Death in the Ashes Read online

  “That son of a bitch!” Pete Jones cursed Ben Raines. “You just can’t trust anybody nowadays.”

  He was tooling his Cadillac through the rubble and waste of Fort Worth.

  Pete’s main man, Sam, sat in the front seat and, like his boss, cussed Ben Raines. When he wound down, he asked, “Where we headin’, Pete?”

  Pete shook his head. “I haven’t make up my mind, Sam. I don’t know where Ben Raines is heading, for one thing.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  A pained look passed Pete’s face. “Because, Sam, I would really rather avoid the good General and his Rebel army, if at all possible.”

  Sam thought about that for a moment. “Oh! Right, Pete. Sure.”

  Ben and his Rebels rolled on through the bloody and destructive afternoon. By midafternoon they had hammered their way to the convention center, leaving behind them streets filled with dead and dying outlaws.

  Ben called a halt to the advance. “Scouts out,” he ordered. “Let’s see what’s out there.”

  The reports began coming back in sooner than even Ben had expected. “They’ve bugged out, General. We can’t find a sign of life anywhere.”

  Other Scout teams who had fanned out in all directions reported the same thing.

  “Stand down,” Ben ordered his people. “Maintain middle alert. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”

  “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow, Father?” Buddy asked.

  Ben looked at his son. “We destroy the city.”

  When Ben finished speaking with Base Camp One, he leaned back in the chair and accepted a cup of coffee with thanks. He was tired. Not so much physically, but emotionally. He had taken the first step toward doing something that he had known for years must be done.

  He was about to destroy the remains of a society, in order to rebuild what he hoped would be a better one.

  “Cecil is sending in enough explosives to blow up the world—his words. The first planes will be landing in the morning. Dan, start scouting around and find some Lo-Boy trailers. Then set our mechanics to working on bulldozers. Find out where the county kept their equipment.” He smiled. “If we didn’t steal it ten years ago and take it up to the Tri-States, there’ll probably be plenty of equipment still around.”

  “Right, sir. We have found several huge underground gasoline storage tanks. The gas tested out to be free of water. I’ve ordered all available tanker trucks to start sucking it up.”

  “Good move. What we can’t haul with us, we’ll send back to Cecil and Ike. Corrie, might as well get Cecil back on the horn and tell him to get some tanker rigs on the way over here.” He looked at his watch. Almost midnight. He stood up and stretched. “Are we certain that all innocents are clear of the city?”

  “I believe so, Dad,” Tina told him. “Are we going to fire the city by sections?”

  “Yes. It’s not the suburbs that attract the scum and the creepies, it’s the cities themselves. An attraction that I have yet to understand. So the cities and the larger towns go down under the torch, so to speak.”

  “The scorched earth policy of the colonies’ civil war,” Dan said with a slight smile.

  “Yes. And I didn’t agree with it after I studied about it in school,” Ben said. “And I’m not happy with myself for ordering it done now. But the cities and probably seventy-five percent of the smaller communities are not reinhabitable, nor is it feasible to think about doing so. It will be a century, or longer, before cities once more become the vogue—if they ever do. I’m sure that future generations will curse me for destroying them, and then after they do that, they can settle down and rebuild. But for now, the cities are containers of the scum. So they have to go.”

  “Over how many campfires have we discussed this down through the years, General?” Dan asked.

  “Too many for me to count, Dan. I probably should have started with this policy right after the plague hit us. I’ve toyed with the idea for several years.” He drained his coffee cup. “Well, to bed. We’ll have the taste of ashes in our mouths for days to come.”

  6

  Ben was at the airport when the birds started arriving at first light. The twin-engine cargo planes were packed with C4 and C5 explosives and timers and detonators. When the explosives were off-loaded, some of the more seriously injured—both body and mind—of those freed prisoners were placed on board for the flight back to the base camp.

  Corrie had looked at the sprawling airport with wonder in her eyes. “The highway runs right through the airport!” she exclaimed. “I never saw such a thing!”

