William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

Huge truck patches were started, for home-canning later on. Fields were broken, plowed, and cotton and corn and wheat planted.

And life took on some degree of normalcy.

And as before, Ben watched and guided and oversaw each operation. He told Steve Mailer and Judith Sparkman to get the schools open and get the kids in classrooms. He wanted schools to be ready to go by September, and don’t give him any excuses why it couldn’t be done. Just do it. Beginning with this school year, 2000/2001, a high school education would be the minimum allowed. Read. And make it enjoyable for the kids.

Classrooms would not be filled to overflowing; the children would be given all the attention they needed. Books would be in every home. Every home. And they will be used. This upcoming generation will be the make-or-break generation for the future of this nation. Do it right. Teach values and ethics and honesty.

And teach the kids to love reading.

That can be done if you use patience and go slowly. And we are in no hurry. Remember this: do it right the first time, and you’ll never need to do it over.

His people followed his directions to the letter. But Ben sensed and saw something was gone from the spirit of the survivors. Not all of them, to be sure, but enough of them to worry him. It was not that they were openly rebellious to his wishes; none of them would even dream of doing that. It was much more subtle.

A slight dragging of feet in some areas. Especially education and religion. The former worried him; the latter disturbed him.

He decided he was perhaps pushing them too hard, and Ben eased off. He would let the people find their own way, set their own pace.

But he knew in his guts what the outcome would be. And he made up his mind that when he witnessed it in any tangible form, he was leaving. He would take no part in the downfall of civilization.

One by one the frequencies on the radios of the Rebels went dead. It appeared—although most knew it was not so—that they were the last humans on earth.

Ben had stepped into the communications shack and was idly spinning the dial when a voice sprang from the speakers.

“It appears to be over,” the male voice sprang somewhat muffled from the speakers on the wall. “At least in this area. Thank God. So far as I know, we are the only ones left alive at this base. Five of us. We barricaded ourselves in a concrete block building that was once used to house some type of radioactive materials, I guess. Anyway, the rats and those other things couldn’t get at us. But we had to use the gas masks when we came out. The stench is horrible. There must be millions of dead rats rotting in the sun. I don’t know what killed them.

“I was afraid of fleas getting on us, so I had my men put on radiation suits. But the fleas are dead, too. Little bastards crunch under your feet. And the rats?—God! It’s like they did what those… what are the animals that get together and march to the sea every so often? Lemmings. Yeah, that’s it. Seems like every rat in the state of Texas is right outside our door. But at least, by God, they’re dead. I’ve tried contacting every base I know of. No luck. Anybody out there?”

Ben and his people waited. Someone many thousands of miles away, or with very weak equipment responded. The words were not understandable.

“Say again, buddy,” the Texas man asked. “I can’t understand you.”

But there was no response.

“Get him on the horn,” Ben told the radio operator.

“President Raines?” the Texas man said, startled.

“Ex-president,” Ben said. “What do you know about the situation in this nation worldwide?”

“Sir? If this is General Raines, the Rebels, man, I’m on your side. Always have been. I drew thirty-days stockade time last year for refusing to divulge your frequency location when I stumbled on it one night. You were… 38.7, I believe, coming out of Montana.”

Ben laughed. “Okay, soldier, I believe you. What’s your name?”

“Sergeant Buck Osgood, sir. Air Force.”

“You have any casualty reports, Buck?”

“Sir, this base was untouched until ‘bout a month ago. We all had the proper medicines when it first broke last year, late. I don’t know what happened; why the medicines stopped working. Maybe they wore off. I don’t know. What I do know is there ain’t anybody left. Nobody is responding to my calls. We been in this concrete block building for over a week, going from one frequency to another, tryin’ every base. Nothing. It’s got to be bad, sir. My guys are gettin’ edgy.”

“All right, Buck. Here’s what I want you boys to do…”

After instructing Buck and his men where the Rebels were, and to come on, Ben walked out of the shack and toward a stand of very thick timber. He wanted to think; wanted to be alone for a time. More and more of late, since leaving Idaho, he had sought solitude.

A young woman’s screaming jerked his head up. Ben sprinted for the timber, toward the source of the frightened screaming.

He reached the edge of the timber and came to a sliding stop, his mouth open in shock.

It was a man. But like no man Ben had ever seen. It was huge, with mottled skin and huge clawed hands. The shoulders and arms were monstrously powerful-appearing. The eyes and nose were human, the jaw was animal. The ears were perfectly formed human. The teeth were fanged, the lips were human. The eyes were blue.

Ben was behind the hysterical young woman—about fourteen years old—the child of a Rebel couple. She was between Ben and the… whatever in the hell it was.

The creature towered over the girl. Ben guessed it to be about seven feet tall.

Ben clawed his .45 from leather just as the creature lunged for the girl. She was very quick, fear making her strong and agile. Ben got off one quick shot, the big slug hitting the mutant in the shoulder. It screamed in pain and spun around, facing Ben. Ben guessed the thing weighed around 300 pounds. All mad.

Ben emptied his pistol into the manlike creature, staggering it, but not downing it. The girl, now frightened mindless, ran into its path. Ben picked up a rock and hurled it, hitting the beast (Ben didn’t know what else to call it) in the head, again making it forget the girl. It spun and screamed at Ben. Its chest and belly were leaking blood. Blood poured from the wound in its shoulder.

Ben sidestepped the clumsy charge and pulled his Bowie knife from its sheath. With the creature’s back momentarily to him, Ben jumped up on a stump for leverage and brought the heavy blade down as hard as he could on the creature’s head. The blade ripped through skull bone and brain, driving the beast to its knees, dying. Ben worked the blade out and, using both hands, brought the blade down on the back of the creature’s head, decapitating it. The ugly, deformed head rolled on the grass, its eyes wide-open in shocked death.

Ben wiped the Bowie clean on the grass and replaced it in leather. He walked to the young woman and put his arms around her.

“It’s all over now, honey,” he said, calming her, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s all right, now. You go on and find your mother.”

A young boy stood a distance away, holding hands with his sister. Both of them were open-mouthed in awe. “Wow!” he said. “He is a god. He can’t be killed.”

“He fought a giant and beat it,” his sister said. “Just wait ‘til I tell Cindy over in Dog Company about this.”

By now, many Rebels had gathered around. They stood in silence, looking at the beast with some fear in their eyes; looking at Ben with a mixture of awe and fear and respect and reverence.

Ben looked at the silent gathering crowd. “You see,” he told them. “Your boogyman can be killed. Just be careful, travel in pairs, and go armed.” He smiled faintly. “Just like should have been ordered in New York’s Central Park thirty years ago.”