess were too scared to come back,and still others had died beyond our reach. When it was all said and done there were 32 of us left out of 891 and we knew at least 754 had died. Evers had loaded his men on the C-130 and left for parts unknown when it became apparent the situation was out of control, the fate of his men was unknown and they accounted for 43 of the missing. I prayed they had found a safe haven and been uninfected when they left.
Wilks finally let me out when he decided I was just going to sit in there and rot away if he didn't get some spirit into me. What finally snapped me out of it was when I realized Wilks and I were the only two men in the entire camp. All of the other survivors were women and children. "I can't do this alone Nick, if you don't help, these few who are left probably won't make it through the winter and certainly not next winter." he said. We set about harvesting what crops were ready as the women canned them, of course we didn't have the ability to gather all we had planted but we gathered enough to get us into the next season. The children who were able helped and we got by.
I fell asleep every night and dreamed of Amy standing in that field of wild flowers with the humming birds hovering around her, a smile on her beautiful face. For some reason that moment had frozen in time in my mind, and I had difficulty visualizing her in any other setting even when awake. The dream was torture, but it was also joy, for those moments every night were all that I had to look forward to even if the pain of remembrance returned anew each morning at dawn, made whole again. I began to feel I was living in two separate worlds and was slowly losing my mind. The winter set in and it rained for months. We didn't get any snowfall until February and by mid March the winter was spent.
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We entered a period where the weather was warm enough to be outdoors but it was still too early to plant. I got to thinking I had to get away, I had an obsession with it. If I could just go away for a while everything would be better when I returned. And the place I wanted to go was Richardsons house. Wilks listened me out when I told him and agreed I probably would be better off to take a vacation so we loaded what little stuff I had in the humvee and I set out for Branson the next morning. I hoped desperately Richardson hadn't left for Utah yet. Using the map he had left for me I had no trouble finding the place.
It was 2:15 in the afternoon when I pulled into the gate. It was locked so I jumped over and began walking up the drive. The house was about a half mile back in the trees, it was a concrete block wall built across a large natural indentation into a cliff face. He had said it was built in a natural cave, so I guessed it probably went back into the ridge a lot further than it appeared at first glance. There were steel shutters mounted on the windows and the door was also steel. There didn't seem to be anyone home, but I walked up and knocked on the door anyway. After a moment the door swung back and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen with the exception of Amy was standing there. Something lurched in my chest and the world seemed to pause for a moment, I couldn't seem to get my breath. Her eyes widened and my heart pounded faster as a flush crept up her cheeks. From behind her I heard a voice, Richardson, but I couldn't make out the words. Finally I got some control back and stammered, "I'm Nickloi Krushev, your father invited me to stop by when I could." She just nodded and Richardson appeared behind her shoulder. "Why don't you let the man in Melinda, I told you it was Nick." she backed away from the door and I was drawn forward as if by a magnet. In less than a minute I had fallen hopelessly in love. Richardson had realized something was wrong and he was looking back and forth from Melinda to me as he stretched out his hand. I took it in mine and tore my eyes away from Melinda as he asked, "Where's Amy? Don't tell me you didn't bring her. Melinda was really looking forward to having some female companionship." That brought me firmly back to reality.
"She's dead Jason. Nine months ago tomorrow of the smallpox. We were wiped out, my whole family is gone." I said in a flat voice.
Melinda covered her mouth with her hand as Jason stepped back and said, "Oh God Nick, we had no idea your camp was hit. I'm so sorry, you must be devastated."
"I was, I guess it's been long enough now that it really doesn't seem real anymore. More like a bad dream."
Melinda reached out and took my hand, a spark jumped between us. I could see she felt it too. "Come in and sit down Nick, I'll get you something to drink." her voice was like music. I tried to visualize Amy in her flowered dress to stop this insanity, but the image wouldn't come. She led me by the hand into the house while Jason walked alongside with his hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad you came, I just wish it had been sooner."
I sat down at the table in the chair he pulled back and said, "I couldn't leave sooner. There were only two of us men left alive at the camp and all the rest were women and children. We had to get the crops in and see them through the winter. I'll have to go back in a couple of weeks to start the planting."
"Good Lord Nick, how many died?" He asked.
"Over 750, we don't know the exact number, a lot of people fled and never returned." I replied. Richardsons face paled and Melinda gasped.
"How many survived?" he finally asked.
