Trapped in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Eating rats!” Diane was horrified.

  “Very high in protein, so I’m told,” Buddy said.

  “Gross!” Judy said.

  “Let’s plant our charges and get the hell out of here,” Buddy said, after thinking for a moment. “I want to go back and more closely inspect those tracks we found this morning.”

  “And then?” Pete asked.

  “We notify the general.”

  They stayed in the tunnels, working their way back north beneath the city, in this strange, silent, extremely odious world that was once the kingdom of the Night People. They surfaced just as the pumps once more began pouring in the gas, seeing daylight at 169th Street, coming out through a hole in the lower part of a building.

  They made their way cautiously up to 173rd, and entered into the area where they had slept the night before. The tracks were still there, and looking around, they found more. At first glance, they did not look like tracks, rather more like smudges on the concrete and floors.

  Buddy got down on his hands and knees and slowly and carefully inspected the trails, finally finding what he’d been seeking: tiny pieces of cloth and thread.

  He stood up. “Many of them have no shoes,” he announced. “They’re wrapping their feet in rags against the cold.”

  “Dear God!” Diane muttered.

  “Yes. Assuming that they have several layers on their feet, this one,” he pointed to a small track, “would be no more than three or four years old.” He held out his hand to Pete. “Give me your radio.” He changed frequencies and lifted the handset. “Tunnel Rat to Eagle on scramble.”

  “Give me a second to round him up, Rat. He’s out on the street. I’ll patch you through.”

  “Go, Rat,” Ben said.

  Buddy brought him up to date. He could hear Ben’s sigh very clearly. “You’re going to need some help searching that area for the kids.”

  “Send the hippie, Father.”

  “Thermopolis?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Because I think the children might come to someone like him before they’d come to us. Ask him if he’d dress as he did when he first joined us.”

  “Ten-four, boy. They’ll be on their way in a few minutes.”

  Emil Hite, the con artist who had become almost a fixture in Ben’s life over the years, had left Louisiana with his flock of followers to aid Ben in his New York fight. Along the way, they had run into a commune of hippies, headed by a man called Thermopolis. The hippies had agreed that it was better to join Ben and the Rebels than spend the rest of their lives running from the cannibalistic Night People. Slowly, and reluctantly, Thermopolis had found himself liking Ben Raines, personally, if not entirely what he stood for.

  “Of course, we’ll go,” Thermopolis told Ben. “And Buddy is right: the kids will probably come to us much quicker if we’re not dressed in uniforms. I’ll take a few of my own people with me to aid in the search.”

  “Take as many as you need.”

  Dan walked to Ben’s side. “If there are children running wild in this city, General, that casts a very different light on the matter.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?”

  The city was strangely silent as the small convoy made its way to Buddy’s location. “They’ll hit us hard tonight,” the Rebel driver said. “We’ve got just about four and a half hours of daylight left. We’ve got to be back in position by nightfall. General’s orders, people.”

  Thermopolis muttered under his breath and grimaced. His wife, Rosebud, caught the look and laughed at him. Her husband managed a very thin smile. Sort of like a razor blade’s edge.

  “They lead off in that direction,” Buddy told him, pointing. “We have not tried to follow them.”

  Thermopolis hesitated for a moment, then laid his M16 aside. Rosebud, Santo, Wenceslaus, and the others in his group did the same. “We’ll carry sidearms only,” he told them. “We won’t appear so menacing to the children. Let’s go.”

  They moved out cautiously, leaving the swimming-pool area and following the hard-to-spot footprints of the kids in the fast-disappearing spots of snow. Thermopolis led the group, moving swiftly but warily. The footprints appeared again in an alley opening up on Audubon. Thermopolis waved the group down at the mouth of the alley and with them crouched behind him, studied the seemingly empty buildings across the street.

  “The footprints lead straight into that building,” Rosebud pointed out.

  “Yes. But crossing that street is going to be dangerous. We might be watched by creepies right this minute.”

