Escape from the Ashes Read online

  “Fire up that camp stove over there, Jim. I’ll get the coffee. Then we’ll get down to some serious talk.”

  “Suits me. Maybe then you can tell me what is really going on.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “What’s going to happen, General?” Jim asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “To the world.”

  “The world will survive, Jim. It did before, after the Great War, I mean.”

  “The people then.”

  “More people will come out of this than it looks right now. Back years ago, when I first started roaming America to assess the damage, I thought only a handful of people had survived. I was very wrong. I suspect it will be the same this time.”

  “But you found enough people to start rebuilding.”

  “No, they found me, Jim. At first I didn’t want any part of it. The job seemed too large; impossible for a handful to attain.”

  “But you did it.”

  The people did it. But this time . . .” Ben shook his head and didn’t finish his thought.

  “My dad and grandpa used to argue about the SUSA. But they both agreed it was a fine thing you did.”

  “What was the argument then?”

  “Whether it would last.”

  “It lasted for more years than I thought it would.” Ben looked over at Jim’s beat-up pickup. “It’s seen its better days, Jim.”

  Jim smiled. “I’ll sure agree with that.”

  “When the time comes, and it won’t be long now, you take my Humvee.”

  “I couldn’t do that, General!”

  “Why not? I won’t have any use for it. You take it And my old Thompson.”

  Jim’s eyes narrowed. “The magic gun.”

  “That’s nonsense, Jim. There is nothing magic about it. It’s a .45-caliber spitter, that’s all. Hell, it’s not even the original weapon. My ordnance people kept the original design and made it better. It’s lighter, a bit faster, and easier to handle. But it’s still a hell of a weapon. Now, hand me that briefcase I had you get from the Humvee.”

  Ben took a sip of hot coffee and opened the metal case. “I want you to have this too, Jim. Guard it carefully while you’re memorizing some locations in here.” He opened a folder. “These are the locations of Rebel supply depots, all over North America. Food, water, fuel, weapons, ammo, medical supplies. Believe me, you’re going to need them. Memorize them, then destroy the papers. You don’t want them to fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve got a Mini-14. That’s a good, dependable weapon. The Thompson is better for close-in fighting. That .45-caliber slug will stop a man when that 5.56 won’t. Practice with it. It won’t take you long to become proficient with it. I’ve also got an M-14 in that Humvee. Take it too. It’s a hell of a weapon. It’s also a son of a bitch on full auto.” Ben smiled. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Are there any Rebels left, General?”

  “I’m sure there are. But those that made it scattered. And that reminds me of something I need to do.” He took a piece of paper and wrote for a couple of minutes. He folded the paper, put it in a waterproof pouch, and carefully closed the pouch. He handed it to Jim. “This will introduce you in case you run into other Rebels.” He chuckled. “But I don’t know if you’re the last Rebel or the first Rebel. Time will tell, I suppose. Let me rest a while, Jim. Then we’ll talk some more.”

  While Ben rested, Jim transferred his gear from his pickup to the Humvee. Then he went over the weapons Ben had told him about. He put the Thompson on the front seat and placed the full clip pouch next to it. Then he squatted down in the shade and rolled a cigarette.

  He was scared, no point in denying that. Scared right down to his boots. The full impact of what had happened and what was happening hit him hard. The whole world was in chaos. Millions were dead. America was no more. The commanding general of what had been the largest army in the world lay dying a few yards away. The Rebel Army was no more; only a memory.

  And Jim was alone in a hostile world.

  And scared.

  He looked over at Ben Raines. Ben’s eyes were open, looking at him.

  “Scared, Jim?” Ben asked in a voice that was considerably weaker than it had been only a few hours before.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I was too, many years ago. When I decided to roam the nation after the Great War. It will pass in a very short time.”

  “If you say so, sir.” Jim cut his eyes toward the old grown-over logging road. “Vehicles coming.”

  “Hide!” Ben said. “Get ready for a fight.”

