Date: Tue, 7 May 2019 17:06:42 -0500 From: Bruce Turner Subject: Left Left I hope you are of the age of consent. This story may include extreme forms of sex but definitely will be gay inclined so if you have problems with any form of male on male sexuality I suggest leaving before I get started. I don't know where this story may go; I have written about urination, bestiality, mixed age love and other main topics but as I start on a new adventure I am not certain that the character I am drawing has any of those quirks of sexuality. If you are able this is a good time to donate to Nifty. The website survives on donations from you the reader, so please be generous. The Lights are Out May 1, 2065, that is the last date I will be able to say I know for certain. The doctor had sent me for an MRI, the previous time I had been having pains that were similar to what I was experiencing a surgeon had learned that I had been born inter-sexed. That had never been apparent to anyone until the surgeon traced what should have been the uterus to an opening inside my sigmoid colon approximately two inches above where the rectum passed through the diaphragm. The fetus that was causing the pain was dead by the time it was determined that I was pregnant. I find it odd to tell anyone, especially you, that I was pregnant, the doctors had asked to do a medical paper featuring my interior but I had refused them the right, I didn't want the word leaking out around the Medical Center that I was the patient to my fellow workers.. Walking into the building that held the MRI Machinery I wasn't sure if I hoped they would find another fetus inside me or whether I was hoping there was a different problem. My private physician had promised me twenty-four hour a day care if It was discovered that I was pregnant, again. Still, I wasn't sure I wanted to be known as a freak of nature. We had discussed much of what I could expect and the course of hormones and other shots I would need to keep a child alive, he promised me that there was a course of treatment that had been established by Johns Hopkins for another male patient who had successfully carried the child nine months. I hadn't looked at the papers he had printed out, I had been optimistic that there would not be another pregnancy. With all the negatives there was one positive. If I was pregnant there could only be one possible father and although we were no longer together he was the man I would have picked to father my child even if we had to do it through surrogacy. The idea of being a father excited him so much that he had run off with a lesbian friend of his that wanted a child before she turned thirty and had no other options that she could accept. Luis had tried to keep our relationship alive but with him living with Carol and trying to father a child with her I was too disappointed in him to allow us more than a once weekly romp in my bed. April ninth I had told Luis that I never wanted to see him again. I am not really a size queen but I knew that I would have a hard time finding a man hung as well as him that liked to fuck day and night, but I wanted more than sex from a lover. I was starved for love, having gone from living with him seven days a weeks to having him visit for a mere twelve hours once a week was driving me crazy. We had met after the last time I had been determined to be pregnant, a story that I kept from him. I thought about letting him know when he told me he was running off with Carol but I didn't want him to have false hopes that I might be able to bear him a child. I had given him six months with Carol before I gave up. I wasn't thinking about any of that as I was greeted by the technician in charge of the MRI Suite. The doctor had made arrangements for me to go there because it was the only hospital in the city that was located within the clothing optional zone. The weather was beautiful that morning, probably seventy-five or a little higher with a cloudless blue sky and a slight breeze. I saw only one or two people on the street or parking lot wearing clothing, the man in charge told me that there was no need for me to wear a robe if I didn't wish the hospital had succumbed to the neighborhood ethic. There had been some problem with the machinery earlier so I had to wait for another man to be scanned, the room was warm so I discarded the paper robe that I thought I would need because of the AC I remembered in the suite from previous visits. By the time I was on the slide I was used to hearing the clanging of the machine. I declined the offer of a blanket either over or under me. The cool metal felt great against my skin as the slide gradually entered the tube. I had been in more modern machinery but from what the doctor had told me this was just as good as the newer versions that only enclosed the portion of the body that was to be scanned. I don't understand how the machines worked but it was the first time I had ever had the tech talk me through the process of having both ends of the tube closed. He let me know that the 'doors' could easily be opened if I panicked at being enclosed. I have no claustrophobia so I lay still until I saw no more light and the machine stopped clanging. Perhaps ten minutes later the light came on. I lay there for what I think was twenty minutes but could have been longer. I tried yelling but didn't get a response. I found I was able to pound on the 'door' above my head but still there was no response. Laying there started to become unbearably uncomfortable which for the most people would have been seconds upon entering the tube, I followed the instructions the tech had mumbled about opening the door and crawled from the machine to find no one in the room. I walked into the outer room where the techs could watch their dials and screens but again, no one. It was feeling freaky, I walked into the waiting room and once more, no one: the only light being from outside. All I could think of was that I should step outside and have a cigarette while waiting for someone to show up that could tell me what to do next. I was smoking my second cigarette when it dawned on me that I hadn't seen one person enter the hospital or leave. There were none of the sounds one normally has around buildings, no exhaust fans, no air conditioning, nothing! What had happened? Where were the pigeons, the people? I walked out to where I could see the street, there were wrecks everywhere, but no running vehicles and no drivers arguing about whose fault the accidents had