  “Yes,” Ben said drily, remembering his mixed feelings about DFW. Especially when he landed at gate 3 and had twelve minutes to get to gate 62. Same airline. “It was a ... wonder, to be sure.”

  “You flew the big jets out of here, General?” Jersey asked.

  “Many times, Jersey. From where I lived, if you flew east, you changed at Atlanta. If you flew west, you changed at Dallas. With very few exceptions.”

  “That must have been exciting,” Jersey said.

  Ben looked at her and smiled. Jersey had been in hundreds of fire-fights during her tenure with the Rebels. And she was excited about a plane ride. It was true that even war became blase after a time.

  “Let’s go to work,” Ben said.

  The Rebels began blowing up and burning the city block by block. And the rats came out by the hundreds of thousands, in brown filthy racing hordes. Dr. Ling put in an urgent request for rabies vaccine and anyone who was bitten, and there were several Rebels who were bitten, was immediately inoculated against the dread disease.

  “There was a study done some years ago,” Ben mentioned casually, “by some university, back when those things were done, that concluded that someday we would all be dining on rat meat. It’s supposed to be full of protein. Good for you.” He spooned some lunch into his mouth.

  Meg looked at the goop on her plate and suddenly lost her appetite. “Rat meat! Are you serious?”

  “That’s what I read. What’s the matter, Meg, lose your appetite?”

  “Have you ever eaten a rat, General?”

  “Can’t say as I have. One of the guys involved in the Watergate mess did, though. Said he did.”

  “What’s a Watergate?” Corrie asked.

  Ben sighed as he felt the years press just a little bit harder on him. “Pass the hot sauce, please.”

  Nothing was spared in the Rebel’s plan of destruction. At first Ben tried to inspect each building before bringing it down. But after a few forays, he discovered that anything of value had long been looted. After that, he gave his people carte blanche and the work went swiftly.

  The Rebels became accustomed to the smoke smell that settled in their nostrils and seemed to permeate their clothing.

  Where once a great city stood, now there was nothing but smoke and rubble.

  The Rebels left the destruction behind them and moved the few miles westward to Fort Worth. They found a dead and deserted city. As the first really warming days of full spring settled over the nation, the Rebels began destroying Fort Worth. As had happened in Dallas, many of the fires spread into the suburbs. The Rebels made no attempt to check the flames. They used bulldozers and explosives to cut fire lines at the outer edges of the suburbs, and that was all they did to contain the often-times out-of-control and wind-whipped inferno that raged from county line to county line.

  Ben had sent teams up to Wichita Falls even before the destruction of Dallas began, and with those teams went more than fifty settler families—pioneers, they were called. A few more families willing to face the unknown in an attempt to rebuild a shattered nation.

  Ben and his Rebels left the smoking ruins of the Twin Cities behind them and pulled out, taking Highway 287 up to Wichita Falls. There, the Rebels found a neat little city, governed by a forward-looking group of people, who had reopened schools and had a staffed and adequately equipped hospital.

  At Ben’s request, a pla
toon of Rebels was flown in from the base camp to settle in Wichita Falls. Another outpost was firmly a fixture in the offices of central planning at Base Camp One.

  One more step.

  The Rebels relaxed for a time, resting, eating something other than field rations, and going over equipment, and they finally got a chance to wash the stink of smoke and destruction from their BDUs.

  As soon as Ben saw the first signs of restlessness among the men and women of the Rebels, he ordered a pullout. They stayed on 287, heading for Amarillo, and driving straight into the unknown. The elected officials of Wichita Falls had advised Ben to disregard any rumors he might have heard about Amarillo being a dead and destroyed city. It was very much alive and crawling with outlaw scum, including a group of Night People, who had worked out a peace treaty with the outlaws.

  “The outlaws raid outside Amarillo, take prisoners, and give the creepies human beings in return for their safety,” Ben stated flatly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Here we go,” Jersey summed it up.

