World of Ashes

by J. K. Robinson

  The skinny cop, Newton, walked up to them. Ethan copped a low and quick salute. Not necessary, but more of a greeting. "We found a guy wondering through the woods about an hour before dusk. North block didn't report it right away because the radio operator had diarrhea." Newton rolled his eyes, as if he were sharing a joke with close friends. "Anyhow, he's from Union. Says the town’s gone now, and the river's crawling with ‘em. Washington’s been abandoned too. Also said there are men in UN blue on watercraft patrolling the river, but not helping or engaging the infected. He said they’re just watching like we’re all already fucked. I say we go make em stop for us.”

  Ethan and Keith just stared at Newton like he was stupid. Ample evidence was mounting that he might actually be. "So there’s still an organized government somewhere?” Ethan prompted.

  "Probably." Newton shrugged. "Rowe and Reynolds are getting more from him at the truck stop. He refuses to be taken to the hospital, he's want’n to be let go so he can keep moving South. Says he doesn’t wanna be here at all. That all them we shot last night was just the tip of the ice-burg.”

  "We've no right to keep him." Ethan shrugged. He didn’t know why he was having to tell Newton about civil rights, but then times had been especially trying for some people more than others. That, or it could have been simple conversation making, something Ethan already knew Newton wasn’t good at. He looked at his hand and noticed fluffy, fresh ash was falling from the sky again. There was no light on the horizon, Union had stopped burning as the fires consumed their fuel through the low income housing and industrial areas.

  “I agree. I’ll see to it.” Newton walked off. Ethan got the eerie impression Officer John Newton was seeking permission from him somehow. Who was Ethan to give any orders?

  2

  “Battle is an orgy of chaos.” ~Gen. George S. Patton

  It was three in the morning when Ethan opened his eyes again. He didn't remember coming home, but luckily he realized where and when, he was before he freaked out. His nightmares had already seen to his bed being covered in sweat. He’d reached for Nicole at his side, devastated not to find her there. She’d been his only attachment to reality most days. His eyes were blurry, the half pint of vodka he'd been drinking had tipped over and soaked the carpet. Again. Not that it mattered to him now, his mother and father weren’t there to complain about the smell or stains. Looking around he saw a light on in the kitchen, Keith was passed out with a cigarette burned down to the filter between his fingers.

  Rubbing his eyes, Ethan turned on his laptop and looked at his normally empty inbox. He was missing the instant gratification of deleting spam, or replying to it with an equally idiotic message or pictures of a penis. Only this time it wasn't empty. There was a government address on it, which didn't elicit much excitement from him. He'd already gotten two emails confirming that he'd been reported missing in action, and another was an automated canned letter of condolence to his family. Apparently dispatching a currier or using a phone was beyond the Army’s resources these days. He clicked on it and almost threw all the vodka back up again.

  ethan were okay at tulsa if you read this we love you

  One sentence, no explanations, just a location and a farewell.

  "They're alive!"

  Keith sat up and launched himself out of his seat. At that exact moment the phone rang. Ethan grabbed it, "Hello!? Nicole?" The response he got was even more shocking than the email.

  "…Thank God you're alive..."

  "Lee?"

  "I don't have long, I'll be back soon, promise."

  "Lee!?" Ethan shouted as he heard static on the line, "Lee! Can you hear me? Where are you!? I'll come get you!" The line was dead. "FUCK!"

  "Lee's your brother, right?" Keith asked, but Ethan was beyond reasoning with now. He shouted and broke something before collapsing to the couch in near convulsions, torn over the disturbing moments of what he hoped was just a vivid nightmare.

  "Where's Lee, Ethan? Where is he?" Keith grabbed Ethan by the shoulders, trying to snap him out of the panic attack.

  "He's in Tenth Mountain." Ethan choked out, "He was in Kentucky when I got drafted." Ethan calmed down some when Keith brought a half finished bottle of Jagermifter to him. Polishing off the licorice flavored swill in a chugging motion that made Keith ill to watch, Ethan hastily typed a reply to the email and started throwing clothing towards a vintage ALICE* pack he’d had since JROTC.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I have to go to Oklahoma. Stay here, I won't be long."

