Alone in the Ashes ta-5

by William W. Johnstone

  She looked at the man for a long moment. “I guess that fits you rather well, Ben.”

  “I guess it does, Rani.”

  “I think I’m in love with you.”

  “Be sure, Rani.”

  “I’m sure, Ben.”

  “Yes. I guess I am, too.”

  The days spun and drifted and wound into weeks, while the two in the cabin grew closer, mentally, emotionally, and physically. To them, it was as if the world gone mad around them did not exist. They built snowmen, had snowball fights, explored, and fell in love.

  January drifted into February and February became March, but Ben and Rani really didn’t notice the passing months. March whispered into April, then began roaring with the last major winter storm of the season. As the storm abated, howling eastward to blow itself out, Rani lay in Ben’s arms before the fireplace. Both of them were nearly asleep.

  Rani stirred and said, “It’ll be full spring soon, Ben.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hadn’t we better be thinking about pulling out pretty soon?”

  Ben opened his eyes and looked around. “Did you hear anything?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. It was an … well, it wasn’t a natural sound for the woods.”

  “You’re imagining things, old man.”

  “I guess so. About pulling out. Where do you want to go?”

  “You have to start making plans about setting up those outposts, right?”

  Ben groaned and stretched. “Don’t remind me of that, please.”

  “And you have to start thinking about your plans for the Russian and Hartline, right?”’

  “Yes, dear.”

  There was that noise again. Ben cut his eyes toward the door. He was sure the mutants knew they were in the deep woods, but so far none had shown any willingness to attack.

  Was that a mutant out there? Ben wasn’t sure.

  He listened. The noise-whatever it was-was not repeated.

  Ben looked at his watch. Two o’clock in the afternoon. The winds had ceased, and the temperature was once more on the rise. He looked at Rani. She was looking at the closed cabin door.

  “Something wrong?” Ben asked.

  “Something’s out there, Ben,” she whispered. “And it isn’t an animal.”

  Ben pulled on his boots and picked up his .45, jacking back the hammer. “I’ll go have a look around.”

  The cabin door splintered open. Men filled the room. Ben cleared the room of the invaders, the booming of the .45 almost deafening in the closed space. Ben didn’t know these men; they weren’t outlaws, for they were dressed in military field clothes, and they were disciplined.

  Ben felt the shock as a bullet struck him in the left shoulder, knocking him backward. He fell heavily and grabbed his Thompson. Holding it one-handed, he pulled the trigger.

  The heavy weapon bucked and roared in his hand. The slugs knocked and tore great chunks of wood out of the walls and ceiling. It also cleared the doorway of uniformed men, splattering blood and brains and bits of bone all over the porch and small yard.

  Ben got to his feet just in time to catch a bullet in his leg. The shock and force of the slug knocked him sprawling. He lost his Thompson. He grabbed a shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner, and lifted it just as Sam Hartline stepped into the doorway. The mercenary saw the shotgun and jumped to one side as Ben pulled the trigger. Most of the buckshot missed the man, but enough hit him to knock him off the porch.

  Rani’s screaming had, for some reason, stopped echoing around the cabin. Ben cut his eyes, frantically searching. She was gone.

  “Kill the son of a bitch!” Sam Hartline’s voice yelled the command. “Take the woman and get the hell moving out of here.”

  A bullet struck Ben’s side, once more slamming him to the cabin floor. He hit the floor and rolled, coming up firing the sawed-off shotgun. The full load struck a man dead-center in the head, taking his head off his shoulders. The man flopped on the floor, half in and half out of the cabin.

  Ben saw the grenade come flying through the doorway. It landed on the floor and rolled. Ben dove for the storage area, hit hard and bleeding. The grenade exploded just as Ben reached the cave, the force of it throwing him into the cave, shrapnel peppering his legs and back.

  Something struck Ben on the back of the head, dropping him into darkness just as the front part of the cabin collapsed, sealing him in.