been. I went a little further, that is when I saw the small mounds of flames or ashes on the sidewalk and street. Only once previously had I smelled flesh actually on fire, the air had that stench as I moved further from the hospital not really knowing where I was headed. WTF? As I walked to my motorcycle I saw what I started to believe were more of the burning piles of ashes. All I could think was they had to have been humans. But what had caused this and how widespread was it going to be? Before I reached my cycle I found assorted keyrings on the pavement and tried some of the parked vehicles, they all started. When I tried to start the cars blocking the parking lot the drivers and engines were dead. I concentrated on what could have happened that killed the running cars but left those not running able to start? It was much easier than thinking about the dead people that surrounded the hospital, only the vehicles with leather seats had not completely burned in the interior. I was glad I had spent the extra two hundred dollars to replace any non-leather coverings on the cycle, he gleamed except for a tiny pile of ash on the second seat (a pigeon?). I had looked around for at least a half hour before I knew I needed to get away. I could see plumes of smoke as I looked towards the downtown area but there was not as much close by. I hoped maybe that meant I still had a home waiting. All the hospital windows were in tact so I thought my home might still be standing. When the clothing optional zone had first been developed an architect had proposed that all the houses should have an exterior of glass, about three quarters of the new homes had been built with stone interior walls and glass exteriors. The insurance cost almost nothing since the only things that could burn were the furnishings The people that moved into the zone to look and stare at others had plenty of opportunities, mostly they had built more traditional houses, I could see some of them on fire from where I stood in the parking lot. During my teens and early twenties I had read about or seen movies about Apocalypses, there never seemed to be color. This was still the early days, I was coming to realize that whatever had happened was similar to all the predictions except for the windows still in place and that most of the vegetation was healthy. It had taken me ten minutes to ride to the hospital, but threading my way through the hundreds of wrecks on the narrow streets took me at least three times as long, I had to make unwanted detours around the main street. I would have rode the sidewalk but I didn't like the idea of disturbing the remains of what I assumed were men and women that I may have slept with at one time, some of which were still spouting flames. After I moved from my parents' house I was able to indulge myself in sex as much as I wanted, often more than three times a day during the five years before I met Luis. Nudity itself is not that sexual, but if you are built well and hung more than most of the other men walking down the sidewalks you will have as many opportunities as you want. Luis had often claimed that he thought I was a sex addict, ironic in that he would say that after he was finished fucking me for the third or fourth time that day. If I was an addict wouldn't I have cheated on him during the two years we were together? Perhaps an even more realistic way to determine that was wouldn't I have found other men during the six months he had been with Carol or the month since I told him I didn't want to see him again? It is true I like sex but an addict? No. I was never good about using the electronic key pad to secure the house when I left for just a few hours. My two Dobermans would greet any unwanted visitors with bared teeth so I really didn't have much to worry about. There had been a rash of burglaries when the Zone opened but as the city found police willing to work the zone those had trickled down to less than one in two dozen blocks every few months, usually with the crooks caught in the act. I used my key to open the house, the smell was the same as it was on the street. At the back door were two piles that I had to assume were the Dobermans. I felt worse about them than most of the people I thought must have died, it was the first time I shed a tear; Cain and Abel had been with me since the house was built. There was no electrical power in the house, it was ten degrees hotter than I normally keep it. I walked around the house looking for anything that was still working, there was no gas for cooking. All the batteries I found in place were dead but those I had in storage did work flashlights and a radio I had for camping. I left it on for an hour but had no luck finding any transmissions. I checked a few flash drives on the radio and found them to be in good shape, I was glad to hear something even if the music was from a few years earlier. It was only around four in the afternoon, the sky had turned completely yellow other than where the smoke was turning it black. I sat on the corner of my bed trying to determine what to do, should I stay close to home or should I try to go to where I was employed? That would be out of the zone so I would have to wear my uniform which was decent for riding the cycle. I was getting hungry, I dug through my camping equipment and found a propane tank for a single burner stove I took with me whenever I camped to make coffee. After cleaning up Cain and Abel I went out back so I wouldn't have gas building up in the house. Cooking an entre, a potato and vegetable on one burner is a slow process but I had the food in the refrigerator and without any power it would be going bad. I didn't feel any better after eating but I was more curious. I threw on a pair of leathers, boots and a helmet. There were very few blocks where the wrecks didn't block most of the streets, I drove from my house to what had been my parents. We hadn't spoken since the day I had Luis move into my house but I didn't think they had moved. As I pulled up in front of their house I saw the same Lexus they had been driving for the past three years parked in the driveway. Three steps in front of the entryway there was a pile of golf clubs and ashes; my father died going to do what he loved, it was too early when the MRI went black for him to be headed home. They had never changed the lock after I left so I was able to open the front door with no trouble. It meant that my mother was staying home to wait for the daily golfer, she was