The double whammy of
a devastating natural disaster and a deep economic depression nearly ended
America in 2032.
Hurricane Carla's meandering
path up the East Coast was unprecedented. For three days, she acted like a
pin-ball--bumping the land then springing back to sea for more energy and moisture.
By the time the storm turned out to sea somewhere off Cape Cod, it had dumped more
than eight inches of rain over 15,000 square miles of U.S. territory. The surge
was even worse. Many coastal cities experienced a sea rise of 14 to 18 feet. Miami
reported 22 feet before communication was lost.
The rising water left
thousands dead and sixty million people in the dark...isolated.
Police and fire
departments, even the National Guard were totally overwhelmed. The President ordered
a full military mobilization (the first time since 1942) then sent in the Army.
It was largely for show. The scale of the damage was so widespread and horrific
that there was very little that could be done to help. Those thousands that Carla
was destined to kill, died; those who were lucky enough to escape, lived.
But the storm was only
the beginning. The real problem began with the looters--just ordinary people, desperate
for food, water, and shelter, who only took only what they needed to survive. At
first the authorities turned a blind eye, but within days it was happening
everywhere. People made their own decisions about who had the greater need, which
of course led to shocking violence. Within a few weeks, everyone was fighting with
their neighbors for a place in the lifeboat.
The police were again
overwhelmed. Even the Guard units and the state militias were ineffective. Only
the Army seemed to have any lasting effect and this was only after martial law was
declared and soldiers began to shoot anyone carrying a weapon in public. Even
with these extreme measures, it took months to regain control of the major
cities. Government estimates predicted that the Army would be needed for at
least a year maybe even two in many places just to keep the peace.
This was the point when
the effects of the nation's economic woes began to influence Washington's response
to the disaster. There was simply no money to pay for the relief effort or the
policing of such a huge territory, never mind the reconstruction. Years of profligate
government spending at all levels and the resulting loss of foreign investors
had brought on default and runaway inflation. America was broke...something had
to give.
That something was Florida.
The state was literally
destroyed by Carla with more than 1.5 million homes and almost all of its infrastructure
gone. Nearly every highway, road, electric plant, water treatment facility,
port, train line, and airport has suffered irreparable damage. The Corp of
Engineers estimated, based on statewide flyovers, that the cost to restore conditions
to minimal levels would be about equal to the cost of helping all the other Atlantic
states combined.
The decision to
abandon the state was inevitable--it was too far gone. Floridians were ordered
to report to evacuation centers for transportation north. In reality, this was
a ruse, an unconscionable sop to public opinion. No more than 100,000 residents
out of the state's 25 million were ever resettled. Floridians didn't have any
means of traveling to the evacuation centers and even if they had come, the government
didn't have any place to put them or the wherewithal to care for them.
The result was
wholesale suffering and death. People drowned, starved, and died of thirst by
the thousands then by the millions. In desperation, local communities banded
together even if only for moral support. Some of these private groups grew
large, assuming many of the jobs that the elected government had failed to do
and acquiring enormous power.
The stage was now set
for a nightmare of Biblical proportions.
The girl was a mix of
steamy sexuality and classic beauty. Most of the sex was in her face, in her bedroom
eyes, her flared nose, her full lips. Most of the class
was in her body, in her straight blond hair, her golden skin, her hourglass shape,
perfect breasts, ass, feet, and her long, long legs that seemed to go on
forever. The sharp-eyed rescue crew noticed her right away. Little wonder...she
was naked up top like everyone else, using her shirt and bra as insulation
against the burning roof tiles.
The boat was returning
from another part of the campus and it was full, overfull really.
"We got room for
one more, partner?" the front man shouted, pointing. His friend on the
tiller looked up then immediately turned towards the girl.
A few trembling students
looked numbly up as well, but no one said anything. They were just happy to be
alive. The storm had left behind a raging flood twenty-feet high that was
racing between the school buildings at fifteen knots. Anyone who went into the
water was dead. Hundreds were still clinging to the roof ridges awaiting rescue.
It was an incredible scene of death and devastation all playing out under one
of the most beautiful sun-and-clear-sky-days Florida had ever seen.
Jessie Beal, the
subject of their attention, watched the rubber boat get closer then come around
to the leeward side of her roof. She was a sophomore majoring in marine biology
at FSU's new School of Oceanic Studies. Like everyone else clinging to the dormitory
roof, she was scared out of her wits. Most of them had been attending a
hurricane party the night before when the storm had trapped them inside. They
had moved higher from one floor to another all night. Now, 18 hours later,
there was no place higher to go and the water was still rising.
But drowning wasn't
the only horror they faced. The merciless sun had beat down on the roof's dark
red tiles all day, making them too hot to touch. Some of the boys had tried to
wet their shirts in the nearby flood, but it was a dangerous maneuver. One of
them had lost his footing and fallen into the maelstrom. They had watched
helplessly as he was sucked into a whirlpool and drowned.
"YOU," the
man in the boat screamed, pointing at Jessie, "GET IN."
