Quetzalcoatl Ch. 02

When I awoke the next morning, Mom was still asleep. I slipped out of bed without waking her and went downstairs to the kitchen. I figured out a way to make coffee without the coffeemaker. I took out the filter holder, and while I held it in my hand, I poured the hot water through it. I had a cup, black, and then headed over to Mr. Cooper's house.

I had read on the Internet that if you put Vick's Vapor rub in your nostrils, it would block out any odors, even the smell of dead bodies. We didn't have any, but Mr. Cooper had some in one of his medicine chests. I was good to go.

I rummaged through the entire house and started to amass a great deal in the kitchen. Everything my mother instructed me to take: canned and dry goods, paper goods, batteries, vitamins, water, and even some ammo I had missed on my first go around.

I was in one of the upstairs bedrooms that face towards the front of the house when I saw a strange sight outside. It was Mrs. Baumann, our neighbor down the street, in her front yard. She wasn't just outside, which was strange because I hadn't seen anyone outside in my neighborhood in weeks, but she was gardening.

With all that was going on, she was wasting her time weeding. I guess Quetzalcoatl didn't affect the weeds, and they continued to grow. It was the same for the birds (although it was a bird flu), they still were singing, and the squirrels were still jumping from tree to tree. Nature went on its merry way, even though the earth's dominant creature was flat on its back.

It was then that I noticed something that gave me a chill. It was only a man walking down the street. He was in his thirties with matted, black curly hair, a navy blue jacket and jeans. He was unkempt and his clothes looked soiled. He looked like a day laborer that had just finished a particularly dirty job. In normal times, this would be a normal occurrence, but this wasn't normal times. He didn't make any furtive movements. He just walked down the street, but his eyes never left Mrs. Bauman.

Mrs. Bauman was older than my mother by some twenty years, and she was a rotund woman on her best day, so the stranger wasn't watching her because he thought she was a looker. Maybe he thought it was weird that someone would be gardening at such a time, but it was unsettling.

I watched him walk down the block and turn the corner, and then I went back to my rummaging. It was probably only my imagination, but I still didn't feel right about it.

I got everything back to our house and started to pile it up in the living room. We needed to work in the kitchen, so the living room seemed the logical place. Then my mother started me filling water jugs.

"The water towers are probably fed by electric pumps, so when the towers are empty then that's it for any fresh water." My mother lectured me while I filled every available container in our and Mr. Cooper's house.

I didn't tell my mom about Mrs. Bauman, because I didn't want to worry her. I wondered where Mr. Bauman was. He was older than his wife. Maybe he was dead. I soon forgot about her since we had too much to do.

We sat around after dinner to plan the trip. We would have to get some sort of four-wheel vehicle that could make it when we had to get around any clog in the roads.

"That guy down the block," I thought out loud. " I forget his name. He has a Humvee. That thing could go through a brick wall."

"First thing in the morning," my mother said as if she was requisitioning one. "Go down the block and see if those people are around. If not, see if you can find the keys."

"Why not now?" I asked sarcastically.

"Because it's already dark." I looked out the window and noticed that it in fact it was already dark. That's when I heard the loud bangs.

"What the hell was that?" I jumped.

"Gunshots."

"How can you tell its gunshots? It could be fireworks."

"Who the hell would be shooting off fireworks?"

I didn't have an answer for that, and then I remembered Mrs. Bauman. I immediately got to my feet and headed out the back door.

"Where are you going?" My mother screamed at me.

"I think someone is attacking Mrs. Bauman," I yelled back as the screen door slammed behind me. I jumped over Mr. Cooper's fence and headed out to the front of the house. When I got to the street I noticed two men in front of the Bauman house holding lanterns. There were other figures on the ground, and I heard someone screaming and another person moaning in pain.

"Shut up," I heard one of the figures shout, and then he turned around and I heard another gunshot. My knees went weak, and I found myself squatting down by a parked car. I had found cover without even thinking about it.

The moaning stopped, but not the screams.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I heard the other figure scold. "He was already dead. Don't you think she's already making too much noise? Besides, you're wasting ammo."