probably scouring her cookbooks for a new idea of what to cook. She had been classically trained to cook but when I was born gave up her career to support her husband and son, we kidded her by calling her Julia Child. I think she had always been hopeful that she would have more children but she never did. The house was like mine, empty, quiet, hot and smelling of burnt flesh. I had a minimal hope that I would find her alive but the pile of ashes on the bar stool at the kitchen counter told me all I needed to know. My parents weren't that well off but I knew my father had a few thousand dollars hidden in his safe in case of an emergency, he used to kid me that it was so he could bail me out of jail when I got in trouble on my motorcycle. I hoped I hadn't been removed from the security system. I held my hand against a painting that was the most unlikely recognition pad you could have thought of. I had no idea if I would ever need any of the money but I took all five thousand dollars. I packed up some of the canned food and back-up tanks of propane kept for camping. I was beginning to believe that I was the only person alive, as that thought started to hit home I thought about what it was going to take for me to survive. I could carry more of what I would need in a car or truck but how could I get through the streets? I went to look at what had once been 'my room', all of the past rushed at me and with a huge gasp I fell pounding against the floor. "What, What What? Why am I the only one left?" "Or am I? If I could survive there must be others. How can I find them?" No one was there to answer, but I quickly got up and started to move. I found a few things in my room that I felt might help me survive, a pack of lighters, a hand-turned can opener, plastic tubing that I had been supposed to use on a science project that would help me siphon gas from abandoned cars. Back in the kitchen I took a couple sharp knives and a few plastic containers that might help me not lose what I had and a lantern with a pack of batteries. I was headed back to my house when I thought about a cousin that rode a Gold Wing and hauled a trailer when he and his wife rode cross-country. I didn't like the bike, but I thought the trailer might make life much easier if I could manage to hook it up. I thought I would be able to navigate most of the streets with the trailer so I took a detour and went to a Harley shop that I knew carried hitches and receivers. I hoped they had instructions with them since I had never tried hooking anything like that to any cycle I had ever owned. I do minor work on my cycle but nothing major. Ask me to my face to this day and I'll tell you that I am not a thief. Until that day the largest thing I had ever taken without paying had been a cranberry juice from a convenience store only because I was talking with Luis and forgot to pay. I arrived at the Harley shop and the shiny cycles in the showroom made me question whether riding the bike I owned with 56,000 miles was a better idea than taking a brand new bike for however far I was going to have to ride before finding civilization again. I was answered when the second bike I looked at had the receiver and hitch already attached, it started up like new although it did have a few thousand miles. I thought that was best, whatever factory quirks and problems there had been should be worked out, unless it had been traded back as a lemon. I took a quick ride around the block, it rode fine. I packed up some extra filters and plugs, transferred what was in my storage compartments and started out the back only to find a covered trailer sitting a few feet from the open door. It was empty except for a sales slip and the papers necessary to have it licensed. Let the police pull me over for no license, please. There was no light on the streets other than from the cycle, we had voted to help light pollution by shutting off street lights at ten PM. Riding the last few block was worse than it had been when I drove them the first time, the trailer made cutting between the closely packed cars and trucks difficult. I hoped that I would have better luck in the daylight but was unwilling to leave either the cycle or trailer on the street overnight. I had taken a few candles from my parents so I had light to warm a bowl of soup before I got drunk and passed out on my bed. What was there going to be outside of the city? I had traveled enough inside the city to known there wasn't anyone to band together with for survival. My dreams were totally uninhabited, was this going to be the way my life would be from this point on? When I woke I was sorry that I had so much to drink after dinner. Facing the wasteland had been bad enough when sober and not hungover. Seeing the yellow sky punctuated with dark blotches of black smoke was a depressing way to start the day, made worse by the hangover. Over coffee and the last of the juice I had placed in the cool freezer I debated where I should head. There was an ocean forty miles in one direction and mountains seventy in the other. Which would be more likely to have people that would have survived? South I would find larger cities and the possibility that someone had been in another MRI machine? Or would there be people that had survived due to another anomaly? Did anyone have enough of a warning to get to a bomb shelter? What else might have protected someone? Would any of our kooky survivalists survived? I unhooked the trailer and took a final scouting trip through the clothing optional zone. There were stores with better foods than my parents had. I didn't think it would be too smart to over fill the trailer, I might find something that would be more important to me as I traveled. I found a set of new ponchos for highway driving and a second pair of boots before turning home to fill the two gas cans I had found that were fitted for the trailer. The tubing I took from my adolescent room might turn out to be more important than anything other than food and water. Riding along I thought about what I had heard of people planning for the apocalypse or surviving a zombie uprising, two things I had thought equally improbable. I decided it would be best to try the mountains first, the look of the sky made me think the weather may not stay warm for long. If the smoke started filling in the yellow portions of the sky no light would be getting through and riding in the mountains when it is cool tends to freeze one and I wasn't packing much extra clothing to stay