Terror in the Ashes Read online

  But Ben was not going to be baited. “Split them up and house them in those old prisons you found, Dan.”

  “Right, sir. It’s better treatment than they deserve, at that.”

  “Hey!” a street punk yelled. “I’m hungry, man.”

  “Eat shit,” Jersey told him.

  “They’ve packed it in,” Butch told his commanders. “Scotty and the rest of them surrendered hoping to get vaccine for the plague and Raines refused to give it to them. He’s sending them all to the Shetlands to isolate them.”

  “At least they’re alive,” a warlord pointed out.

  “Sure. Until the British courts get hold of them,” Butch said. “Then they’re dead.”

  “I ain’t gonna hand my ass over to Raines on no platter,” Acey said. “I got too many marks against me to do that. They’re gonna have to kill me.”

  “How say the rest of you?” Butch put the question to them.

  It was unanimous. They voted to fight to the death.

  “There are no trees,” Buddy reported back to his father. Three days had passed. “And there are no people, either.”

  “How was the weather?”

  “Cold, but not as bad as one would think. I did some reading on the Shetlands. It’s very interesting.” He took another look at his father’s face and wisely decided this was not the time for a dissertation on the climate of the Shetland Islands. “Scalloway and Lerwick are ready to receive the, ah, guests. There is not a boat that will float anywhere. Will they be guarded, Father?”

  “Not by us. The BRF has agreed to man patrol boats on a twenty-four-hour basis. Get the outlaw leaders in here, son, please.”

  Ben faced the group. “There are still a number of sheep and Shetland ponies where you will be going. They damn well better be there when we decide to try you. If one hair on their bodies is harmed, I guarantee you all that I will strap parachutes on you and drop you in the middle of the most highly infected part of Europe.”

  Glasgow Scotty and the other leaders of crud and slime took Ben at his word. His face frightened them, his voice frightened them, and just being in his presence frightened them. Where they had at first been defiant, they were now humbled and awed by being around the highly professional Rebel army. They had witnessed people of all faiths, all colors, all nationalities, working together like smoothly running machinery. They had yet to hear one racial slur from anybody. It amazed them.

  “We ain’t gonna hurt no one up there, General,” a woman said. “We’re just hopin’ you’ll forget all about us.”

  “Lady,” Ben said, “and I use that noun only because I don’t know your name and don’t want to know your name if I was in my own country, I’d shoot every goddamn one of you and be done with it. But you’re the responsibility of the British now. And may God help them find the strength to deal with scum like you. Get this shit out of my office, Buddy.”

  The next day, Ben and the Rebels began the job of clearing the Scottish cities of the Believers.

  It was easier this time, for the warlords and street punks had been eager to give their interrogators the locations of the creepies and all the ways in and out of their hiding places. The Rebels pumped teargas and pepper gas into the sewer tunnels and basements and all the dark and odious places where creeps lived their disgusting lives and practiced their cannibalism.

  All along the once heavily populated and urbanized stretch from Greencock to Edinburgh, the air was heavy with the residues of teargas and pepper gas and the smell of death. The Believers would stagger out of their stinking holes and the Rebels would shoot them. Or the Rebels would fill the basements with fire from flame-throwers, seal the entrances and exits closed with heavy explosives, or blow up the buildings and turn the basements into sealed tombs.

  In London, the street punks and gang leaders sweated it out, listening to Rebel chatter on their radios. The Rebels talked on open frequencies now, wanting Butch Smathers and the others to hear them. They talked about how many creepies they’d killed that morning or that afternoon or that night, and how they died. It was pure psychological warfare, and it was working. Many trapped in London were breaking under the strain; a half a dozen a day were sticking pistols in their mouths and ending it. Many others were right on the edge of insanity.

  “Come on and get us, then, you son of a bitch!” the warlord Duane screamed into a microphone. “Goddamn you all to hell. We don’t want to hear no more of your shit!”

  Commander Drake of the BRF told several of his colleagues that Ben Raines was the hardest man he had ever known.