"Thirty two that we know of, counting me, but we had another baby born seven months afterward.." I said, my voice broke at the end. "He was severly deformed but he's still alive."
No one said anything for a while and finally I asked, "So, how's things been going up here?" As a tear trickled down my cheek. Melinda was tearing up too, and I saw that Richardson was on the verge of it. She layed her hands over mine, then got up and hugged me, running her fingers through my hair. With her cheek pressed to mine. I could feel her tears running down the side of my face and her breath warm upon me. And the pain began to fade.
After a while she went to fix us something to eat and drink and I could breathe again. Jason watched her as she walked away, a curious expression on his face.
He turned back to me and said, "She's really quite beautiful isn't she?"
"She looks like an angel," I replied, "you must be very proud."
"Yes a man isn't supposed to have favorites among his children, but I have to confess she is mine. Of course I love all the others but somehow Melinda has always been special, and she was my firstborn by my first wife."
"How many children do you have?" I asked.
"Twenty one." He replied.
"Did you say twenty one?" I asked in disbelief.
"He smiled and nodded, "I get that reaction a lot. We are fundamentalist Mormon and I have four wives. We don't believe the government has any authority to tamper with Gods laws, especially when it comes to family matters."
"I'll have to digest that for a bit, I have heard of your practices before but you are the first member of that sect I have ever met. Doesn't that lead to a lot of jealousy between the women, I mean sleeping with so many of them?"
"It can if the choices of wives are not made wisely. After my first wife I wouldn't marry another unless she was approved by the others. Mostly we marry women who have been raised in our faith and it comes naturally to them. It would come naturally to everyone if the governments of the world hadn't outlawed it and brainwashed people into thinking it was unnatural and perverse. A process actively endorsed I might add by the Roman Catholic church even though it is direct opposition to the teachings of the Bible."
I couldn't argue with him, not that I wanted too. I wasn't much of a Bible scholar but even I knew the Bible was full of instances of men having multiple wives. David and Solomon had dozens. "Personally I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other," I said. "If all the parties involved are comfortable with the arrangement and are legally married I kind of feel like it's no ones business but their own. On the other hand I can see the potential for some abuse there if the man of the family is the overbearing type."
"There is potential for abuse in any relationship. The advantage of our situation is that the wives usually have huge families and a miscreant will usually mend his ways when a dozen men show up at his door to take him to task. Sort of like that song "Attitude Adjustment". If you know what I mean." He smiled. "We also raise our children with a strict set of morals, which eliminates that kind of behavior ever cropping up in the vast majority of cases. Almost all Fundamentalist Mormons had gone to home shooling long before the war, when we saw what cesspools the public school systems were becoming."
"Is Melinda involved in one of these multiple marriages?" I asked, "I'd be interested in hearing a womans point of view on the subject. I know Amy would have never gone for it, but then I would never have asked her too either."
He smiled and said, "Melinda has never married. She is a little too picky I'm afraid, no man has yet met her standards. I fear at 28 years old and in light of what has happened, no man ever will. There are so few good men left now, you understand?" He was looking at me with that pointed expression again. "How old are you Nick, If you don't mind my asking?"
"No, I don't mind. I am forty two as of last December. It is hard to believe a woman as beautiful as her hasn't been snatched up. I bet she has left a trail of broken hearts that would reach from here to Utah." I said with a smile. Jason looked up over my shoulder and laughed as I felt a hand squeeze the back of my neck, then slide to my shoulder to be joined by its mate on the other one. Melinda massaged the bunched muscles in my upper back as she said, "If their hearts broke it wasn't my fault, I never led them on. I haven't given up, one day the right man will come along." She emphasized it with a harder squeeze and a tingle ran up my spine. I could smell the scent of her and I was suddenly aware I was becoming aroused. I shifted my position so no one would notice and tried to will it back. I looked up at Melinda leaning over me and she was smiling, her long golden hair hanging down around my face. Across the table Richardson was looking amused.
She gave me a final rub and left to get the dishes, I began to get myself back under control. "Melinda seems quite taken by you." Richardson said in a low voice. "I have never seen her act this way with a man before. Perhaps mr. right has finally come along?"
I reddened and said, "Jason I will leave, I don't want to cause any trouble. Other than Wilks you are the last friend I have left on the face of the Earth. I didn't come here looking for a woman."
