Trapped in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  She might as well have been in another galaxy.

  Ben and his people resumed their treasure-hunting early the next morning. The winds continued to blow, and it was bitterly cold, but Ben and his people had arctic gear to wear and could stand the harshness much better than the Night People.

  Several times that bitter morning, all within the span of an hour, Ben and his teams came upon Night People, huddled in stinking masses on the floors of buildings. Always before, they could seek the warmth and security of their deep tunnels to shield them from the winter—now they had nothing.

  Ben and his Rebels shot them where they lay and moved on. This was total extermination of the subhuman cannibals. Everyone knew that Ben Raines and his people took very few prisoners; if you were foolish enough to fight him, you accepted that it was a fight to the death.

  All over the island, teams of Rebels were stripping the city of anything of value. They were blowing bank vaults and removing any gold they might find. They discarded the coins and paper money; they were useless.

  “Might make good toilet paper,” one Rebel suggested with a grin, holding up a thick wad of fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Other Rebels began stuffing their pockets with paper bills. It would also be good for starting fires.

  Ben had contacted Thermopolis and his people, and the hippie leader had agreed to go with Ben and his teams.

  “You know folk and rock and blues and all that,” Ben told him. “If you want it preserved, come on, we need the help.”

  They went first to the Rockefeller Center area and began sizing up the magnitude of their undertaking.

  “Some of you ladies might want to visit over there.” Ben pointed to Saks Fifth Avenue. He grinned at Jerre. “Might be some real expensive nighties left.”

  “I just want to get out of this damn cold!” she told him.

  “Okay,” Ben agreed. “Buddy, you and Thermopolis take the RCA Building. I don’t even know if that’s where they used to record or not. Dan, you and I will take the Museum of Modern Art. There are supposed to be about a hundred thousand pieces of work in there.”

  “If I could find and preserve the work of Cezanne and Van Gogh,” the Englishman said, “I would consider my life meaningful.”

  “I do hope the day proves meaningful,” Ben told him, keeping a straight face. “And please let us not get so wrapped up in exploring that we forget that behind every door there might be a half a dozen creepies, waiting to blow us away.”

  That brought them all back to earth in a hurry. They stared at the tall buildings around them.

  Cooper pointed to a statue at the edge of Rockefeller Plaza. “Is that someone important, General?”

  “It’s a tribute to Prometheus. From Greek mythology, I think. He stole fire from the Heavens to benefit mankind. Promethean means to be creative, courageously original, or life-bringing.”

  Thermopolis was looking at Ben. Every day, he thought, brings out a new facet of the man. I’d like to walk around inside his head for a few hours. Then Thermopolis thought about that for a moment and changed his mind. Might be like walking around the fringes of Hell.

  “Creepies!” Jerre shouted, as she was hitting the cold concrete and squirming behind cover.

  Lead began howling and ricocheting off the snow-covered sidewalk as the Rebels dived for whatever cover they could find.

  “Whereaway?” Ben yelled, crouched down inside a doorway.

  “That one right there!” Jerre shouted over the din of gunfire.

  “RCA Building,” Ben muttered.

  “We’re closer!” Buddy shouted. “We’ll take it!”

  “Have at it!” Ben returned the shout.

  “Don’t destroy the murals!” Dan yelled. “They’re priceless.”

  “Right,” Buddy muttered, then he and his team were off and running. They tossed a grenade to blow off the doors—or part of them—on the lower level and went in with weapons set on full auto.

  But the lobby was deserted. Buddy and his team knelt down behind whatever cover they could find, and all of them stared at the immense murals covering the walls, murals done by Jose Maria Sen, which depicted man’s progress.

  “Are we gonna have to tote those things off, too?” Buddy was asked.

  “I suppose. We’ll worry about that later. Did you see which floor the fire was coming from?”

  “Third floor,” Diane called from across the wide expanse of lobby.

  “Take the point,” Buddy told her.