  Chapter 39

  Cold. Ben was cold. And confused. And hurting. All six feet plus of him was hurting. He opened his eyes and found darkness surrounding him. Slowly, tentatively, he moved the fingers of his right hand. They worked. At least he was alive. He tried moving his left hand. Pain shot white-hot through the arm. He cut his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his wrist watch. One o’clock. He struggled to remember … remember something very important. But what was it?

  Yeah. It had been two o’clock when the attack came. So Ben had been out for ten or eleven hours.

  But where was Rani?

  Hartline. Sam Hartline had taken her. He remembered the man’s shout about them having the woman.

  Slowly, cautiously, Ben moved all his extremities. His left arm and right leg hurt. But it was the pain in his stomach that worried him. Then he remembered. Not his stomach, but his side. The bullet had hit him just as he was turning. He remembered the bullet entering and exiting. All right, he could deal with that.

  But do it quietly! Survival leaped into his mind. Take one thing at a time, Raines.

  Warmth. Got to get warm to reduce the chances of killing shock.

  He lay very still, mentally reviewing every corner of the cave//orage area. He put out his hand and felt shelves to his right. OK. He knew where he was. He pulled a tarp from the bottom shelf and wrapped it around him. He lay for a time, listening for any alien sounds. Nothing. He felt sure he was alone.

  Painfully extending his arm, he felt on the third shelf for candles and matches, knocking everything on the shelf on top of him. He fumbled around and found the candles and matches. He lit a candle and placed it on the floor. Even that simple action exhausted him. He lay still, gathering more strength.

  Food! As nauseous as it sounded, Ben knew he had to have food-and liquids.

  He felt himself fading. Just before he passed out, he blew out the candle.

  Then he dropped into unconsciousness.

  “You’re a fine-looking cunt, lady,” one of Hartline’s men told Rani. “OP Sam get on his feet, he’s gonna have a fine time with you.”

  Rani spat in the man’s face.

  The man drew back his fist.

  “You hit her and Sam’ll have your ass roasted for breakfast, Denning,” a man warned him.

  The man dropped his fist. “My turn will come, bitch!” he told her.

  Rani looked around her. She had no idea where she was. She had been carried out of the woods and dumped into the back of a truck, bound hands and feet. But she knew one thing for certain: she was in trouble.

  Ben opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. Should be daylight out. But where was the light?

  Then he remembered the grenade, the explosion, the walls caving in.

  Was he trapped?

  He didn’t know. First things first. He had to tend to his wounds and get something to eat.

  Summoning all his strength, Ben pushed the tarp from him and sat up, his back to the shelving behind him. The movement hurt him, the wound in his side opening up. Couldn’t be helped.

  He lit a half-dozen candles, placing them in spots where, if he did pass out, they would not trap him in fire. He found a large first-aid kit and took off his shirt. He poured raw alcohol on the wound in his side, front and back, then crudely bandaged it. It wouldn’t win any prizes for neatness, but it was firm. He treated the wound in his arm, bandaged it, then went to work on his leg. That was the wound that worried him the most. The lead was still in his leg. And he knew it had to come out.
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  He drank some water from a tin and ate several hard crackers. He poured iodine on the wound and began probing with his fingers, outside the wound, searching for the bullet.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the slug. It was just under the skin, on the outside of his upper thigh.

  He heated the blade of a knife in the flickering flames of a candle. Taking a deep breath, Ben carefully sliced open his flesh and popped the slug out. It bounced on the floor.

  With pain-sweat popping out and dripping from his face, Ben fumbled in the first-aid kit and found a bottle of penicillin. He took a half-dozen of the pills, washing them down with sips of water. He coated the wound with iodine and carefully bandaged it.

  He dozed for a few moments, resting, gathering his strength.

  Opening his eyes, he felt better, a bit refreshed. He began his crawl out of the storage cave. He crawled carefully, for he had no idea how much structural damage the large grenade had done to the cabin. He didn’t want a beam falling on him.

  The shrapnel in his back irritated him, but there was no way he could do anything about that. He had poured raw alcohol down his back, and that would have to do for the moment.

