Blood in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  The Rebels broke up the mob of people into sections, for interviewing, for medical treatment, for food and clothing.

  After a time, Susie came to Ben. “This Tony Silver’s got to be stopped, General. I’ve talked with and seen little girls and boys not over nine or ten years old who were sexually assaulted and abused. It’s pitiful, General.”

  Ben listened.

  Sergeant Greene said, “One man told me a lot of the kids—mostly girls, ages twelve to fourteen—were taken out of this area. To be turned into whores for shipment around the country.”

  Ben nodded. But one question kept nagging at him: Why did the people left in the town allow it to happen? Why didn’t they fight?

  James said, “There isn’t a female in this town, between the ages of nine and sixty, who hasn’t been raped repeatedly. The men were sexually humiliated, in front of the women.”

  “Are these people residents of this town?” Ben asked.

  “No, sir,” a Rebel said. “Those I’ve talked to say Dublin was wiped out by the plague. These people are a mixed bag, from all over the state. They just got here ’bout six months ago.”

  “Why here?”

  The Rebel shrugged. “They’re some kind of religious order, sir. Don’t believe in violence.”

  “No guns?” Ben said acidly.

  “That’s it, sir. Not a weapon in the whole town.”

  Ben felt anger wash over him. What had the young Rebel, Bert, died for? A group of dickheads so naive they believed all they had to do was hold up the dove of peace and it would be honored? Stupid, naive, out-of-touch-with-reality crapheads.

  Ben brought his anger under control. “Tell them to read Ecclesiastes. Get their priorities in line.”

  “Sir?” the young Rebel asked.

  “Never mind, Joey. Just talking to myself. All right,” Ben said with a sigh. “Maybe it all ties in. I have a feeling it does.”

  “What, Ben?” Gale asked. She was sick at her stomach from what she had seen and heard this awful day. But she knew Ben had no patience with people who would not fight for their lives.

  “The Ninth Order, Captain Willette, Tony Silver. The whole rotten, scummy bag.”

  “How does it tie in, Ben?”

  He shook his head. “Hunch, Gale. That’s all. Could be I’m wrong.”

  The Rebels gathered around him dismissed that instantly. The thought of Gen. Ben Raines being wrong about anything was something no loyal Rebel ever entertained. That would be unthinkable.

  “Let’s patch these people up and get the hell out of here,” Ben ordered. “I feel sorry for the kids and the elderly—but losers don’t impress me.”

  “You have no right to judge us so harshly, General,” a man said.

  Ben turned. The man facing him was dressed in a business suit. Ben found that just slightly less than ludicrous, considering the surroundings. “I lost a good man in your town, mister. And I’m not real sure his death was worth it—considering the fact that you people refuse to stand up and be counted in a fight.”

  “We are peaceful people, General Raines.”

  “That’s fine, mister,” Ben countered. “All well and good back when you could pick up a phone and. call the police, back when law and order and rules and codes of conduct were the norm. That is no more. And I seriously doubt—except in isolated pockets of this world—it will ever be again. At least not in our lifetime. Now, mister,” he said, lifting the old Thompson, “this is the law.”

  “We refuse to take a human life,” the man said.

  Ben frosted him with a look. “Then you’re a goddamned fool. I’m not advocating mass murder, mister. Just telling you to protect yourselves.”

  “The Lord will provide.”

  Ben smiled grimly. “Then I suggest you find yourself the jawbone of an ass. Or, in your case, the backbone might be a better choice.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Nina lay in Ike’s strong arms. The morning sunlight was beginning to filter brightly through the dusty windows of the old home. Nina’s bare breasts pressed against Ike’s naked chest. It had been quite a sex-oriented night. Ike smiled, recalling an old saying from his boyhood days down in Mississippi: Girl could do more with six inches of cock than a monkey with a mile of vines.

  He laughed softly at the crudeness of the old expression.

  Nina opened her eyes and yawned in his face. “What’s so funny, Ike?”

  He told her.

  “Jesus! What an awful saying.” But she laughed as she said it.

