Chaos in the Ashes Read online

  Ben faced the group, all chained together like galley slaves. “Are you people crazy, or do you have a death wish?” he asked the front row of men and women, who had chained themselves together across the two-lane highway in Alabama.

  “Kill us if you must,” a man told Ben. “But you will never stop our movement.”

  “And what movement is that?”

  “The movement to reclaim America for all.”

  “Take other people’s property and squat there, you mean?”

  “You took the property of others with your vile Tri-States philosophy, did you not?”

  “As a matter of fact, we didn’t. Those who chose not to live under our laws were compensated for their property, and paid well for it, I might add.”

  Ben felt just a bit foolish, standing in the middle of the road, talking with people who were chained together. When none of the squatters responded to his defense of the old Tri-States, he turned to several Rebels standing with heavy bolt cutters and motioned them forward.

  “Oh, my God!” a woman shrieked. “They’re going to kill us all.” Kids started crying.

  “Nobody is going to hurt you, lady,” Ben assured the woman. “We’re just clearing the road so we can move on.”

  “You go on and do that,” a man shouted. “But we’re staying right here. We have homes and we’ve broken the land, getting ready to plant.”

  “OK,” Ben said. “Stay.”

  Both Rebel and civilian were astonished at that. They stood and stared at Ben. The Rebels working the bolt cutters paused, then continued cutting the light chain.

  “Do you mean that, General?” a woman asked.

  “Sure. Believe it or not, I will try to avoid bloodshed. I don’t care if you stay and work the land and grow a garden. We encourage all our residents to grow gardens. You didn’t try to ambush us. You all appear to practice personal hygiene. The children with you are cared for and well-fed. So stay if you like. But you will be living under Rebel law, and that might take some getting used to.”

  When none of the civilians said anything, Ben smiled at the group, now free of their chains. “You think it’s some sort of trick, don’t you? Well, it isn’t. But if you had fired on us, the ending to this little drama would have been much different. All right, how many in this group? Who is the leader? You have to have one. Come on.”

  A man pushed through the crowd and stepped forward. “I . . . ah, I guess I am, General.”

  “Tell me, why did you choose this particular place to stop?”

  “Because the village didn’t appear to have been occupied in years. We’re not thieves or outlaws, General. We wanted to make sure we weren’t taking someone else’s property.”

  “What is, or was, your profession?”

  “I was a schoolteacher, as was my wife. That’s her right over there.” He pointed to a very attractive lady.

  “Fine. That’s good. We need teachers. Corrie, have one of our PT’s come in here ASAP.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s a PT?” the man asked.

  “Political team,” Ben informed him. “They’ll update you all on Rebel law and what we do in our public schools.”

  “I hope you teach,” the man’s wife said, walking over to stand beside her husband.

  “Oh, we do that, ma’am. Rest assured of that. In the SUSA, the students don’t run the schools, the teachers do—”

  The husband and wife both smiled.

  “—and on occasion, the teachers do plant the board of education firmly against the butts of deserving students.”

  The smiles broadened.

  “Sports are secondary in the SUSA. We have sports, of course, but education comes first.”

  The husband and wife sighed in anticipated contentment.

  “The PTs will brief you all. OK?”

  “It sounds like heaven to me,” the woman said.

  “It isn’t, ma’am. I assure you of that. All we’ve done is brought everything back to a common sense form of government. And it will take some getting used to, believe me. So . . . get squared away and start teaching your kids. It’ll be planting time shortly. Do you have seeds and equipment?”

  “We have seeds. No modern equipment.”

  “We’ll see that you’re properly equipped to farm.”

  A man stepped out of the crowd. “May I say something, General?”

  “Sure. Free speech is freer here than in any other place on the face of the earth.”

  The man smiled. “You and your Rebels are not at all like what we were told you would be. We were told by members of Representative Hooter’s organization, and also by members of Simon Border’s group, that you were right-wing savages. That you all lived by the gun and that if we came in here and tried to stay, we would all be slaughtered. The women raped and the men tortured.”

