Jessamy Beech Ch. 12: Thanatos

"Don't ... these assholes, ever know when to quit?" Jessamy gasped as they sprinted across the churned up lawn outside, the surviving scavengers still in pursuit.

"DON'T KILL THE WOMAN!" bellowed a deep voice from behind them.

"Seems everybody wants a piece of yer lovely arse JB," Hamnavoe quipped.

Why was every wild-eyed lunatic left in the world obsessed with sex Jessamy pondered. If they just settled down and took good care of a woman they wouldn't have to resort to raping anything that moved. Above them the Phoenix was now a dark silhouette battering them with its downdraft. Jessamy spotted John peering down at them from one of the side doors.

"They can't land. They'll be cut to pieces," Jessamy waved her hand to signal Newald to retreat. But it was no use. Phoenix clattered overhead and slowed to a hover hundreds of feet above the dozens of scavengers emerging from the cathedral.

"What ... the fuck is Newald doing?" Hamnavoe gawped.

Moments later his question was answered as several twenty gallon plastic drums tipped from the hovering Merlin and plummeted down onto the charging hostiles.

The drums split apart on impact, splashing everyone in range with aviation fuel. Jessamy grabbed Hamnavoe's arm and pulled him down behind a burnt out car as she noticed Ross leaning precariously out of the Merlin holding a bright orange flare gun and realised what he was about to do.

POOM!

The fuel exploded in a blinding fireball as the incandescent flare landed in the middle of the scavengers. Jessamy looked away and tried to tune out the blood curdling screams as every last one of the hostiles were roasted alive.

"Wow. I shoulda thought o' that JB. Call a fuckin' airstrike," Hamnavoe crouched next to her.

"Not funny Angus. Not funny at all ..."

PART SEVEN: A FAMILY REUNION

An hour later, the Phoenix was cruising low over the rolling hills of Somerset. On landing in Gloucester Cathedral's car park, Newald had quickly totted up how much fuel was available for the return flight to Berwick Upon Tweed and quickly surmised that it would no longer be enough.

"Penzance is less than two hundred miles away," Jessamy had suggested, "much closer, and it's safe. Why not land there, refuel and work on those repairs properly before flying back to Berwick?"

Newald had nodded, "Where exactly do I refuel in the ass end of Cornwall?"

"RNAS Culdrose near Helston. It used to be the largest helicopter base in Europe."

So it was agreed. Newald would fly the Phoenix to Madron on the outskirts of Penzance. Jessamy would be reunited with her daughters after six months absence, and Ross would see his father again for the first time in thirty years.

. . .

"You're going to be famous Aunt Jess," John shouted excitedly over the helicopter's engine noise, "when the world's back on its feet they're going to be writing books about you, making films, all sorts ..."

Jessamy smiled indulgently across the rattling cabin, "I don't want to be famous John. I'm happy with who I am."

Hamnavoe rested a hand on her knee, "He's right JB. Ye're fuckin' amazin' after what ye did in the ... oh fuck!"

"What is it?" Jessamy's hand instinctively reached for her Glock.

"In all the fuckin' excitement we forgot to reseal the bunker."

"Can we go back?" Ross asked.

Hamnavoe shook his head, "We may'nt have enough fuel. We'd end up stranded in fuckin' Gloucester. I put the security protocols back in place so anybody gets in willnae be able to use Soteria."

"What about the portable, Soteria Lite?" Jessamy asked.

"Ye'd have to ken it was there, lass," Hamnavoe spoke slowly, deliberately as if trying to convince himself what he was saying were true, "ye'd have to know what ye were lookin' fer. After Ross an' John's trick with the AVGAS I don't think there's any scavengers left alive in all o' Gloucester that'll find the bunker now."

Jessamy chewed her bottom lip, "I hope you're right."

Newald steered the Phoenix in a wide arc around what had once been Taunton. Now a chewed up, blighted wasteland, Jessamy remembered it was where Hamnavoe's wife Laura and his children had died years before. She quietly gripped his hand and squeezed, offered what little comfort she could.

. . .

Jessamy guessed just about the whole village had come out to see what all the noise was. Before Thanatos, Merlin helicopters had been a common sight flying over Mount's Bay on training exercises. But she supposed that no-one in Madron had even set eyes on a helicopter in thirty years.

Many of the villagers came armed. Crossbows, ancient shotguns and a few assault rifles scavenged from Culdrose or RAF St Mawgan. As the Phoenix settled gently down on the freshly tilled soil of Madron's playing field, a group dropped into firing positions as a precautionary measure.

"Let me do the talking," Jessamy told the others, "they know me."