  The Rebels drove the hundred-odd miles to Childress without seeing even one sign of human habitation. It was as if they had landed on a deserted planet.

  In the main communications truck, specially built and bullet-proofed, the operators were constantly scanning the frequencies, picking up only static.

  Ben halted the convoy just outside of Childress. “This place used to have about six thousand people in it,” he said, glancing at a map. “Now it appears to be a ghost town.”

  “Scouts going in,” Corrie informed him.

  “I can just about tell you what they’ll find,” Ben said.

  “Nothing,” Dan said, walking back to the Blazer. “There is no one in the town.”

  “Let’s look it over, Cooper.”

  Ben walked through a looted hardware store, then a department store filled with dust and very little else. The dead giveaway came when he inspected a drugstore. Drugs to make a person high or low, depending on the individual’s choice, had been looted. Valuable antibiotics, now mostly out of date, had been left behind.

  “Scum and trash hit the town,” Ben said. “Pleasure seekers with not a thought in their heads concerning the future, living only for now. All right, Dan. Middle alert for tonight. Let’s get settled in for a very brief stay.”

  Ben cut his eyes to Meg. She had picked up a small bottle of perfume. She met his gaze. “My mother used to wear this fragrance. I haven’t seen it in a long time. It just . . . surprised me to find it here. It used to be very expensive.”

  Ben watched her carefully dust off the bottle and place it on the counter. “You’re not going to keep it?”

  Meg shook her head. “Too many memories attached.” She smiled. “What was your favorite fragrance on ladies?”

  “Shalimar.”

  “I’ll wear some for you . . . if I ever find a bottle, that is.”

  “That would be nice.” He stepped to her and took her arm. “Let’s get out of here before memories overwhelm us.”

  As dawn lightened the area, the Rebels were pulling out. Dan had sent a team of Scouts toward Amarillo hours before. They had reported back that the inhabitants of the small city seemed braced for a fight.

  “All right,” Ben said, climbing into the Blazer. “We’ll damn sure give them one.”

  The little Texas towns faded into their rearview mirrors as the column made its way toward yet another showdown. They were mere shells of what they had once been. Empty shells, looted and left to crumble as time relentlessly passed.

  “Scout to Eagle One.” Ben’s speaker rattled the words.

  “Go, Scout.”

  “They’re bugging out of Amarillo. Heading north, south, and west.”

  “Ten-four, Scout. Hold what you have. We’re about an hour away. Do not enter the city.”

  “Ten-four, Eagle.”

  “What do you make of it, General?” Dan radioed from his Jeep.

  “No stomach for a fight. I’m thinking some of those outlaws and warlords who skipped out of Dallas early headed for Amarillo. They’ve warned their buddies off.”

  “Do we destroy it?”

  “Right down to the ground.”

  Ben inspected the college first. It had been looted and vandalized and very nearly destroyed by packs of punks and other crud who were scared to death of education. But they had enough sense to know that with education came civilization. And that was the last thing they wanted.

  Next to the college was the airport. “Clear a runway,” Ben ordered. “We might have to be resupplied. Come on, gang. Let’s go see what’s left of the town.”

  Filth littered the streets and the stench of Night People hung like a stinking shroud over the city.

  The Rebels searched for prisoners and found more than two hundred men, women, and children.

  “The outlaws and creepies assumed that we’d be too busy dealing with the prisoners to pursue them,” Dan observed.

  “They assumed right,” Ben said. “Corrie, give the base camp a bump and tell them to start getting the birds in here. Medical teams on board. Advise base that we’ll need to be resupplied with explosives. Let’s give the city another search to see if we missed anybody. Then we start bringing it down.”

  The crash and thunder of demolition began that afternoon as yet another haven for the lawless was destroyed. The planes landed the next day and began taking the newly freed prisoners back to safety and, hopefully, some sort of rehabilitation to piece their shattered lives back together.

