Danger in the Ashes Read online

  The rattle of gunfire was loud as the Rebels cleaned out a nest of Night People in the left-side hangar. None were found in the other two buildings.

  “Find buckets and barrels, people. Take your entrenching tools and fill them up with dirt. Ham, check out those pumps over there. See if the tanks still hold fuel. We’ll saturate the dirt with jet fuel and set them around the outside of the hangar. Ignite them when the creatures come at us tonight. And you can bet they damn sure will. Let’s go, people!”

  “Eagle One to Shark,” Ben spoke into the mic.

  “Shark here.”

  “What’s wrong with Tina, Ike?”

  “Don’t know, Ben. I’m about a hundred and twenty-five miles south of Memphis. Been trying to reach her for an hour. No response.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Ben cursed.

  “You want me to pour on the juice and try to find her?”

  Ben then made the decision that separated him from the others, placing him in that lonely position of commander. “No, Ike. Tina knew the risks when she volunteered. Your job is to get to New York City. I’ll try to contact her with our equipment here. I’ll get back to you. Eagle One out.”

  “Shark out.”

  Ike looked at his XO. Broadhurst shook his head. “That’s one hard man, general.”

  “Most good soldiers are.” Ike’s reply was curt but not unfriendly. “It goes with the territory.”

  “Eagle One to Big Apple Scout. Do you read me, Big Apple Scout?”

  “Relax, Eagle One.” Tina’s voice came through the speaker. “I’ve been listening to you and Shark growl.”

  “Don’t get smart-assed with me, girl!” Ben said with a grin, as relief flooded him. “What’s the problem at your twenty?”

  “Night People, and from what we’ve seen so far, Memphis is filled with them. We’re holed up at the airport.”

  “Which one?”

  “Big one just south of the Two-forty loop.”

  “How’s your position?”

  “Pretty good, I believe. It better be, ’cause we’re sure socked in here for the night, and I got a hunch it’s gonna get interesting.”

  “You still have about a half hour of light left. Have your people work in pairs and check for portable generators. Place should have plenty of them, especially in the hangars. Then find the plug for the outside floodlights. You ten four this?”

  “Thanks, Eagle. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Stay in contact. Eagle One out.”

  “Whut you gonna do ’bout Billy Bob’s talkin’ agin you, Pa?” Jimmy Luther asked his father.

  “I don’t know. Nothin’ yet. Give him time. He’ll screw up big the next time. Bet on it.”

  “And then, Pa?”

  “You know what the code says, boy. Same as I do.”

  His son nodded his head. “I don’t lak my new house. Wife does, though. She’s all thrilled with it.”

  “Wimmin would be. They aint got no sense no how. If it wasn’t for what they got ’tween their legs, we be huntin’ them lak deer. We ain’t gonna raise no fuss just yet. Play along with Raines, you hear?”

  “Yes, Daddy. Uh, Daddy? . . .”

  “Whut it is?”

  “Precious was makin’ eyes at one of them soldier-boys today. I seen her.”

  “I’ll take a strop to her ass! My little baby Precious Thrill ain’ gonna get in-volved with no nigger-lovin’ soldier-boy. You see her doin’ that agin, you come tell me, you hear, Jimmy Luther?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “An tell the others to watch Billy Bob. Ah thank he’s all tooken with Ben Raines’s big words and highfalutin’ ways.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “I hate that goddamned Ben Raines!”

  At full dark, the Night People began to circle the hangar, moaning and filling the air with promises of dark and bloody torture. Inside, Tina had gone her dad one better. She’d had her team run three strands of wire completely around the building, ankle to chest high, securing it with insulators taken from light poles and other hangars.

  The teams had found three portable generators, and Ham had connected them together and then grinned up at Tina.

  “When they hit those naked wires, Tina, it’s gonna be the last time for some of them.”

  “What do you mean, ‘some of them’?”

  “Enough of them grab it, it’ll short out, probably. But not before it does a hell of a lot of damage.”