  The going was very slow. He would crawl a few inches, carefully move lumber out of the way, then inch forward. He found his Thompson, checked it, and found it unharmed.

  Then he saw daylight. A thin line of sunlight seeping through the ruined cabin’s front wall. Or what was left of the wall.

  But before he could reach the light, he passed out.

  It was a few minutes before noon when Ben opened his eyes. He knew then that he was hurt much worse than he had thought at first. Have to take it very easy, he cautioned. Very easy.

  He saw the pot hanging above the cold ashes in the fireplace and inched toward it. Using his fingers, he dug into the cold stew Rani had fixed and ate greedily. He cleared the fallen lumber from around the fireplace and built a fire. The warmth filled him, soothed him, seemed to lessen the pain from his wounds. Pulling a blanket over him, Ben lay on the floor for a few moments, resting. He began drifting in and out of consciousness. His mind was filled with old memories. He tried to fight them away, but they persisted.

  “What are your plans, Ben?” Salina had asked him on that cool, misty morning outside the motel in Indiana.

  He told her all his plans, his dreams, his schedule he had worked out in his mind. He told her of his home in Morrison and how he had literally slept through the horror after being stung by wasps.

  “The stings probably saved your life,” she told him.

  They talked for a few moments more, than she unexpectedly kissed him. She turned and walked away.

  Ben had looked up into the face of Kasim, the face filled with raw hatred.

  “I’ll kill you someday,” Kasim hissed the hate at him.

  “I doubt it,” Ben had replied.

  But Salina was dead, along with their child. Killed by government troops during the assault on Tri-States.

  Later, Ben had seen the first of many billboard signs:

  BEN RAINES-IF YOU’RE ALIVE AND READING THIS, OR IF ANYBODY KNOWS THE WHEREABOUTS OF BEN RAINES, HAVE HIM CONTACT US ON MILITARY 39.2. KEEP TRYING. WE’LL BE LISTENING. WE NEED ORDERS.

  But Ben didn’t want to be anybody’s commanding general. He just wanted to be left alone. To travel the ruined nation, to write his journal.

  It was not to be.

  Jerre. He had found her wandering alone on a highway in Virginia. She had traveled with him for a time. Finally left him to join others her own age. To save the world from itself. A sort of after-the-bombs flower child.

  When they parted she had left him a letter. Ben still had it. He remembered the last paragraph.

  You’ve got places to go and things to do before you find yourself-your goal, preset, I believe-and start to do great things. And you will, Ben. You will. I hope I see you again, General.

  Jerre.

  Ben had found Ike amid a bevy of bikini-clad lovely young ladies in Florida. The ex-navy SEAL had built a radio station-of sorts. KUNT, Ike called it.

  Ben had been the “minister” at Ike and Megan’s wedding.

  But now Megan was dead. Killed when the government of the United States had grown vindictive and mounted their deadly assault against the Tri-States.

  Juno, Ben’s big husky, growled deep in his throat.

  “We’re friendly,” the voice came out of the brush. “I have some children with me.”

  “Come on in,” Ben said, keeping one hand on the butt of his pistol.

  A black man and woman, with four kids, walked up to the cabin porch by the lake. Pal Elliot, Valerie, and the kids. Two blacks, one Oriental, one Indian.

  Pal had been an airline pilot, Valerie a top NYC fashion model. They had picked up the kids, homeless, along the way.

  Now they were all dead. Part of the earth. Part of Ben’s dream of a society where all were truly equal. Where medical care was denied to no one. Where all had a job. Where crime was virtually non-existent. Called Tri-States. And it worked.

  Ben moaned in his pain-filled coma-like sleep as the memories kept coming, and coming, and coming.

  Cecil Jeffery’s New Africa never got off the ground before the government crushed it, killing it, grinding it under the heel of democracy turned authoritarian. Cecil and Lila, and a handful of others, had joined Ben’s Tri-States.

  Lila was dead, with their children. Dissolved into the earth of Tri-States.

