William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

Ben had laughed at her.

Furious, she had raced home and told her big brother, Lance, a local football hero, all about her encounter with that Yankee ruffian, embellishing the story substantially, with much batting of eyes and no small amount of tears and posturing. Lance had telephoned Ben, telling him he should be prepared to fight.

Ben had broken up with laughter. “You’re really going to defend her honor?”

“I’m a-goin’ to stomp you,” Lance had drawled.

When Lance got out of the hospital, after a short stay in ICU, the Lantier family had tried—in the best southern tradition—to have Ben run out of town. Ben had weathered the short but furious storm of emotions and the situation had cooled over the years. But bad blood remained.

“You look puurrfectly chaarrmin’ today, Miss Fran.” Ben laid on enough syrup to drown a cat. He leaned against his truck. “Out for a little stroll among the bodies?”

“Your humor is gruesome, Raines.”

“Well,”—Ben opened the door to the truck—“I guess I’ll be seeing you, baby.”

“Wait!” she screamed at him. “You can’t leave me out here.”

Ben looked at her. “Why the hell not? You don’t care for my company and I sure as hell don’t want to listen to you bitch all day.”

“Because… because…” She looked at him, sensing he meant every word she had just heard. And he certainly did. “What kind of man are you?”

“The kind of man who doesn’t like spoiled brats who run home and tell lies about people. Does that ring a bell, Fran?”

“Well… you beat him up, didn’t you? Probably fought dirty, though.”

“Fran?”

“What?”

“Fuck you!”

Tears began rolling down her cheeks. Whether they were real or staged for his benefit, Ben wasn’t sure. But he closed the door to the pickup and waited, figuring the next few moments should be interesting… at least. He glanced around for dogs. None in sight.

“My husband is dead, in that house,” she pointed to a mansion across the road. Ben reminded her that just down the road two elderly people had died when they could not afford to pay their electric bill and the power company had cut off their electricity. They had died of exposure.

She shook her head. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“They also had nothing to eat in the house, Fran. They were your neighbors.”

“ Those people? My neighbors?”

“Skip it, Fran. People like you never understand.”

“Why didn’t you help them if you’re such a charitable person?”

“I didn’t know anything about their condition.”

Again, she shook her head. “I don’t know if my sister is alive, or not. She went to New Orleans the day… whatever happened happened. My mother and father are dead. I don’t know where Lance is—”

“And I don’t give a shit where he is,” Ben told her, and meant it.

“…And you’re not making this easy for me!” she screamed at him.

“Why should I?” Ben looked at her. “I just don’t like people of your ilk. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand out in the middle of a road and discuss it with you.”

She stamped her foot. “Well… at least take me into Natchez. I have friends there. I’m… well… I’m afraid to go alone, Ben.”

“Take you into Natchez?” Ben fell against the truck and laughed. “Are you serious, Fran?”

“Perfectly.” Her chin came up haughtily.

“Fran, don’t you know what has happened?”

“No. There is nothing on the television or radio. But it was something of a disaster, I should imagine.”

“And it’s all going to get better in a little while?”

“Certainly. The government will come in and straighten everything out.”

Big Brother will take care of me. “Fran, instead of Natchez, would you like me to take you to Tara?”

“There you go again, being flip.”

She really doesn’t know, Ben thought, looking at her. She is a beautiful woman, though. Poor little insulated rich girl doesn’t have an inkling of what happened. He reached into the truck and took out the world-band radio.

“Fran, listen to this. Try to understand what has happened.” He turned on the radio, preset on the distant ham band, and he watched her face as the tape changed to English.

“I… I don’t understand,” she finally said, her face white with shock.

“It means, Fran, that civilization, as we know it, is probably over for a time. Millions, a couple of billion, dead. As for Natchez, forget it. Forget it all, honey.” His voice took on a harsher tone. “It’s over. If there are only two people left alive in this parish—using that as a comparison—two out of fifteen thousand. That’s…” He did some quick mental math. “Say, 125 people out of every million left alive in the world. Now the figure is probably higher than that, alive, I mean, but that’s still pretty grim statistics.” And, he thought, what if this stuff has affected the minds of some—and, perhaps, their bodies? Mutants? Possible. Greatest story I could ever write and no one around to read it.

Shit!

“You’re serious, Ben?” Big eyes wide. Pretty eyes.

“I consider death to be very serious, Fran.”

“Well… exactly, what does this mean?”

“It means,” Ben said slowly, “that you’re stuck with me, and I suppose I’m stuck with you.”

“Oh, Lord!” she said, then rolled her eyes and fainted.

Ben caught her just before she cracked her head on the blacktop.

“What a marvelous way to start a relationship,” he muttered.

She opened her blue eyes and looked at him as they rolled along the parish road. “Where are you taking me?”

“Where would you like to go, Miss Fran?”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Then shut up and help me look until you decide. And open your eyes. Look for people—alive. There’s got to be some in this parish.”

“All the wrong sort, I’m sure.”

You may be correct there, Ben thought. “Just look, baby, and keep your social comments to yourself.”

“What is that big ugly thing?”

Ben looked down to see if his fly was open.

“This!” She touched the Thompson.

“It’s a submachine gun.”

She looked at Ben, looked at the SMG, rolled her eyes, then looked out the window, her side of the truck. She shook her head.

“It’s real, Fran. I assure you of that.”

“I’m beginning to believe, Ben. Look. There’s smoke coming from that house over there.” She pointed, saying it with about as much interest as if she were discussing the price of kumquats in the supermarket.

The day was cool, temperature in the low sixties. But not cool enough for a fire, Ben reckoned. He pulled into the drive and looked for dogs. None. “Stay in the truck,” he told Fran.

“I most certainly will not! And don’t you dare order me about, Ben Raines.”

Ben nodded, wondering when she was going into shock. Probably, he guessed, when we drive through town and she sees all the bodies… with the birds and the dogs and the hogs eating on them.

“Then come with me,” he said. “No play on words intended.”

She opened the door.

“There might be fifteen guys in there, all ready to rape you.”

She closed the door and locked it.

Ben checked to see if he’d taken the keys out of the ignition. He had. It would be just like Fran to drive off and leave him.

He walked up the stone walkway and tapped on the door. He held the Thompson in his right hand. The door swung slowly open. Ben did not know the man, but had seen him in town a number of times. In his early sixties, the man appeared to be in good health.