The office emptied.
The Rebels ran into a solid and well-manned barricade on the Interstate. About ten miles outside of Lancaster. Tina radioed back to Ike and she was ordered to hold, not to attempt to advance.
Just after crossing the Susquehanna River, the Rebels had begun to notice well-kept homes and neat fields and gardens. It was eerie in a reverse sort of way, after what they had been seeing on their journey.
“Amish?” Ham asked.
“I don’t think so,” Tina told him. “The people we’ve seen so far are all well-armed and look like they mean business.”
They made a quick camp by the side of the road and ate a cold lunch, then rested, always conscious of eyes on them.
“Keep your weapons close by, but don’t make any hostile moves. I don’t think these people mean us any harm. I think they’re just curious.” Tina opened her lunch packet. “At least,” she added, “I hope I’m right.”
Then they were all conscious of being surrounded, on all sides. The weapons in the hands of the men and women were not pointed directly at them, but held at the ready.
“We don’t mean anyone any harm,” Tina called out. “We’re part of Raines Rebels, heading east to check out New York City.”
“That is a lie!” A man returned the call. “General Raines was killed more than ten years ago.”
“General Ben Raines is my father,” Tina said, raising her voice. “And I just kissed him good-bye about a week ago in what was called Louisiana. I assure you all, Ben Raines is very much alive and well.”
Whispers reached the ears of the Rebel Scouts. They continued their eating of lunch, outwardly showing no signs of fear.
“You say Ben Raines is alive,” the same man called. “Prove it!”
“You’ve heard of General Ike McGowan?”
“Everyone knows of the exploits of General Ike. And of the vice president, Cecil Jefferys. What about General McGowan?”
“He should be here in about forty minutes. I’m sure you have good communications; you know there is a large force coming up behind us.”
“This is true,” the man acknowledged.
“We’ll share our food with you,” Tina offered.
“We’ll share with you. We have fresh-baked bread and meat and vegetables.”
“That would be very nice. But we don’t want to strain your supplies. Ike is coming up with more than three hundred personnel.”
“We have more than enough.” The spokesman stepped out of the line of trees and walked across the ditch, up to Tina’s position. He gazed at her. “You do not look like General Raines. There is no family resemblance.”
“Ben adopted me and Jack. My brother was killed during the fighting over the old Tri-States. My father’s flesh-and-blood son, Buddy, is with him at the new Base Camp One.”
Men and women began bringing fresh-cooked food to the Rebel Scouts, and it was a most welcome sight. After a week of, if they were lucky, one hot meal a day, the Rebels welcomed the hot food.
While the Scouts ate, the spokesperson for the community asked, “Why would you risk going into a hot area, and how did you come through the hot areas?”
“What hot areas are you speaking of?” Ham asked, around a mouthful of ham sandwich.
“You say you came from what was once Louisiana; how did you pass through the radiation belt?”
“With the exception of what was D.C. and Baltimore,” Tina told him, “there are no other hot areas.”
The men and women looked at each other; it was evident that none of them believed a word Tina had just said. Something odd about these people, Tina thought.
Tina got her map case and showed them all the route they’d taken in getting this far. “You can see our route: Jackson, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. Then to Nashville, Knoxville, Bristol, Roanoke, and on up here, skirting the D.C. and Baltimore area.”
The spokesperson shook his head. “But we were told that everything from the Pennsylvania line south and everything from the old Interstate Eight-one west was dead. And would be hot for centuries to come. And that everything north of the old Interstate Seventy-eight, and everything east of Philadelphia, including that city, was off limits.”
Ike and his contingent pulled in and were introduced all around. While they ate, something that Ike did very well, Tina brought him up to date.
“Who told you all this crap?” Ike asked the spokesperson. “And when?”
“Just after the bombing; the Great War. Just after President Logan’s relocation plans came through.”
