Smoky Mountains – Epilogue

Smoky Mountains
by
Jason Crow

Epilogue

The morning after Joel and I made love for the first time, there was some odd tension in the air. Adam and Ellie acted all weird and didn’t look us in the eyes. It took me a while to figure it out, but when I finally asked them, it was clear they had heard us making love.

Adam wasn’t mad or offended. Thank god! But the moment they said they heard us, I almost shit myself, and my stomach churned at the idea we probably had to leave. Adam noticed the tears welling up in my eyes and immediately put me at ease. If we could assure him this was something we both wanted, they’d accept that and let us be. During our talk, I noticed Ellie squirming uncomfortably in her chair. We made it clear to Adam we loved each other, and this was something we both wanted badly. He paused for a second to size us up and then started smiling.

As Adam started explaining how he and Ellie got involved in a sexual relationship, I was shocked initially. But when Joel began to laugh and asked Adam if he was still sure he was gay, the ice was broken. The four of us agreed not to make a fuss about it, but we had to keep the intimacy inside the bedrooms. And that was that. Joel and I averaged on our lovemaking almost twice a day. Most of the days, we started and ended the day with a good, long lovemaking session. The few days we didn’t have sex in the morning, we made up for it in the evening. Or the other way around, of course.

Life inside the shelter was good. Adam and Ellie were very kind to Joel and me, and we all clicked on a personal level. We divided all the chores and even made the dreaded schedule we talked about earlier. After the initial stress about our situation wore off, it was almost as if we were a regular family. Almost.
We were all very strict about keeping the sex inside the bedrooms. There was only one occasion where we ditched this agreement. Joel and I got our first vaccine, where Ellie and Adam took their second. Adam warned us about the side effects, but we waved these off. It couldn’t be that bad. Boy! Was I wrong… Joel and I were watching a movie when I could no longer control myself. I got on my knees in front of the couch and started sucking Joel’s cock while fingering myself furiously. I barely noticed Ellie and Adam walking in, and they didn’t say anything. They just sat down on the couch that was positioned across the room.

I only realized they came in when I sat up to let Joel fuck me. I didn’t care that they were looking. I was too horny to care about that. And the moment Joel started entering me, they went for it too. That was the first and only time I saw Adam’s dick. It looked fat to me and not nearly as lovely as my brother’s. I came A LOT. I lost track, but if I had to guess, it was fourteen or fifteen times. Joel spurted his cum inside me four times before we were both completely spent. Ellie and Adam’s bodies were slamming loudly and obscenely as we looked at them.

Joel and I discreetly left the room and took a shower together. When we came back into the living room, Ellie and Adam were sitting there as if nothing had happened. We flipped on the TV and watched a movie together and didn’t talk about it. When it was time to hit the sack, Adam spoke up and was very clear. This would never happen again. When we got our next shots, we would each stay inside our own bedrooms until the vaccine’s effect wore off.

The funny thing was that neither of us knew if the vaccine had the desired effect. We didn’t dare to test it, and we didn’t just want to rely on some notes on someone’s computer. But we took the vaccine anyway because we figured it wouldn’t hurt us.

The second wave decimated the A.W.A. On all the camera feeds we had available, there were barely any A.W.A. people left. I was both sad and relieved at the same time. The A.W.A. was a bullshit militia we didn’t want to have around. But it killed another bunch of people. And there weren’t too many people left in the world.

The third wave came six days after the second. The fourth and fifth each eighteen days later. Ellie calculated the sixth wave would hit us fifty-four days after that. She was positive about this because each time, it multiplied by three. The sixth wave proved to be the last. Thank god! We waited another fifty-four days for a possible seventh wave. And just to be sure, we stayed down for another two hundred days. But after this, we were sure the bugs had stopped coming but asked SHIVR to keep an eye on the holes in the ground.

The four of us had a very existential discussion about mankind. By the time the fourth wave started, we had contacted thirteen other shelters in the US. Some of these had contacts with other shelters worldwide, so we knew we were not alone. But we did raise the question if we needed to reproduce. Ellie wasn’t ready for that yet, but I wouldn’t mind having a baby. Especially in the safe and secure environment we were in now.

So between the third and fourth wave, we went out with the Cybertruck and gathered some much-needed supplies for that. A baby bed, diapers, bottles, you name it. Adam visited two pharmacies to gather additional medication and the pill for Ellie.

When I started missing my period, we were all thrilled. I had to try one of the pregnancy tests Adam got, and it turned out positive. I was pregnant! We had all the equipment down here to make sure I could deliver the baby, and Adam had quickly grabbed his old study books from the house to catch up on delivering babies.

