After the Apocalypse

Book 2:

Hell Is Other People

by John Rookwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2023 by John Rookwood

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to johnrookwood@yahoo.com

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Blondie slapped me awake.

Literally in this case, and then she hit me again when I didn't respond fast enough.

"Wake up shithead, Tina has breakfast ready." she scolded me before she turned and stalked out of the master bedroom.

Blondie hadn't yet forgiving me for selling her into what turned out to be slavery as a breeder to a group that was a cult masquerading as a trading post. To be fair, I'd gotten her out once I knew the truth, and she begrudgingly respected that fact, but she was a long way from forgiving me. Hell, she wouldn't even give me her real name, insisting that I continue to use the nickname I'd given her when I took her prisoner. She wanted to remind me every time I spoke to her about what I'd done. I had been a different person then, sort of.

It had been two weeks since Tina and I brought her to my lair, which was an off the grid house I'd stumbled on shortly after the apocalypse had fucked the planet up. The previous owners had been hard core 'green' people who had built the A-frame house with a deep well, a septic tank and had covered it with solar panels so it didn't need the usual utilities. There had been a garden in the back yard and a set of fruit trees as well, but by the time I'd found the place the garden had gone to seed and most of the fruit was over-ripe. The good news was that the owners had left a lot of dry and canned food behind as well as some frozen stuff. Those supplies had gotten me through the ashen winter that followed the mass fires which had swept the world after the bombs fell. The ashen winter had been bitterly cold since even during the day the sunlight couldn't penetrate the ash cloud. By my guess the cold killed as many people as starvation during the first few months after World War Three.

Since the end of the cold weather nine months ago I'd been a scavenger, going from house to house outside the small city where I'd lived before the shit hit the fan and taking whatever I found useful. That's where I'd come across Blondie, she had also been scavenging in the area and I set a trap to capture her. After drugging her and binding her up, I'd frog marched her to the Gettars and traded her to them for gear.

Soon afterward I'd encountered Tina who begged me to help rescue her family from the cannibal-rapists known as the Mallers. I refused because I hadn't been about to risk my life for strangers. Tina had taken the choice out of my hands by begging too loudly and drawing their attention. The firefight that resulted had nearly gotten me killed more than once. When it was over she had insisted on honoring her pledge to be my slave for a year, not that I had wanted her to do so. Sure sex was something I'd come to miss, but I had developed a healthy sense of paranoia and having another mouth to feed hadn't been high on my list of things I needed.

Tina had turned out to be just the thing I needed to regain some of the humanity I'd lost along the way. Helping her adapt to life outside the insulated little group she'd been part of before the Mallers had attacked, and her willingness as a sex partner, had re-awakened my sense of empathy.

Of course having a pretty young girl as a partner in scavenging had it's problems as well. Women had value all their own in this harsh new world. Plenty of people felt treating them as equals was a sign of weakness. Might made right as far as many were concerned and those people often felt that if they could take a woman, she belonged to them. Admittedly, I had felt the same way a few weeks ago. Tina helped me grow a conscience again. Of course doing so had gotten me shot in the leg and the shoulder by a Gettar who wanted Tina as his personal sex slave. He'd nearly killed me before Tina put an arrow through his skull. Before he died, the bastard had confessed that the Gettars were using the women they collected as breeders, intending to create a society where women would be taught only what was needed to make them the useful and docile property of men.

I'd taken a big risk then, going back and getting Blondie away from the Gettars, and now I could never go back to their compound to trade again. That was a huge blow since the Gettars had the biggest stash of resources in the area. So now I, or we I guess, were on our own.

Getting out of bed was still a chore since my left leg and left arm were still weak, but with the help of a cane Tina had fashioned for me from and old shower curtain rod and a rubber chair foot, I shambled to the kitchen where Tina set a bowl of rice topped with fried bear meat in front of me. Bear meat was our main protein right now, we still had around fifty pounds of it and it wasn't bad as far as game meat went. A little tough but kind of sweet. Tina said it was because the bear had been eating a lot of fruit and snack foods. She'd cleaned the carcass and prepped the meat, disposing of the unwanted bits in the wooded area behind the house. That had made us a friend in the form of a mountain lion that had feasted on the bear's innards and had wandered by about once a week since then looking for more freebies. It got it in the form of rabbit and squirrel guts, as Tina had made a habit of baiting the critters with bits of dried fruit and nailing them with head-shots from a pellet rifle to supplement the bear meat. The pellet gun was much quieter than my rifle which helped keep people from finding us.

I ate slowly as Tina cleaned up and Blondie sat across from me, wolfing down her own bowl of protein and carbs.

"You ready to get off your ass today?" Blondie griped.

"He's recovering from two bullet wounds." Tina protested.

"You cleaned the wounds, got the slug out of his shoulder and sewed him up good. He's had two weeks to heal up. Now he needs to exercise the muscles to build them back up," Blondie countered pointing at Tina, "and fucking you doesn't count. Winter will be on us for real in another few weeks and we don't have the supplies needed to make it through if it turns out as bad as last year."