  “We save the wires for last,” she ordered. “This building is metal; it isn’t going to burn. We’ve got enough firepower among us to stand off one hell of a crowd. If it comes to it, we can bust out and take our chances outside. But that is really a last resort.”

  “’Course there is something else you’d better know, too,” Ham said.

  “I don’t like the sound of this.” Tina tried a small smile.

  “These are big-assed generators. They just might throw enough juice to melt those wires we strung up.”

  “Thanks, Ham. But I could have done without that knowledge.”

  “We can always try prayer,” he suggested.

  “Believe me,” Sharon said, “I have!”

  Then came the sound that chilled them all, cooling the blood and raising the hair on the back of their necks, making rational human flesh feel like it was crawling.

  “Die . . . Die . . . Die . . . Die!”

  The chanting was accompanied by the sounds of hundreds of marching feet.

  “Snipers up on the scaffolding,” Tina ordered. “Everybody else take your positions and stand hard.”

  The Rebels moved to preassigned posts. They waited.

  The chanting became louder.

  “Sweet Jesus Christ!” a sniper muttered.

  “What do you see?” Tina called from the hangar floor.

  “Hundreds of them. One great big human wave of robed and hooded . . . whatever the hell they are.”

  “Pick your targets and fire!” Tina ordered.

  The hangar echoed and rocked with the sounds of .223, .308, .50, and .60 caliber ammo. The din was enormous inside the metal building.

  Outside, the howling and crying of wounded was harsh in the night air. The first wave of Night People never even got close to the hangar. Those that had tried now lay in bloody heaps on the concrete, several hundred yards from the hangar. Those still alive had run back into the dark safety of the night.

  “Cease firing!” Tina called. She walked the hangar floor, going to each position, chatting briefly with the Rebel stationed there. No one had been hurt by the Night People, although a couple of arrows had managed to penetrate the broken windows of the hangar.

  “How far away is the nearest group?” Tina called to a Rebel on the scaffolding.

  “’Bout three hundred meters. Pretty good bunch of them.”

  “Ham, set up a mortar just outside the door and lob a couple of HEs into that knot of garbage. That might shake up their little world.” She looked up at the Rebel on the scaffolding. “Give me coordinates.”

  The klicks were called out as Ham adjusted the leveling bubble. “Drop one in,” he ordered.

  The rocket slid down the tube. The high-explosive round rocked the night.

  The spotter called down adjustments.

  The second HE dropped right in the middle of the Night People, hurling bodies and pieces of bodies in all directions.

  “Now start dropping in white phosphorous,” Tina ordered. She stood just outside a small hangar door.

  The WP rounds were cranked out as fast as could be dropped down the tube. The WP sparked the night, the burning shards igniting the clothing of the Night People, burning deep into flesh, sending the Night People screaming and squalling and running off in search of relief.

  But there was no relief from WP; the shards would burn all the way through bone.

  “Cease firing!” Tina said. “Back inside, Ham. That should give us some breathing room.”

  An hour passed in near silence. The Night Peo
ple, up to this point, had been accustomed to dealing with civilians, without any effective organization, training, or leadership. This band of Night People had never before encountered anything like the Rebels.

  Tina accepted a hand-rolled cigarette from Ham. The tobacco, years old and dry, was harsh against her throat. Like her father, she smoked but three or four cigarettes a day; she felt that she might add to that before this night was over.

  The generators were rumbling, the racket reverberating around the hangar. Ham had not yet connected the insulated wire that was hooked into the naked wires around the hangar.

  “Here they come,” a Rebel called in a hoarse whisper. “They’re crawling on their bellies.”

  She felt Ham’s eyes on her. “This time, we give them a taste of the wires.”

  He grinned in the gloom and nodded his head.

  “Light rain outside,” Pam called.

  “That’s even better,” Ham said with a laugh. “They’ll be wet when they hit the wire. Get ready for some fireworks.”

  “Get your welcoming cocktails ready,” Tina called.

