Free After the Fall: Close and Confined (Taboo Erotica) (Eden Harem Book 1) by Anya Merchant Page B

panic,” she whispered. “We knew this was how it was going to be…”
    Jack had to take a look around to understand fully what she was talking about.
    “There’s… nothing left.”
    It wasn’t an exaggeration. The landscape looked as though it had been leveled. Jack could still see where each house in his neighborhood had been, but all of them had been burned down to nothing more than a pile of black and gray ash. Even the cars had been destroyed, the ones that still managed to be identifiable as such being nothing more than charred, roofless auto skeletons.
    “You’re right, there is no way that the solar panels would have…” His mom trailed off, and then refocused her words. “They wouldn’t have made it through something like this. We’ll have to find a spot to put the new ones down and connect them.”
    Jack was still in awe of the destruction. He could see for miles in every direction, further than he’d ever been able to before with buildings and trees in the way. There was nothing but a sea of ash and soot on every side of them.
    “There is no way that anyone could have survived this, is there?”
    He asked the question without expecting an answer, and his mom didn’t give one.
    All of my friends… Everyone at school… Even dad. They’re all dead.
    “Jack, honey…” His mom walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “We can’t mourn just yet. We have to stay strong.”
    “I… I know, mom.” He forced a smile onto his face, but dark thoughts continued to nip at the edges of his mind.
    The only reason we survived is because I literally saw it coming. We only had seconds to get down underground. That’s the last thing anyone would do if they didn’t see the asteroid, if they thought it was just an earthquake, and then the fire would have caught them by surprise.
    “Come on.” Rebecca was pulling him back over to the edge of what was once the cellar. “We need to make it a little easier to get outside. I saw a survival shovel in one of the boxes, we can get it and dig a little trail up to ground level.”
    Heading back into the darkness of the emergency shelter was just as depressing as leaving it. It had been their home for the past two nights, but without electricity, it just felt like an empty tomb, stuffy and claustrophobic.
    Jack grabbed the shovel, and his mom grabbed a couple of granola bars for breakfast. They headed back outside and took turns shoveling and eating. The dirt was easy to dig into, much drier than it would normally have been . Soon enough, they had a rudimentary earthen staircase leading up to ground level, just wide enough for one person to walk abreast.
    “Alright,” said Jack. “I guess now… we should start troubleshooting the electricity.”
    His mom went and grabbed the solar panels, which looked totally different from what he had been expecting. They were attached to flexible plastic and rolled up into a long, easily transportable tube. The cables of each one connected to all of the others, almost like strands of Christmas lights. There was a long extension cord to go with them, and Rebecca took it inside.
    “I think I know what this connects to,” she said. “There is an outlet right next to the door.”
    There was also a skirted rubber hole right above the main door, just big enough to allow the cord through. A reinforced metal hatch opened and closed to keep it from being exposed if need be. Rebecca slipped the cable through it and brought it inside, and Jack climbed to ground level with the solar panels.
    “We’ll have to come out here at least once per day and make sure that the ash hasn’t blown onto them,” he called down to his mom. “They won’t do us any good if they aren’t exposed to the light.”
    “No. No, they won’t.” She looked at him with a very slight, very sad smile on her face. Something within Jack stirred, and he had no choice but to look away. Making sure that the ground was level and even