She slid open the Merlin's side door and gingerly hopped down to the ground. Her leg still held a few shotgun pellets from their narrow escape in Gloucester. The locals relaxed somewhat when they realised it was a friendly face and moments later a commotion in the crowd announced the imminent arrival of the two people Jessamy held most dear in the entire world.

"Mummy!"

Nine year old Phoebe Beech pushed past the throng of villagers and tore across the the field to the Merlin, long blonde hair trailing behind her in an intricate plait. Little Ada, with her shorter legs did her best to keep up.

Then it was if the last six months were just a bad memory and nothing else mattered. Jessamy hugged her two daughters to her and cried tears of pure joy. She noticed her father walking towards them in the crowd and waved, "Dad!"

"What time d'you call this young lady?" John Beech asked, folding his arms to look stern.

"Dad, there's someone you should meet," Jessamy gestured to the others climbing out of the Merlin. At first Jessamy's father couldn't recognise any of them. The grizzled older man who looked his own age, another - fortiesh with only one arm and a flame-haired young man whose resemblance to his own long lost son was uncanny.

He looked again at the one armed stranger, who stood a few feet away staring intently. The hair was streaked with grey and he was thirty years older since the day they'd said goodbye at Penzance railway station. But the sparkling blue eyes that were so much like his mother's hadn't changed ...

"Ross?"

Jessamy left her father to greet Ross properly as she hoisted Ada onto her hip and introduced the girls to the others, "Ada, Phoebe, I'd like you to meet John your cousin. He lives all the way up near Scotland."

John bowed formally, "An honour to finally meet you Miss Beech, and Miss Beech."

Ada giggled, "I like your hair. It looks like carrots."

"Well thank you."

Jessamy grinned. She felt fit to burst, she was so happy, "And that man hugging granddad is John's father, my brother your uncle Ross ..."

Jessamy's father and Ross were hugging one another as if they would never let go, sobbing openly with no regard for the other villagers milling around.

"And, this is Angus," Jessamy told the girls, "he's a dear friend who ... might be coming to live with us. Won't that be fun?"

"Hello there ladies," Hamnavoe said cheerily, "an' I must say ye're both every bit as bonny as yer mother."

Ada scowled at Jessamy, "Is he your boyfriend Mummy?"

Jessamy and Hamnavoe exchanged a look. Phoebe and Ada were both smart girls and it would do no good to withhold the truth from them even for a short while. Hamnavoe would never replace Jiff, their father, but she hoped that he could at least succeed him.

"Well ... yes dear. He is."

"Good," said Ada, "he's nice but he talks funny. Granddad's been teaching us how to fish, and how to skin and cook squirrels."

It never ceased to amaze Jessamy how quickly the young could change the subject of a conversation, "Squirrels eh?"

"And rats. And boring stuff like reading and writing ..." Phoebe added, "why have you been away for so long Mum?"

"I've ... been hunting bad people, sweetheart," Jessamy introduced Brian Newald to members of the village council. A drive over to RNAS Culdrose in a couple of Madron's battered transports to pick up fuel would only take a few hours there and back. With her daughters clutching both her hands, Jessamy and the others followed Ross and her father back to the cottage ...

Home.

. . .

"What was the noise?" called a familiar voice from the kitchen as they arrived back at the Beech family home, "it sounded almost like a helicopter."

Jessamy held a finger to her lips for the others to be quiet and crept into the kitchen. Lupita Mpenzi was hunched over the table kneading dough in such a forceful way that Jessamy felt almost sorry for it. Her bare arms were white with flour as she glanced up, "Didn't you hear me John? What was ... JESS!"

Jessamy crossed the room to hug her old friend before Mpenzi had time to maneuver her wheelchair away from the table, "Don't touch me girl, I'm making bread and I'm covered in flour!"

"I don't care," Jessamy crouched down and folded her arms around her, "I've missed you so, so much Lupita. Is my Dad taking care of you?"

"We take care of each other, you know that. He's got me ... domesticated. Where've you been? You've been gone six months!" Lupita tugged a blanket self-consciously over her one withered leg, "did you get the arms dealer in Salisbury?"

Jessamy nodded, "Hey, it's me. Of course I got him," she regarded her old friend, remembering how strong and vibrant the South African woman had once been, now confined to a wheelchair and having to be carried upstairs to bed every night, "but I still haven't got the fucker who did this to you ..."

Mpenzi kissed her cheek, "He's gone Jess. History. He'll have crawled back into his hole like the rat he is."

They were interrupted by Jessamy's father putting a kettle of water on the Aga to make tea, "What about the child murdering piece of shit you were tracking down up in Scotland, Jess? That Hamnavoe guy? Did you catch that one?"