  Jim grabbed the Thompson out of the Humvee, ducked into the brush, and knelt down.

  A big four-door pickup truck rolled slowly into view. It had been refitted with huge tires and the body sat high off the ground. Four men got out, all of them armed.

  “I told you I got me a smell of coffee,” one said.

  “You were right, Jones,” another said. “You got you a hell of a nose.”

  “What do you men want?” Ben asked.

  “Looks like to me you ain’t in no shape to argue about whatever we want,” another man said. “Looks like to me you’re dyin’ from the virus.”

  “That’s right,” Ben admitted. “How’d you men escape it?”

  “Don’t know, for sure,” the fourth man replied. “Doctor down in Winnemucca said it looked like to him about one in ten people was immune. He didn’t know why. I know you can’t catch it by screwin’.” The other three man joined him in dirty-sounding laughter. “We’d have all been dead by now if that was the case.”

  “By rape, you mean?” Ben said.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We wanted some pussy. We took it. So what? There ain’t no law now. It’s big dog eat little dog.”

  “How about the laws of decency?” Ben questioned, contempt thick in his voice.

  “What are you, a preacher?”

  Ben didn’t reply, just looked at the man, disgust shining in his eyes.

  “I don’t think that man likes us very much, Otis,” one of the men said.

  “I don’t give a damn what he likes,” Otis replied. “Hell, he’s dyin’, You boys start goin’ through the vehicles, take the weapons and anything else you think we might need. And we’ll take one of them Hummers too. Hell, no. We’ll take three of them.”

  “No, you won’t,” Jim said, standing up, the Thompson leveled at the quartet. There was about fifty feet between Jim and the outlaws.

  “Who the hell are you?” Otis asked.

  “It don’t make no difference who he is,” another of the men said. “Kill the son of a bitch!” He lifted his AR-15.

  Jim squeezed the trigger and the Thompson stuttered. The man who’d ordered him killed went down, as did the man standing next to him.

  The other two dropped their rifles and put their hands in the air. “Don’t shoot!” one screamed. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Kill them,” Ben said. “Do yourself and the world a favor and kill them.”

  “I can’t do that,” Jim protested. “They’ve surrendered.”

  Ben lifted his right hand from under the blanket, a .45 auto-loader in his hand. He squeezed the trigger twice, and the two joined their buddies on the ground.

  “You killed those men in cold blood, General!” Jim said.

  “They were about to kill me, Jim. Didn’t you hear them?”

  “Well . . . yes . . . but . . . they had surrendered.”

  “And what were you going to do with them? Turn them over to the police?”

  “Well . . . no. But . . .” Jim hesitated.

  “But what?” Ben questioned. “Turn them loose so they can rape and kill some more?”

  “I . . .”

  “Learn something now, Jim. Learn it and never forget it. For if you do forget it, you’re a dead man. You don’t try to cure a rabid animal. You kill it. For the sake of society, you kill it. One of those men said it, Jim: It’s big-dog-eat-little-d
og time. And you’d better start being the biggest, baddest dog on the block.”

  Jim lifted the Thompson. “I like this weapon.”

  “I thought you would. Now stop trying to change the subject. Do you understand what I just told you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “You’ve never killed a man before, have you?”

  “No, sir. But it sure came naturally to me this time. There must be something wrong with me.”

  Ben laughed. “I’m sure glad you found me instead of some damn bleeding-heart liberal. You’d have been dead before you ever got started.”

  “You sound just like my grandpa, General.”

  “Hell, I’m old enough to be your grandfather, Jim.”

  Jim looked over at the dead men and swallowed hard a couple of times. “I’ll drag those men into the timber and shovel some dirt on them.”

  “I’ll heat up the coffee,” Ben said. “And dig out a bottle of whiskey I have. You look like you could use a drink.”

  The next morning, Ben’s condition had worsened. He was so weak he could not get to his feet. “Won’t be long now,” he told Jim. “If you have any questions, Jim, you better ask them.”

