“Yes,” Ben said.
“The man is a reincarnation of Hitler!” she spat out the damning accusation.
“I concur, Gale.”
“And his doctors and IPF people are no better than the fucking Gestapo!” she shouted at him.
“Yes, I agree with that.”
“He has to be stopped, Ben.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?” Ben knew what was coming at him and he dreaded it.
“Stop them, Ben!”
Ben rose from his chair and took her into his arms, holding her, touching her, smoothing her hair. “Gale, I don’t have the manpower to do that.” For once she didn’t attack the statement as being sexist. “Striganov has me outgunned and outmanned, and in many instances, the American people are supporting his actions. I – ”
She pulled away from him and glared up at him, about a hundred pounds of mad. “Don’t tell me that, Ben. Just don’t you attempt to hand me that crap! You’re Ben Raines. You pulled – single-handedly – this nation back together in eighty-nine. You formed your own government within a government and made it work. You can do anything, Ben. Everyone who follows you says you can do anything. And I believe it. Yes, now I believe it. You’re forgetting, I spoke with the Prophet, and I’ve talked with people who were in that mutant basement when he singled you out, spoke directly to you. You’ve been chosen, Ben. You – ”
Ben looked down at her and laughed, a harsh, sarcastic bark of dark humor. “You, too, Gale? Come on! Of all the people I thought would reject the notion that I am something more than a mortal, I thought you would be that person. Gale, I’m flesh and blood – nothing more than that. I cut myself shaving, I stub my toe sometimes, and cuss when I do. I bang my shin on coffee tables. I don’t sit on the right side of God Almighty; and I don’t receive any special instructions from him. I – ”
“I’m pregnant,” she announced.
Ben stood for a moment, looking at her. He blinked a couple of times.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked.
“Well . . . ah . . .”
“For a writer, Ben, you sure have a way with the English language.”
“I can do without your smart-ass remarks, Gale.”
“Big deal.”
“Ah, are you certain about this?” he asked.
“I’m certain. I was certain the night it happened. And it happened the same night I spoke with the Prophet. It will be twins.”
“Gale . . . you can’t be certain about that.”
“I know.”
Ben shook his head. “You mean you know you can’t be certain?”
“No. I know I’m certain.”
“Well . . .” He hesitated for a moment. “I’m ... glad.”
“I can see you leaping up and down from joy,” she commented dryly. “Are you going to move against the IPF?”
“I am moving against them, Gale. In the best way I know how.”
She put her hands on her hips and stood her ground. “It isn’t enough.”
Ben fought to keep his patience, but knew whatever he said was going to be wrong to her ears. And he didn’t want to speak the words. For what was happening in the IPF-controlled territory was sickening to him, although, he knew, not to the extent it was to Gale.
“It’s the best I can do, Gale, without launching a full-scale invasion into IPF territory.”
She hung on with the tenacity of a pit bulldog. “Then it appears to me that would be what you would have to do. Now.”
“No, Gale.”
“Why not, Ben?”
Ben took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t work. “Because it would be too costly in terms of human life. My people’s lives.”
A funny-odd look slipped into her dark eyes. She smiled. Ben took a step backward. He had seen that look before. “What are you thinking, Gale?”
“Why don’t you put it before your people, General Raines,” she challenged him. “Or are you afraid they’ll say go in and fight and stop this horror?”
“Gale, that is what I want to do. Believe me. But I have a responsibility to all those who follow me.”
She glared up at him. “You talk about human life, Ben. Human life?” She softened her tone, coming to him, touching his arm. “Oh, Ben, you don’t understand what is happening up there.” She waved toward the west. Ben pointed in the right direction: north. She made a face at him. “I don’t believe you really understand. Not at all. Not all the terror and horror and suffering. Human beings are being used as lab rats and guinea pigs. They are being tortured. Horrible, terrible, perverted, disgusting acts are being perpetrated upon them. Human life, Ben? How about human suffering? Rape and degradation and God only knows what else. I can’t believe you can just sit back and allow this to continue.”
“Gale, honey, listen to me. I don’t want you to misinterpret this, but my group is, I believe, the last shot civilization has if any type of democratic social order is to prevail. Civilization – ”
She spun away from him, her eyes flashing fire and fury. She balled her hands into small fists and hit him on the shoulder. “Fuck civilization!” she screamed the words at him. “Civilization! Goddamn it, Ben. Do you think General Striganov is civilized? Do you think what that monster is doing to men and women and children can be called – by any stretch of the imagination – civilized? You’re living in a dream world. You’are talking about law and order and speaking in terms of productivity and education. But I’m talking about survival! The God-given right of any race of people to exist in peace. That’s what I’m talking about, Mr. President-General Raines.” She jabbed a finger against his chest. “And you, sir, and your people, are the only ones left on the face of this earth – that I know of – who have the might to uphold and maintain and guarantee that right. And that is, I believe, your duty!”
She stood before him, chest heaving from her fast speech. The room was still and silent after her outburst.