He glanced at Phoebe and Ada and mouthed an apology for his language.

"Erm ... yes Dad, I caught him, up near Ben Macdui. This, is Hamnavoe ... and he's my fiancé."

Hamnavoe extended a hand, "Pleased tae meet ye, Mr Beech ... and may I just say ye have a bonny daughter."

John Beech frowned, "I thought you said his name was Angus."

"It is sir," Hamnavoe interjected, "Angus Hamnavoe ... and the allegations against me weren't true."

Jessamy nodded in agreement.

John grimaced and gave his daughter a look, "Well ... I'm surprised you got here in one piece. The sky went really strange this morning, like a ... like a huge explosion really high up."

Jessamy took mugs down from one of the cupboards, "That ... was Thanatos Dad."

John Beech's face paled, "Ohgod, it's twenty years isn't it? What that scientist you met in Keswick told you. Thanatos is going to wipe us out if no-one finds that secret bunker place ..."

Jessamy searched through various containers on the kitchen worktop until she found teabags - well past their sell by date but still usable, "It's sorted. We found the bunker this morning in Gloucester."

"What do you mean 'it's sorted'?"

Jessamy turned to face him, "Thanatos is gone, Dad. Vapourised," she smiled as tears began to sting her eyes. Happy tears, good tears. She'd saved all this. Her daughters, her family, her friends, the human race. The scale of the monumental thing she'd achieved suddenly hit her and she stumbled into her father's arms and wept.

"Don't stand there like a block o' wood," Mpenzi shouted at Hamnavoe, "make some tea. Anybody who's just saved the world at least deserves a hot drink."

. . .

It wasn't until long after midnight that evening that John Beech Senior and Lupita Mpenzi retired to their bed. With Brian Newald spending the night onboard the fully refuelled Phoenix, John Beech Junior in Jessamy's old room and Phoebe and Ada in theirs, Jessamy, Hamnavoe and Ross made themselves as comfortable as they could on the living room floor.

Mpenzi had days before scavenged a carton of AA batteries with some charge still left. Not enough for anything vital like a torch, but enough to power an MP3 player and a couple of small speakers for an hour or two.

"Now that," Hamnavoe declared, as in the background Bruce Springsteen sang morosely about his hometown, "is a lovely wee dram," he swirled the amber contents of his glass, the lead crystal catching the candlelight and reflecting it back across the whitewashed cottage walls. Jessamy's father had insisted they help themselves to his collection of single malts and certainly Hamnavoe hadn't needed to be asked twice.

Jessamy studied the bottle - a 14 year old Clynelish, from Brora in the Scottish Highlands. A place that had once been a thriving community but had been reduced, by a combination of Thanatos and the breakdown of civilization, to a pitiful handful of scruffy dwellings inhabited by people barely eking out a living.

She had to admit that after the momentous events of the day she was more than a little tired, both physically and emotionally. But three large whiskies had gone straight to her head and she was, strangely, feeling decidedly horny.

Ross pushed another log into the ancient wood burner. If only he wasn't here in the same room, Jessamy thought. Then she could have had her own private celebration with Hamnavoe. Angus. Her fiancé, she had to keep reminding herself.

"And you," Hamnavoe pointed at Ross, "have a beautiful, bonny sister."

Ross grinned, "Yep. She is that," he raised his own glass, slurring his words a little after a few glasses of Glenmorangie, "a toast. To beautiful, bonny sisters and gorgeous redheaded wives."

"Slainthe," Hamnavoe drained his glass.

Jessamy giggled and drained her own. She'd never seen the attraction of alcohol. To her mind the negative effects greatly outweighed the positive. She had always treated herself to one customary dram when she delivered a bounty so supposed that when you'd just saved the world it was permissable to celebrate just a little bit more.

She handed Hamnavoe her empty glass and lurched unsteadily to her feet.

"Y'okay there JB?" Hamnavoe asked, sounding concerned. Though his attention seemed to be more occupied trying to decide which scotch to sample next - the Laphroaig or the Scapa.

"That bastard Keaton tried to reopen this place," he announced, waving the Scapa above his head, "outskirts o' Kirkwall. Right at the top o' the beach."

"He doesn't sound all bad then," Ross offered.

"Nah," said Hamnavoe, "he's a cunt. Always has been. Always will be."

Jessamy swayed in time to the tinny music. Growing up on Mull there hadn't been any such thing as music. And during much of her life there simply hadn't been the time for it. Some communities would gather together a few musicians to celebrate a successful harvest or simply surviving another winter, but Jessamy had invariably been present in a professional capacity and therefore unable to fully appreciate it.