  “What’s for breakfast, Nina?”

  “Canned eges and bacon.”

  “Thanks just the same, but I think I’ll pass.” Ike disengaged himself from her warm nakedness and dressed, conscious of her eyes on him.

  “You got a few scars on you, Ike,” she observed.

  “More than my share, I reckon,” he replied. “Got a few in Vietnam. Rest of them came from my days as a Rebel, following Ben.”

  “This really the first time you’ve been unfaithful to your wife?”

  “Yep. Not countin’ the mental times.”

  She laughed. “I can relate to that.” She rose from the pallet on the floor, totally unashamed of her young lush nakedness. “Your wife been faithful to you, you think?”

  “I think so,” Ike said thoughtfully. “But I’ll tell her about us. Even though I don’t have to. She’d guess. She knows me pretty well.”

  Nina shook her head. “What is it with you people who follow General Raines? You’re so . . . well, I guess, dedicated is the word. And Ben Raines ... is he really a god like I’ve heard a lot of people say he is?”

  “The Rebels?” Ike shrugged. “We’re just kinda like that ol’ boll weevil, I reckon. Lookin’ for a home. Ben a god?” Again he shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes,” his reply was very soft, “sometimes I believe he really is. Others?” Ike shook his head. “How old are you, Nina?”

  “I ... I think I’m twenty-one, Ike. But I really don’t know for sure. I was either seven or eight years old when the bombs came.”

  And I was in my mid-thirties, Ike thought. And already fought a war this girl has no memories of. “You get dressed,” he told her, picking up his M-16. “I’m gonna check out the area.”

  “Ike?”

  He turned.

  “I’m very glad it was you who come along last night.”

  Ike grinned. “You did some of that yourself, Nina. Last night.”

  She laughed. “Get outta here!”

  Ike stepped out of the old house, using the creaking back steps. The mountains of north Georgia loomed all around him, the area thick with brush, having grown wild and unattended for more than a decade. It was a peaceful dawning, the birds singing and calling to one another, the calling a sound of joy, of being alive on this cool early fall morning in the mountains. And, Ike thought, shivering, winter is just around the corner.

  “Got to find some clothing for the both of us,” he muttered. “Damn feed sack would be better than that stinking robe.”

  Nina stepped out on the back porch, a can of C-rations in one hand, a spoon in the other hand. Ike looked at the contents of the can and shuddered.

  “I just never did develop a taste for that crap,” he said.

  “I wish I had a real cup of coffee,” Nina said wistfully. “And some bacon and eggs and toast. And some jelly.”

  “Smucker’s?” Ike asked with a grin. He backed away from the odor of the eggs.

  Nina cocked her head to one side. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Yeah? Well . . . it used to be a brand of jams and jellies.”

  “Smucker’s? With a name like that, it had to be good, I betcha.”

  Ike laughed as the young woman pegged the company’s old slogan right on the button. In the brightening morning, standing in God’s light, Ike could see the young woman was really quite lovely. “Yes, that’s true, Nina.” He cleared his throat. Shook his head as he thought of all the things this young lady had missed out on: the
fun of college, the Saturday afternoon games, the dances; the joy of living in the most affluent and powerful nation in the world; daily breakthroughs in medicine; fine perfumes and designer jeans. God! the list was almost endless.

  Now she had only a world gone savage to look forward to.

  Maybe he could help ease that transition.

  “Let’s get our gear together, Nina. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “I’m with you, Ike.”

  James reported to Ben. The big sergeant had a disgusted look on his broad face. “These people want us to stay and protect them, General.”

  “What did you tell them, James?”

  “I told them to forget it, sir.”

  “Good. Get the people ready to pull out.” He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes, James.”

  “But you can’t leave us!” a woman’s voice came from behind the men. “You’re our president. You have to protect us.”

  Ben turned to face the source of the complaint. The woman was in her late twenties, Ben guessed. Nice looking, a pixie with a dirty face, and a misguided view of reality.