Ben looked at her for a moment. Then he looked toward the closed motel room door. “All right, people,” he called. “You can all come in. I know you’re out there listening.”
The door swung open slowly and Ike and Cecil and Doctor Chase stood there, grinning sheepishly.
“Cec,” Ben said. “Get in touch with the tank commanders. Tell them to roll the tanks back up here and get in position to move north. Then get in touch with the heavy artillery, same orders. Contact Tri-States. I want every man and woman and teen-ager that can handle a weapon up here – pronto! Those that are too old for actual combat can start stripping the area clean, loading it up on trucks, and moving it over to Captain Rayle’s area in Georgia.
“Ike, move one full combat company over to Georgia, just in case the Russian figures out what we’re doing and sends people in there. Roll the convoys day and night, push them hard – I want all the combat troops up here in thirty-six hours.
“I don’t want any of you people to get your hopes up too high about this operation. We’re not going to beat Striganov. We are too few against overwhelming odds. But I think we can hurt him badly enough to make him stop what he’s doing. Or at the very least give us the time to rescue as many people as possible. And I want to hurt him badly enough to give us the time to rebuild over in Georgia, give us the time to fortify our positions so he’ll think a long time before launching any attack against us. I won’t say we’ll never have to move again. We probably will. History proves that for every group of people who attempt to start some form of orderly society, there is always some other group or groups that want to destroy it. But we have to try and try and keep trying. We must never give up. Never.
“We are going to take heavy losses in this campaign; prepare your people for that. That’s it, gang – move out.”
He looked at Gale. “All right, Gale. We’ll give it our best shot.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you will, darling. I knew that all along.”
SEVEN
Jimmy Linfort and his wife, Helen, along with John Demoss and his wife, Lisa, staggered down the weed-filled, old two-lane highway. They were naked, but it was difficult to tell that because all four of them had been tarred and feathered before the Klansmen had dragged them to the town limits and kicked them out, warning them never to come back. And to spread the word: No niggers or nigger-lovers allowed. Before they had tarred and feathered the four of them, half a dozen Klansmen had raped the white woman and assaulted the black woman anally, forcing their husbands to watch the humiliation. They had then forced the white man to rape the black man while the robed circle of men and women laughed.
“You sucked his black cock, boy,” a Klansman yelled. “Only fair you git some brown on that little thing of yourn.”
Then they tarred and feathered the four of them.
As they staggered away from the city limits sign, one man said, “They look lak’ big, ugly ducks, don’t they, boys?”
The four of them were heading for the Missouri line on Highway 54, planning to cross the Mississippi at Louisiana, Missouri. When they felt they were far enough away from the Klan-controlled territory, the four of them stopped at a deserted old farmhouse, found some gasoline, and began the job of cleaning up. And that was painful, for a lot of hide and hair came off with the tar and feathers.
They primed an old pump until clean water came gushing out, and bathed. For the first time in days, the four of them felt some degree of safety as they dressed in old but clean clothes.
A slight noise from the back yard spun them around, fear leaping into their eyes, hearts hammering. But fear changed to compassion when the saw the source of the noise: several children, ranging in age from eleven to fourteen. A black girl, a Spanish girl, and a Jewish boy and girl.
All four children, the adults would soon learn, had been beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted many times.
“We won’t hurt you,” Helen said, kneeling down, opening her arms to the kids.
But the young people were hesitant to come forward, distrust evident in their eyes.
“Where are you from?” Jimmy asked.
The oldest boy looked at the adults for a moment, then pointed to the north. “We escaped from IPF country.”
“We found some canned food,” Lisa said. “We’ll share it with you. Are you hungry?”
They all nodded that they were.
And food broke the barrier of fear and distrust.
It was only after dinner that evening, in the lamp and candlelit old farmhouse by the side of the road, that the young people melted enough to talk. The oldest, Leon, told the adults of their ordeal.
“People from the IPF came and got our – ” he indicated his younger sister, “parents. Our mother and father. Later on that day, a man slipped through the alley by our house and called out to me to get my sister and get out – run. I grabbed up some clothes and food and got Amy and ran, slipped out the back door just at dark. I later heard that our parents had been killed when they escaped from the IPF and tried to organize a resistance force. The same thing happened to the other kids’ parents. We hid out in old houses and in the woods and stuff like that. We only traveled after dark. One afternoon I fell asleep and Amy went walking, looking at flowers growing wild. Some men grabbed her and raped her. Did other stuff to her. She was bleeding when I found her.”
Helen looked at the small child. She seemed so frail and helpless, clinging to her brother. “How old are you, Amy?”
“Twelve,” the child whispered, keeping her eyes downcast.
“Jesus,” Jimmy said.
“They hurt me,” Amy said simply.
Her brother swung his gaze to his sister, then looked back at the adults. “That’s the first time she’s spoken of it since it happened. The first words she’s said in months.”
Amy crawled over to Lisa and let the woman hold her. There were no tears on the child’s face, no emotion evident in her eyes. Just a childlike, stoic acceptance that what had happened could not in any way be changed.