"No, there won't be any trouble, if something does develop between you I will be very happy. You are a good man and your ages are close enough together. I can plainly see that you are attracted to her as well, perhaps it is time for you to put your mourning behind you and move on with life."
I heard the door to the kitchen swing open so I remained silent as Melinda set the table, she made it a point to press her hip lightly against me as she placed my plate, trying to make it look accidental but lingering in the touch for along moment.
We ate and talked then moved to the living room to sit on the sofa and drink coffee. After a while Jason started yawning and said the dinner had made him sleepy, and would I mind if he took a nap. I said no, I thought I might walk a little to settle my meal and I would talk to him later when he woke up. After he had left Melinda turned to me and said, "A walk would be nice, do you mind if I join you?"
"I wouldn't mind at all, I would enjoy the company." At least I had reached the point I could talk in front of her without stuttering. Not so it showed anyway. She led me through the house into a room with no back wall, it just turned into a cave which ran on into the ridge. There were electric lights strung at intervals along the way, powered by a solar system. After about two hundred yards we reached another concrete block wall with a steel door and beyond that an open field ringed by large oaks. There were two airplanes parked under the overhanging branches of the trees nearest to the cave and a humvee was pulled up near the door. "We keep the humvee parked around here so it will look like no-one is home." Melinda said. "We have a hidden camera and motion detector covering the front gate, that's how we knew it was you coming up the drive." She pointed into a nearby tree, "There's one of the cameras in that birdhouse, we have several more scattered about."
She took my hand and we walked down to a clear stony brook and sat down on a large flat boulder. We watched the water flowing for a while in silence, then Melinda quietly said. "Nick, I know I've just met you, but I felt something pass between us at the front door. I could tell you felt it too. Father has talked of you many times and I trust his opinion in people, he says you are a good and decent man. I realize you are in mourning for your wife, but I want you to know that when you are ready, I will be here for you."
I was just inches away from her as she spoke, and my soul lifted inside me at her words. I slowly raised my hand to the back of her neck and bent to kiss her lips. She met me without hesitation, her eyes closing as we touched and after a moment her lips parted and her tounge sought mine. For the first time in nine long months I was happy in the light of day. We broke the kiss and she leaned back against my chest while I encircled her with my arms and hugged her to me. "I don't understand what's happening here Melinda, but if this is a dream I want it to continue. I feel as If I have known you for a thousand years, or have been waiting to meet you for that long."
She pulled away and looked at me with a strange expression on her face. "That's funny, I was thinking almost exactly the same thing." She reached up to my face and lightly traced the scars left behind by the pox, completely unselfconscious in doing it. I held still and closed my eyes while she explored every one with her fingers. I could feel the healing power in her touch flowing into me. The scars on my face would remain unchanged, but the scars in my mind were slowly melting away. "Open your shirt." she said gently. I unfastened the buttons with my eyes still closed and she began to work on the ones on my chest, then pulled my shirt off of me and started on my back. I could feel her breast brushing against me as she worked, and she began to hum Rod Stewarts old tune "Maggie". "That was always one of my favorite songs when I was young." I said "I named my youngest daughter Maggie when she was born. It was her grandmothers name as well."
"Would you sing it for me? Dad only knows a few of the words and I would like to hear it all." She said. She began to knead the muscles in my back as I tried to remember exactly how the song went. I started to sing it softly as she hummed the tune, knowing she wouldn't mind my rough voice. When I had finished all that I could remember she sat in my lap and gave me a long deep kiss as I cupped her breast in my hand. She pulled back after a moment and looked down at the rings hanging around my neck on a leather shoelace. "I see you have two sets of rings, I wasn't aware you had a second wife." I picked them up and looked at them a moment, then pulled the thong over my head and untied it while I said, "I didn't, the second set belonged to Maggie. She had just recently gotten married and was pregnant with her first child, my first grandchild, when she died." I pulled Amy's engagement ring off the thong as Melinda watched me in silence, then retied it. "Will you marry me Melinda?" I asked.
"Yes, if you are sure you are ready. I want you to know that I want a child as soon as possible though." Melinda replied. I put the ring on her finger and pulled her back to me, kissing her again. I was rapidly growing aroused as her weight pressed against me and her tounge explored my mouth, once more I fondled her breast as she wiggled in my lap. I slipped my hand inside her dress and under her bra, feeling her nipple grow taught as I caressed.