  “He’s what we need at this time,” one Brit countered. “He’s giving us a second time. And God forbid we repeat the mistakes of the past.”

  Butch’s troops, facing the Rebels, the Free Irish, and the British Resistance Forces along the line that stretched north to south, tried to goad the freedom-loving men and women into a fight. They screamed obscenities over the air to them. It didn’t work. Ben’s troops silently stared across the distance at the street punks and warlords and outlaws.

  The skies grayed and began dumping snow over the land, adding to the outlaws’ woes. It didn’t bother the Rebels. They had fought for years in all sorts of weather, from the blistering heat of the desert to the frozen ground of Alaska. They had every piece of equipment necessary to stay as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances. They waited.

  London Lulu lifted a glass of whiskey to her mouth. Her hands were shaking. She downed the whiskey neat and banged the shot glass to the tabletop. “Why is he doing this?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Take it easy, kid,” Butch said. “Why? He’s punishing us for past sins. I’ve gone back and read everything I could find about Ben Raines and some of the books he wrote back in the old days. He never believed in that sentimental slop from the mouths of social workers and liberals and do-gooders. Raines wrote that society should give a criminal at least one chance to redeem himself. After that, if he fucked up bad again, get rid of him. Raines wrote that values should be taught in school as well as in the home. He’s a strange and complex man, Lulu. I wish he had been in power when I was growing up. I wish his views had been accepted and practiced.”

  “Would you have changed, Butch?”

  “Sure.” He smiled. “That’s the beauty of the Rebel philosophy, kid. One’s options are very limited. Go straight or get dead.”

  “But he’s not goin’ to give us a chance to do that, is he, Butch?”

  Butch shook his head. “He gave us that chance, kid. When he hit the island, he gave us surrender terms. We refused. What happened up in Glasgow was a fluke. That mass surrender took him by surprise. That won’t happen here. When he attacks, it’ll be from three directions: north, south, and west. When he gets close enough, he’s going to give us about a week or so of heavy artillery. He’s going to turn this city into a shambles, and our nerves will be in a shambles, too. Oh, he’ll take prisoners. But no more than a couple hundred.”

  “Butch, let’s appeal to the Brits out there. They’ll cut us some slack. I’m sure of it.”

  “No good, kid. The BRF, they gave Raines carte blanche. This is his show. Raines is this island’s lifeline, and they know it. They’re not going to interfere. It would be suicide and they know it.”

  “It’s funny, Butch. Not ha-ha funny, but strange. We’re sittin’ here talking about our deaths. And I don’t want to die. I mean, man, when that big door is slammed, it’s over. Jesus God, if they’d just give me another chance, I’d change.”

  Butch laughed and poured a drink of whiskey. The whiskey was running out. The food was running out. They had no medicine. “No, you wouldn’t, Lulu. And neither would I. Oh, we’d go straight for a time; but not for very long. We’d see something that we wanted, that belonged to someone else, and we’d take it. Whether it was a car, or bike, or whatever. You see, Lulu, we didn’t have those hard options comin’ up. And people like you and me, and all the rest of this so-called army trapped in London, we got to have ul
timatums. Ben Raines knows this. Ben Raines knows that you must have some hard and fast and permanent rules that cannot be broken or changed for anyone. That’s the only way democracy can really work. And he’s proved that time and time again.”

  “Fuck Ben Raines!” Lulu said, her voice hardening. “Them rules is too restrictive.”

  “Actually, Lulu, they’re not. They’re just rules that people like us couldn’t, or wouldn’t, live under. Anyway, it’ll be over soon. Then we won’t have to worry about it.”

  “Jesus, Butch!” She fumbled for the whiskey bottle. “How can you take it so matter-of-factly?”

  “Because there is no other way to take it, Lulu. We’re trapped. We can’t go north, south, east, or west. Ben Raines is not going to accept our surrender. And you know why? He’s smart.” Butch tapped the side of his head. “There are two reasons for it. One: With the island in such bad shape, the survivors can’t waste the time housing us, feeding us, guarding us, providing us with medical attention. Not after Raines leaves. Two — and this is what I believe is his main reason for isolating Scotty and the others, and for not accepting our surrender: Raines believes we have the plague among us. And so do I.”