During my pregnancy, Joel was extraordinarily protective and considerate. He wanted to do my chores so I could rest. Thank god Adam and Ellie talked Joel out of it and convinced Joel I wasn’t sick. Just pregnant. The last few weeks were tough, though. I was getting really nervous about actually giving birth. But the moment our little girl was born, all doubts and uncertainties were gone. Our little Dina was beautiful. A true bundle of joy. I needed a few days to recover, but I was back on my feet sooner than expected.

A week after Dina’s birth, SHIVR suddenly announced there was an incoming message. Adam and Joel went to the control room together since Ellie and I were bathing Dina at that moment. We were drying Dina and putting on her diaper when Joel and Adam came back. The moment I looked at Adam, he scared me. His usual kind, open, and friendly face was completely gone. Adam looked bitter and angry.

Joel told us about how Robert contacted us. At first, Adam was thrilled to talk to Robert. But it quickly became clear Robert had left Adam, Ryan, and Ellie to join an elite group of people inside a government bunker. Robert was one of the people selected by the government in a secret program. He lived inside that bunker surrounded by scientists, artists, politicians, and other ‘vital people for society’ for over a year now, with the task to stay alive and form a new society together. Adam was devastated that Robert had left him. Robert tried defending his actions by saying he pointed Adam, Ryan, and Ellie to the shelter behind the house. But Adam would hear nothing about that. He just couldn’t believe the love of his life left him in such a selfish act.

After Adam left the room to be alone, Joel also told us how Robert had confessed he found himself a new boyfriend. He apologized dozens of times for that. Robert said he assumed we were dead. He just kept defending himself and pressed that he did everything in his power he could. He sent some morse-code signals to us, which was strictly forbidden. He supplied Adam with the thumb drive, which could’ve cost him his spot inside the bunker. And he kept saying that he did show us the safety of the shelter. So Robert was convinced it wasn’t his fault. According to Joel, this was the moment something snapped in Adam. He just walked away and let Joel finish the call, which was something Adam would never do under normal circumstances. Joel said he didn’t mind. Had it been up to him, the call would’ve ended way earlier.

It took Adam a few days to recover. We only saw him during breakfast and dinner. He locked himself inside the storage room to work on the Flux Capacitor. He stopped trying to fix it a few months before, but when he came out of that room, he had a massive smile on his face and was holding the Flux Capacitor triumphantly in front of him. From that day on, we started wearing clothes inside the shelter, and we basically never talked about Robert again. I tried it once, but Adam said Robert was dead to him, and he couldn’t care less about what happened to him.

Almost two years after the first wave, the country was getting back to a new normal. The rough estimate about the current population was that there were about sixteen million Americans left. I was shocked when I first heard this number. We quickly learned the US had done quite well because of all the preppers. The UK was left with a little under four million. The world had lost more than 99 percent of its people. A mind-blowing number.

In the US, we had a new president, a small army, and a police force. A few hospitals, spread out across the country, had opened their doors, and a medicine distribution system was set up. The USA was now roughly divided into four quarters. Each quarter had two small hospitals near former big cities. But no one wanted to live in the cities anymore, so these were moved to other places soon enough. Everybody preferred to live in the country now.

As time passed, small communities had formed, each of them completely self-sustaining. Most of the bodies had been removed from the streets and out of public buildings. These were burnt in huge piles because burying them all was simply too much work. The four of us gave Ryan a proper funeral between the fourth and fifth wave. We found a nice spot under an old willow at the edge of Adam’s yard, close to the former National Park.

The housing estate near our shelter got occupied after the fifth wave. About twenty-five people started living there, and we kept close contact with them. The nearest significant settlement was a two-hour drive away. This settlement housed around a hundred-fifty people and was a big city by modern standards. We visited it regularly, but we all preferred the shelter. We took a vote on living inside the shelter or move to the house above the ground. Only Joel wanted to go and live in the house. He didn’t have a real reason for it, other than that we should live above the ground instead of hiding like bats in a cave. The fact that we’d have to miss SHIVR when we’d move out was all the convincing Joel needed to stay underground.

Joel and I noticed Adam and Ellie slowly drifting apart. They started visiting the estate near us every now and then. But they ended up going there almost every day. Adam met a cute guy about half his age, and they became lovers soon enough. Adam started sleeping there every other day, leaving the three of us alone with Dina inside the shelter. We didn’t mind too much. Joel and I were a family now, and we could take care of our own. Adam’s boyfriend had a younger brother, and the day he was introduced to us, it immediately became clear Ellie was very interested.