  The Rebels were becoming experts in demolition, and the work was going faster with each city they entered. Block by block, the city of Amarillo was coming down, to lie in piles of sometimes smoking but always useless rubble. They set fires and let them burn.

  “The dirty bastards!” MacNally cussed the Rebels from his safe spot in a small town some thirty miles south of Amarillo.

  Pete Jones didn’t curse Ben Raines. Not because he didn’t feel like it, but simply because it wouldn’t accomplish anything. He sat outside a long-abandoned service station and watched the black and gray and greasy smoke pouring into the sky, coming from what had once been Amarillo.

  “He’s smart,” Pete finally said.

  “Who?” Lopez asked.

  “Ben Raines.”

  “Ben Raines is a no-good, sorry, bully, son of a bitch who won’t mind his own business!” the warlord Bass loudly proclaimed.

  Pete chuckled at the man. “I never heard Ben referred to as a bully before now. Interesting word coming from you, Bass.”

  “Ain’t he bullying his way all over the friggin’ country?” Bass demanded.

  “That’s one way of lookin’ at it, I suppose.”

  “Just another damn cop!” Young summed it up. “With a funny hat.”

  The Rebels all wore berets.

  “But Ben Raines is honest, you have to give him that much. Unlike many of the cops we knew.”

  “I guess,” Young reluctantly agreed. “But how come you say he’s so smart?”

  “The cities have always been our sanctuaries. Ever since the Great War, and we’ve always controlled them. All that is about to change, I’m thinking.”

  “You mean”—the outlaw Pipes looked at him—“that that dirty no-count Ben Raines is goin’ to blow up and burn ever’ damn city he comes to?”

  “Probably.”

  “Hell, that don’t matter all that much,” another outlaw said. “We still got thousands of small towns to hide out in.”

  “That can be destroyed by long-range artillery or bombed by the planes that Raines has.”

  “But first Raines would have to find us, right?” Mac asked.

  “He’d find us. Raines is merciless, ruthless, when it comes to people like us. One of his ambitions is to wipe us from the face of the earth. I studied the man through his books, while I was in prison. Wrote a thesis on him ...”

  “Wrote a what?” Mac asked.

  “A paper, if you will. Raines basically
is a savage. A man much similar to those witch burners back several centuries ago in Salem.”

  “Jones,” Mac said with a sigh, “I think you are as full of shit as that Christmas goose! You rattle on about the damndest things I ever heard of. Now you tell me this: if you so damn smart, what the hell are we gonna do about Ben Raines and them Rebels of hisn.”

  “We’re going to defeat him,” Pete said simply.

  “Oh, we is, is we?” Mac sneered at him. “Now just how in the hell do you think we gonna do that?”

  “By gathering an army that is bigger than the Rebels and outthinking and outfighting him. That’s how.”

  “And where do we find an army that size?” Morgan asked.

  “Up north. In Wyoming and Montana and other parts of the northwest. There is an army up there headed by someone called the Rattlesnake Kid. He has an army of bikers for his enforcers.”

  Mac grinned. “But that bunch don’t like niggers, Jones. And all you got in your bunch is coons. Have you forgotten that?”

  “War makes for strange allies, Mac. I should know. I’m sitting here attempting to converse with an ignorant redneck like you.”

  “I swear I’m a-gonna kill you someday, Jones!”

  Pete laughed at him. “Wait until we’ve defeated Ben Raines, Mac. We need each other until that time.”

  “It can’t come too soon for me.”

  “Defeating Raines or killing me?” Pete asked.

  “Either one!”

  “I’ve got to get word to this Rattlesnake Kid person.” Pete stood up. “And I guess the best way to do that is just to drive up there and see him.”

  “You best get some hair straightener and some skin lightener ’fore you do,” Mac needled him.

  “You have no faith in my powers of persuasion, do you, Mac?”

  “I have faith in my four-wheel drive and my gun,” Mac told him.

  “Mac, you are the epitome of redneckism.”

  “Still makes you a coon.”