This was different. Jessamy was home, with most of the people she loved. She'd achieved something incredible and all seemed right with the world. A world that was still there thanks to herself and Hamnavoe.

She was still fucking horny though. Jessamy wondered if she might be able to sneak into the dining room with Hamnavoe once Ross was asleep. She took off her softshell and threw it over a chair as Lady Antebellum sang about owning the night.

Oh fuck it, she thought. Grasping the hem in both hands, Jessamy pulled her faded Wonder Woman t-shirt off over her head, then shook out her blonde dreadlocks. She swayed with her eyes closed to the music, now wearing nothing but socks, stained Craghoppers and a black sports bra. But both men's eyes widened, visibly impressed.

"Er, ye feelin' a wee bit hot there JB?"

I'm thirty eight and I've had two kids, but I've still got it, Jessamy told herself as Hamnavoe and her brother gawped. I can still turn heads. Emboldened and getting hornier by the second, she ran her hands up her smooth flanks and cupped her breasts, enjoying the feel of her nipples pressing against her palms. She lifted their weight the way a man would, the pink aureoles squeezing from the edge of her bra. She felt desirable. She felt sexy.

A low groan broke from Hamnavoe's throat.

"You can say that again," Ross seconded.

"She's yer fuckin' sister ye bloody perv!" Hamnavoe called as his gaze roved appreciatively over Jessamy's modest but perfectly formed chest and he stood up to grab her by the waist.

Jessamy responded by unfastening her Craghoppers. She needed Hamnavoe to fuck her, now, and no longer cared if Ross was in the room. He'd seen it all before anyway. Many times. She was sure he'd understand.

Hamnavoe was clearly aroused himself and almost past the point of caring too as he pushed the loose waistband of her trousers halfway over her ass, taking her cotton panties down with them. Jessamy wrapped her arms around his neck and nibbled his earlobe, "I want sex, now."

A sense of incredible power sang through her veins as she reached down between their bodies and unzipped Hamnavoe's fly. His hips bucked forward, in anticipation, "Please JB, I want you too but your fuckin' brother's sat right there watchin' ..."

Jessamy responded defiantly by pushing her trousers and panties all the way down, stepping out of them now wearing nothing but a bra and rumpled Bridgedale socks. She slid two fingers between the slippery petals of her sex, watching Hamnavoe to see how he'd react.

It was all too much for him. Hamnavoe's cock slowly unfurled and sprang out from his open fly. Long, thick and beautifully erect to Jessamy's eyes. A bead of moisture oozed from the swollen purple tip as she pulled him to her, resisting the urge to bend and lick it off.

Grasping the thick root, Jessamy stroked him, wanking him slowly. He caught her fingers before she could continue, "Behave yourself," he hissed, "yer brother's starin' at yer arse an' I really think we should find another room or ye should get dressed."

"I want you," Jessamy purred. She planted her feet slightly farther apart and arched her back towards where Ross sat transfixed on the lumpy sofa, giving him a clear view of her vulva, "I want you both ... inside me."

Ross wondered if he'd heard right. He looked at Hamnavoe as if asking for his permission, but the old Scot just shrugged, "If the lady wants, I suppose that ... just this once ... the lady gets."

Ross needed no second bidding. Despite only having one arm, he'd stripped completely in seconds and crossed the room to the others. Jessamy sighed as his naked chest spooned against her bare back and his dribbling erection nuzzled the crease of her buttocks leaving a slimy trail. Lust made her wriggle backwards against him. It had been the best part of twenty years since she'd felt her brother's naked body against her own, and despite her protests when they'd argued all that time ago in Threlkeld about incest being wrong, she wanted him, needed to feel him thrusting up inside her with every fibre of her being.

Jessamy realised that she wanted Merida too, but Hamnavoe would have to do.

"What about Merida? Yer wife?" Hamnavoe asked Ross.

Ross clutched his sister's hip, pulling her back towards him, "Knowing Merida, if she were here right now she'd probably join in."

Hamnavoe shook his head in disbelief, "JB, ye just keep surprisin' me lass."

"You sure you're okay with this Hamnavoe?" Ross asked. Jessamy too wondered if her new fiancé was shocked, or if he would be disgusted and storm out in a temper. She needn't have worried ...

"I think after what the lass has done today she deserves whatever she wants. Let's show her a fuckin' good time and worry about it tomorrow. Oh boy," Hamnavoe breathed. He kissed Jessamy tenderly on the lips, then knelt in front of her on the patchwork rug, while behind her Ross teased the smooth skin of her spine. His hand trailed up over Jessamy's ribcage, skirted the dressing over her healing wound and cupped her breast, "You are so beautiful, Jess. I never thought we'd get to do this again."