Blake was a year older than Ellie, and he was a very handsome, very friendly guy. Three months after Ellie and Blake started dating, Ellie asked if he could move in with us. We ended up living down there with the four of us and eventually had five kids. Joel and I were blessed with a boy, Tommy. Ellie and Blake got twin boys and a girl. They did what the new government asked of us. They wouldn’t force us, but people were urged to get three kids or more to get the country back up and running. We figured two great kids were enough for Joel and me. We never quit having sex, thank god!

Interestingly, we never learned the truth about the bugs and where they came from. The new government did put the best scientists on it, but they never really figured it out. After some research, it was positive they weren’t alien. Using carbon dating on the bugs, they learned that some of these were almost a million years old. So the global consensus was that it was some sort of fail-safe mechanism from mother earth. An emergency brake on global overpopulation.
Joel and I ended up growing old together, raising our two magnificent kids to be kind and decent people inside an entirely new world. Looking back now, I think we did a fantastic job.

The End.

Copyright 2021 – Jason Crow
All rights reserved

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That’s it! My first ever novel-sized story. I can only hope you all enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun writing it and learned a lot while writing. It started out as a project I wanted to do just for myself. If one or two people enjoyed it too, this would already be a nice side effect. But this honestly wasn’t my main focus. Looking back, I was a bit scared the ‘Plot only’ chapters would put people off, but I didn’t hear any complaints about that. From the beginning, it was clear to me that I didn’t want to have a sex scene every chapter. I had a story to tell. Yes, that story contains sex which is interesting for a niche group of readers. But the story was more important than the sex to me. I assume you understand. Oh. Before I forget… Sorry about the dream sequence in chapter three! I usually hate dream sequences in stories, but I needed some action at that point and couldn’t come up with anything else. So my deepest apologies for that.

I also feel the need to apologize for a few things. First of all: Asheville. This city was kind of randomly chosen. I visited the region a few years ago while I was on holiday there with my family. It’s a beautiful area, especially around the N.P. I was ‘scouting’ for a location where the story should take place (I use Google Maps for that…) I came across the area, and it immediately brought back some memories. I stumbled across it after reading an article about the opiate crisis and that a county in that region (sorry, I lost the article) had a lot of troubles with it. I needed a place with these problems, and since its location was familiar ánd near the N.P., the area was set. Nothing personal about it, and I felt the need to make clear why this location.

The next thing I want to apologize for is the use of some words. I hate the ‘N-word’, for example but I needed to use these words to create the much needed tension. And I needed a way to make the A.W.A. (COMPLETELY fictional and cliché, by the way!) more evil in its intentions. And the A.W.A. was randomly chosen. There is no link whatsoever to N.W.A., MAGA, N.B.A., A.S.A., NASA, W.W.F., or any other stupid shit. It is fictional. Period. If you think differently, I’m sorry. But it is what it is.

As always, I couldn’t do it alone. Edward-of-Ford helped me out with proofreading. He gave me some precious pointers for my next story too. Thank you SO much, E-o-F!!! I really couldn’t have done it without you! He is a very talented writer, and he writes about the stuff I like. So I guess you’d like it too! Check out his stories here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edward_or_Ford. And drop him a message if you like what he did. I know he’ll appreciate it.

I know a lot of you would like to see the story continue. But don’t get your hopes up. This won’t happen. Not by me, at least. And I know a lot of you would’ve like to read about all four of them gettin’ jiggy. But IMHO this was just too far-fetched and out of character for at least Adam, Joel, and Mia. Ellie is a bit more adventurous, but she’s a minority in this group. I wanted to focus primarily on Joel and Mia’s budding relationship. I used Adam and Ellie for added excitement and story arch.

Another thing you also may have noticed is the Epilogue. I added it later, and I feel bad about it. It just isn’t ‘on par’ with the rest of the story, but I just couldn’t do better, and the story could use some closure. I wrote it a while after the story itself was done, and it shows. I need to find a way for my mind to get back to the story. It didn’t work this time. I struggled with the same problem in the Zafar story, which made me decide to publish only when the story is finished. That, to me, is the only way for me to stay involved in the story enough at the moment.

All in all, I hope you liked my efforts. It took me almost nine months to write. I’ll focus on one or two short(er) stories now. Maybe I’ll write another big one in the (near) future but I haven’t figured out the premise for it yet. And no! It won’t be Smoky Mountains Part two! So stop bugging me about that 😀
Thanks for all the comments! These really motivate me to keep going.

Stay safe!

Thanks again, Ed!