  “You want me to mark your grave?”

  “No. There is no point in you taking the time to do that. When you leave here, you hunt you a hole and stay put for a time.”

  “I have to ask: for how long?”

  Ben looked at the young man for a moment. “I think you will know when it’s time to venture out and see what’s going on.”

  “I figured you would say that,” Jim replied with a boyish grin.

  “I think it’s probably the last thing I’ll say, Jim. Except for . . . good luck to you.”

  Ben lapsed into unconsciousness. An hour later, Ben Raines was dead.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jim buried Ben’s body deep, then covered the mound with sticks and leaves. He took all the weapons and ammo and supplies he felt he could safely carry in the small trailer out of the vehicles, and then pulled one of the Humvees out of the clearing and deep into the timber. Then he walked back to stand for a moment by Ben’s grave.

  “God, maybe You won’t agree with me, but I feel like I just buried the most important man in modern times. I think history will bear me out.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, he could not help but smile, thinking about both his grandpa and Ben Raines. “Providing, of course, that chapter in history isn’t written by a liberal. You take care of General Raines, God. He may have been sort of rough around the edges, but he was a good man who saw his duty and did it when no one else would.”

  The radio in the Humvee started squawking, and Jim ran over to it and listened.

  “General Raines? Do you copy this, sir?”

  Jim picked up the mike and keyed. “General Raines is dead. I was with him when he died. This is Jim LaDoux.”

  There was silence on the other end for a time. “I’m leading a contingent of Rebels into Mexico. Not many of us left. Did the general leave any orders with you?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “What is your twenty?”

  “Northern Nevada.”

  “You’re sure that was General Raines that died?”

  “I’m sure. I was with him for a couple of days. He gave me his Thompson.”

  “He what?”

  “Gave me his Thompson.”

  “He must have seen something in you that he liked.”

  “I guess so. He talked to me for many hours. He said he didn’t know if I was going to be the first Rebel or the last Rebel.”

  “Good luck to you, Jim.”

  “Same to you, sir.”

  The radio went silent.

  Using the camp stove, Jim made coffee and smoked a cigarette, sitting and thinking for a time. He did not have a clue where he should go to be safe. Or should he go anywhere? Why not just stay put?

  He looked over at the graves of the Rebels and thought of Ben Raines. No, he couldn’t stay here. In the short time he’d known Ben, he had grown to like the man very much. Like and respect him. Staying here so close to his grave was out of the question.

  Maybe staying on the move was the best thing he could do. At least that way he’d get a feel as to what was going on in the nation. He’d do that.

  Without further hesitation, Jim walked over to the Humvee and pulled out. Whenever possible, he would avoid the major highways and stick to the back roads. Stay out of the cities and travel through the small towns, but only then when he had to.

  With a sigh of resignation, Jim eased out of the dirt road onto the pavement. He had the Rebels’ powerful, jacked-up CB on scan, and he would have to stay alert for any hint of trouble. He’d head south for a time, then cut east. He thought about that for a moment, and then pulled over to the shoulder of the road, digging in Ben’s map pouch. He studied the very detailed maps for several moments, mapping out a route of secondary roads that would take him across the northern part of Nevada and into Utah. Once he got there, he’d make up his mind where to go next.

  “Okay,” Jim said aloud. “Here we go.”

  He made camp late that spring afternoon behind an old house that looked as though it had not been inhabited since the Great War—and that had been a long time back. Jim had no memories of that time, having been only a little boy during that terrible time.

  The next morning, staying on mostly dirt and gravel roads, Jim made his way slowly eastward. When he would see highway signs indicating a town up ahead, he would avoid it, many times leaving the road and taking off cross-country. There was often chatter on the CB, and he could tell that some of it was close, but he never responded to any of it. Just after entering a national forest, he was forced to take a state highway south in order to connect with a highway that would take him east. He had run out of roads leading east.

