William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

“What about your children?” Ben asked. “Damn it, short-stuff, this is what I’ve been trying to hammer into people’s heads. You people are make-or-break for civilization. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

He stopped the truck in a part of the city that appeared to be relatively free of dead rodents. They got out and walked.

“So I and my niños can learn to make atomic bombs and again blow up the world, Ben? So we can read the formulas for making killing germs? I…”

“Heads up, General!” A Rebel called. “To your left.”

Ben and Rosita turned. Ben heard her sharp intake of breath.

"Dios mio!" she hissed.

The man approaching them, angling across the littered street was the man in her dreams. Bearded and robed and carrying a long staff.

He stopped in the middle of the street, and Ben looked into the wildest eyes he had ever witnessed.

And the thought came to him, the oldest.

“My God,” someone said. “It’s Moses.”

A small patrol started toward the man. He held up a warning hand. “Stay away, ye soldiers of a false god.”

“It is Moses,” a woman muttered.

Ben continued to stare at the man. And be stared at in return.

“I hope not,” Ben said, only half in jest. Something about the man was disturbing. “Are you all right?” he called to the robed man. “We have food we’ll share with you.”

“I want nothing from you.” The man stabbed a long staff against the broken concrete of the street. He swung his dark piercing eyes to the Rebels gathering around Ben. “Your worshipping of a false god is offensive.” He turned and walked away.

Rosita stood in mild shock.

“I tell y’all what,” a Rebel said. “This place is beginning to spook me. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The sounds of gunfire spun them around. A radio mounted on a Jeep began crackling. “Echo One to Recon.”

“This is recon,” the driver said. “Go ahead.”

Explosions sent clouds of dust in the air, the blasts coming from a building several blocks away.

“…pocket of mutants,” the radio crackled. “We got them. Y’all better get hold of the general; he’ll want to see this.”

“A family of them?” Ben asked. “A unit?”

“Right in there, sir,” the Rebel pointed to the still-smoking basement area. “We didn’t start it, sir,” the young man said. “We spotted one of ‘em and saw where it ran. Then we pulled our vehicles across the street and called for ‘em to come out.” He held up a crudely made spear with a knife attached to the end of it. He showed Ben an arrow, with a piece of chipped stone as the point. “After we got these, we opened fire.”

Ben nodded. But his mind was racing. Is this what we have come to? he silently questioned. After walking on the moon and all our high-technology and life-saving medical advances… is this it? Are we really going back to the caves or is there still enough fire in the ashes to rekindle the flame of advancement?

He sighed. “All right. Let’s take a look.”

James Riverson stepped in front of Ben. “I’ll go first,” he said.

Ben looked at Rosita. Her face was pale and her hands were shaky.

From what? Ben wondered.

They made their approach cautiously; but their prudence was unnecessary. The gunfire and grenades had killed the basement apartment of mutants. All but one.

“It’s a baby,” a woman said. She looked closer. “At least I think it’s a baby.”

The deformed infant hissed and snapped at the humans.

“Watch those teeth,” Ben warned. “There is enough in that mouth for a piranha.”

When a Rebel reached down to take the infant, he jerked back his hand just a split second before the flashing teeth would have closed on his hand.

“What the hell do we do with it?” someone asked.

No one knew, and no one would suggest what was on everybody’s mind. No one except Ben.

“No,” he said. They all turned, looking at him. “It’s just a baby—I think. Doesn’t make any difference what kind of baby. Unless and until we see it presents some clear danger, it lives.”

The object—no one would venture a guess as to its age—was grotesquely ugly, hideously deformed. A huge head with jutting animal-like lower jaw, fanged teeth, hairy body, human hands and feet. Blond hair, blue eyes.

“It’s kinda cute,” Jane Dolbeau said. Another survivor from the assault against Tri-States, the Canadian had been quietly and passionately in love with Ben for years. Everybody knew it. Everyone except for Ben.

“So is a Tasmanian devil,” Ben said. “But I don’t want one for a pet. Get a medic to knock it out with drugs. We’ll take it back to Chase.”

“Here comes nutsy,” a Rebel said.

“Who?” Ben looked up.

“Moses,” James said. “Some nut with a robe and staff.”

“No jug of wine and loaf of bread?” Ike grinned.

They all groaned at that.

The robed man appeared at the shattered door. He pointed his staff at the mutant. “Look at it,” he spoke quietly. “See what happens when God’s word is abused and scorned.”

“Who the hell are you?” Ben asked. “And what the hell are you?”

“I am what you see before you. I am called The Prophet.”

“And I’m Johnny Carson,” a Rebel muttered.

The robed and bearded man pointed his staff at Ben. “Your life will be long and strife-filled. You will sire many children, and in the end, none of your dreams will become reality. I have spoken with God, and He has sent me to tell you these things. You are as He to your people, and soon—in your measurement of time—many more will come to believe it. But recall His words: No false gods before me.” The old man’s eyes seemed to burn into Ben’s head. “It will not be your fault, but it will lie on your head.”

He turned away, walking out into the street.

The Rebels stood in silence for a full moment; no one knew what to say.

A Rebel stuck his head inside the shattered door. “Sure is quiet in here,” he said.

“What did you make of nutsy?” he was asked.

“Who?”

“The old guy with the robes and staff and beard.”

“I didn’t see anyone like that.”

“Well, where the hell have you been?”

“I been sittin’ outside in that damn Jeep ever since you people came in here. There ain’t been no old man wearing robes come near here. What have you people been doin’, smokin’ some old left-handed cigarettes?”

“Knock it off,” Ben said. “You people call for the medic and sedate that kid. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Sergeant Buck Osgood and his men finally pulled in, and Ben asked what in the hell had taken them so long?

“I went back to my home in Arizona, General.” He gestured to the other men. “All of us are from the same area. We went back to find our folks.” He shrugged. “We buried them. Some old guy came along and spoke the right words over the grave.”

“Old guy?” Ben felt his guts tie up in knots.

“Yeah,” Buck said, lighting a cigarette. “Weird old guy. I think he must of been about half-cracked. Called himself The Prophet. Wore long robes and carried a big stick; like a shepherd from out of biblical times.”

Ben toyed with a pencil. “When did you see him, Buck?”

“Ah… last week.”

“In Arizona?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What date, Buck?”

“Ah… the ninth, sir.”

“Time, approximately?”

“’Bout noon, I reckon.”

“That’s the same date and time I saw him.”

“You were in Arizona on the ninth, sir?”

Ben looked the man in the eyes. “No, Buck. I was in Little Rock.”