  “I am not your president,” Ben informed her. “And I don’t owe any of you a damned thing. You owe it to yourselves to learn weapons and how to protect yourselves.”

  “But that is against our religious beliefs!”

  “Then I would say you people definitely have a problem.”

  Tears cut twin paths down the woman’s grimy cheeks. “Do you have any idea what those animals did to us? No—how could you? They were filthy and perverted and evil and godless. And if you leave, they’ll return. And this time, they’ll kill us after they ... use us as vessels of their depravity.”

  “Get a gun,” Ben told her. “The first one who shows his head in this town, shoot him.”

  “We can’t do that!” she screamed.

  “Won’t,” Ben contradicted her. “How did you avoid being shipped out with the other younger women?”

  She wiped her eyes. “I’m a nurse. They—those animals—had some medical problems. That’s how. You can’t just drive off and leave us here, defenseless.”

  “I am sorry to inform you, miss, but that is precisely what we intend doing. If you would like for us to show you weapons and how to use them, we’ll stay and do that. The choice is yours.”

  The woman’s eyes glowed with hate. “You’re just as cruel and heartless as Silver’s men. I hope Silver’s people get you.”

  “They won’t,” Ben told her.

  “You can’t know that for a fact.”

  “Yeah, lady, I can. We’re just something you people will never be.”

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “Survivors, ma’am.”

  “But we have a right to our religious beliefs!” she shouted at Ben. “A God-given right.”

  “That is probably true,” Ben agreed. “But you do not have the right to expect others to die for your lopsided beliefs.”

  “God will strike you dead, General Raines.”

  “Perhaps,” Ben replied solemnly. “But I rather think God likes His warriors. ’Cause He damn sure made a lot of us.”

  “That’s blasphemy!” the woman yelled at him.

  The crowd of men and women began yelling threats at Ben, shaking their fists at him, calling him Judas.

  Ben laughed at them and walked away, to his pickup, Gale by his side.

  “You’re a hard man, Ben,” she said.

  “Hard times, kid,” Ben replied.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Tony’s convoy met the men from Dublin on the interstate, one group heading west, the remains of Tony’s Dublin contingent heading east as fast as they could go. The lead vehicle of Tony’s group flagged them down.

  Tony stood in the middle of the interstate, growing angry as the men tried to explain what had happened.

  “What the fuck do you mean?” Tony shouted. “You mean you guys just cut and run out? What the hell does Raines have, trained tigers with him?’

  “Uh, that’s about the size of it, Tony,” the leader of the Dublin contingent said. “Them Rebels is all trained better than us. They got them military weapons and they know how to use them.”

  Tony fought his temper under control. “Awright, awright,” he finally said, clenching and unclenching his big hands. “Jesus, I don’t wanna hear no more of your excuses. How many troops does Raines have with him?”

  There was a lot of shuffling of feet and eyes that would not meet Tony’s hard eyes. “Uh ... ’bout forty, boss.”

  “Forty!” Tony screamed. “Forty fucking guys caused you people to turn tail and run?”

  “Uh ... they wasn’t all guys,” a man said, making matters much worse. “There was some cunts with ’em, too.”

  “Cunts! Pussies?” Tony sputtered. “You mean to stand there and tell me you tough guys ran from a bunch of broads?”

  “Jesus, Tony. These broads had guns!”

  “I don’t care if they had pussies that fired torpedoes!” Tony screamed, jumping up and down in the center of the highway. “A broad is a broad. Shit! Goddamnit. What is this gonna do to my image, you crapheads?” He once more fought his temper, finally winning. “Well . . . come on, then, damnit. Let’s go find this Ben Raines. I’ll show you guys how to kick the ass off him.”

  Several of his people looked dubious at that last remark from Tony. But for the time being they were more afraid of Tony than of Ben Raines.

  A condition that would not prevail much longer.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Ike worked on the old pickup all morning. Finally he threw the wrench aside in disgust. “No good, Nina. I can’t fix it. Been settin’ here just too damn long.”

  “So what do we do, Ike?”

  “Shank’s Mare,” he told her with a quick grin.

