William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“Wonderful, Ben,” he muttered. “Marvelous presence of mind.”

He found batteries for the radio and turned it on, spinning the dial slowly, working first one band, then another. Sweat broke out on his face as he heard a voice spring from the speakers.

The voice spoke in French for a time, then switched to German, finally to English. “We pieced together the whole story.” The voice spoke slowly. “Finally. Russian pilot told us this is what happened—from his side of the pond, that is. They—the Russians—had developed some sort of virus that would kill humans, but not harm animals or plant life or water. Did this about three years ago. Were going to use it against us this fall. Easy to figure why. Then they learned of the double cross. The Stealth-equipped sub. That shot their plans of an easy takeover all to hell. Everything became all confused. If we had tried to talk to them, or they with us, or the Chinese, maybe all this could have been prevented. Maybe not. Too late now. Some survivors worldwide. Have talked with some of them. Millions dead. Don’t know how many. Over a billion, probably. Maybe more. Ham operators working. It’s bad. God in heaven—it’s bad.”

The message was repeated, over and over, in four languages.

“Goddamned tape recording!” Ben cursed. But he felt a little better. At least he knew what had happened. Sort of. But some of the message confused him: that part about “easy to figure why.”

A snarling brought him to his feet, the .45 in his hand. A pack of dogs stood a few yards from him, and they were not at all friendly.

Ben leaped for the hood of his truck just as a large German shepherd lunged for him, fangs bared. He scrambled for the roof of the cab as the dog leaped onto the hood. Ben shot it in the head, the force of the heavy slug slamming the animal backward.

The dogs remembered gunfire. They ran down the street, stopped on the corner, and turned around, snarling and barking at the man atop the cab of his truck. Ben emptied the .45 into the pack, knocking several of them spinning. The rest ran away. Ben slapped a fresh clip in the .45 and climbed down. Shaken, he stood for a moment waiting for the trembles to leave him. He looked around him, carefully.

“From now on, Ben,” he said aloud. “That Thompson becomes a part of you. Just like your arm.”

He picked up the radio and got in his truck. “All I need is rabies,” he said. “I live through a worldwide catastrophe and a fucking dog does me in.”

He held out his hands; they were calm. He knew he must search for survivors in the town, and he was not looking forward to that.

He began driving the streets of town, discovering the bodies. A great number of people had gathered at friends’ homes; many houses contained fifteen or more dead. He went to his closest friend’s house, steeling himself as he drove. His friend was dead, as were his wife and kids. It appeared Ben was alone in the town.

He drove back to the sheriff’s office and picked up a gas mask. The day was warming, and he figured the smell could only worsen.

At a paper-vending machine, Ben picked up a paper, smiling as he automatically inserted the money into the machine. The paper was ten days old, about the time he had been stung. He stood for a time reading, then remembered the packs of dogs and walked quickly back to his truck.

There had been a news blackout, and the paper didn’t tell him much. War was imminent; that was about it. He did not know how many cities were destroyed, or whether it had been done by nuclear warheads or germs. He tossed the paper into the littered street, then instinctively looked around to see if a cop had seen him do it.

He shook his head sadly and started the truck. He touched the Thompson on the seat beside him. He would search every street in Morriston, then head out into the parish. Someone was alive… somewhere, and Ben intended to find that person.

But he could find no one alive in the town. And the dogs were getting vicious and much braver.

“A virus that kills humans, but not animals,” Ben mused. He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Sure!” he said, ashamed of himself for his stupidity. The tape had said, “Easy to figure why.” And it was. Just walk right in and take over the country, void of humans, but with the livestock fat, healthy, and happy, munching away. An instant food source for the conquering army. But that army would have to move fast….

Ben smiled grimly as his writer’s mind began humming.

Not if they moved from within.

He wondered how long the plan had been in the works? How many people—if his theory was correct, and he would probably never know—in this country had been recruited. Hundreds, at least—perhaps thousands. Paratroopers would be standing by, ready to go in, crush any pockets of resistance. With a crash course in agronomy, they could keep the livestock and the land in good shape until the farmers arrived. Which would not have taken long.

Instant victory with a minimum of bloodshed. For them.

But it backfired. Ben wondered how many double crosses were involved. He wondered if he would ever know, and decided he would not.

His mind began racing—what a tale this would have made.

“Bastards!” he said.

Then he saw her.

He braked the truck, stopped, and cursed.

Of all the people in the world the good Lord chose to save… why this bitch?

And he was not in the least ashamed of his thoughts.

Ben got out of the truck and gave her a mock bow, clicking his heels together, Prussian-style. “Why, good morning, Mrs. Piper,” he said acidly. “What a surprise seeing you. Not a pleasure, but a surprise, and I mean that sincerely.”

Even under the present circumstances, the look he received was one of intense dislike.

“Mr. Raines,” she said, with as much acid in her voice as there had been in his. “You’re armed! I was under the assumption pistols had been outlawed some time ago.”

Fran Piper looked as though she had just that moment stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine: every dark hair in place, fashion jeans snugly outlining her charms—which were many. Fashion shirt—cowgirl, uptown-neat, all the snaps snapped.

“Yes, ma’am. Pistols were outlawed some years ago—three, I believe. Thanks to Hilton Logan and his bunch of misguided liberals. But be that as it may, ma’am. Here I am, Ben Raines, at your service. That trashy Yankee writer of all those filthy violent fuck books, come to save your aristocratic ass from gettin’ pronged by all the slobbering rednecks that must surely be prowlin’ around the parish, just a-lustin’ for a crack at you. Ma’am.”

“Raines,” she said, her eyes flashing, “you just have to be the most despicable human being I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. And if that was supposed to be Rhett Butler, you certainly missed the boat.”

“Paddle-wheel, I’m sure.” He smiled.

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Actually…” Ben looked around him. No dogs in sight. “That was Claude Raines. He was my uncle.”

She patted her perfect hair. “Claude Raines, the actor, was your uncle? Why, you never told us….” Then she saw his smile and knew he was kidding her. “You bastard!”

Their mutual hatred went back more than a decade. Midwesterners are difficult people to impress, and so inherited money does not impress most rural midwesterners—not those with any sense. Fran Lantier Piper had piles of money stacked all around her… from both sides of her family, and the family she had married into, but in the past hundred years neither she nor anyone related to her had worked for a penny of it.

Ben’s fifth novel—and he had received a little movie money from that one—had been about spoiled southern brats and inherited money and arrogance. Fran had told him—at a chance meeting at the public library (it came as a shock to Ben to discover she even knew how to read)—that she thought he should be run out of town for writing such nasty filthy lies about good decent gentle people.