  They moved toward the door leading to the stairs.

  “Concussion grenade in first,” Buddy ordered. “Toss one, Pete. Diane, you hold the door open.”

  Diane jerked the door open and the grenade was hurled in. If anyone was in there, the force of the concussion would addle anyone within the range-force of the stun grenade without destroying anything else, such as stairs or support braces.

  But the cold concrete space was empty. With Diane leading the way, the team took the steps two at a time until the now-familiar odor began to touch them. They slowed and became more cautious in their advance.

  At a wave from Diane, the team stopped and flattened against the concrete walls of the dark stairway. Muted voices came to them. Diane slipped forward and looked through the small wire-reinforced glass of the metal door. She smiled and handed her weapon to Pete, then took two fire-frags from her battle harness and pulled the pins just as Buddy stepped forward and put his hand on the doorknob, slowly turning it. He nodded at her and jerked open the door.

  Diane rolled the grenades in and Buddy slammed the door, all of them hitting the cold stoop and stairwell.

  The mini-claymores blew, the concussion of the powerful grenades bringing down a shower of dust and shaken-loose plaster and wild cries of pain from inside the darkened hallway.

  Buddy went in first, followed by Pete, Diane, Harold, and Judy. Three to the left, two to the right, their weapons set on full auto. They cleared the hall of all living and unholy things. Buddy saw a door open and quickly close. He ran toward the door and blew it off its hinges with a burst from his Thompson, then sprayed the interior with a long burst, hearing the screams from the stinking and dusty room.

  Jumping to his left, he dropped the empty clip and fitted in a one-hundred-round drum. It takes a strong man to handle a Thompson for any length of time with a hundred-round drum in its belly, for the weight is approximately twenty pounds. That’s more than the old Browning Automatic Rifle.

  “Coming from your left, Buddy!” Diane yelled the warning.

  Buddy dropped to the floor, leveling the powerful old SMG, and held the trigger back, working the muzzle from left to right, fighting to keep the weapon from shooting at the ceiling.

  The .45-caliber slugs knocked creepies spinning and sprawling and howling in pain as the big hollow-noses tore into flesh and shattered bones. The dirty, rat-droppings-littered floor became slick with blood from the dead and dying.

  Judy tossed a fire-frag into a crowded room, the force of the explosion knocking one crawler out a window. He went spinning and screaming to the snow-covered plaza below. His howling ended when he impacted with unyielding concrete.

  The firing ceased and the Rebels slowly rose to their boots.

  “Let’s clear the rest of the building,” Buddy said, his voice quiet in the now calm but gunsmoke-filled air of the hallway.

  He lifted his walkie-talkie and advised the Rebels at ground level that the third floor was clear.

  Thermopolis and his people walked toward the seventy-story-high building.

  “Have fun climbing up to the observation deck,” Ben called after him. “It’s on the sixty-fifth floor.”

  “He needs the exercise!” Rosebud called over her shoulder.

  Thermopolis looked at his wife and bit back the comment forming on his tongue.

  They disappeared into the lobby of the building.

  Ben and Dan turned toward the Museum of Modern Art, not knowing what to expect, but both of the
m were expecting the worst. Inside, they paused for a moment, looking around. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been.

  Some of the paintings had been slashed with knives; nearly all had been jerked down from the walls and thrown to the floor. A lot of them were ripped beyond repair.

  “Mindless wanton destruction,” Dan muttered, squatting down and looking at what was left of a watercolor. “No rhyme or reason for it.” He reached out to touch the faded colors, then froze his fingers an inch from the painting.

  Ben had turned, watching the Englishman. “What’s the matter, Dan?”

  “Don’t move, General.” He raised his voice. “All Rebels, freeze where you are! It’s booby-trapped, General. Beth, get Buddy and his people on the horn. Advise them to back out slowly, retracing their initial steps.”

  “Let’s go, people,” Ben said. “Slow and easy.”