“Yes,” a woman broke in. “It was President Logan himself who came to see us. I remember it well. He had a . . . well, person with him. A robed and hooded person; eyes all white and face horribly disfigured. The President said that this, meaning the burned person, was all that was left outside of tiny pockets like ours, and we must never, never leave the designated areas.” She shrugged. “And we have not. The government told us it was unsafe.”
Ike snorted and accepted another fine ham sandwich from a rather plump lady. Rich, homemade mustard, pickles that made his mouth water, and thick slices of still-warm homemade bread. Ike chewed and sighed with contentment. “So this is it, then — you people have never left the designated confines?”
“No, sir. We believed it wasn’t safe. The government told us so.”
Ike didn’t want to bit the hands that were feeding him, and feeding him well, so he didn’t tell them that with somebody like Hilton Logan, you couldn’t believe a word out of his mouth. “But surely you have radios! You’ve heard us talking back and forth; you’ve said so.”
“Certainly,” the spokesman said. “But what could we do? How to get to you? No Rebel contingent ever came this way, so we could but assume the way was blocked.”
Ike leaned against a fender. “Yeah, it’s all beginning to fit now. You’re too young to remember, Tina; but Logan evacuated the cities, placed them off limits, and relocated the people. We’ll probably never know for sure, but my guess would be he struck a deal with the Night People. I’ll give the liberal son of a bitch credit; maybe he thought he was doing the right thing.”
Dr. Ling said, “I can imagine, after the bombings, that his medical advisors told him to do this; to separate the bomb-blast people from those so-far unaffected.”
“All right,” Ike nodded his head, “I’ll accept that. And to make it work, a story had to be concocted.”
“Sure.” Tina jumped in. “And what better story than to tell the people about so-called Hot areas of the nation. He even went so far as to forbid pilots from flying over the designated areas. Ike, do you know what this means — really means?”
“Yeah, in more ways than one, kid.”
The residents of the area were standing quietly, listening to the Rebels talk. To a person, all wore shocked looks on their faces.
“General McGowan.” The woman gave him a huge piece of apple pie. Ike looked at it, smacked his lips, and took it. “What do you mean in more ways than one?”
“It means, ma’am,” Ike chewed and then continued, “that with the exception of D.C. and Baltimore, the nation is clean. Everything else was just a big damn lie on Logan’s part.”
“Tell me something, any of you, all of you.” Tina faced the crowd. “What’s the closest any of you have ever been to Wilmington or Philadelphia?”
“No one goes into the cities, Miss Raines,” the spokesman informed the Rebels.
“Why?” Ike asked, knowing what Tina was leading up to. He had spotted something very odd; might be a coincidence, but he rather doubted it. So had Tina.
Ike turned to face a Vietnamese man and spoke to him in his own tongue. Ike ended with something that sounded like, “Do mamma money eye,” which, loosely translated, means “these mother-fuckers are lyin’!”
The small man nodded and turned away, walking through the ranks of Rebels, speaking to them softly. The Rebels began to fan out.
“Why won’t you go into the cities, mister?�
� Ike asked, turning to face the spokesman, who wore sunglasses. They all wore sunglasses. And even though the day was hot, all wore long-sleeved shirts.
“The cities are unsafe. They are filled with radiation.”
“You’re a liar!” Ike told him, then reached up and ripped the sunglasses from the man’s face.
There were tubes running into Buddy’s arms, but his color was good and the nurse said he was getting stronger with each passing hour. Buddy smiled at his father.
“You had me worried, boy. Thank you for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome, sir. I hope I didn’t hurt you when I knocked you down. A man your age . . . well, bones break easily.” There was a twinkle in his eyes.
“I think, boy, when you get up out of that bed, I’m going to whip your ass!”
Buddy laughed softly. “So you are going to Michigan, sir?”
Holly stuck her head into the room. “Yes, we are, Buddy. And Patrice is going, too.”
Ben opened his mouth, then closed it. This would be as good a time as any to check Patrice out to the fullest.