  Several of the Scouts burst out laughing at that, and soon all the Rebels standing close enough to hear were chuckling.

  “Well, I hope you’ve seen that isn’t true,” Ben countered. He caught the eye of a little girl clinging to her mother’s hand and Ben smiled at her. She smiled shyly. He dug in his pocket, found a package of gum and offered her a stick.

  “She doesn’t know what that is, General,” the mother said. “It’s been years since any of us have seen a real package of gum.”

  The sadness of that statement hit Ben hard. In the SUSA, life had pretty much returned to normal. But outside the SUSA, it was grim. Ben slowly nodded his head and gave the gum to the mother. “Corrie, we’ll break for lunch. Let’s help these people get settled in. Get the medics up here.”

  The teachers’ names were Frank and Lois. Frank told Ben there were about a hundred adults and about half that many kids in the group.

  “About a dozen or so members of your group don’t much like me, do they?” Ben asked.

  “They hate you,” Lois said.

  “I am getting weary of the dirty looks. Let’s confront them and hear their beefs.”

  Facing a small knot of men and women, Ben asked, “What’s the matter with you people? I’m trying to help you and you’re acting as though I’m some sort of monster.”

  “We don’t like the Tri-States philosophy,” one of the men finally said, after looking at the others in his group. “We think it’s barbaric. The very idea of shooting someone just because he’s trying to steal your car, or your lawnmower . . . that’s hideous! Why not try love and compassion and reason? Instead of guns, why not build gymnasiums, with proper basketball courts. Now, that’s the way to control crime.”

  Ben knew that to attempt to argue with that type of logic would be hopeless. Living under the Tri-States form of government, this small group of people would be either dead or moved away within a few months . . . probably the former.

  “It works for us,” Ben told the group. “And if you stay here, that’s the law you will live under. You might get away with ignoring it for a time, but within a few months, we’ll have reclaimed our territory. Then you’ll have no choice in the matter. I can tell you right now, the best thing for you people to do is leave. I won’t force you out—I won’t have to do that. You’ll screw up. It’s just a matter of time. But let me make something very clear to you all: when you fuck up big-time in this society, you’re apt to get seriously hurt or seriously dead. I’d give that some thought. If you decide to pull out—and I hope you do—we’ll take you to our borders and give you food packets that will last for a week or so. The rules and laws of the SUSA are few, but they are set in granite. Your civil rights end at somebody’s else property line or business. I’ll wager you were all left-wing liberal democrats back before the Great War. And I never met a left-wing liberal democrat that could understand common sense if it was stuck up their ass with a Roto-Rooter. If you value your lives, I would strongly suggest you leave. And do so now.”

  “You will provide us with food and transportation?”

  How typical, Ben thought. “I will do so gladly,” he replied.

/>   “Then we’ll leave.”

  “Good.”

  After the group had marched off, Lois said, “General, there must have been half a million people who streamed across the borders of the SUSA. How are you going to reclaim your territory against that many people?”

  “With conversation and reason and compromise whenever possible, as I did with you people. With force, when that fails. But make no mistake about it: we will reclaim our territory.”

  Lois looked at the Rebels standing close by, men and women in the absolute peak of physical condition, eyes and skin glowing with health. She sighed. “Is your philosophy worth all the killing, General?”

  “It is to us,” Ben replied.

  For the first few days and perhaps fifty miles in all directions of the Rebel push, the Rebels used conversation, compromise, and diplomacy with the people. Not many shots were fired, but those shots that were fired convinced many of the squatters that if they didn’t want to conform to the Rebel philosophy, and desired to stay healthy, they had best head on back to whence they came—and do it post haste. Those that didn’t, and offered resistance, were buried.