warm, if necessary I could find it along the way. I hadn't expected the trailer to be such a drag on the big Harley but it was once I started into the rolling foothills.. I had picked up a wind up watch when I was at my parents. I set it to the grandfather's clock in their foyer. I hoped I would remember to wind it daily, it had been since I was twelve that I had to do that, why I was worried about the time of day I don't remember. I pulled up to a B and B by a small lake after riding about sixty miles. It seemed a likely spot to look for survivors. I had no luck. I set out a lantern along the shore of the lake hoping that if there was anyone looking for other survivors they would have a guiding light to the B and B. I stretched and massaged my body. It had been years since I had ridden that far in a day, I wished there was someone there to massage my butt for me, even fuck me if they wanted. There was a hot tub but the water was ambient temperature and covered with soot and leaves. As I checked out the hot tub I determined that I would not allow myself to go without washing even if I was unable to find hot water, lakes, ponds or water heated on my single burner would have to do but I was going to stay clean, I shouldn't have trouble finding enough soap. I was in luck with the B and B, the owners had not hooked up the house to a public gas company, they had a 500 gallon propane tank that let me heat water for a bath, unfortunately they had installed an electric water heater. The smell of leather rose from the water as I sank into the warm water. I had packed a pair of jeans but I would be wearing the leathers most of the time and was used to this scent; I was more than used to it, I love it. That was the one luxury I had allowed myself when packing, a second pair of leathers and a jacket with zip out lining. I took the first bed I found without a pile of ashes in the room. By the time I fell asleep I convinced myself that I should start a diary of my travels from the time I left the hospital. I'm really not a computer person and my handwriting is despicable. I searched the few houses around the B and B until I found an old, probably two or three times my age, typewriter and extra ink cartridges. It took the search of another house to find enough paper to get started. The more piles of ash I found the worse I felt. Other than the B and B the houses were brick and gutted by the fires, the B and B was an old farm house that had been built with rocks from the local quarry. I'm not certain but I think the interior walls were mud, the roof had burnt off but three stories of room kept the first and second dry and tight against the wind. I parked the trailer and searched the area for any human life. It was the sixth day when I saw a canoe approaching the B and B, at first I couldn't see if there was anyone rowing it so I waited until it was close to shore and waded out to help. In the bottom of the canoe were three piles of ashes, all tight against the others. I had started to become hardened to the piles of ashes but the obvious love between the three struck me hard enough to make me cry for the first time in days. The next morning I hitched up the trailer and headed South, there was a small resort town thirty miles or so from a popular ski resort not far from the lake where I had spent the night that was reputed to be the center for a group of survivalists that believed the monetary system of the United States was going to crash. I had heard that they were a group of Lesbians from the cities that owned land around the town and had set up some type of commune that they tried keeping successful summer and winter just in case the women had to leave the cities and take up residence. I thought I should be at least thirty miles from the town when I saw a mail box with a name I recognized. Carol had never mentioned that she had a mountain cabin so I thought it was more than likely just a coincidence that her name was in bright orange letters on the over-sized mail box. The driveway was nothing more than ruts and gravel. I was about half a mile down the drive when I pulled to the side and unhooked the trailer, it had been jerking the cycle around so much I thought I was going to fall off. I pushed it into the forest so that it was invisible and tried driving the rest of the way to whatever I might find along the side of the drive. I was hit by quite a few branches before I let the cycle settle into one of the ruts, it was two more miles before I saw a fire burning. That was surprising since most of the buildings I had seen were burned out by that time. I finished the trek on foot, it was too tiring to hold the cycle in the rut and not topple over. I had never seen this exact house but I had seen examples of log cabins that you could buy precut just like it. There were heavy ceiling beams that were still burning, I guessed they had to have been eighteen inches across. It was like a banked fire with a stone wall at the back of the fireplace, there was nothing left other than that wall and odd shapes of metal that must have once been kitchen appliances. I found it surprising that there was what looked like a trapdoor not far from the fire wall. It was still too hot to try to open so I pushed what I could of the ashes and burning beams away from the handle and hinges to allow it to cool over night. I warmed a can of gourmet stew on the fire before climbing into my sleeping bag, I had dropped it close enough to the house to stay warm. Whether neither Carol or Luis had been in the house when it started to burn or they were still in the Pot Mansion in the city I couldn't tell, but there were no signs of humans having been there. There wasn't a car or truck, I had seen the burnt remains of a recreational vehicle and a snow mobile, the first would have been welcome as a break from the motorcycle seat. I had first started riding the cycle because of the way the seat made me feel horny. After a couple years I didn't need to do anything but sit on a parked cycle and I was ready to take on any man willing. It was only in the last few years that I had become at all discriminating in my partners. Not discriminating as in race or ethnicity, I had just started to get to know the men I slept with before I took them to my bed, at for a few hours instead of the minutes I had when younger. Looks and personality had started to mean something to me where as in the first few years all that mattered to me was that the man had a cock and was willing. Until I