Jessie stupidly
looked behind as if to confirm that he was speaking to her then her instincts
took over. She stood up ignoring the pain in her feet, composed herself, and did
a near-perfect swan dive into the boat. The small craft exploded with arms and
legs and tits flying everywhere until the front man stepped angrily into the
melee.
"Y'all are going
to put a hole in this boat," he screamed as he roughly threw people
upright by whatever human handle he could find. It was a lie of course; the 14-passenger
rubber-and-aluminum Zodiac they were using was built to withstand errant hunting
knives and sharp-tipped arrows, it wasn't going to be punctured by students' bare
legs.
He turned back to
those on the roof. "Y'all hold on, we'll be back in a few minutes. I
promise. Your friend here will guide us back in hardly no time," he said
pointing at Jessie.
Those on the roof stared
at him with an equal measure terror and hope. One or two of them began to stand
up, preparing to jump despite his order. The man on the tiller quickly slammed
the transmission into reverse and backed away. Jessie glanced up at her friends
and waved, holding up her fist and thumb. She would guide the empty boat back
here as fast as humanly possible; they were all going to be safe.
Ten minutes later,
the crew offloaded everyone but Jessie on the dry crest of a nearby levee. A
man was giving out water bottles as people stepped off, another was organizing
survivors into a line and gently pushing them towards tents on the higher land.
The man with the water glanced at the half-naked girl then threw more bottles
into the boat. The front man retrieved them and handed one to Jessie.
"You got a shirt
I can wear, Mister?" Jessie called out to the man on the dock, but the
Zodiac was already moving backwards, back to the dorm roof. Jessie felt a
little silly at her outburst. She had been willing to delay the rescue for the
sake of her modesty...how stupid.
"No time for
modesty now, dear," the front man confirmed with a smile. "We've got
to get back to your friends. Another few minutes on that roof and they'll be downright
crispy."
His friend on the
tiller guffawed.
Jessie didn't think
the comment was funny or appropriate but she kept quiet, holding her hands over
her bare breasts, listening to the steady comforting roar of the engine. It will
be okay, she told herself, just get through this day and everything will
"get better." She repeated the mantra over and over. After a few
minutes, she looked up to get her bearings.
This wasn't right!
"Hey! We need to
head left," she yelled, pointing excitedly off to the side. "That's
the library roof over there; we need to be on the other side of the campus. The
sophomore dorm is on the other side. You need to turn..."
"Take it easy,
kid," the front man said in a strange tone of voice. "...Too much
debris that way. We need to go 'round. Trust me, we been doing this all day. Just
sit back, we'll be there soon 'nough."
She knew he was lying
again. It wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it. They weren't going
back to the dorm roof. She looked out over the turbulent gray water glistening
in the afternoon sun. It would be suicide for her to leave the boat...suicide. The
water was moving too fast, there was too much debris.
"I don't want to
die," she whispered quietly to herself. "No matter what, I want to
live."
In a few minutes they
pulled up to an elevated roadbed that had been used by the school's commuter railroad.
It was dry at the top.
"This is where
you get off, honey," the front man said quietly.
She didn't move, just
stared open-mouthed at the scene on the tracks. Two girls were standing naked
and upright tied to a light pole, their wrists held overhead by ropes. She
recognized both of them. FSU was huge, but there were only a few hundred
spectacular beauties on campus. They formed a natural circle...an exclusive
club.
A third nude girl was
tied to the back of a motorcycle, her wrists and ankles had been secured to the
backseat's hold-on bar. She turned toward Jessie with a look of sheer terror in
her eyes and... and something else. Was it...excitement?
Could that be possible, she wondered. ...Tied naked on the back of a motorcycle,
she must be scared out of her mind. No one would be...
"Don't fight
us," the tiller man said moving towards her a step at a time. "We
don't want to hurt you," he whispered as he gently reached down and lifted
her arms. Her wrists seemed to come magically together as if they were magnets.
Jessie watched numbly, unmoving, as the front man took a long cord from his
jeans and wound it around her wrists. She focused on the large amount of lead
he had left.
The tiller man put
his hands under her bare arms and lifted her to her feet. Slowly, he reached
around and unzipped her pants then pushed them off together with her panties. She
began to cry...for her friends on the roof but mostly for herself. Their
suffering was probably over by now, hers was just beginning.
"Why are you
doing this?" she asked in a calm stupor as the man walked her up the bank
to the pole.
He didn't answer,
just threw her leader rope over the pole's top pipe and pulled. She was lifted
to her toes. He tied off the rope end then stepped back to look. Her body,
stretched to its full length by the rope, was exquisite. Every muscle was
etched into her taut skin. He stepped closer and ran his rough hand down her
full length, testing the firmness of her breasts and ass, the hardness of her
nipples, the response of her clit, the smooth feel of her unblemished skin.
"You want to
know why..." he whispered into her ear, "Because now we can. That's
why."
Jessie was one of nearly
three hundred FSU beauties who lost their freedom that day. More than 3,000
lost their lives.