“Any comments, General Raines?” she asked sweetly.
“Not a one.”
“Will surprises never cease!” She walked on down the hall.
“Are you going to hold on to this one, Father?” Buddy asked, cutting his eyes toward the open doorway.
“I haven’t the vaguest idea what you mean, boy. You’ve been listening to too much camp talk. I am really a one-woman man, at heart.”
“Father?”
“Yes, son.”
“You are as full of shit as a Christmas goose!”
The man’s eyes were chalk-white and dead-looking. He screamed as the light struck his eyes. His screaming abruptly ended as Ike, left-handed, shoved his CAR-15 under the man’s chin and pulled the trigger.
The Rebels, fully alerted and on guard, cut loose with automatic weapons at nearly point-blank range. For many of the Rebels, especially those closest to Ike and Tina, it was too close for guns; they grabbed knives and camp axes and went to work. Blood began to spurt from gaping, horrible wounds. The Night People, many of them losing their ultra-dark sunglasses in the fighting, were blinded by the bright sunlight. They ran screaming off up and down the road and into the fields. The Rebels cut as many of them down as they could.
“No pursuit!” Ike yelled. “No pursuit! Let them go. Gather ’round, gather ’round.”
The Rebels gathered around him, a few meters away from the blood-soaked and body-littered ground, Ike said, “I got a hunch, people. And if I’m right, it isn’t gonna be any fun. But it’s something we have to do. So listen up.”
After Ike’s orders, they broke up into teams and began going house to house, farm to farm. Ike had been right.
One Rebel, a veteran of a hundred battles, stepped out of a barn and bent over, puking up his lunch. He wiped his mouth and pointed toward the barn. “Ike was right, Tina. Take a quick look in there. The smell gave it away.”
Trying to breath as shallowly as possible, and through her mouth, Tina took a quick look inside the barn. Human bones were piled up, some piles reaching as high as the floor of the loft. Tina backed out and fought to keep her lunch down.
When she knew she wasn’t going to toss her lunch, she lifted her walkie talkie and said, “Shark, you were right. I’m just east of your position. Can you get up here?”
“Ten-four.”
“Holy Mother of God!” Ike said, backing out of the barn. He took a deep breath and closed the double doors. “Some of those bones are no more than a day or two old. We’ve got a major war on our hands, people, and I don’t just mean us. It’s going to take everybody to whip this.”
Dr. Ling, wearing a face mask, entered the death-barn. He did not stay inside for long. When he stepped outside, he looked at Ike. “The worst is now reality. They’re spreading out of the cities, probably by the hundreds; perhaps by the thousands. Looking for food. Burn this place, Ike.”
The barn was doused with kerosene and gasoline and set afire. The heat was so intense it backed the Rebels clear out of the yard.
“The way I figure it, gang,” Ike said, his Rebels gathered around him, “the more normal-looking Night People are being sent out to infiltrate the villages — in search of food. Then the . . . others join them. So that means the really disfigured and deformed ones are here, in hiding, in the dark, probably in the cellars.”
“Aw, shit!” one Rebel exclaimed.
The others laughed, relieving the tension.
“And one more thing,” Ike said, raising his voice. “The town just up the road once held some sixty thousand people. That means there’re probably some being kept alive, and fattened up . . . the survivors had a pretty good farming community going here. So we’ve got to find them. And we got another problem: this very well may be a group of people whose religious convictions forbid them from fighting. If that’s the case, we’ll cut them loose and then they’re on their own. I’m not going to fuck around with a bunch of people who won’t fight to save their own skins. Any of you who don’t agree with that can carry your ass, or asses, and do it now.”
The Rebels stood tight.
“OK, people. Take a breath while I get on the horn with General Raines. He’s got to know about this scam of Hilton Logan’s.” He walked away muttering, “Hilton, you sissy-pants craphead, what have you done to us?”