  He encountered no towns along this lonely stretch of highway, but he did see many homes built along and just off the roadway. He did not stop at any of them. As he approached Elko, he pulled over and again consulted his maps, finding a way around the town. He was very reluctant to meet any people, not knowing what his reception would be.

  He spent another lonely night in a deserted house south of Interstate 80, spending the early part of the evening listening to chatter on the CB. Obviously, there were a lot more survivors of the sickness than he first thought . . . and many of them appeared to be less than friendly. He also heard gunfire on the CB.

  “There is a war going on out there,” Jim muttered. “But who is fighting who and which side is winning?”

  He had no way of knowing the answer to any of his questions.

  The sounds of vehicles approaching from the south reached him. Vehicles with loud mufflers. They stopped right in front of the house. Jim reached for the Thompson and clicked it off safety.

  “Get them bitches in the house!” a hard voice yelled a few seconds after the engines were silenced and the roaring of the loud mufflers ceased.

  “Oh, Lord,” Jim muttered.

  “This young one got herself braced in here, and she’s kickin’ like a mule,” another said.

  “Break her face and then her fingers then,” the first voice said. “That won’t hurt what she’s got between her legs.”

  “Hold on, Lou,” a third voice commanded. “I don’t want no passed-out pussy. You and Claude get them two you got in the house. Stay with them. Me and Roger’ll try to talk this one out.”

  “Okay, Jake. Come on, you two. Move your asses.”

  “Please,” a woman’s voice said, reaching Jim. “Don’t do this to us. We haven’t done anything to you.”

  “We’re about to do something to you,” a man said, then laughed. “And if you’ll just lay back and relax, you’ll enjoy it. Right, Claude?”

  “Damn you to hell!” the woman yelled. “That girl is only fourteen years old.”

  “Well, that’ll be some prime pussy then, won’t it?” Lou replied. “I want that young stuff first. I like t
o hear ’em holler.”

  “You sorry piece of crap!” the woman yelled.

  That got her a smack across the face.

  Lou pushed the woman up onto the old porch and stepped up behind her. Jim stepped out of the shadows and gave the man the butt of the Thompson in the center of his face. Lou didn’t even grunt. He fell back onto the ground, unconscious, his face smashed and bleeding.

  “Lou?” Claude yelled just as Jim grabbed the woman’s arm and pushed her through the open door into the darkened house. “Be quiet,” he told her. I’m a friend.”

  “Lou? Damn it, boy. Talk to me.”

  “Damn you to hell!” the woman Claude was holding yelled, and broke free from his grasp.

  She darted away just enough so Jim could see the man’s outline in the dim starlit night. He pulled the trigger of the Thompson, and Claude caught a short burst of .45 slugs in the belly. He was flung backward as if hit by a sledgehammer.

  Jim could see another man standing by a truck. He gave that man a burst, most of the slugs striking the man, some of them sparking and howling off metal. The man screamed and went down to his knees, holding his torn belly.

  “Jake!” Roger yelled, running toward the man. He didn’t run far. Jim leveled the SMG and finished the magazine, giving Roger a neck-to-hip taste of .45-caliber justice.

  “You ladies can get your friend out of that vehicle now,” Jim said, ejecting the empty mag and clicking in place a full one. “I’m a friend. These men won’t bother you anymore.”

  “Are they dead?” the woman in the house asked.

  “I doubt this one on the ground in front of me is,” Jim replied. “But if the other three aren’t dead, they soon will be. Go on, get your young friend. I have food and I’ll make some coffee. I could use some.”

  Jim felt sort of queasy in his stomach. He’d had fist-fights in school in the small town where he often attended school—when his parents weren’t home-schooling him—but never anything like what had happened with General Raines and now this. He’d seen death before, of course, but he had never caused it.

  Jim stepped off the porch and removed the pistol from Lou. The man was still out cold, but breathing evenly. Blood leaked from his smashed nose and mouth. Jim did not know what in the hell he was going to do with the man.