  “Oh, no, Butch. I don’t want to die that way. No!”

  “We’ll never know for sure, love, but Raines is giving us more of a break than he’s giving Scotty and the others. He’s going to kill us quick. Scotty and those others are going to die a slow and rather horrible death. I don’t blame Raines for it. I’d have done the same thing. He had to get those people gone. Now, for us here in the city, we can’t do anything except die honorably. And that is what I intend to do. For once in my life, I am going to do something honorable.” He smiled. “Sort of.”

  She stared at him. “And what might that be, love?”

  “I’m going to kill just as many Rebels as I possibly can, baby. We all are. We’re going to make suicide charges and do all sorts of brave things once the Rebels enter the city. I am going to die like the soldier I once was.”

  “Butch!” the door flew open and one of his men stood there. “Raines is massing for attack, north and south. His people punched through the line and stormed Brighton this morning and took it. And they ain’t takin’ no prisoners.”

  “Well, love,” Butch said, standing up and picking up his Uzi. “Let us go do something honorable.”

  The messenger couldn’t understand why the two were laughing almost hysterically as they walked out into the snowy morning.

  Nine

  “Brighton is ours and almost half of Norfolk County is in Rebel hands,” Corrie said to Ben.

  “Commence the shelling,” Ben said. He waited until that order had been given, then stood up. “Everything in the wagon, Coop?”

  “All loaded.”

  “Let’s go, gang.”

  Before they had driven the few miles to the front, Corrie received word that the lines of the enemy were crumbling.

  “Tell our people to maintain their existing positions,” Ben said. “Do not attempt to advance.”

  “Can I ask you a question, General?” Beth said.

  “Sure.”

  “The ones we send to the Shetlands — you suspected they had the plague, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Beth, I did. And I suspect it’s reached London as well. Chase told me he suspected the same. That’s why we isolated the first bunch as quickly as possible and got rid of them just as fast.”

  “And you think the BRF will find . . . what, when they finally dock there?”

  “I think they know already that those quartered there are dying. Another three or four days and it will be over.”

  “How will they enter then?” Coop asked.

  “In contamination suits, Coop,” Jersey said. “They burn the bodies while others start killing rats and fleas.”

  “But there were animals there,” Corrie said. “You warned them about harming them.”

  “There were very few animals on the island where they were put ashore. Buddy and his team made sure of that. That talk I gave them was pure B.S. Corrie, what’s the latest from Admiral Carrington?”

  “No further ships or boats have attempted to cross the Channel from the Continent, General, and none have tried to leave the English coast.”

  “Butch and his people know by now that it would do them no good to sail to Europe.”

  “Why not advance our people now, General?” Cooper asked.

  “You want to take a bunch of prisoners who are carrying the Black Death, Coop?” Jersey asked.

  “Ah ... right. I see your point, Jersey.”

  Ben said nothing. He made the decision, he alone had to live with it.

  As they were walking up to what would be Ben’s CP, a lovely old stone farmhouse the Rebels had checked out and cleaned up, a runner from Communications came up. “All enemy lines collapsing, sir. They’re all beating it back toward the city as fast as they can travel.”

  “Corrie, issue cease-fire orders. I want them all in the city. Spotter planes up and flying high and fast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ben sat down in a camp chair, accepted a cup of coffee, and studied a map for a moment. When Corrie was through issuing his first orders, he said, “Order all available gunships up north and south of London to strafe anything moving on the roads. North between Thetford and Braintree, south, all of Kent. Order our people at Brighton to keep their heads down and their asses in one place. We know the outlaws took all the transportation from the citizens, leaving them bicycles only. Don’t strafe anyone pedaling along, please. As soon as the spotters tell us the retreating forces are in London, resume the shelling.”

  “Raines didn’t stop the shelling for humanitarian reasons, you can bet on that,” Butch told Lulu and a few dozen others, as they sat deep underground beneath the city. “That cunning bastard’s always got some sneaky trick up his sleeve.”