  Across the plaza, a huge explosion ripped the air, as a section of the fifth floor of the RCA Building was torn apart.

  THIRTEEN

  Ben and his people, safely outside the museum, waited behind cover in the plaza until Buddy and his group had exited the RCA Building and made their way across the snow-and-ice-covered plaza.

  “Tapper and Robin,” Thermopolis said, the emotional pain very evident in his eyes. “Two of your Rebels that I didn’t know by name. At least two, maybe more. They must have touched something that was wired to blow.”

  “I am sorry,” Ben said.

  “I believe that,” the hippie said. “I was under no illusions that we would all return home en masse.”

  “What now, Father?” Buddy asked.

  Ben sighed heavily, his breath frosty in the icy air. “We don’t have the time to clear the area floor by floor. Besides, we’d be sure to lose more people.” He looked at Dan. “Is it worth it, Dan?”

  The Englishman shook his head. “Regrettably, no. Future generations will have to be content to gaze upon pictures of the great works.” He looked back at the museum. “Goddamn people who would do this. Goddamn them all to the pits of Hell!”

  Ben and his Rebels, and Thermopolis and his hippie-Rebels, walked slowly away from a thousand or more years of history. They didn’t like what they were doing, but all knew they had no other alternative. As for those lost in the explosion, there was nothing anyone could do. The blast had been so powerful that the living would have had to scrape up the dead with spoons.

  “Before they reach the pits of Hell,” Rosebud startled Thermopolis by saying, “they’re going to have some Hell on Earth—from us!” She savagely jacked a round into her AR15.

  “Now, dear,” Thermopolis said.

  “Shut . . . up!” she told him.

  “Right,” Thermopolis agreed.

  The Russian, Striganov, listened as Ben briefed him on what had taken place that morning. “For what it’s worth, Ben,” Striganov said, “I would have done the same. Perhaps it’s time for us to start looking more to the future, rather than to the past. We know the mistakes that were made. Perhaps that’s all we can salvage.”

  “You may be right, Georgi. Any movement up here while we were gone?”

  “Very little. My people found half a dozen or so hiding places of the odious bastards. They were destroyed where they lay.”

  “Intercept any communications from Khamsin?”

  “Not a word. It’s my guess that he is still trying to come up with some sort of plan of attack. And he’s having some difficulty in doing so.”

  “You think the man is insane, Georgi?”

  The Russian pondered on that for a moment. “No . . . no more so than any fanatic. But I think if he knew he could kill you in the process, he would cheerfully die accomplishing it.”

  “Yes. And that is just one of the many differences between us. Let’s have some lunch and start checking out more places. The creepies could not have booby-trapped every building in the city.”

  “Have you made up your mind whether or not you plan to destroy the city, Ben?”

  “Yes,” Ben acknowledged, and would say nothing else on the subject.

  The loss of two of his regular Rebels and the loss of the husband and wife from Thermopolis’s group bothered him, turning him testy. His personal team knew the signs and left him alone.

  Right after lunch, Ben waved his people into cars and closed-bed trucks. “Where are we going, General?” Cooper asked.

  “Head-hunting,” Ben told him. “Just drive. Head south. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  It was very slow going, even with the four-wheel-drive vehicles and chains on the tires. The snow, covered with a layer of ice, was treacherous.

  “What was all that stuff I saw being loaded into the back of that deuce and a half, Ben?” Jerre asked. “It looks like space equipment.”

  “Flamethrowers. If you like, I’ll give you a short course on the nomenclature of flamethrowers, Jerre.”

  “Thank you, Ben. That’s something I have always wanted to learn about.”

  Ben chuckled, some of his bad mood leaving him. “I knew it was, kid. Veer a few blocks over to the east. I had an idea about an hour ago. There used to be a lot of places on this island that needed bringing down. I think today would be just a dandy day to do it.”

  Beth had been listening to chatter through her headphones. “Dan and his people are right behind us, sir.”