  “We’re still deep in the south part of our own territory,” Ben told his batt coms by radio late one afternoon. “For the most part, we’re meeting people who want to work with us and stay and make a future for themselves and families. The criminal element and the punk gangs and other assorted rabble are still north and west of us, and in a few areas along the east coast. My Scouts have not yet reported any signs of the slaughter of our people, but we all know we’ll find them sooner or later. Not something I’m looking forward to seeing.” Ben signed off and leaned back in the kitchen chair one of his people had found for him.

  Where in the hell were the gangs of punks and thugs? he wondered. Thousands and thousands of people had poured across the borders. That was solid fact—confirmed.

  Where the hell did they go?

  Hiding somewhere.

  But where?

  Waiting.

  For what?

  There were lots of places for them to hide. But what would they be waiting for?

  That was something that was baffling even to Ben’s Chief of Intelligence, Mike Richards.

  “Survivors from the rabble attack coming in,” Corrie broke into his thoughts. “Scouts intercepted about a dozen families. ETA thirty minutes. Most of them are disabled or retired Rebels, boss. And some of them are in pretty bad shape.”

  “Have them taken directly to the MASH tent,” Ben said, after fighting back the white-hot anger that filled him. He picked up his Thompson and walked outside, Jersey and Anna right with him.

  “Bastards want to make war against disabled vets and non-combatant women and small kids,” Ben muttered through nearly clenched teeth. “I’ll give them war like nothing they’ve ever dreamed in their wildest nightmares.”

  Ben paced up and down until the survivors arrived, working off much of his rage.

  His rage returned when the survivors were trucked into the camp.

  The first man out of the deuce-and-a-half was a man who had been with Ben since the dream of the old Tri-States was first discussed. He’d fought with the Rebels for years, until being severely wounded and forced into retirement a few years back. He’d been homesteading up near the Tennessee border when the rabble came pouring across. Ben’s rage came rushing back.

  “Gene!” Ben said, shaking the man’s one good hand. The other hand had been blown off several years back. Ben looked at the man. “What can I say?”

  “Good to see you, General. We never expected anything like this. They came pouring across the borders like ants toward honey. They killed my youngest boy. Shot him down as he ran to the house to warn us we were being attacked. I had to leave him in the backyard. There was no time to get the body.” There were tears in the man’s eyes. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I don’t know what happened to my oldest daughter, Marie, and her husband. They were fighting a rear-guard action so Rose and me could get away with the grandkids. I think they bought it, General.”

  Ben nodded his head, not trusting his voice to speak.

  “Goddamn lousy trash and street crap,” Gene continued. Then he smiled very grimly. “I circled around and caught me one of them.” He lifted his left arm, showing Ben the double prosthesis hook where his hand used to be. “I used this on the son of a bitch. Didn’t take him long to spill his guts—literally.”

  “Are you coming with us, Grandpa?” a young girl with a bloody bandage around her head called.

  “I’ll be along, sweetie,” Gene told the child, smiling at her. “You go with the soldiers.” He turned back to Ben. “She thinks her mother will be returning. I don’t. Anyway, General, there were four gangs that hit my place, among many other homes. Those other survivors told me what happened to them and their loved ones. Raped, tortured, mutilated. No racial crap here, General. They were a mixed bag. The leaders are Ray Brown, Carrie Walker, Tommy Monroe, Dave Holton. They were heading for our old Base Camp One. Going to hold it for somebody. The guy I caught said he didn’t know who. And if he did know, it died with him.”

  “All right, Gene. Thanks. You go on over to the MASH tent. Get checked out.”

  “There’s more, General. I’d like to tell you all of it.”

  “Sure, Gene. Sure. You want some coffee?”