  Rosebud gave him a look guaranteed to curl his toenails, which it came very close to doing. Thermopolis knew it very well. “And those children over there are cold and hungry and frightened. Either you lead us over there, or I will.”

  “Now, Rosebud.”

  “Get out of the damn way!”

  Thermopolis stood up. “Shall we go find the children, dear?”

  “That’s the general idea . . . dear.”

  Muttering under his breath, Thermopolis darted across the street, the others close behind him, and entered a building, noticing that the front door had been used recently. The imprint of a very small and very dirty hand was on the lock stile.

  “My heart goes out to these children,” Swallow said, looking at her husband.

  “My heart is thumping so hard I can hear it!” Santo told her.

  “Be quiet,” Thermopolis told them. “We have nothing to fear from small children.” I hope, he silently added. He moved toward a closed door and slowly pushed it open and stepped inside, noticing the cold ashes of a dead fire in one corner of the barren room.

  Thermopolis paused as his eyes picked up on the skeleton of a rat. It had been picked clean. After being cooked he hoped. He pointed it out to the others.

  Rosebud shook her head in disgust and sorrow. “We’ll take the children to raise as our own, of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” Thermopolis said dryly. “That’s what I had in mind, too.”

  His wife’s eyes spoke silent volumes, directed at him.

  Overheard, on the second level, a small scurrying sound was heard.

  “Too big for rats,” Wenceslaus said, looking at his old lady.

  “You hope,” Zelotes told him.

  Thermopolis led the way up the old stairs. Now the footprints were very clear in the dust. He pushed open the first door he came to.

  A small girl, no more than six or seven, sat on the floor, looking at him. She also had a very large pistol pointing at him, the hammer cocked back. She held the pistol in both hands.

  “Hello, dear.” Thermopolis smiled at her.

  “I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!” she told him.

  FOUR

  Buddy heard the approaching vehicles pull up and stop and was only mildly surprised to see his father stroll nonchalantly up to his position.

  “You just will not stay in a secure zone, will you, Father?”

  “Of course not. The troops would be disappointed if I did. Thermopolis?”

  “The last I saw of them they were entering that alley.” Buddy pointed.

  Ben squatted down and rolled a cigarette while his son looked on, a very disapproving look in his eyes. “I read a very good pamphlet about smoking, Father. Written by a man called Koop. Whoever he is, or was. You should cease the use of those things.”

  “Right.” Ben licked the tube closed and fired up. “Humor me. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “That, too, is a misnomer. I once read a report on dog training. It stated that . . .”

  “Boy . . . !” Ben warned.

  Buddy shut up and watched his father smoke his cigarette.

  Ben scratched at the uncomfortable body armor under his shirt and waited.

  The girl had lowered the hammer, but kept the muzzle pointed dead at Thermopolis.

  “My name is Thermopolis.”

  “That’s a stupid name,” the child
told him.

  Rosebud had counted a dozen kids in the room, none of them older than seven or eight, and all of them dressed in rags. None of them wore shoes; only dirty strips of cloth wrapped around their feet.

  “Well, I suppose so . . . if you’re not used to hearing it,” Thermopolis conceded. “What’s your name?”

  “Kate. Are you with the army that is fighting the human-eaters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the god, Ben Raines, really here in the city?”

  Thermopolis started to tell the child that Ben Raines was not a god. He bit back the words.

  “Did you send all that pukey-smelling stuff into the air?”

  “I helped, yes.” He slowly squatted down on the dirty floor, facing the child. “You can put the gun away. I won’t harm you.”

  “You say. But you might lie.”

  “That’s true. But there comes a time when you have to trust somebody. I tell you what . . .” And it hurt him to say it, but he knew that just the name carried a lot of weight. “. . . I’ll take you to meet Ben Raines.”

  “You lie!”

  “No, child,” Thermopolis said gently. “I speak the truth.”