  The Rebels had gathered up boxes of empty bottles and filled them with gasoline, stuffing rags down the necks of the bottles.

  “I wish we had some flour,” a Scout bitched.

  “Yeah.”

  Flour added to the gasoline sticks when the cocktail blows, burning into flesh.

  “They’re close!” the spotter whispered. “They’ve got spears.”

  “Hit the juice, Ham.”

  Ham connected the wire and quickly ran around the inside of the hanger, briefly glancing out the broken windows, inspecting the wires. “They’re holding.”

  “They’re here!” a Rebel called softly.

  A wild, hideous shrieking filled the night; more screaming was added as other Night People hit the naked voltage-charged wires around the hangar. Inhuman howlings filled the misty darkness as the juice was transmitted throughout damp bodies. The hangar was completely ringed by Night People.

  “Give them everything you got!” Tina yelled, jerking her M-16 to her shoulder and squeezing off three-round bursts.

  Molotov cocktails were hurled into the mass of stinking, hate-filled Night People. The burning rags hit stinking human rags and burst into flames. Once-human beings were turned into living torches, racing shrieking into the dark mist, briefly illuminating the night before falling to the concrete to lie kicking and howling as the flames ate the life from them.

  Ham cut the juice to save the wires as the Night People began falling back. But this time, they were running away with a finality to their movements. They had had enough of the little band of Rebels. What had first looked so easy had turned into a death trap for them.

  “Cease firing!” Tina called. She watched the misshapen and grotesque forms vanish into the gloom. “They’ve had it.”

  She walked to her Jeep and pulled out a food packet and a canteen of water. “Eat in shifts,” she called. “Then we’ll set up a guard schedule. We’re pulling out at first light.”

  “Big Apple Scout to Shark,” Tina radioed.

  “Shark.”

  “What’s your twenty, Shark? You sound awfully close.”

  “Hernando.”

  “Come on. We’re just now clearing the last blockade. Try to ignore the buzzards around the airport.”

  “Ten-four. Be there in a few and then you can fill me in.”

  The Rebels in Ike’s command looked at the circling and bloated buzzards as they passed the airport.

  “Looks like they counted coup last night,” Ike said to his driver.

  “Sure does. Look over there.” He pointed. “That buzzard’s so full he can’t even get off the ground.”

  They watched until they were past the point. The buzzard had given up trying to fly. He simply sat like an ugly blot, too bloated on human flesh to rise.

  Tina’s scouts were waiting for them on Interstate 40, just off the exit where the artery cut east. Ike halted his column and walked up to Tina.

  “Fill me in, Tina.”

  She gave her report quietly and quickly.

  “We’re going to be doing this with every city we come to,” Ike said. “And if I remember correctly, Nashville is a bitch to get through. But we’ve got to secure the Nashville airport for planes. Let’s try to make it to just west of Nashville today, Tina. We’ll bivouac outside the city and hit the airport at first light tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir. Rolling now.”

  When Tina’s team had pulled out, Ike radioed back to Base Camp One and brought Ben up to date.

  “How’s things with you and the rednecks, Ben?”

  “Tense. Dan left some of his personnel down in that area and the folks resent the hell out their presence. It’s only a matter of time before we’re going to have to go in and kick ass.”

  “Any word from Khamsin?”

  “From what we’ve been able to decode, Khamsin has his hands full. The citizens over there have risen up in revolt. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the Libyan for a long time. Least I hope we don’t.”

  “I’ll check in with you just as soon as we make camp this evening, Ben. Shark out.”

  Ike walked the long column, inspecting the Jeeps and trucks. There hadn’t been a vehicle of any type manufactured anywhere in the world in almost a decade and a half, and special care was given to Rebel vehicles. Wherever the Rebels went, parts trucks went along, with skilled mechanics accompanying. Something was always breaking down.