THIRTEEN
“Well, Ike,” Ben spoke over the long miles. “I’m not going to blame Logan for this; he wasn’t smart enough to dream this up by himself. And those who advised him probably thought they were doing the right thing, for the majority. We’ll probably never know for sure.”
Then Ben told him of his decision to go to Michigan.
“Ben, goddamnit! Can’t you sit still anywhere for ten days?”
Ben laughed at his friend. “Ike, there is nothing for me to do here. I’ve just been told that after learning what happened to Hiram and his bunch, Lamumba and his crew quietly pulled out. I don’t know where they went, and I don’t really care, as long as they stay out of my way. Everything is copasetic here. I’m not needed. I’ll be pulling out at oh-four-hundred in the morning.”
“All right, Ben. I’ve got to go root around in some cellars. You watch your ass, partner.”
“Same to you, Ike. I’m leaving Joe in charge down here.”
“Ten-four, Ben.”
Ike broke it off.
Ben set about gathering equipment. He did not envy Ike and his Rebels the task that lay before them.
The sounds of gunfire rattled through the afternoon as the Rebels carefully and cautiously searched the darkness of the homes, usually finding the Night People huddled in stinking groups in the dark cellars.
It was not a pleasant job, and none of the Rebels enjoyed it a bit; the only thing that made it bearable was that there were no children found among the groups of Night People, and that fact puzzled them all.
Taking a break from the grisly job, Ike and Tina sat and talked.
“No kids, Ike.”
“Yeah. These people are savage and cannibalistic, but they’re smart, too. I think when the kids are of a certain age, they’re farmed out; taken to a safe spot. These people know that at full strength we’re only six thousand strong; and every time we establish an outpost, there goes another platoon. They know they outnumber us, Tina. And as we get closer to what I believe is their home base, New York City, we’re finding them well armed, not just with sticks and stones and bows and arrows.”
“Ike, what are we going to do when we find the kids?”
“God help me, Tina. I don’t know. I think if they’re young enough, we can take them and teach them . . . I hope,” he added.
Neither one of them cared to pursue the other side of that issue any further. And each of them knew that the final decision would have to be made by Ben.
Tina’s walkie talkie crackled. Ham. “Tina, we’ve located the prisoners. They were being held in a war
ehouse close to Lancaster, and the city is full of those . . . creatures.”
“What kind of shape are the civilians in?” Ike asked.
“Rough. They were being force-fed, like geese.”
“Leave the city for now. Bring the people to our position, Ham.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was as Ike had feared. The men and women were of that religious sect that would not fight. Ike paced up and down in front of the hundred or so men and women; the kids were being looked after by Rebel medics.
He kept looking at them, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Ike was not alone in his dilemma; no Rebel could understand any group of people who would not fight to stay alive.
“I don’t know what to do with you people,” he finally told them. “I’m over a barrel. You obviously are good people; hard-working. I can see that by your farms. But I don’t have the time, the inclination, or the personnel to protect what is rightfully your responsibility.”
“The Lord will provide, our faith will sustain us,” a man said.
Ike disliked him immediately. Reminded him of one of those TV preachers of past years. Smug and sanctimonious . . . and thoroughly obnoxious. “The Lord will provide, huh?” He pointed toward the still-smoldering remains of the barn. “Then what happened to those people?”
“Obviously, their faith was not strong enough to sustain them.”
“Suffer the little children,” Ham muttered, just loud enough for Ike to hear.
“Yeah,” Ike returned the muttering. “And that’s what’s got me all knotted up inside.”
Ike walked over to Tina. From the look on her tanned face, he knew she felt the same as Ike about the just-rescued civilians. “You know what Ben is going to say if I ask him for an opinion, Tina?”
“Sure. I can just hear him. ‘You’re a big boy, General McGowan. You handle it.’”
“Yeah. Right. How many kids under, say, twelve are there?”
“About fifteen.”
“I’m not going to leave the little children to be eaten by savages.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Danger in the Ashes Page 22