  Somewhere close to where he sat, the darkness punctuated only by a few flickering pockets of candlelight, a man began to cry. A woman began singing “Nearer My God To Thee” in a quiet voice. Another man was praying.

  Butch looked down at his grimy hands. His clothing, like everybody else’s, was filthy. He felt eyes on him and turned his head. A man he knew only as Faro was staring at him.

  “Something on your mind?” Butch asked.

  Faro chuckled in the deadly silence. “We’re really something, aren’t we, Butch?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Butch’s reply was short and sharply given.

  Faro smiled. “Sure, you do, Butch. I was watching you. We’re really something, aren’t we? Big-time outlaws, that’s us. Big tough boys and girls, that’s us. Yet here we sit, in the tunnels with the rats. Hear them scurrying about? We’re dirty, ragged, cold, hungry, facing death. But, by God, we made our point, didn’t we? We sure as hell weren’t going to play the establishment’s game, were we? And we didn’t . . .”

  “Aw, shut your trap, Faro!” a man said.

  “No,” a woman said. “Let him talk. Go on, Faro.”

  “Oh, there isn’t that much left to say. I just see the dark humor in it, that’s all.”

  “You think this is funny, man?” another outlaw questioned. “I think you’re bonkers.”

  “Yeah,” another street punk stuck in his opinion. “You ain’t no better than the rest of us.”

  “Oh, I never said I was,” Faro replied. “But I’m not sitting down here feeling sorry for myself, either. Whatever I get — and it will certainly be death – I know I deserve. I’m a big enough person to admit that.”

  “Hey, man, we had to survive,” another popped. “We only done what we had to do.”

  Faro started laughing at that.

  “Son of a bitch is crazy!” Lulu said.

  “Make your point, Faro,” Butch said. The sudden silence was beginning to unnerve him. “Then shut up.”

  “I made it, Butch. And you know it.”

  “Oh, preach to us, Holy One,” a man jeere
d at him. “Pray for our sins and offer us salvation. Me, I’ll take pussy anytime.”

  The gloom filled with derisive laughter. Faro only smiled.

  Butch’s walkie-talkie crackled. He lifted it and said, “Go ahead.” He listened for a moment. He sighed heavily and said, “That’s ten-four.

  “Raines has got helicopter gunships working north and south of the city. They’re choppin’ up those units far out. Them furthest from the city can kiss their asses good-bye. Some of them run into an ambush: citizens armed with axes and pitchforks. They were hacked to death.”

  “If he’d just give us a chance to surrender,” a woman sobbed, her voice breaking with fear. “I’d go straight. I’d go to church. I’d be good.”

  “The hell you would,” Faro said, contempt thick in his words. “You were a goddamn thief before the Great War, and you’d be right back in business if Raines pardoned you. Good God, people, stop lying to yourselves.”

  “And what the hell were you before it all fell apart?” Lulu shouted at him. “Just who the hell do you think you are, moralizing to us?”

  “I was a minister,” Faro said, shocking them all into silence. “I spread the legs of every good-looking woman in my congregation and lifted a lot of money from the collection every Sunday. And you know what, people? I’d do it again. I wouldn’t change a thing. Now, if asked, I would tell the Rebels quite the opposite; but I’d be lying to save my butt. That’s the difference between us. I admit to being a scoundrel. And contrary to what you all might think, we are most definitely not going to visit Heaven.”

  “You lie!” a man said, jumping up. “My faith told me that if I confessed to my sins, I would be absolved of them.”

  Faro laughed and laughed, infuriating them all. He wiped his eyes with a dirty handkerchief and said, “Your religion is a very convenient one, isn’t it? Ah, but you go right on believing that, if you wish. You’ll believe it right up to the time the devil jams a hot pitchfork up your ass. No, my friend, your religion suckered you. God doesn’t like to be played with. God doesn’t demand that we be perfect; He just asks that we sincerely try. And I would have to say that none of us here . . . sincerely... tried.”