Going Home

I sighed and kissed the top of Mom's head. "It doesn't matter now, Mom. It's a new world, new rules and we just have to live it day by day, finding comfort and happiness where we can. You love me and I love you and we both will love Pammy as much and however she'll let us." I paused and Mom's old refrain came to my lips, "God's will." Mom and I fell asleep in each other's arms.

#

It was snowing when we finally reached Commander Vance's vacation retreat -- a wet, heavy snow. The house was nestled up against a cliff, surrounded -- almost hidden in the trees of a holler deep between high ridges. It stood untouched by the war -- partly old timber and partly old stone. Mom was in tears as we trudged up the old rock steps to the front porch -- a red squirrel scolding us from one side, sitting on a thick wooden rail.

Pammy was staring vacantly and quietly around, pausing to look at the little bushy-tailed animal with a slowly growing smile. She'd returned to her silent, almost catatonic state, occasionally gifting Mom and me with a shy, gentle smile -- but not a word had she spoken in the three days since we'd made love. The last two nights, she'd watched Mom and I fuck as she always did, but then had sighed and rolled over and went to sleep.

I fumbled with the carefully hoarded pack that Commander Vance had given me -- finding instructions to first find the keypad hidden in the outer wall that would allow me to punch in the code to allow us access. We all stared almost in awe as the lights went green and the front door slowly sighed open. Made to look like old wood, when I pushed on it, I realized that the wood was a disguise and that it must have had a thick, steel inner core.

We were home and a day never went by since that I haven't thanked Commander Vance for his gift. He and his wife had truly been prepared for the end of it all. Shielded electric components still allowed the solar powered generator to work -- we had heat, refrigeration and a powered water pump for clean water deep below ground. There was an extension back into the cliff that contained shelter and a huge room full of dry and canned foods. There was survival gear and medical supplies and seeds for crops. Later I found a diary belonging to Mrs. Vance and I discovered that her family had long harbored paranoia regarding a final war...although in retrospect, I guess we can't call it paranoia, can we? Her family had wealth and money and it had been her doing that had made this place what it was...a place to survive and begin again.

Nate Rafelson showed up at the end of the next spring. He'd lost an eye in a bad firefight somewhere in Southern Pennsylvania. His wife and child were lost without a clue -- Pittsburgh dead from a widespread epidemic of "Black Betty." Nate didn't show up alone -- he had his new wives...two young Amish girls he'd freed from a raider gang in the fight where he'd lost his eye. Anna and Hilda had nursed him back to health and somewhere in the process, had fallen in love with him. For their part, I think they'd revived a part of him I'd seen die after we'd launched the Custer's missiles. There was pain when he spoke of his lost wife and child, but joy as his lovely young farm girl brides -- a blonde and a brunette, showered him with love and attention. The girls were a great help to us all when we began working our own crops -- helping us past our ignorance as new farmers.

We have been here at what we call Vance's Station now for five years. Life is good...we grow our own crops, more than enough to survive on, especially now with game so abundant in our mountain valley. We trade our excess with a tiny town twenty miles south of us that rode out the war pretty much intact. Nate and I came to their aid the only time they were hit by a raider gang. None of the bastards ever returned to their lair beyond our mountains. We are accepted by the townsfolk -- none seeing anything wrong with either of our unconventional lives...many taboos and customs having fallen to the wayside in the aftermath of war. Mom and I aren't the only incestuous couple I know of and Nate is hardly the only man with two or more wives.

We get news now and again from strangers passing through the region. The Reconstituted United States has splintered apart with the Canadian and Washington region separating off from the rest. Some suspect they will be the continent's great power in another fifty or sixty years...maybe.

Mom and I live as husband and wife. Mom is almost fifty and still beautiful, her hair now a great silver mane. We are still as passionate with each other as we were the day we first became lovers. Pammy is...better. She talks now at least a bit -- more with Anna and Hilda and Mom of course. She adores the little ones -- Hilda's three year old twin boys and Anna's two year old daughter.

She is shyer around Nate and to a lesser extent, myself. She is mine and Mom's lover when she has the desire which comes and goes according to some internal and irregular schedule and most nights shares our bed in any case. Life is good although we really don't have a clue what will happen tomorrow. The only thing we know is that we are together and we're happy...as God wills.

The End