  “Yes. He knows where we’re heading. Get me West on the horn, Beth.” He picked up the mike at her signal. “Colonel, have you or any of your people inspected any of those old condemned buildings northeast of the park?”

  “Negative, General. Damnit!” The word exploded out of his mouth and through the speaker. “You’re right, of course. The last place we would think to look for them would be among the rubble of condemned buildings. You need some help?”

  “Ten-fifty, West. Hold what you’ve got. When we start burning them out, they’re going to have one direction to go: south toward you.”

  “Ten-four, General.”

  “Dan?”

  “Go, sir.”

  “Split your people. I want the area we spoke about blocked off on three sides: north, east, and west. You and your team go in with me.”

  “Ten-four, General.”

  “Cut east for a couple of blocks, Cooper.”

  “To those blocks of abandoned buildings, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “It don’t look like anybody has lived there for a hundred years, sir.”

  “It hasn’t been that long, Cooper. And for a while, back in the eighties, Harlem underwent quite a revitalization period. They just never quite got to these places. I think that’s where the night crawlers are hiding. At least, a good many of them.”

  “Under all that crap!” Jerre spoke. “In the basements of places they thought we’d never look.”

  “Right, kid. And I almost didn’t think of it. If I’m right, we’ll further shorten the odds against us this afternoon and night. And we will be working in this area until we’ve destroyed them all. I’ve ordered hot food to be sent to us. It’s going to be a long, cold, and very bloody next twenty-four hours.”

  Dan’s teams worked like well-oiled machinery; they were moving into position from the moment the trucks stopped. Ben turned around at the sounds of trucks laboring over the ice and snow. He smiled as Cecil stepped out of a pickup and moved toward him. The men shook hands.

  “You know, Ben, when I was up here back in . . . eighty-seven, I think it was, just over there,” he pointed, “I saw some of the most beautiful renovation work I’d ever witnessed. They were going to raze this area, I believe.”

  “Well, let’s pick up where they left off, old buddy,” Ben told the black man.

  “Right on!” Then Ben and Cecil did some fancy handshaking while the younger Rebels looked at them and wondered what in the hell was going on between the two generals.

  “That’s kind of a hip way of shaking hands,” Jerre explained to a couple of Rebels, both of them about nineteen. They would h
ave been very young children when the Great War ravished the earth.

  “What’s hip?” the girl asked Jerre.

  And at that moment, Jerre felt her age—every bit of it. “With it,” she tried again.

  The two young Rebels stared at her.

  Jerre shook her head and took one more shot. “Being different,” she said, standing out in the bitter cold.

  “Why would anybody want to be any different than what we are now?” the young man said, just as Thermopolis came walking up.

  Ben had heard the comment, and he caught Thermopolis looking at him, a slight smile on the hippie’s lips. Ben returned the smile and said, “You think you can change him, go ahead.”

  “I wouldn’t even try, General,” Thermopolis replied. “It’s not that you’re such a tough act to follow, but because you’ve had him longer.”

  “Yes,” Ben agreed. “There is that to consider. Where’s your wife?”

  “Back in quarters.” Damn! Thermopolis mentally fumed. He’s got me talking military now. Shit! Just being around the man is infectious.

  “You understand that we’re down here for the duration?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Fine. You work with my team, then. We can work and argue at the same time.”

  Killing people is work? “Fine, General.” He walked over to stand by the two generals.

  “You two have met, I think,” Ben said, pointing between Cecil and Thermopolis.

  “Good to see you.” Cecil shook the outstretched hand. “Sorry about those booby traps. I know what it’s like to lose friends and loved ones.”

  Thermopolis had learned just recently that Cecil’s wife, Lila, had been killed during the fighting in the old Tri-States.

  And still they fight on, he thought. But he knew why they did it. And was glad they did. They? he thought. Crap, I’ve got my butt right in the middle of it, as well.

  “Did I hear you say something about arguing, Ben?” Cecil asked.