had been with Luis a few months I still had the desire to suck cock regularly but as we pounded each other into the mattress more often my sexuality seemed to become centered on my asshole and my cock. Enjoying the warmth of the cabin fire I wished I had looked forward to the nights I would have to spend alone and brought at the very least an eight inch dildo, fingering myself while jerking off was not that satisfactory. The following morning after a single cup of coffee I set to work trying to open the trap door. The hinges had melted solid so I had to pull it off the hole beneath instead of being able to swing it up easily. Cool fresh air greeted me as I tried peering into the darkness. In case there was a room there where I might want to stay later I refrained from dropping in a lit stick of wood. I went back to the trailer, found batteries and a flashlight that gave a wide beam of light. If it had been me building a hidey-hole I would have made stairs but once I could see into the hole I saw that what there was, was a metal ladder leading down at least twenty feet. At the bottom I stared at the glass doors in front of me. Posted across where they would open was a warning. You will be stepping into a decontamination chamber when you open the doors. The doors will only open once from this side. Remove all your clothes and don't take anything inside with you. All you will need has been stocked for a two year stay. De Voe Manufacturing I could make out a small living room and kitchen, what looked like cabinets and closets on every wall. I didn't know if I was contaminated but if I was going to use this room I would want to be certain that there were no other humans around first, I wouldn't want to be trapped inside the room for two years without any company. The last look I took made me think of a sit-com from the twenties, had this been in place waiting to be needed for a disaster that long? Twenty feet below ground level it wouldn't need either cooling or heating if there was only one person, whatever was built into the room for survival should be able to make the winter peaceful. I was careful to put the door back in place and scatter ashes and unburnt pieces of the beams over it. It was turning dark when I pulled into the resort town that had been my destination when I found Carol's house, it was too large to call a cabin even if it had been made out of logs. The greeting was the same as I had received everywhere else. The piles of ashes, the burnt out houses and stores, the lack of light and the oppressive silence. I imagine if I had been a Native American walking into the town the silence wouldn't have bothered me but I'm a city boy that is not accustomed to the sound of silence. I didn't do much looking around in the dark, I found a few shelves of canned food standing in one of the stores. I took what I wanted for dinner and afterwards found a bed without ashes where I fell into a sound sleep. I woke the following morning to noise! I rushed outside to see what was making the noise to find a moose attacking my cycle. Carelessly I ran at the moose to startle him and chase him from the destruction he was intent to wreck. The moose slowly turned his massive head so that he was looking at me, it was the first and only time I have ever been face to face with an animal of that size, I froze by the side of the trailer. His rack was wider than my arms stretch, I would guess his weight at the upper end of the adult male range, 1400-1500 pounds? He was larger than any moose I had ever seen, generally they were shorter and less filled out than this bull. I had always known they could be dangerous and on any camping trip to the forests had been told if confronted by a bull moose to run behind a tree or building as fast as possible. There were neither close enough, he would out run me before I could have made it to any of the buildings but I didn't want him trashing my cycle. There were cars I could try to reach but my chances out-running him were not good. I had watched funny videos of men trying to chase moose when I was a teen but all I could remember was they didn't seem to like it if you made yourself as bag as possible and roared, somewhere between a dog bark and a lion's roar. He was moving slowly towards me but I knew that could be deceptive, Park Rangers had told me they could speed up to 35 MPH very quickly. He had knocked the trailer on its side, some of my treasured things inside had fallen to the ground. I grabbed two cans of food, stood as tall as I can in bare feet trying to look imposing, difficult without clothes and did my best to roar as loudly as possible before hurling the cans at him. Both cans hit his head, one just over his eye, he tried to shake that off suddenly turning and rushing out of town, my first successful defense. I was going to need to arm myself with a gun that would at least make lots of noise. I have shot a few automatics back when Luis would take me to the gun range with him so I knew I could hit a target. I wasn't crazy about the idea of carrying a gun but it was apparent that I wasn't alone in the world and might need to defend myself if only against animals that were going to invade the towns. While I looked around the town wondering where to find a gun it hit me that the moose had been the first animal that I had seen. There were no dogs or birds but somehow that big moose had survived, I wondered what kind of hiding place he had been in or if all animals that large had been able to survive. I didn't dwell on that long, I knew there wouldn't be humans with him, which was what I hoped to find. I searched through three stores before I found a handgun and holster that I felt comfortable handling, I also took a 30/30 for further defense. It took me some time to get the trailer upright and check out the cycle for damage, thankfully it was only cosmetic. Rolling out of town I laughed at the idea that the last man on Earth was almost killed by a moose, a non-predatory animal, instead of whatever had killed everyone else. That would have been too ironic for words. I drove up a few driveways only to find empty, roofless houses, it seemed most of them had been built to survive everything except fire from above. I traveled that way for the next two weeks never seeing any life although outside of one house I saw what I swore were fresh bear prints. Bear around here are not as large as that moose so how it might have survived if there really were fresh prints was more baffling. I hoped we didn't