"Come on Benny. It's my turn." I heard the first figure say. He was talking to someone on the ground. I then realized that there were two figures together on the ground, and I knew what Benny was doing. He was raping Mrs. Bauman. He was raping her right on the front lawn.

They must have killed Mr. Bauman, and were now having their way with his wife. Another thought hit me; one of these guys must have been the stranger walking down the block while Mrs. Bauman was out weeding. He had come back and brought his buddies.

I was incensed. These three guys just murdered my neighbor just so they could rape his 75-year-old wife. I wanted to do something about it, but what? There were three of them and only me. They had guns, and I didn't. It was then that I realized that I had to be armed anywhere I went from now on.

I also realized that they would go that far out of their way, and commit murder, to have sex with an elderly woman. What then would they do to my mother and me? My mom was twenty or thirty years younger, and looked even younger than that.

I snuck back as fast and as quietly as I could. When I got in the house I immediately grabbed the pistol and headed back to the door.

"What happened?" My mother was half hysterical as she ran into the kitchen. "Where are you going?"

"They killed Mr. Bauman, and now they are raping Mrs. Bauman."

"Who is?" My mother said as she headed me off at the door.

"Three men." There was no time to get into what happened this afternoon.

"And what do you think you are going to do?"

"Help her." I said frustrated.

"There are three of them with guns. You are only going to get killed."

"MOM!"

"I know that you want to help, but they will kill you as fast as they killed Mr. Bauman. And then what happens to me? Who will help me when they come to rape me?"

I looked at my mom with tears in my eyes. She was right, but I couldn't let them keep doing that to poor Mrs. Bauman. I didn't know what to do. "Baby, we will be lucky if this is the worst that we see." The look in my mom's eyes was calculating.

I sat down at the kitchen table exhausted. I looked up at her, looking for guidance.

"Why do you think your grandfather sent me to America when I was eighteen?

I just shook my head.

"Five years into the civil war, they killed my uncle and cousin, and raped and killed all of the women in the house because they were Christians. Almost all of the Christians in my hometown fled. We were Christians in a Muslim country."

I just hung my head, too tired to cry.

"I have seen what people, who used to be your neighbors, can do. I have seen violence perpetuated on innocent people for no apparent reason." My mother's voice changed to a mocking, judgmental one. "There are practically no more women in the world. Okay lets rape what few are left."

I looked back up at her. She was right. I had to be there to protect her. Not only because she was my mom, but also because she was one of the few women left in the world. "You better show me how to use that semi automatic rifle," I said with new resolve.

That night as I lay next to my mom in bed was the hottest yet that summer. I couldn't sleep. Between the heat and what had happened that night, I just tossed and turned in bed.

Mom seemed to be unaffected by it, as I heard the quiet rhythmic breathing of her sleep. I shouldn't judge, I thought. She had worked twice as hard as I had that day. She was exhausted. She had also grown up differently than I had thought. She had always delighted me with tales of growing up in Lebanon. Obviously her paradise had turned into a hell.

I rolled over again, now facing my mom. The candle was still lit on the brass plate on the end table. The sheet that was originally covering her was now pushed down to her thighs. Last night she had been wearing a t-shirt and a pair of my gym shorts, but tonight she was only wearing a tank top and panties.

The panties were electric pink, and one of her cheeks was showing because the panties were riding up the crack of her ass. My eyes concentrated on the roundness of her bun. It was disturbing.

I had jerked off quietly that afternoon, and here I was checking out my mother's ass. My cock grew hard in my shorts. She had really nice wide hips, a thin waist, and her legs were flawless.

It was like a drug. The more I saw, the more I wanted to see. I felt like a sixteen-year-old boy thumbing through his mother's Victoria Secret catalog. My hand, almost on its own, moved to the bulge in my shorts. I kneaded my erection first, and then my hand entered my waistband.

I was jerking off. I was jerking off while I stared at my mother's ass. It was strange, but it seemed more satisfying than having sex with my wife. She rolled over a bit so that she was more on her stomach, but still facing away from me.