  “What?”

  “We hoof it.”

  “Oh, goody. Ike? When it warms up some, let’s find a stream and take a bath. I feel like I got bugs crawling around on me. I itch.”

  “After wearin’ that damn stinkin’ robe, I know I got fleas hoppin’ around on me. Probably gave ’em to you. You got any soap?”

  “Yeah. Found some bars in that old house.”

  “You ready to go?”

  “Too windy to stack BBs,” she said with a smile.

  “Ain’t heard that one in years. Let’s go, little one.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  In his comfortable new quarters in northern California, General Striganov smiled at Colonel Fechnor. “So a cheap hoodlum is going to challenge General Raines, da?”

  “That is what our intelligence reports, General, And this Captain Willette is somehow involved with some religious group called the Ninth Order. They are rather barbaric, according to the reports we have received. ”

  “Aren’t all religious orders barbaric to some degree, old friend?” Striganov said with a smile. “Well, I wish Mr. Silver all the luck in the world.” He dismissed Tony’s chances of doing any real damage to Ben Raines with a curt slash of his hand. “Tell me some good news about our breeding program, Colonel. I need some cheering news.”

  “Everything is progressing quite well, General. We did lose a number of women due to General Raines’ raids on our breeding farms in Iowa. But we picked up more than we lost on the way west. Those women who have birthed, and those mutant females who birthed are doing quite well. And, even more good news, the offspring appear to have much more intelligence than we first hoped.”

  “Good, good!” General Striganov rubbed his hands together and smiled. “That is good news indeed. We are standing on the brink of a marvelous new day for the world, Fechnor. Our doctors have solved the problem of workers for the menial tasks any civilization faces. Thus freeing the masses for positions befitting their natural abilities. I gather, since nothing to indicate it has passed my desk, your people have not met with much resistance from the minorities?”

  “Very little, sir. We crushed the initial thrust upon arrival. It was as you predicted, sir. Man
y of those with a pure Aryan background stood back and did not interfere.”

  “But, of course, they did. It’s been that way since the beginnings of time. All one has to do is study history. Equality cannot be forced upon a race. It must be earned. Just as respect must be earned, all in accordance with the existing mores of the ruling society. Only stupid people think otherwise.” He leaned back in his chair. “So much for that. I have been reluctant to view the . . . newborn for fear I would see monsters. How do the babies look?”

  “Some of those crossbred look . . . well, rather hideous, General. But most appear normal, as normal as can be expected, that is, when one takes into consideration each baby has either a father or mother who is a mutant. We’ve had to destroy several, because of, ah, certain physical abnormalities. But a full ninety percent of the children—and it’s incorrect to call them children because of the rapid growth patterns—are coming along splendidly.”

  “Good, good, Colonel Fechnor. Now, the people in the regions we’ve claimed as our own—discounting the minorities, of course—how are they responding to our overtures?”

  “Very well, sir. We have encountered surprisingly little armed resistance. Many of the people appear to welcome our presence. Most were in rather sad shape.”

  General Striganov nodded his head. He seemed to be paying only polite attention to his second in command. He seemed preoccupied with another matter. “Smoothly, then,” the general said. “Everything is progressing quite smoothly and orderly. Is that how you would sum it up?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fechnor had been standing. He was waved to a chair. Tea was brought in by an aide. Both men sipped in silence for a moment, enjoying the fragrance of the tea. Striganov’s eyes touched Fechnor.

  “You do realize, Colonel Fechnor, that I greatly admire General Ben Raines?”

  The colonel shook his head. “No, sir. I did not know that, General.”

  “Oh, it’s true. I won’t deny it. What we must use force and lies and half-truths to accomplish, General Raines gains through trust and respect. Not that I have any intention of imitating any of Ben Raines’ tactics, mind you,” he added quickly. “I still feel our way is the most productive to our system of government. But Ben Raines worries me. He is going to be a constant thorn in our side. I wish the man would listen to reason. I wish he would understand that our respective forms of government could exist side by side.” The general shook his handsome head. “Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose.”