  And when it was all over, and the nation had once more been torn apart, and Tri-States lay smoking from the massive government assault, Ben had gathered a few hundred survivors around him.

  Ike, Ben’s adopted daughter, Tina, Judith, Doctor Chase, Jerre, and James. Ben had looked at the handful of survivors, his Rebels, the people ready to die for what they felt was right and just. And looking at them, Ben knew the dream would never die. Tri-States would live again. Ben had picked up his Thompson.

  “All right, people,” he’d said. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 40

  Ben awakened once more that day, to eat what was left of the stew and drink water. Lots of water. He knew then that he was getting feverish. He began taking aspirin along with the antibiotics. He dropped back into his painful, coma-like sleep.

  All during the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours-Ben didn’t know for sure, losing all track of time-he drifted in and out of consciousness. He would awaken just long enough to keep a small fire going, and to force himself to eat and drink something. Then he would fall back into blackness.

  When he awakened on what he thought was the third day after the assault on the cabin, he knew he was going to make it. He was weak as a sick baby, but his fever was gone and his wounds showed no signs of infection.

  But he knew he was not strong enough to make it to where he had hidden his truck. Not by a long shot.

  For several days he was virtually helpless. Just strong enough to keep a small fire going, feed himself, and change the dressings on his wounds. He was not going to chance the deep timber yet. He knew it was cold-blooded on his part, but maybe, just maybe, he could help Rani alive. Dead would do her no good.

  A week after the attack, Ben tried for his truck. He gave up before he got any distance at all, and returned to the cabin.

  The bodies of Hartline’s men were stinking, fouling the air. But he was too weak to try to move them.

  Then, as it so often happens, it seemed like Ben began gaining strength hourly. His wounds were healing well, and he was eating like that much-talked-about horse.

  He had been walking around the woods near the cabin daily, each day increasing the distance. Now he felt he was ready to try for the truck and the radio.

  He packed a very light rucksack, with rations for two days, just in case he didn’t make it, and a ground sheet and blanket.

  He set out for his truck. He wondered what was happening with Rani.

  “My, you are a pretty one, aren’t you, de
ar?” General Striganov said, stroking Rani’s cheek.

  She tried to bite his hand, the Russian jerking it back just in time to avoid those strong white teeth. Striganov laughed at her.

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Rani said.

  “Oh, I do, dear,” the general said. “But unfortunately, poor Sam isn’t in any condition to find anything amusing. Your Ben Raines almost killed him.”

  “Where is Ben?”

  The Russian’s smile was ugly. “I’m really not sorry to say he’s dead, Miss Jordan. My last formidable enemy in the late great country of America. Now I can make plans to enlarge my … ah … operation.”

  “Who was your idol as a boy, General-Hitler?” Rani snapped at him.

  “He did have some good ideas, I will admit that. He just didn’t carry them far enough.”

  “God, you’re a monster!” she hissed the words at him.

  Striganov laughed at her.

  “And if you think Ben Raines is dead, you’re badly mistaken. It would take a hell of a lot better man than Sam Hartline to kill Ben Raines. And I think you know it.”

  The Russian’s eyes clouded. “So you thought the man to be a god, too, eh?”

  “No. I never did. There is but one God.”

  “There is no God, you stupid woman! As you shall soon discover. I don’t believe I shall allow Sam to have you, Miss Jordan.”

  “Ms.”

  “Umm.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Ms? Oh-yes. Of course. I do so enjoy a strong-willed woman. I enjoy breaking them. I didn’t used to. I suppose my association with Hartline is responsible for that change. A most welcome change, too. Although I don’t carry it to the extreme as my friend Hartline does.”

  The Russian reached out, fondling Rani’s breasts. She slapped his hand away.

  “I do so enjoy a big-breasted woman,” Striganov said.

  She spat at him.

  He knocked her off the chair.

  Through a red, teary haze, Rani screamed and kicked at the man.

  He stepped back and removed his wide leather belt. “The first step is submission,” Striganov said, swinging the belt. “The very first step toward total submission.”