“We met a lot of kids on the run,” Leon said. He appeared to be the spokesman for the young group. “They all had pretty much the same story. We’ve been on the run for – ” he was thoughtful for a moment – “I think about five months. We have all had things done to us that . . .” For a moment it looked as though he might weep, then his slender features hardened as he toughened. “Things that we would all rather forget... but I know that none of us ever will. Ever.” He dropped his eyes and was silent.
“Stay with us,” John told them all, going to the young group, putting his arms around a young girl. “We’re going to arm ourselves. We’ll take care of you. We promise.”
Leon looked gravely at the four adults. His sudden and small smile was grim. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a large revolver. It seemed too big for his small hand, but he looked as though he knew how to use it. “Yesterday,” he said, “a man tried to take one of the girls. He opened his pants and exposed himself to me. Wanted me to suck him. Said he had some buddies just down the road he wanted us all to meet. I knew what kind of men his buddies would be. He put his hand between Amy’s legs and felt her . . . there. Then he tried to fondle me. I shot him in the face. Right between the eyes. Killed him. So maybe we’ll go with you people – maybe not. It all depends.”
The adults could not understand the reluctance. “Depends on what?” Jimmy asked.
“Which direction you’re going. We’re going over to Missouri to find Mr. Ben Raines. If that’s the direction you people are heading, OK, we’ll tag along. But you people better find yourselves some guns, because it looks like you’ve all had a bad time of it. And you’d better not be cowards – none of you. Because if you are, you won’t make it. Somebody will rape you all – men and women – and then they’ll kill you, after they use you and torture you. You all better remember that.”
The four adults looked at this frail-appearing but obviously tough young boy, scarcely into his teens and already having killed a grown man in defense of his charges. And ready to kill as many times as need be. The knapsack was open, and all could see the haft of a hunting knife. They had no doubts that Leon would use that knife as well as the pistol.
“You are a very tough and capable young man,” Helen observed. She was just a little bit in awe of the boy.
“I’m a survivor,” Leon cleared it up. “And so is Mr. Ben Raines – among other things, that is.” He did not attempt to explain that last bit. “The IPF or anyone else will never take me or my sister alive – not ever. Some big men grabbed me ... about four months ago. I heard them coming and hid Amy. They took me, stripped me, and used me like a girl. I couldn’t walk for three days. No one will ever do that to me again.”
“We’ll start looking for Mr. Ben Raines first thing in the morning,” Jimmy said.
“All right,” Leon said. “We’ll look together. But first we’ll find you all some guns. There’s lots of guns around. You just have to know where to look for them.”
“None of us has ever fired a gun before,” Jimmy said.
Leon leveled old/young/wise eyes on the group of adults. The words that came from his mouth, rolling from his tongue, were harsh, and older than his young years. “Then you’d all damn well better learn how.”
They had gathered in southern South Dakota, some three hundred young people, ranging in age from eight to eighteen. They came from the west side of the Mississippi River. The youngest to be armed was twelve. They had all seen horrors through young eyes; all had experienced some form of sexual abuse from the perverts that now roamed the land with impunity, with only slightly more immunity than when law and order prevailed – or so the myth went before the great war wiped out all forms of social order, liberal and conservative.
All the young people had endured and survived physical abuse. Many had been on their own for years. All had toughened during this period of violent upheaval. All were wise to the ways of survival, these young people, and they had fought off t
he cruel advance of perverted men and women many times during the years of young youth past. Play was something they knew nothing about. A good time was a full belly and a warm place to sleep. Happy was being safe for a few hours. Most did not know the meaning of love.
On the other side of the river, the east side, in Indiana, yet another group of youths had gathered, almost identical to the grouping on the west side of the Mississippi. The two groups had maintained radio contact for months now, in preparation for war. Now they waited for word that Ben Raines was moving against the IPF. They would join Ben Raines in that upcoming fight.
Both groups were armed with a mishmash of weapons: from .22-caliber rifles and pistols to AK-47s and M-16s and shotguns. Some carried Molotov cocktails: bottles of gas with a rag stuffed down the neck – homemade bombs. Others carried grenades hooked onto web belts. All carried at least one knife, and they had used the sharpened blades more than once.
The thugs and perverts and two-legged slime that are always lurking in the gutters and who seem to survive any tragedy had learned to give these bands of young people a very wide berth. They had learned that very painfully over the years, leaving dead along the way, stiffening reminders of the harsh lessons one must learn in life’s classroom.
The young people were of all races, all creeds. None of them paid any attention to whether the boy or girl next to them was white or black or tan or yellow or purple with antennae for ears. They were of like mind: to fight the IPF to the death, for many had lost brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to the cruelty of the IPF. But first they would wait until Ben Raines started his push north. They all thought he would, for Ben Raines, so the legend went, was a Godlike man – and all the young people felt him more God than man. And they knew Mr. Ben Raines would win this fight, for gods do not know defeat. The young wanted to help Ben Raines, and then join his free society. Wherever Mr. Ben Raines wanted to settle would be just fine with them.
Anarchy in the Ashes Page 27
