photo #3390246

Randolph S Stewart on December 16, 2022

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RandolphSStewart

Axis -29- Its amazing. A simple little thing like washing dishes together after breakfast.... View MoreAxis -29- Its amazing. A simple little thing like washing dishes together after breakfast. Gawd how I’d missed that. She hadn’t cut her hair, but it hadn’t had that much time to grow. The two others had went about their business, taking two separate cars in doing so. It was just Cait and I. “We won’t see them again,” Cait said putting the last dish in the dishrack and taking the skillet from me to hang back up. She was wearing black yoga pants, a loose black hoody and black Adidas. “No?” was all I replied. If I’d spoke my feelings on the matter, they weren’t exactly the friendliest. “This was a safehouse that was going to be left anyway.” “Now just the two of us alone? Sweet.” I had a grin matching the anticipation in my voice as I wrapped my hands around her waist and held her toned belly from behind. She leaned into me in return. “No,” she said. “We’re outta here, too.” I think she may have tried to hide her disappointment but failed enough to give me a hint. “Pittsburgh, I think, though I can’t be sure. They’ll be by later to get us.” I wanted to ask “They, who?” But too many questions are never a good thing. Even with one you trust. I’d find out in due time. Pittsburgh would be good, though. I still had a stash of supplies there, as well. We,uh, caught up on our alone time for a while, and after cleaning ourselves from that we shared what we’d been through the past weeks. I wasn’t totally healed from the interrogation, she’d noticed it the night before, caressed the healing scars, didn’t press. I told her all about it though, as we snuggled on the couch. She didn’t have much to pack. A change of clothes, some accessories, a two-pound dumb bell, one of the little metal ones. A wallet with a bit of cash, not much. It all went into a grey back pack. She took me by the hand, led me into the bathroom. If I’d dare think it was to fool around some more, I’d have been sorely disappointed. We got in front of the bathroom mirror, and she opened a cosmetic case. Five minutes later, both of us had wider noses, the tubes in my nostrils as uncomfortable as hell but breath came easily enough, padded cheeks, She went into the room abandoned by Anne and Sally, came out with a pair of hiking boots and old-style olive-green fatigue pants, the kind pre-dating the camos soldiers wear today. And a grey and black Pirate logo jacket. A black ball cap went on her cute little head, a set of horn rim glasses on her nose, and she looked at me with the biggest shit eating grin I’d seen on her face yet. Adding a tiny bit of gruff to her voice, not overdoing it, she said, “Hey, Dad. Can we stop at A & W for some root beer?” I gotta admit I was both a whole lot of impressed and more than a bit disturbed by the transformation. But I knew who was under the disguise, and it didn’t stop more cuddling. I have to tell you, the face prosthetics precluded more kissing, though. Damn uncomfortable things, they are. Its not a long drive to Pittsburgh from Morgantown. They’d came to fetch us, two new guys, military types who were still in shape, and again we were in the back of a panel van. Cait said nothing, I followed suit, and the two in the front seats weren’t chatty either. The driver was small but one of those little guys you can see the muscles are toned and powerful. No weightlifter, I’m guessing good old-fashioned calisthenics. Pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, running and climbing. All while wearing a heavy pack on the back. Mentally I dubbed him Monkey. The bigger guy, I thought of him as Lunk, I’m guessing he’d dug more than his share of foxholes in the desert. Lunk was the kind who filled pails with sand to lift, bench pressed axles stripped off of cars ripped by roadside explosives back in Iraq. Both were Bonecrushers. Double threats. I wondered how they got past the screening they give everybody nowadays to enlist. I was guessing it wasn’t their DNA on file, I gotta admit I never considered they’d worked for a contractor, though thinking back I bet that was it. These weren’t guys who’ll rattle, not easily if at all, so it wasn’t like they were nervous. But when they started commenting on St. Clair looking like a war zone, I paid attention. It had been a bit since the last outbreak. I guess we were on 19 through the southernmost parts of the city. “Something new’s going on,” Lunk told the driver. “Either a riot or an outbreak.” “Yeah.” I reckoned Monkey didn’t need to comment much. Great. We get further away from where the McKenzies would be looking for us hardest but come into a full-scale outbreak. “Damn radio silence,” Lunk complained. No doubt these folks had a system, but they needed to stay under the radar too. At all costs. “Uh, guys?” I said. “What’s up?” Without a word Lunk took a pistol out of the console, stretched back my way with it. I leaned forward and accepted it. It was my 9 mm. I opened it, checked it out, popped the cartridge and looked to see it full. My two spare cartridges follow. He retrieved another and handed it to Cait. It’s a Smith and Wesson M&P .40. Caitlyn examined it expertly, took the proffered cartridge backups. It went into an inner pocket of her jacket like she’d done this often enough to get comfortable with it. No time to think on this, though, as we were hearing shots in the distance. I was really too busy wishing we had a hell of a lot more ammo than this.

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December 20, 2022 Edited