She laughed pulling my hand back, and said, "There will be time enough for that later, when we are married and a little more alone." She nodded towards another bird house I hadn't noticed mounted on a nearby tree. I could barely make out the twinkle of glass inside the door. "I don't think dad would intentionallly spy on us, but you never know when he may be flipping though the cameras or checking to make sure we are all right."
Jason watched for a moment and turned the monitor off, a smile on his face. Maybe he would see Melindas firstborn before this bad heart gave out after all.
We walked back to the house arm in arm as the sun grew low in the sky and found Jason building a fire in the wood heater. It had grown chilly since we left and the cave was naturally cool anyway. We entered the room holding hands and he looked from one to the other of our faces, a smile on his own. "You two seem to be getting along very well." he said.
"Jason, I want to ask for Melindas hand in marriage. I have been too long alone and she is too wonderful a woman to waste time in an extended courtship."
He looked at me for a moment then turned to Melinda, "And how do you feel daughter?"
"The same father, I wish to be married right away. With your blessing of course."
"And you have it." Jason walked over to the bookshelves and pulled down an ancient family Bible bound in cracked leather. "Nick, I am an ordained minister of God if I am acceptable to you to perform the ceremony. I think under the circumstances we can dispense with the goverments paperwork and technicalities, not that they ever had any authority in such matters anyway"
"I would be honored for you to perform the ceremony Jason."
He smiled and opened the book and began. When he finished I took Amy's wedding ring from the leather thong around my neck and placed it on Melindas finger, And Jason gave her a wedding band from his own hand for mine. Then we kissed and added our names to the long list in the back of the Bible. I saw that there were blanks for more brides beside the space in which I had signed as the husband. They wouldn't be needed, I had all the woman any man could ever want.
As I expected Melinda proved to be a virgin. I was patient and gentle with her, trying not to inflict any more pain than could be possibly avoided. I wondered at how rare a 28 year old virgin was in todays world, especially one so beautiful as this. Afterwards we lay talking and caressing each other, then made love again in the midnight hours. When it was finished I once again gently washed the blood from Melindas thighs and we went to sleep in each others arms.
The sleep was not to last, I was wakened by an intense light filling the room and a buzz of static charge in the air. I was spooned against Melinda, both of still nude on top of the covers. I opened my eyes to find an electric blue mist hanging in the air beside the bed, and started at the sight, awakening Melinda. Her breath gasped as she too watched the mist materialize and then solidify into an angel with a flaming sword in his hand. His face was terrible to look upon, so fierce was his countenance, his wings were like those of an eagle and his sword was double edged and drenched in blood. In his other hand was a battered shield of bronze with a crimsom crucifix in its center painted in blood, the only part unmarked by slashes and dents. I pulled Melinda to me protectively, encircling her in my arms and atempting to protect her with my own body.
He began to speak and his voice rumbled as thunder in the night while the flames from his sword illuminated the room like a torch. "Nicoli of the line of Noah, I bring unto ye a blessing from our Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen. Because ye have been tested in the fire, and your temper is sufficient, and because your heart is true yet to your first love, and also to your second, and because ye hath yet retained faith in the Lord through your travails, and because Melinda of the line of Judea and of Mary has maintained her covenant of chastity until wed in service to the Lord God Almighty, Amen, and because her heart is pure, a male child will be born unto ye both and his name shall be called Rale. Lo the first part of the word is is fullfilled." He lowered his flaming sword and touched the tip to Melindas abdomen and fire flowed into her belly as she gasped in pain. He withdrew the sword leaving a red mark in the shape of a cross on her where it had touched, and began to speak again.
"This child shall be annointed a prophet of God and his counsel shall be followed in all things great and small. No mortal hand shall prevail against thee and thine so long as this covenant with the Lord is maintained. Because ye both have passed the test, and because the Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen, finds favor in ye, He hath seen mercifully to restore that which hath been lost to ye. No plagues shall touch thine people, and further the Holy Lord God Almighty, Amen, Commands ye to gather his remnant about ye from his many churches, fearing not unto the death. And Lo the second part of the word is fullfilled. Sleep ye now and waken from Whence it began, remembering all that hath passed before." A clap of thunder and a flash of lighting shook the room as the angel finished, and shot up through the solid rock roof with shield and sword raised above him.. I fell back in a coma, as Melindas hand clutched mine.
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