I could see the fullness of her ass, the curve of her spine. Her raven black hair flowing down her back. She shifted her hips to one side.

I just thought, man I would love to be riding her right now, my cock inside of her pussy as I held on to those hips. Pounding into her again and again as she grunted to my penetrations.

I was close to coming. What was I going to come in? I was too old to explain a wet dream. Quickly I ripped off my shirt, and stuffed it down my shorts, just as I started to come. The semen just kept pouring out of me.

Oh God, there really is something wrong with me, I thought, as I threw my shirt into the corner of the room, and fell asleep disgusted with myself.

I awoke the next morning alone in bed. I threw on a new t-shirt and went down stairs. My mother was at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and fooling with the semi auto.

"Good, you're up," she said with a smile. "I want you to go down to that house and see if you can get the keys to the Humvee." I went to get a cup of coffee out of the thermos, but she stopped me cold. "Have your coffee after you see about the Humvee," she lectured me. "It's getting late, and I want you to do it before the whole world wakes up."

I just nodded my head and headed out the back door. The whole world, I thought, not much left of the whole world.

"Ed," she called to me before I got out the door. "I know that you think this whole Delaware trip is a wild goose chase." Her tone changed. "Your grandmother is probably gone, but I have to know."

"I know, Mom."

"Besides, I think that it is best if we get off of Long Island. There are too many people here. I think that we need to go somewhere more rural."

"Abandon the House?"

"It's a different world now honey. We have to start thinking differently. We'll probably need to become farmers to survive."

"Okay, Mom," I said as I left. It was then that it hit me. Our old way of life was not coming back. I didn't know just yet how much it was to change.

The day was overcast, and there was a light mist falling this early in the morning. It wasn't anything significant, but it was just enough to make a humid day even more miserable.

I was over old man Cooper's fence and then through a few more backyards. I took a few minutes to look through a side yard and across the street to the Bauman house. There was nothing there; no bodies, nothing on the front lawn to show that it was the scene of a rape and murder.

I didn't waste any time, and scurried over fences and through bushes until I was directly across from the Humvee house. After I checked to see if the coast was clear, I made a mad dash across the street to the SUV. I immediately checked the vehicle for keys, but it was locked and I couldn't get in. Next I made my way to the back of the house and started checking the windows.

There was no sign of life, and all of the windows were locked. The back sliding door too was locked up tight. I knelt by the slider in the rain for a while to think about what to do. After a few minutes, and still no sign of life, I took a big rock out of the garden and broke one of the back windows next to the slider.

It made a fairly loud noise, but no one came running and so I reached in and flipped the lock to the slider. I slid the door open and made my way in. No smell of death. No sounds. No nothing.

A quick perusal of the house showed it to be abandoned. In fact it looked as though it had been abandoned for some time. The house had been stripped of any usable items including food. It didn't look to be ransacked. The people took their time and didn't leave a mess.

The owners had probably emptied the house and got out before the area got hot. It was a completely sensible idea except for the fact that about a million other people were trying to leave Long Island at the same time. I didn't know where they thought they were going, the whole world had the Q-flu.

Maybe they left months ago. But why didn't they take the Humvee, I wondered? Fuel was the immediate answer. A Humvee can go over a mountain, but it takes a hundred gallons of gas to do it.

I figured that I better check it for gas once I found the keys. And that clear tubing I saw in Mr. Cooper's basement; I needed that for siphoning. Just one more thing I needed to take on our trip.

The keys to the vehicle were easy enough to find on a kitchen hook. I headed out the back slider knowing that there was little to salvage out of this house. I got out front, opened the SUV, and got in. I turned the key in the ignition, but was afraid to start it. I didn't want to make any noise.

What the hell I thought. I had to know if it would start. I turned the ignition all of the way and the truck roared to life showing at least a half tank of gas. I smiled at my good luck and quickly shut it down.

That's when I saw him through the raindrops on the windshield. The same guy that was walking the street in front of Mrs. Bauman's house yesterday was back, and he was down at my end of my block. I could tell it was the same guy, because he was still wearing that same soiled navy blue jacket and jeans. I thought it was unusual for anyone to wear such heavy clothes on such a hot, humid day.

