William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

He took her into his arms, her nakedness warm against him, and despite the excitement building in him as he awaited the dawning, finally drifted off into sleep.

“I still don’t understand why we have to leave.” Fran pouted, looking back at Ben’s house as they pulled out.

“Aren’t you curious, Fran? Aren’t you the least bit curious to see what has happened?”

“I just wish everything would go back to what it used to be. The way it was.”

The rich getting richer and the poor contemplating armed revolution, Ben thought. “It might be that way again, Fran. But it’s going to take years.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Ben grinned.

She turned her head away and looked out the window.

Ben drove back into town and stopped at the sheriff’s office, picking up another gas mask. He had a hunch they would need masks along the way.

They drove over the Mississippi River bridge at Natchez, with Ben having to stop three times to move vehicles. It was then the gas mask came in handy, for the occupants of the stalled cars and trucks were in bad shape, having been sealed up inside the vehicles, practically airtight. He made up his mind that when he got into Natchez, he would change vehicles, get one with a winch on the front and heavy-duty springs, for there was some other gear he wanted to pick up along the way.

At a dealership, Ben walked around the trucks, finally selecting a demonstrator that had all the equipment he needed, including a CB radio.

“I still don’t see why we can’t pick up a Cadillac or Lincoln,” Fran bitched, as she helped transfer the gear. “Then we could travel in some degree of comfort instead of bouncing along in a stupid pickup truck like a couple of gypsies.”

Ben realized there was no point in trying to explain, so he kept his mouth shut.

The stench in Natchez was horrendous, and Ben, fearing disease, made Fran put on her gas mask. He drove quickly through the small city, heading east, where he would intersect with Interstate 55.

“This mask is hot!” Fran griped, her voice muffled.

Ben said nothing, but when she attempted to remove the mask before they were through the city, he let her. She quickly put it back on, her face pale as the odor hit her nostrils.

They saw no humans alive on the sixty-mile run to the interstate, just west of Brookhaven, but the carrion and dogs were having a feast.

“Just keep your eyes straight ahead,” Ben told her. That, he did not have to repeat twice. She closed her eyes and kept them closed.

Common sense told Ben to skirt Jackson, but his natural curiosity overwhelmed caution and he exited off the interstate and drove into downtown Jackson.

“Oh, God!” Fran cried, as she looked at the bodies littering the streets. “Ben, let’s get out of here.”

“Wouldn’t you like to drive up to the Metrocenter and do a little shopping, honey? Just think of all the nice items you could pick up—literally.”

Her glance told him what he could do with his suggestion.

As they were turning around, a bullet slammed through the top of the windshield and Fran screamed.

Man is not that far from the caves, not that far from fighting over turf, food, women, survival. And if that man has been a part of any rough branch of service, if he took his training seriously, and if he has the slightest hint of pugnacity in him, that man will quickly revert back to barbarism.

Over Fran’s screaming as Ben shoved her to the floorboard, he spun the wheel hard and slid behind an overturned garbage truck, effectively hiding the pickup and giving them cover.

“Stay down!” he told her.

This time she gave no static. She nodded her head, her eyes wide.

It all returned to Ben, everything piled on him in a rush of brutal memories: the dehumanizing training in the jungles, the mountains, the deserts, the deep timber. The months in Nam. The quick, white-hot fire fights. Survive.

“Hey!” Ben yelled across the littered street. “We don’t mean you any harm. What’s the idea of shooting at us?” But in his mind his thoughts were not peaceful. Just expose yourself, you son of a bitch. Just give me something to shoot at.

“Tell the cunt to get out of the truck!” a voice yelled at him. “Give us the woman and you can carry your ass on outta here.”

The voice came from above, the second story of the building opposite the truck. Don’t get yourself sandbagged in here, Ben thought. There’s probably more than one of them.

He slipped from behind his pickup and eased his way along the overturned garbage truck. The words of his combat-wise instructor came to him: “Don’t ever look over an object—look around it, from either end, carefully.”

Ben slowly pushed his head forward until he could see through the gap between end-loader and truck bed. He saw them, two of them, looking out of windows from the second floor of the building. White men wearing ornate cowboy hats, with feathers and ornaments. Urban cowboys. About sixty yards maximum, Ben calculated.

Slowly, with no sudden movement, Ben pushed the muzzle of the SMG between the space and sighted them in. Bracing himself for the slam and rise of the muzzle, knowing the weapon would climb from left to right, Ben started from the left window, low, and pulled the trigger, holding it back, fighting the jump of the powerful weapon.

Thirty rounds of .45-caliber ammunition chipped stone from the building and smashed windows, the sound echoing through the concrete canyon. One man was flung out the window. He bounced on the sidewalk and lay still. Ben could hear the other man moaning and crying. He tried to call out; his words were mushy, not comprehensible. Ben knew then he had hit him in the face and jaw.

“Start the truck,” Ben called to Fran. “Pull it up here. You’re going to have to drive. I’ll ride shotgun until we get back to the highway.”

“That man’s hurt, Ben,” she said.

“Fuck him! He opened this dance, not me.” He slipped around the truck and got in. “Let’s go. Head for the interstate, north. When you get to that shopping center on the right, pull off on the frontage road and stop at the first phone booth.”

“You want to call somebody?”

“No. I want to find the nearest armory. Preferably an infantry unit.”

“It’s a little late to enlist, isn’t it?” She surprised him with humor.

Gutsy girl, he thought. “No. I want to prowl through their supplies.”

“Why?”

“Drive, Fran. Just drive.”

At the armory, Ben was relieved to find that while the unit had been called out, a lot of their equipment was still in place. A lot of men had either been too sick to report, or had said to hell with it and not reported in. Probably a combination of both, Ben thought.

Ben plugged the small bullet hole at the top of the windshield and then began prowling the armory. He found the weapons room, but the steel vault was locked, and impressive-looking. He told Fran to keep an eye open for people, then went in search of a sledge hammer. He went to work on the outside wall of the concrete block building. When he had hammered a respectable hole in the blocks, Ben pulled a deuce-and-a-half truck up to the wall, hooked a steel cable to the blocks, and pulled the wall apart. He hammered at the steel inner wall until he had worked a hole in it, then hooked a double cable to it and pulled the vault open enough to slip inside.

“You sure you weren’t a safe-cracker before becoming a writer?” Fran asked. When he did not reply, she asked, “What in the world are you looking for, Ben?”

“Hah!” Ben yelled. “Found it!” He had discovered the M-16s, but Ben—like many vets—disliked the weapon with an emotion bordering on hatred. He would have loved to have found an old BAR, but those were getting rare. He handed Fran a box, then another box. He stacked several more boxes outside, then climbed out to join her.