  The old Rebel shook his head. “No, thank you, sir. I can wait. It’s gonna be a real bitch, sir. A lot of the people who came across the border are pretty decent people. Many of them helped us along the way, until the Rebel patrols found us. The people shared what food they had with us, comforted the young. They were told, by someone—that’s a little vague—that the Rebels wouldn’t open fire on them. Well, at first our people didn’t. But then they had to. Many of those in the front wanted to turn back, but the punks and thugs and criminals were all in the rear, and when some of the decent types wanted to retreat, their own people, supposedly their own people, fired on them, forcing them on. The Rebels didn’t kill and wound as many as first thought. Many of the men and women were shot in the back by the punks and thugs. The people were lied to, General. Many were told that you and President Blanton had reached an agreement to open up the borders of the SUSA, and that they’d be welcomed. They really got suckered.” Gene’s eyes found Anna and smiled. “Who’s this, General?”

  “That’s a little waif I picked up over in Europe, Anna. I couldn’t get rid of her, so I said ‘what the hell,’ and adopted her.”

  “Got a mean look in those pretty eyes, General.”

  “She’s been on her own since age five, fighting to survive.”

  “That’ll put some meanness in a person, for sure. I’ll get on over to the medics. Doctor Chase with you?”

  “No. That old grouch is about thirty or so miles behind this column.”

  Gene looked around him. “New faces. A lot of the old bunch is gone, General.”

  “Yes.” Ben’s reply was softly offered. “Yes, they are. Buried all over the world.”

  “Is it ever going to stop, General?”

  “Truthfully, I doubt it. At least not in our lifetime. Too many people hate us.”

  Gene nodded his head in understanding and agreement. “We’ve got room for millions and millions of people here in the SUSA. But instead we’ve got thousands and thousands. We know our system works. How come so many others can’t see it?”

  “Don’t get me started on that, Gene.”

  Gene smiled. “Yeah, I seem to recall you could get real worked up on that subject. Well, there’s about twenty-five or so trucks ’bout an hour behind this one, General. Filled with old soldiers like me and what’s left of their families. We’ve all agreed to go back into uniform for this fight. We’re about company-sized, I reckon. Soon as we get patched up and plugged up, we’ll wander on over to the quartermaster and draw some gear. You might say the Over-The-Hill-Gang is ridin’ again.”

  “Glad to have you with us, Sergeant. We’ll da
mn sure find a place for you.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t kick up much of a fuss. This is gonna be a fight to the finish. And it damn sure isn’t gonna be over in any hurry.” He threw Ben a salute and limped off.

  “One of the toughest and meanest guerrilla units back in my country was made up of older men,” Anna said, watching Gene limp away. “They couldn’t run as fast as we could, or march for as long, but the punks and thugs and creepers soon learned they could fight like hell.”

  “What happened to them?” Jersey asked.

  “Last I heard they were still up in the mountains, fighting.” She looked at Ben. “Where are you going to assign those old men, General Ben?”

  “Wherever they wish, Anna.”

  “Pilots report our old Base Camp One area is crawling with crud,” Corrie called to Ben. “Heatseekers show several thousand people.”

  “Our underground facilities?”

  “They appear to be safe and secure to this point.”

  Certain areas in and around the old Base Camp One were honey-combed with underground chambers, the tunnels and bunkers filled with thousands of tons of supplies and equipment. Other areas contained carefully constructed and concealed underground storage tanks, where hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel were stored (the Rebels had thousands of tons of equipment secretly cached all over the lower forty-eight). “They have SAMs, they have SAMs,” Corrie said, as soon as the pilots’ words crackled through her headphones.

  “Any planes hit?” Ben asked.

  “Negative. No hits.”

  The souped-up version of the old P-51, now called the P-51E, which made up a large part of Ben’s air force, usually came in right on the deck, rendering SAMs all but useless against them. The pilots came in so low, by the time the SAM was readied and fired, the planes were gone and out of range, flying at about 550 mph, tops. The pilots seemed to thrive on the danger of it, which did not come as any surprise to Ben. He thought all combat pilots to be half nuts anyway.

  It would have amazed Ben to learn that most combat pilots thought themselves to be a hell of a lot safer where they were than where Ben was, and they thought Ben was half bonkers for taking the chances he took on the ground.