Chapter 25

Lancaster, Lancaster County, Virginia
Six months later...

“Well, that’s that. I’m done with this crap. As Johnny Paycheck used to sing, ‘Take this job and shove it.’ Being Sheriff is just not for me, not anymore, not for now,” I smiled as I turned over the badge of the county peace officer to Chief Deputy Stuart Lopez.

“That’s fair enough. You gave us six months, long enough to get this county back to some kind of law and order. I can take it from here. I can’t promise that the laws won’t change at all, but we’ll have to deal with any consequences if they do, and even then, the revisions are likely to be minimal. We got local commerce happening again, full swing, even if the global and national economies are still toast. We’ll make do. Thank you again for delaying your trip by six months, vato,” Stuart answered me as Willa swore him in as Sheriff of Lancaster County, the first Latino to ever have that post.

“Well, Willa, Eileen, and I are staying. We’ve decided that already. It’s been great, the whole group marriage thing, but we’ve found that in spite of our condition ... a foursome works better for us ... including the Sheriff here. We’ll be fuckbuddies with the locals, of course, also given our ... condition, but yeah, we’re a quad. It’s just meant to be,” Wilbur Junior confirmed.

“Relax, it’s cool. Change happens. It wasn’t planned, but things happen, including things that don’t follow the plan. Even God and His angels don’t expect all of the curveballs, and your group is especially prone to throw them ... but that’s not too shocking, given how suddenly you’ve all become so intimate. Some love affairs are meant to burn out faster than others.

“In any case, Stuart is now a Prophet himself. He’s been so ordained by God. If he wishes to take two wives and a husband, more power to him. Polygamy is certainly the best way to reconstruct civilization and society. For those who wish to practice monogamy, that is their right, but I don’t recommend it, of course,” Marcy announced herself as we ended the ceremony and made our goodbyes to the friends that we made in Lancaster County, Virginia.

“Well, then, there we are. All ready to lock, load, and leave?” I asked Eve, the first designated driver of the road trip.

“Are you kidding? I’m a demoness. I prepare faster than you can even observe!” my she-devil wife winked at me, being more than a little eager to please me.

“Alright then, let’s roll!” I said as I gave Willa and Eileen one last kiss each, making them blush.

“I really am gonna miss you, but I have to follow my heart here, and that’s with Stuart nowadays, and with the work of rebuilding this county, which is far from done,” Willa let me down a bit easier.

“Exactly. That’s more or less how it is for me,” Wilbur Junior admitted.

“And for me, naturally,” Eileen added, “my past as a mayor and this recent work has preserved that sense of civic duty that is hard to take away ... and I feel that Stuart needs me more than you. No offense. Besides, who knows who the father of this baby is.”

“Same with mine,” Willa confessed, “I have no idea for sure at all. It could be yours, could be Stuart’s and we don’t have the DNA testing tech that we can trust to resolve the matter.”

Nineteen others also declared their intention to stay behind in Lancaster County, more than a few of them having grown more attached to locals than to me in spite of our shared condition. I wasn’t too shocked, since admittedly, it was a little tougher to keep more than a hundred folks together in a group marriage of any kind. The Oneida Group certainly tested that notion in the past. We, including even God and Marcy, had been just a bit on the ambitious side, or had we? Maybe this was simply a necessary means to help repopulate areas along our route ... maybe that was a secret agenda from the outset, something that couldn’t be revealed just yet.