meet face to face. I passed through towns that should have held thousands of inhabitants, it was during the third week on the road that I finally hit a city that should have hundred of thousands of people. There was nothing living, not even rats that should have been in hiding. I'm not a huge carnivore but I was missing red meat, I would have even settled for a thick hamburger. I wished I would be able to find a freezer that held something cold enough to prevent bacterial infection but until I found the county hospital I was out of luck. I had been following a noise that was from the past, hoping against hope that there would be humans. Instead, I found the hospital emergency generator. Why the hospital had such a large tank of fuel I don't know, all I can think is they were prepared for a winter storm that would isolate them from supplies. I walked in the door marked kitchen deliveries. As the door closed I expected it once more to be silent but I could hear some machinery running. I didn't waste a minute, I went in search of the walk-in freezer and cooler knowing they were usually side by side. Once I had worked in a hotel where the only items that were powered by the emergency power were a freezer and exit lights at each stairway. Just like the my house the hospital was overheated from the lack of A/C. It didn't take me long to find the freezer, I always hated going into them before but that day the cold felt wonderful and the boxes marked steak more beautiful than anything be Leonardo Da Vinci. I took more steaks than I knew I would eat, I didn't have a cooler to keep them frozen or ice to keep them cool. I was using the extra steaks to keep one or two on the interior of the stack cold. I thought I should stick close to the freezer to feed myself. I decided to look around the city for a day or more and if there was nothing alive I would rig a cooler of some type on top of the trailer so I could take meat with me. I had enough tuna the first month to make me never want to eat it again. The only beef or lamb I had eaten had been in the cans of stew I had rescued from the gourmet food stores. I was planning on replacing them while I was in this city. There are some things in life that are still wondrous, finding an REI store on the edge of town with everything you could ever want for surviving in the wilderness, was one of those things. If the cycle could have hauled what they had I could have taken enough to help me survive the next five years. I hadn't used the saddle bags on the cycle to hold anything other than the extra boots and a pair of gloves so I knew beside the space in the trailer I had room to carry the dried foods, a camp hammer and a knife slightly smaller than a machete. I was almost exiting the store when I saw a Yeti cooler that I thought I should be able to fasten to the trailer. Not having the trailer with me I had to use ropes sold for mountain climbing to fasten the Yeti to the back of the cycle. I had been traveling along the flatter part of the country although I thought that I was more likely to find someone in the mountains. From everything I had seen no one had been given enough warning to run to the hills or get into their shelters. I might find someone so paranoid that they slept in a fallout shelter, would they have come out by now? Was that the person I wanted to find? Probably not, but after a month I was crazy for conversation and even a paranoid survivalist would be better than no one. I fell to sleep thinking about that weird person that I might find hiding in the mountains. What would he or she or they want or need that I could take with me that I didn't already have? MEDICINE. The thought came to me as the pain that had sent me to the doctor and consequentially to the MRI increased. While busy riding or walking in search of food and people I had mostly forgotten about the pain, at night when I laid down the pain was enough to make me want to drink or take heavy drugs. Other than a couple nights I had refrained from both alcohol and drugs (I didn't have any) but I did swallow more Aleve than I should. Why I hadn't thought of it earlier I don't know, but that night as I dreamed I imagined the huge missile silos that we had toured while I was still in elementary school. Most of them had been decommissioned as the different nuclear treaties were expanded to leaving only three countries with warheads and sold off to private citizens. I woke wondering how I could find a silo that hadn't been decommissioned. The people that were there to operate them were deep under ground, they had the best chance to survive of any people in the country so they could retaliate against an enemy that attacked us. I thought about the problem, laughing about the chance of me finding one of the silos. Hadn't they been hidden well enough that our enemies were not supposed to find them. I remembered where I had heard rumors of them existing when I was in my early years of college. So there was a chance there were some soldiers still alive? Why not any sailors that might have been thousands of feet under the ocean in airtight submarines? I added the possibility of Air Force personnel in the caves NORAD was supposed to use in the Rockies. Would I be the only civilian if I found any of these possible safe spots? I gathered medicine that I knew would be helpful and a few that I was not sure of but I remembered my private doctor telling me would be part of the treatment I would need if I was pregnant. When I left the city the next day every nook and cranny that could hold anything was filled. I doubted I wouldn't find more of everything but if there were others alive wouldn't they be gathering the necessities of life and anything else they thought would keep them healthy. The road I took from the city was soon only partially blocked and the further I got from the downtown the fewer wrecks I encountered. it was the first time in three weeks I managed to ride at more than 25 mph. The fresh scent of salt water hit me when I stopped at a rest stop to see if I could find any candy. I don't usually eat sweets but I had been craving chocolate for miles. I was ready to tear the front off the machine since I had no coins but I did find one that took dollar bills. It felt weird to leave my money at the unoccupied rest stop but the Hershey bars were such a treat that I didn't care, I would have gladly left much more. It was wonderful to find a spot that was run solely by solar power, there was hot water, light and the vending