William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“He said that someday, in the near future, he believed, if the courts didn’t stop pampering criminals, and return to the public their right to defend themselves, the citizens were going to take matters into their own hands and start dealing with punks in a very swift and hard fashion, and to hell with the judicial system. He said it started back in the late seventies with neighborhood watch programs and citizens’ patrols and what have you. And he said it was a disgrace the courts had let the law-abiding, tax-paying citizens down so rudely, and, he said, so arrogantly.

“I asked him what he meant by arrogantly, and he said, ‘by putting the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of the law-abiding citizens.’

“He said a lot more, but I’ve never been able to forget that part.”

Wise beyond her years, Ben thought.

“Oh,” she said, “one more thing: he said rich or poor, for our judicial to work, the laws have to be the same. And he said it would probably take a revolution to accomplish that. And he said we had too many laws on the books and too many loopholes.”

“You agree with that, Jerre?”

“Yes. I didn’t agree wholeheartedly at the time, but I do now.”

“I think you’ll make it, Jerre.”

She looked at him in the light from the lantern, then touched his arm. “Yeah, so do I, Ben.”

Jerre rose to walk into the kitchen, where she was baking potatoes in the butane stove. Ben watched her go, thinking: not long, now. A few more days, maybe a week, and she’ll be gone. We’ll find a group of young people and there will be some handsome young fellow, and she’ll go with him.

And will you be jealous? he asked himself, a half-smile on his lips.

“Yes,” he spoke softly to the night. “Yes, I will.”

The first time Ben allowed Jerre to fire the .22 mag, he had stepped off twenty-five feet from a huge cardboard box and told her to blast away at it. She missed the box with all nine rounds.

“It might help,” Ben said dryly, “if you would open your eyes.”

“This thing is so loud!”

“Reload it,” was his command.

She dropped the pistol three times during the reloading process. Ben said nothing; he let her find her own way. She could do nothing but improve—damned sure couldn’t get any worse. Each time she dropped the weapon Ben picked it up, checking for barrel blockage. What he did not need was a young lady with some fingers blown off. Or a hand.

Jerre practiced for an hour the first day. By the end of that time, she could hit the box five out of nine times.

“It’s hopeless,” she said, disappointment on her face.

“I think you did very well. You’ll get better.”

They drove through the outskirts of Petersburg. And it was there Ben found the first organization geared toward rebuilding. But neither Ben nor Jerre wanted any part of this group. The leader was a Fundamentalist preacher (Ben didn’t ask of what) who reminded Ben of a certain member of the old Moral Majority (title self-proclaimed). This one was too slick, too glib, too quick with a smile—an answer for everything.

“That guy makes my skin crawl,” Jerre observed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Although many members of the group had heard of Ben, and some actually had begged him to stay, the preacher’s protestations over Ben’s leaving were weak, spoken without much sincerity. Ben pegged him as a man who would be king, and wanted no interference from the outside.

“He was afraid of you, Ben,” Jerre said.

“He won’t last long,” Ben predicted. They were heading southeast on U.S. Route 460, toward Norfolk—or what was left of it. Saboteurs had just about destroyed the city. “There will be a few dimwits who’ll follow him to the end, but most of those people back there are too intelligent to listen to his line of bullshit for very long.”

“He sounds stupid,” Jerre said with the blunt honesty of the young. “And I don’t think he’s very sincere. To tell you the truth, I think he’s an asshole.”

Ben laughed at her.

They drove as close to the Norfolk/Portsmouth/Virginia Beach area as Ben felt was safe. Smoke still clung over the area, smarting their eyes. They pulled back a few more miles and spent the night in a motel.

“Why is it,” Jerre asked, “that most of the bad people seem to be located… concentrated, I guess, in the cities, the larger places?”

Interesting question, Ben thought. But he hedged it, saying only, “Remember that when you strike out on your own.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiled at him over their dinner of C-ration. “I have vivid memories of Wheeling.”

“And the four-minute mile.”

“And fifty peckers,” she capped it.

They made love slowly that night, very gently, both of them sensing their time together was growing short. Ben was steeling himself for the time Jerre would leave him. He had grown more than fond of Jerre, and though he tried to keep that from her, he sensed she knew.

They backtracked to Suffolk and then headed south, taking highway 32 to Edenton. Ben stopped at every town along the way, looking for survivors… but he was stalling and knew it. And worse, he felt Jerre knew it.

During those last days, she sat very close to him most of the time, her left hand resting on his thigh. She spoke very little as they traveled through North Carolina, through the dead and silently littered towns. They watched the packs of dogs slink and snarl at their arrival and departure. They drove over to the coast and down to Nags Head.

Ben had picked up a Polaroid and had made a hundred pictures of her, and she of him. They walked the beach and picked up bits of driftwood and shell. Ben sensed she had something to tell him, but he did not push her. She would tell him in her own time.

They spent a week on the beach, Ben teaching her what he could of survival. She became a fair shot with the pistol, could pitch a tent and properly ditch it, build a fire and cook over it. But Ben did not have the time to teach her, to instill in her, the sixth sense of knowing when danger approached, and who to trust. And how could he teach her, in so short a time, to shoot first and ask questions later? That took learning the hard way. Ben hoped she would make it.

One morning Ben awoke to find her gone from his side. He called for her, and she quickly stepped back into the cottage. She looked at him, her eyes serious.

“Let’s pack it up, Ben. Head west. O.K.?”

“O.K., babe. How far west and any particular reason for that direction?”

She nodded. “Time to level with you, General.” She tried a smile that didn’t make it. “I heard on the road that kids were going to gather at the university at Chapel Hill the first and second weeks of November. The word was passed up and down the line. The reason…? Ben, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but—”

“But the adults screwed up the world and maybe you young people can do better this time around,” Ben finished it for her.

“You’re a wise man, Ben Raines.”

“I’m a survivor, Jerre.”

“Am I, Ben?”

“I think you’ll make it, babe.”

Ben skirted Raleigh and they spent their last night together at Pittsboro, a few miles south of Chapel Hill. They made love slowly and then she cried herself to sleep, lying in his arms.

In the early morning hours, just before dawn, Ben felt her slip from his side and dress quietly in the darkened house. She left a note on her pillow and softly kissed him on the cheek. He pretended to be asleep. Jerre opened the door and looked back at him; then she stepped quietly out of his life, closing the door behind her. He listened to the sound of her footsteps fade.

Ben rose from his blankets to stand by the window. He looked out into the dim light and watched her walk up the highway, toward the gathering of hopeful young people. As they had approached the small town, Ben had seen more and more young people, all heading for Chapel Hill.