  Santo’s walkie-talkie crackled. He lifted the radio and spoke briefly, then looked at Thermopolis. “General Raines is coming over here.”

  The kids stirred uneasily.

  “Just take it easy,” Thermopolis told them. “Pretty soon you’ll all have clean clothes and hot food and shoes for your feet. And you’ll be safe.”

  “We’ll believe that when Ben Raines says it,” Kate told him.

  Boots sounded on the ground-level floor, then slowly climbed the steps. The kids drew back, huddling together in fear.

  Ben stood in the doorway, tall, his face hawklike, his eyes unreadable. He watched as Kate laid the big pistol on the floor. Ben held out his hand.

  “Come, children. Let’s go where it’s safe and warm and get you something to eat.” He smiled and his whole face changed. The kids went to him, crowding around. “You children ride with Thermopolis and Rosebud. I’ll meet with you later on today and you can tell me your stories.”

  “You won’t be far away, will you?” Kate asked.

  “No. I won’t be far away,” Ben assured her.

  After the children had gone, Thermopolis paused in the room; only he and Ben remained. “Is it always that way with you and kids?”

  “Usually.”

  “Why? You’re armed to the teeth and half the time you look like you could bite the heads off nails.”

  “Perhaps it’s because I represent something they have never known but always wanted. Or knew some of it and yearn for more.”

  “Safety?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “And so you and your people will take them to raise, and they’ll grow up with the Rebel dogma burned into their brains and be good little soldiers?”

  “Most of them, yes. Is that so wrong?”

  Thermopolis sighed. “I don’t know. I suppose not. What is it with you, Ben Raines? What is this compulsion with law and order and rules and regulations?”

  “I didn’t ask for this job, Thermopolis. I think destiny forced it on me.”

  “Disgusting!” Chase came out of the examining room, ripping off his rubber gloves and dropping them into a waste can. He walked up to Ben, leaning against a wall. “Those children have all been sexually molested. Most of them by the men under me command of this Monte person.”

  Ben waited, knowing the doctor was not yet through.

  Chase ranted and waved his arms and cussed and kicked the waste can before he wound down.

  Ben began rolling a cigarette.

  “No smoking in my damn hospital, Raines!”

  Ben tossed the makings into the waste can. “Venereal diseases?”

  “Some of them. But they’re the treatable kind.”

  “AIDS?”

  “We’re testing them. But I don’t think so. If this . . . catastrophe did any good at all, it seems to be the halt of AIDS. I’ve seen very few cases of it over the past ten years.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did it stop? Hell, I don’t know! I don’t even know why it began. The kids are in a surprisingly good mental state, however—considering what they’ve been through. And what they’re going to have to go through before, or if, we get out of this mess.”

  “We’ll get out.” Once again the plan he had discussed with no one entered Ben’s head. He did not want to even think about it, much less put it into play, but it might be the only way out for them.

  Ben became conscious of Chase talking to him.

  “. . . the hell is wrong with you, Ben? You have Jerre on the brain again?”

  Ben smiled. “No. For once, no. Can I see the kids?”

  “Some of them. Sure. In case you wondered, and I’m sure you did, why, in a city with several million pairs of shoes for the taking, the kids chose to wrap their feet in rags, they seldom got out of that two- or three-block area. They said the Night People never seemed to come in there.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “I don’t know, and neither did the kids. They did say it was a place where they had to be very careful with fire.”

  “Now that is interesting,” Ben said softly. “That is very interesting.”

  Ben met with the kids, joked with them, and managed to coax some smiles from them. By the time he left the hospital, he had gained some valuable knowledge about certain areas of the city. He checked the sky. Dark in about two hours. He told Beth to get his commanders up to his CP—right now. At his CP, the meeting with his commanders was closed, the doors shut and the men and Tina alone. And that was not something that General Ben Raines did very often.

  “We’ve got to hold the Libyan in New Jersey, people. I want everything that can toss shells the distance on the waterfront, doing so. Dan, of us all, you have the finest tastes in art, music, so forth . . .”