  Ike spoke to every driver, every Rebel who met him during inspection. These men and women were Ike’s special team. There were few among them who could be called young. Most were in their thirties and forties. They were all hardened combat veterans, survivors of half a hundred battles. Whatever weapon they handled, machine gun, mortar, rocket launcher, flame thrower, rifle . . . they were all experts. And they would stand to the last person. Most of the men had been in the U.S. military — years back — all in some hard-assed outfit. And the women were all highly trained guerrilla fighters, informal graduates of Raines’s Rebel training courses.

  “Hey, General Ike!” a man called. “When are we gonna see some action? Boring so far.”

  That was met by a laugh from all within hearing range.

  “You’ll get your chance, Lutty,” Ike called. “Keep your pants on.”

  “He better,” a woman laughed. “I didn’t come along for romance.”

  “You think New York City is still there, Ike?” a man with a Bronx accent called. “I sure would like to see my old neighborhood.”

  “If it is, Simon,” Ike answered, “it’s probably got rats as big as cats runnin’ around.”

  “That’d be a definite improvement. Had rats as big as dogs when I lived there!”

  More laughter.

  “How you doin’, Dana?” Ike asked a woman who sat behind the wheel of a pickup.

  “Hangin’ in, general.”

  Ike walked on. “Walt.” He spoke to a black man. “You know we’re gonna have to skirt Baltimore.”

  “I know, general. I just want to get close enough to see if anything is standing.”

  He had lost every member of his family when the bombs came.

  “Lee,” Ike spoke to an oriental man. “That’s a hell of a big truck for someone as little as you are,” he kidded him.

  “I lowered the seat and put blocks on the pedals,” Lee grinned at him.

  Ike laughed and walked on, cradling his CAR-15. At the end of the long column, he waved for his driver to come pick him up.

  His Jeep drove slowly back up to the front of the column, with Ike yelling out every few feet, “We’re gonna push ’em hard, people. Heads up and stay alert.”

  At the head of the column, Ike balled his right hand into a fist and pumped his arm up and down. “Let’s go!”

  SEVEN

  “You got anything to say to me?” Ben asked Dr. Lamar Chase.

  Chase had marched into his office and plopped dow
n without a word. Sat and glared at Ben.

  “Ben, I am a tolerant man, you know that.”

  Ben laughed out loud.

  “Just button your lip, Raines! Well . . . I’m usually a tolerant man.”

  “That’s better.”

  “My doctors just finished with their report on that . . . freak show we conducted.”

  “You’re speaking of the physicals on the people from the Stanford Community.”

  “Of course. It isn’t time for your physical yet.”

  Ben smiled at the crusty old bastard.

  “It came as a surprise to me, but the kids are not malnourished. Their diet could probably stand some variance. But by and large I found no problems there that can’t be corrected. It’s . . . the physical abuse that’s bothering me.”

  “What the hell did you expect, Lamar? You saw the caliber of parents.”

  “You do then agree that children of abusive parents usually grow up to abuse their own?”

  “I’m going to surprise you, doctor . . . yes, I do believe that, for the most part.”

  “My God, Raines!” Chase feigned great shock. “There’s hope for you yet. I can see it now: Ben Raines for President, on the Liberal ticket.”

  Ben waited until Chase finished hooing and hawing and slapping his knee. Get one over on the general . . . and Chase was good at it.

  “What do you want me to do about it, Lamar?”

  The doctor rose from his chair and poured a glass of water, then walked around the room, taking an occasional sip. He sat back down and looked at Ben. “Now I’m going to surprise you, Ben. What I am going to suggest is very Orwellian, and very out of character for me.”

  “You want me to physically take the kids and move them into Rebel families, right, Lamar?”

  “Sometimes you spook me, Ben. I’m beginning to believe there might be some truth to those rumors about you.”

  “Horseshit!”

  For years, beginning shortly after the Great War, rumors had persisted, then grown all out of proportion, about Ben Raines’s being some sort of God. There were tribes of people in the deep timber and in the mountains and underground — those called the Underground People — who actively worshipped Ben Raines. Erected carved statues of him.