"It won't." Tina said. "The ash clouds are gone, it won't be as cold this year."

Blondie snorted, "You don't know that. We don't have access to weather satellites any more, we could have one of those 'polar vortex' things moving in on us right now and we wouldn't know until the temperatures hit negative numbers."

Tina shot back, "Well, if you're so worried, why aren't you going out to find supplies?"

"I would, if he'd trust me with my gun." Blondie responded. "I'm not going out there unarmed. Your 'hero' here showed me exactly what happens to women who get caught unable to defend themselves."

Sighing, I finished my meal. "Blondie is right about one thing, I need to exercise my injured limbs. I'll start today but even so, I won't be able to do much for a while. I can pedal my bike with one leg but walking means I need the cane. I can't run, hell I can barely shamble right now. The fact that my left leg and left arm are so weak means I can only hobble. If you two want to go scavenging, then feel free. Tina can carry the weapons out of the house and give you your Colt once the two of you are moving. I'll stay back with my revolver, one of the nine millimeter handguns and the AR-15 I took off of Tuttle. That's plenty to protect the house."

"Aren't you worried I'll kill your little sex toy?" Blondie sneered, "Or maybe that I'd sell her to the Gettars?"

I shook my head. "She's not the one who hurt you and I can't see you condemning anyone else to the hell I put you through."

Handing by empty bowl to Tina, I looked Blondie in the eyes, "So do you want to actually contribute to keeping this place going and keeping the three of us alive? Or are you just going to complain while eating our food, wearing those clothes I gave you and sleeping in the bed I've provided?"

Blondie's right eye twitched at my words. It was true, I'd done a terrible thing to her, but she had been free to leave the minute I'd gotten her clear of the Gettar compound, yet here she was, living with us as winter rolled in.

"Fine. I'll go with your slut and see what we can find." Blondie snarled. "You can sit around the house and 'recover' while we take all the risks."

"God you're a bitch sometimes." Tina said. "It's not Vincent's fault you got suckered and he sold your ass off. He didn't know what they were doing to the women in there. You should be grateful he felt bad enough about it when he learned the truth to free you."

"Says the girl who's his sex slave." Blondie snickered.

"I volunteered to stay with him, even when he denied that I owed him a debt." Tina fired back.

Rubbing my temple with my right hand I barked, "Dammit, will you two quit bickering? Either go hunt for loot together or go outside and have a fucking duel to settle things. I'm sick of hearing you two squabble. Blondie, make a choice, stay or go, if you stay, then you have to help out. Tina has been doing all the cooking and cleaning while you've done nothing but sit around and give her attitude."

Both women stared at me for a moment, then Blondie snorted, "Fine, I'll get dressed. I was getting tired of hanging around this place anyway."

Blondie stomped up the stairs to the upper bedroom which she now occupied leaving Tina and I alone in the kitchen.

Tina came over to me and hugged me gently, taking care to avoid putting pressure on my bad shoulder. "Don't worry hero, if the blond cunt tries anything, I'll drag her back to the Gettars and trade her to Randall for some veggies and maybe some chocolates."

"Be careful Tina." I said, "I don't think she'll turn on you but it's not like we knew each other before that day in the bunker."

"I'll watch my back." she promised. Then she slid under the kitchen table and opened my bathrobe. "But just in case, let me give you something to remember me by..."

I felt her fingers begin to caress my penis followed by her lips and tongue as she coaxed me to full erection. Once I was stiff she began to trace her tongue along the veins of my cock, pausing when she got to the tip to tease it with a light kiss before she took me in her mouth and sucked. It wasn't the usual loving and tender blowjob she'd been giving me, this was more utilitarian, she was performing a service and just trying to get me off before she left me behind. Not that I was complaining, Tina's mouth felt great wrapped around my dick even when she wasn't singing my praises as her personal savior. Her head was still bobbing up and down on my shaft when Blondie entered the kitchen dressed in dark jeans, a thick jacket and had a small backpack that I presumed held supplies for the road.

"God dammit Vincent!" Blondie shouted, annoyed. "Can't you keep your dick in your pants for one goddamned day?"

Tina held up a finger toward Blondie as she continued to work her magic on me until I popped and my cum flooded her mouth, only for her to swallow it down as quickly as I came. When my balls were empty, Tina licked the tip of my cock clean of the final drops of jizz, then she crawled out from under the table and stood before Blondie. Tina was three inches taller than the five-foot-two Blondie and she informed the shorter girl, "Don't talk to Vincent like that, he's a hero and deserves to be treated as such. Now sit your skank ass down while I get ready."

With that Tina went to the master bedroom that she shared with me and got dressed for scavenging. When she reappeared she had on her own jeans that were newer and fit better than the hand me down's Blondie had taken from the clothing left by the owners of the house when they had evacuated in their RV. Tina carried my old scoped rifle, a nine millimeter pistol, with her bow and a quiver of arrows attached to her own hiking pack.

"Now we can go," she informed the blond girl. Turning to me, she said, "Take care hero, I promise I'll bring back something good."