  “Thank you, General.” The Englishman smiled. “It’s good to know that my talents in the finer things are appreciated.”

  Ike groaned and stuck the needle to his friend. “Big bore is what you are.”

  Dan ignored him.

  “West, you run a close second to Dan.” He smiled at the mercenary. “As surprising as that might seem to some people.” He cut his eyes to Thermopolis, and the big rough-looking hippie smiled.

  “Colonel West, you will take everything from Central Park west to the river. Dan, you’ll take it from the park east to the waterfront. Both of you all the way down to Battery Park. I’ll take it from a Hundred Twenty-fifth Street north. Our main objective is to kill creepies. Our secondary mission to gather up everything that might be remotely construed as art—paintings, sculpture, whatever—and master tapes or discs of music. Strip the libraries of books. Gather it all and bring it up here for storage.”

  “Does that include rock-and-roll and hillbilly music, General?” Dan asked, a twinkle in his eyes, knowing he was stepping on Ike’s toes. And, out of the corner of his eye, he watched Thermopolis stir and frown. Dan hid his smile.

  “That includes everything, Dan,” Ben said with a straight face, picking up on the Englishman’s joke. “Whether you like it or not, it’s still somebody’s idea of expression.”

  Ike stuck his tongue out at Dan, and the room exploded in laughter. And again, Thermopolis marveled at the seemingly undefeatable morale of the Rebels. Facing thousands of the enemy, and they could still joke. And Ben Raines . . . damn the man! He was a study in contradiction. He could talk of killing with one breath and in the other speak of saving and preserving art and literature. Even rock-and-roll music, and Thermopolis knew the man hated that type of expression. Talk about a walking contradiction, Kris—you should see this man.

  “What’s the drill, Ben?” Cecil asked. “What are you up to this time?”

  Ben cut his eyes to the black general. He hesitated, then shook his head. This decision would be his alone to make. And if he chose to c
arry it out, history—if indeed it was ever to be written—would either applaud him or condemn him. But it would be on his shoulders, and his shoulders alone.

  “Get started at dawn tomorrow,” Ben told them. “I’m going to make an early run downtown. I’ve been delaying it, but it’s time. Get back to your positions and prepare to get hit hard tonight. That’s it, people.”

  “What is the bastard doing?” a commander questioned Khamsin, as the shells exploded around them in New Jersey.

  “Keeping us out of the city,” Khamsin told the man.

  “Damn the savages in the city!” another commander spoke his mind. “Let’s shell the city and have done with it.”

  Khamsin shook his head. “We do that, and those abominations would strike a deal with Raines and turn on us.” He cut his eyes to the woman, Sister Voleta. “Tell me one weakness of Ben Raines. Anything we could use against him.”

  “He has none,” the woman replied. “He has ice in his veins.”

  “He has one,” Ashley spoke. “And I would not know of that had it not been for Big Louie’s obsession with the man.”

  Khamsin looked at the man. “Speak.”

  “A woman. Jerre Hunter.”

  “She is in the city with him?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “And if we took the woman . . . ?” Khamsin questioned.

  “I really don’t know, General. I don’t know what he would do. I know what he wouldn’t do: he would not jeopardize a mission to save her life. But he would track the man who harmed her through Hell. And that man would spend days begging to die.”

  Monte shuddered. He was beginning to wish he had never heard of Ben Raines. Wished he had stayed the hell up in Canada, far, far away from Ben Raines. The bastard just wasn’t human. Or so it seemed to Monte.

  Khamsin was looking at him. “Monte. You will take some people into the city, cross over this night in boats, and seize this woman. And that is not a request.”

  “Right,” Monte managed to say.

  “Leave now, and make ready.”

  A shell crashed close to the Libyan’s CP. Khamsin clenched his fists and silently rained curses down on Ben’s head. He had the man trapped, and because of an unholy alliance with cannibals could not move.