machines. I might have stayed through the night but I couldn't find anything that appeared to be a space heater and the nights were getting cold. Finding the naval base didn't take much, there were signs every half mile warning civilians to turn off the road. I doubted there would be anyone at the base to turn me away so I continued on my way until I pulled up to a check point that was blocked by half a dozen vehicles sitting in line. I walked around the in-going and exiting vehicles without finding anything that I hadn't seen during my trip there. The way in was blocked. I walked onto the base without being stopped, found a 6 X 6, hot-wired it, drove back to the gate, pushed two exiting civilian cars out of the way and smashed the gate. I parked the 6 X 6 outside the gate and unhitched my trailer. I had never been further inside a military base than the distance it took to make a U-turn. There was the same oppressive silence that I had experienced in the mountains, I headed to what I thought must be a docking station, I could see heavy cranes touring over everything else. The closer I got the more aware I was that I wasn't seeing anything more than I had seen for a month. My hopes of finding the crew of a submarine manning the station faded as I looked in building after building. It took me hours just to search the obvious buildings, as darkness fell I found what I assumed was a commander's office. Attached to the office was a small room with a neatly made bed and a closet with a dress uniform and two everyday uniforms. Sleep came easy shortly after I finished a half cooked dinner. With all the problems climate change had caused why hadn't the military totally switched over to solar or tidal power? I searched the ships at dock finding no sailors and little reason to stay on the base. Logic told me that staying a few days or weeks would increase the chance that a submarine would pull up to the dock but I was impatient after three days. Taking items from abandoned houses is one thing but when it comes to taking from the military I was having a huge crisis of conscience, what if a submarine was to bring living sailors into port? Would they miss what I planned on taking? Was what I was thinking would make my life much easier, that much of a plus? Could I keep a 6 X 6 filled with gas? How far would it take me before the road once more was so jammed with wrecks that I would have to go forward on the cycle? Would it be far enough to make a difference? With no destination and no one waiting was anything going to make a difference? I had found a 6 X 6 with a ramp that would allow me to load the cycle and the trailer. The idea of not spreading my knees to ride the Harley for another day was appealing. I was reluctant to leave the base, I had found a way to cook and fresh food. There was a radio that gave out an occasional squawk but hadn't connected me to anyone else in the week I was there. I debated with myself for another two days before I decided that I was not doing anything to help me survive and that was the ultimate goal. Other people were secondary, I had found a dildo in one of the footlockers. I praised the congress that had allowed gay men to serve openly in the service. The night before I planned to leave I rammed my ass three times and jacked off until there was no cum left in my balls. I didn't wake until long past sunrise, I would have preferred a man beside me but I was feeling more human and was once more eager to find another man.. For three days I had been searching through war plans. I was hoping to find the location of one missile silo that hadn't been abandoned or dismantled. The closest I had come was a chart that showed two missiles coming from Northwest Pennsylvania. With the condition of the roads it would take me nearly as long to cross the state as it had the pioneers in their Conestoga wagons. If I had been any kind of sailor I might have tried taking a ship and gone up the St. Lawrence Seaway but I get sick in a rowboat what would have happened had I tried a ship that had to battle waves? The 6 X 6 hadn't had the snow plow removed for the summer or the base was preparing early for a snowfall, it was barely May when the truck had been last used if that. I hoped the blade would hold up to pushing aside wrecks for a few days, if it did I should make it to the other side of New York and on into Pa. Before I had to desert the truck. I had never seen a paper road map but for some reason there was one of the Eastern part of America in the glove box of the truck. Did they expect a sailor to get lost on land? Twice while passing New York City I parked the truck and weaved my way into the city on my cycle to search for life. I had a hope that people in the subway cars underground would have had a chance to survive much like I had but I was disabused of that idea the first time I found a subway car, there where piles of ash on most seats and down the aisle. The second subway entry way I tried was heaped with piles of ash that made me turn back. I found a few old fallout shelter signs but no where in those buildings did I find anyone. I briefly thought about television shows and movies that had whole tribes of people living under the subways but found no indication on any life. Every road I tried after the second attempt to find life in New York City was so badly blocked that even the 6 X 6 was not making more than one mile an hour. I wasn't sure if I was in New York, New Jersey or Pa. when night fell, I spent the night in the truck well aware that it might be my last night of cushioned sleep unless I started leaving the Interstate and invading houses again. Leaving the truck behind the next morning was as emotional as leaving my house. I lost what little security I had been feeling. I hoped that I would find a truck stop with one of the newer Mercedes, Volvo or Tesla electric trucks that might take me a few hundred miles, I figured I would have the best luck looking for the silos riding the cycle although a truck might be needed to barge through a gate. It actually only took me three rainy days to cross the state. The third afternoon I started to see town names that I remembered from the maps included with the war plans. I broke into a roadside motel that looked like it might have been deserted before the catastrophe that had wiped out all of humanity except me. At least the room was dry and the bed had clean sheets and blankets stacked at the foot. There was no water or A/C to cool me off but I survived