Episode Thirty-one Epilogue

F ive Years Later…

Shanna

I smile as I survey our property. Gods, there were so many times I never thought we'd get this far. We've been through many iterations of hell since we arrived here that night when we fled the city so long ago.

We've survived countless attacks by bands of monsters, but that's ancient history now.

"Play nice," I call to the kids in the sandpile.

We used to celebrate their birthdays individually, but with over a hundred children in our community, we can no longer manage to do it like that. There are just too many of them now. I, for one, don't have the energy or inclination to bake over a hundred cakes a year. Today is the June birthday celebration.

Our three children, Devlin, Malcolm, and Harley, are making mischief as always. They're not the naughtiest of the lot, nor are they angels. I guess that's what makes them ours.

I don't know how much of what we're dealing with Down Below is accidental, and how much was premeditated. The vaccinations killed off so many women. So many.

In order to make up for that, we somehow bear litters of children. Even those of us who still look human.

I knew my shot did something to me and didn't realize the extent of my changes until much later than the males' obvious metamorphosis. I guess my first hint was that night in the hallway our first night in the cabin when I reacted so differently to my mates. Bearing a litter of children was definitely a shocker.

None of the kids look human. The animal DNA is dominant. I don't believe that was left to chance. The powerful people who orchestrated this didn't want any humans left Down Below after the first generation dies off.

Because of the scarcity of women, whether human or altered, polyamory is the norm. It makes sense to have loving units with more than one male. We all may be changed from our original lifestyles and DNA, but one thing remains—we all want to love and be loved.

In most of the litters from poly groups where the fathers are of differing species, the children are of various species.

Few people are aware I used to be a geneticist. I figured if they knew, it might breed fear, considering what was done to everyone. So I never throw around the lofty term superfecundation to explain how one female can bear children with more than one father in a litter.

Who cares what the fancy word is for it? It's our new normal. As are so many things in our new lives.

Two of our three take after Alex. Harley's hair is black as night, just like his wolven father. Devlin's shines a deep brown in the sun. At least I contributed something to his looks.

Malcolm is the spitting image of his father, Ro, but woe be unto the child who makes fun of his looks. That boy doesn't have an ounce of prey animal in him. Of the three, that male is the rowdiest.

I pat my baby bump and wonder if this time at least one of our babies will take after Chaska.

He's the only person we know who shifts. That his dragon form gets a smidge bigger every month or two concerns me. Luckily, when he returns to his human form, he's the same size as he always is. About a month after the cataclysm, he learned to shift from one form to the other at will.

It took a while for him to figure out his wings. There were a few heartbreakingly painful crashes. It's a good thing one of his dragon powers is super-fast healing. Now it's as if he's flown all his life. He patrols our area from the sky for hours at a time.

When all of this was unfolding years ago, and I thought I'd be dead in a matter of hours, I had trouble imagining any future at all. I certainly couldn't have pictured riding on my dragon's back as he soars and glides with seemingly effortless power and grace, his extra-warm body keeping me toasty.

"Play nice!" I say again as Malcolm, the biggest troublemaker of my three, snatches Arlen's whittled, wooden truck.

Five years ago, not only wouldn't I have bet a shiny copper penny that any of the four of us would still be alive in five years, I wouldn't have imagined the community we would build.

Roman used his police band radio and put out daily bulletins, disseminating the news we got from the Azores in case others didn't know about that frequency.

Shortly thereafter, travel trailers started arriving. Not only wasn't it hospitable to turn them away, we knew there would be safety in numbers.

Judging by the predominance of wolves at Blaketon, we figured the rural vaccination station nearby was only stocked with wolven DNA. That was proven true every time a pack of them attacked our acreage.

When trailers filled with monk-men, felines, and other less warlike folks arrived, we welcomed them after writing our manifesto.

Manifesto. That's such an Alex way of describing our list of rules. We just want a happy, safe place to raise our young.

We began hugging the fence line with the trailers, nose to ass. It's a loud statement to marauding bands to stay away.

A couple of years ago, we'd emptied all the gas stations within a fifty-mile radius of their fuel, but once a month or so, we get a call from someone asking for help getting pushed, pulled, or dragged here.

The herd of centaurs we have in the south forty are usually more than happy to gallop to the stranded travelers and pull them here in old-fashioned giddyap mode.

Right now, my guys are inside putting the finishing touches on the hand-cranked ice cream they're making. We've been perfecting the recipe. It took us a while to figure out how to preserve ice through the summer.

Chaska has been a boon. He loves to fly to nearby libraries and never fails to bring back books for all of us to pass around. The knowledge there, now that there's no Internet, is how we discovered how to preserve ice for ice cream. We've also researched many other 1800s-type inventions. It's how we're going to build a water wheel at the stream's edge next month.

Chaska, having studied engineering, is a blessing as we retrofit now-useless electronic gadgets to create things they used hundreds of years ago. Like the iPhone cases we use as paddles to churn the ice cream. Iscream, the guys call it with a chuckle. Dorks.

The three of them barge out of the house, each carrying an ice cream churn.

"Come and get it!" Chaska calls, using his booming dragon voice to make sure everyone, even at the edges of the south forty who are tending to the crops or the cattle, will know it's time to come in for a treat.

"Are the boys any better at playing nice than they were at last month's birthday party?" Alex asks as his clawed hand caresses my growing waistline.

My first pregnancy was a shocker. Despite being a multiple birth, the babies came in three months instead of nine. At least this time we know what to expect.

"No," I shake my head as I press his hand to me more tightly.

I tug Ro closer, then lean against Chass, who's snuggled behind me.

I quit trying to name Ro's species ages ago. What started as a rabbit is now a furry, deceptively passive-looking predator species. Whatever he is, he's one of the three loves of my life.

Well, that's not true anymore. I have six loves of my life, and by the persistent thumping against my ribcage, there's soon to be eight or nine or ten loves of my life. I'm truly blessed.

People are singing, dancing, and playing instruments that have been adapted for use by folks with claws. We're figuring it out.

The first few years we were consumed with discovering how to simply stay alive. Now that we've banded together, we're discovering how to live together in a world that is quickly healing itself from the ravages of pollution.

We have a simple system of governance, similar to the golden rule. When you think about it, what else do we need?

And at the end of the day, when people retire to their trailers, or the centaurs trot to the south acreage to bed down in the grass, or the troop of monkey-men who like to be called monks, climb to the village they're building in the branches of the grove of trees near the stream, it's just our family in our cabin.

When we've sung the boys their lullabies, read them three stories from the books Chaska brought from one library or another, and threatened them with dire consequences if they don't quit nipping at each other, they finally curl up together on the pile of blankets they prefer to sleep on. That's when the real fun begins.

Because during the day, I'm a well-respected woman of our little tribe. No longer stifled by repressive laws or relegated to the kitchen, my thoughts are as important as anyone else's.

But at night, I belong to my monsters. I love it that way.