I saw him go around the back of one house and then come back to the street a few minutes later. Then he headed for my house. He didn't bother with the front door, but went straight for the back. I slipped out of the Humvee, but he had already disappeared into our backyard.

It only took me a couple of minutes to cover the distance to my house, and then I slipped around the house to the back. I hadn't locked the back door, so my mother was in danger. I had the .380 in my hand as I approached the door. It was wide open and I could hear a commotion inside.

I burst through the door with my heart pounding. He couldn't have been in the house more than two minutes, but he already had my mom by the back of the neck. He had her pinned face down on the kitchen table, her arms flailing, and was pulling her shorts and panties down her leg.

He was laughing so hard, and my mom was screaming so loud, that he didn't hear me enter the house. That was to my advantage, but I wasted the opportunity.

"Hey!" I shouted as I grabbed at him futilely, the pistol at my side. I was under the assumption that he would see the gun and give up immediately. I had watched too much television in my youth. My feeble attempts to halt him were met with a sharp elbow to the face.

Everything went blank for a second and I found myself on the floor, the gun no longer in my hand. I saw the flash of something shiny in his hand as he spun away from my mom and towards me. Time stood still for a second. I felt like a spectator in my own life.

The one thing that I detected first was his smell. It was worse than foul. It was a combination of sweat, dirt and excrement. The thought of being close to this man was nauseating.

"He's got a knife," my mom shouted as she fled from her attacker and tried to pull up her shorts. The oddest thing was that of all things I noticed the fact that my mother was clean-shaven around her pussy and had only a slight patch of black hair over her pubic mound.

He was on me in a second, the knife perilously close to my face. "I'll kill you," he shouted. I was lucky that he didn't see the gun after all, because he didn't concern himself much with me on the floor. His interest was more to the fact that my mother was escaping him.

That was his mistake, and this time I didn't waste the opportunity. I found the .380, which was actually under my butt, brought it to bear on him as he looked back to the room for my mother, and I fired two shots quickly in succession.

Its funny, I had always figured that the bullets would leave these huge holes in his shirt, but all I noticed were two small, black, almost imperceptible holes. They were midway up his torso, just below his rib cage. I thought for a second that I had missed him.

He turned to look at his stomach, and with a look of utter astonishment, he then turned to me.

"You shot me?" He said amazed, holding his stomach.

I quickly got to my feet, keeping the gun trained on him, because I too was amazed that he was still standing there. "I'll shoot you again." I threatened. I couldn't believe that he was not on the ground writhing in pain. He looked more like he was going to die of bewilderment than of a gunshot. My mother and I just looked at each other and I mouthed, "What the fuck?"

But then something happened. His face went ashen and he dropped to one knee. The look of amazement became no look at all, and he slumped to the floor. He was dead. I had just killed a man.

"Is he dead?" My mother asked running toward me.

"I think so," I said in disbelief. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to feel. He was in the process of raping my mom, and he probably would have eventually killed me, but I was still remorseful.

My mom ran to me and put her arms around me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said in a daze.

"He didn't cut you, did he?"

"No, he didn't even try. I don't think that I concerned him enough."

"I was sitting at the table," she said. "And at first I thought it was you coming in the door." My mom said, practically in tears. "The next thing I know he had me down on the table and he was taking my clothes off." It was then that she started to cry.

"Oh Eddy, Eddy, I was so scared. I thought that he was going to rape me and then kill me." I just held her, consoling her. I didn't know what to say. "I don't know what I would have done if you didn't come back. You saved my life." We just held each other for a while as she cried.

After a few minutes she calmed down and I was able to get her to sit at the table. My mom is a strong woman, but you could tell she was shook up.

"Who is he?" She asked after she sat down.

"I think that he was one of the men that attacked the Baumans."

My mother froze. "Ed, he was alone, wasn't he?"

"I think so. I didn't see anyone else on the street."

"But he had two friends last night?"