with an open door and windows. Like I had the three days previously I walked out into the pouring rain to shower, that morning rain was cold not the warm showers I had been experiencing for two days. When I parked the previous night I had pulled the cycle and trailer under the overhead walkway so I could open the trailer without filling it with rainwater. Before I felt half clean the cold rain was mixed with hail forcing me to run indoors, I was happy the cycle was protected. It could have been a depressing morning not being able to move forward but I choose to cook a full breakfast, study the map and with the hail not stopping use the dildo I had stolen from the naval base to pleasure my ass while I jacked off thinking about the man I hoped would emerge from one of the silos. I guess I fell into a day dream with the dildo still inside me. The dream man was different than Luis or any of my previous boyfriends. The military bearing and short blond hair made him stand out against the world that was turning more dreary. I don't know exactly how tall he was but two or three inches taller than me rather than shorter like most of my partners had been. He was probably two or three inches larger around the chest and butt, too. He was covered in silky blond hair from his nipples to his ankles. In the dream I couldn't see how much cock he had or how large his balls were. All I could tell was that after tossing me onto a bed he was filling me nicely and was able to pound away hard. I woke from the day dream as I exploded between the sheet and my stomach. It was too long since I had seen another man! I would gladly take anyone to bed, even a blond! The pains that had driven me to the doctor in May had been increasing as I traveled, laying in that bed I was pulled into a fetal position from my earlier stretched out pounding as strong contractions wracked my stomach.. I took time to seriously think about what could be wrong. The pain wasn't in the same places the pain had been when I carried a dead fetus but were mirrored in my body. Could I be pregnant from the other ovary: the first had been removed with the fetus, my doctor had said there was no need to remove the one still in me as it was underdeveloped and he didn't think it was either pumping any unnecessary estrogen into me or had a probability of producing eggs. All evening I obsessed over the idea that I was once more pregnant, this time without the help my doctor had promised. Without a doctor how would the child get out of me? My doctor had admitted the only way I would be able to give birth was through a Cesarean section. In my sleep I panicked, would I have to operate on myself? I woke in a sweat tossing on the bed uncontrollably. The rest of the night I stared out the door hoping it would soon stop raining, I wanted to move on but staying dry was a luxury the poncho couldn't provide. I didn't think I was far from my planned destination but when I took an hour in the office and read some of the literature I began to wonder if I shouldn't change my mind. I learned there was a doomsday tunnel that housed many of the governments deepest secrets, some of the one of a kind items that only the richest people and countries owned, plus had 2700 people working 220 feet under ground. If they they have discovered ahead of time a way of protecting those millions of items from destruction would they have been able to protect human lives? Much of the space was operated by an electric system itself more than two hundred feet underground, I hoped that was deep enough to allow survival, the pictures of the vaults made me think if anyone had been inside one of them at the moment of utter destruction he or she might have survived even if those in the vast underground cavern didn't. As I wound my way down from the interstate to the town of Boyers I saw signs that made me remember that my Grandfather had graduated from Slippery Rock College to the West and my Grandmother had been raised in Grove City. My parents had never taken me to visit the area, saying it was backward even with the number of colleges nearby. My Grandparents had visited us every few years, he was a good story teller and more than once would tell about my Grandmother's family and how she had been raised by what he called ridge runners that made their own moonshine. More often he would talk about the coon dogs her family raised, I wondered as I grew older if he was into bestiality, although he never even hinted at the possibility. I had never given it a try but as the days had stretched on without another man I was beginning to think that wasn't the worst answer to my sexual problems. The roads were less crowded with wrecks than they had been since leaving New England, There were signs where cars may have veered off the roads and down hillsides. I had stopped looking for life in the small towns, tired of the depression the lack caused in towns that were half deserted before the current problem. I didn't expect the road into the Iron Mountain facility to be easy to find but for some reason I didn't make any wrong turns and by the time I was ready to eat lunch the gates were in sight. I could understand why there had never been a successful break-in to the mountain, I stared at both the entrance and exit hoping for some fault in the system. Unlike government facilities Iron Mountain looked to have a sealed system that was impossible to cross through. I was able to pull the cycle into the opening or the tunnel before a siren loud enough to cause me temporarily to go deaf sounded. I grabbed a pair of head phones by the opening in the glass doors realizing that I was taking them from a dead person that had been in the opening of the doorway. From a distance the glass had seemed to be a single wall but once I was that close I saw that it was a swinging door that had stopped without closing. This was the first real chance I had of finding people alive. Perhaps not at this level but deep within the mountain or in one of the vaults? I looked at the cameras that were focused on the entrance hoping that someone would see me and come to chase me away. I walked through the door and in front of me were at least another two dozen piles of human ash. It was obvious to me that the only chance I would have of finding life would be below ground, I looked around until I found the elevator that would take me down. The rational fear that the power would go out while I descended struck me but I was not to be deterred from lookiig for human life.