  "Oklahoma? Are you fucking insane? You won't make it past the next town. You'll be lucky to survive getting past Fort Leonard Wood. And on that note, what about Bourbon?" Keith pinned Ethan to a wall, hitting his head on the thermostat. "You gotta stay here, man. If Lee is coming home you can go when he gets here. If your family is using the internet then there is electricity and computers and the safety to use them. They're okay for now. They’re fine. They’re alive. My family is not. You have to pull yourself together and recognize the gift in front of your fucking face!" Pushing Ethan down on the couch Keith flopped down in the recliner. "You're drunk. Sleep it off, we gotta lot a shit to do today."

  Both men were still really drunk, and it wasn’t even light outside yet. Ethan didn’t want to go back to sleep, but he passed out without struggling too hard; Dreams are illogical. They’re the random clutter of whatever the camera in your brain records mixed with the unsynchronized emotions recorded in a similar fashion, all played back like a movie with no director, or an especially coherent plot. Ethan’s dreams were always in shades of blues and purples, like Picasso’s Blue Era, and but literal in their aesthetics. Most of the time they were centered around one time and place, a singular moment overshadowed by the horrible sorrow of failure and death. Her death. One he could have stopped, even if it had meant his sacrifice. He’d stood at parade rest behind a diesel powered generator in the dead of night with his rifle shouldered, waiting to fire the three salvoes of the 21 Gun Salute. Trash. Fire. Oil. Air that felt like fire. Don’t flinch, you’re a Soldier, an M.P. This is what you do. The First Sergeant, the one who replaced the old one now under investigation, sounds Roll Call. She doesn’t answer…

  Keith woke up some time later to the microwave beeping, which meant the power had gone off again during the night. Ethan was gone from the recliner. Keith jumped up and ran outside. The side-by-side was still there, but the doors to the garage were wide open. Fearing the worst he ran into the garage, breathing a near gasp of relief that Ethan was still there. He was sitting on the hood of the town car that looked the worse for wear, a dozen empty beers laying all around.

  "I thought you'd taken off."

  "I would have if the fucking battery had been good." There were two more empty half pint bottles of whiskey on the ground behind the tool box. Ethan must have been at this most of the early morning. “They didn’t take the car… That means the Army took them.” There might have been more to say but motion caught Ethan’s eyes and he looked past Keith towards the road. A solitary zombie was shuffling along, her arm had been either gnawed, or ripped off, and she was dragging most of her fat in a long trail between her legs. They both knew the woman, she'd been selling beer by the can alongside Main Street the last three days, even going so far to still check ID’s for 21 and over. She’d been a good woman, if not a bit frumpy and toothless and lacking in social graces.

  "How in the hell?" Keith said to himself. Before he could make ask Ethan what they should do, a gunshot from behind him broke the dawn silence. Keith didn’t flinch at gunshots anymore, but this one was danger close and he leapt to the ground. Birds in the country don't usually make much of a scene when a gun goes off, but this time a huge flock of dark crows sailed overhead as the mutilated zombie flopped down in a pile of her own juices. Looking back at Ethan, Keith watched him work the bolt of his .243 deer rifle and toss another beer bottle down the driveway.

  "I guess we gotta go check out her house." He tossed Ke
ith the keys to the side-by-side.

  "Do you know where she lived?"

  "Are you too retarded to follow a blood trail?" Keith conceded the point to Ethan and they were off on another gruesome adventure. They radioed to whoever the officer on duty was, Reynolds this time, and told him the address before dismounting the vehicle. The scene outside the house by the river flats was beyond the wildest imagination of today’s horror films. They were both war veterans, they'd both seen and done really bad things that would haunt them for the rest of their lives, but this wasn’t anything they could readily grasp. It was even worse than the scene from what some people were referring to as the Blood’s Massacre. Word of what had happened when they’d confronted the roaming gang members had leaked quickly, a few people were even considering starting a newspaper just to cover the one story. The Police Department’s control of the town was being threatened by an overreaching media already.

  The scene was, however, obvious in its mechanics. There was a clear blood trail from where a zombie had dragged itself out of the Meramec River, walked toward the lanterns that had since burned out after a drunken barbeque, and proceeded to slaughter the entire family whilst they slept. Twelve people were now undead, whoever had been on guard had really dropped the ball. Assuming of course they’d followed municipal advice and had someone awake at all times. Even their dogs had been slaughtered, though thankfully never to reanimate. Children’s out door toys littered the yard as well, some covered in blood like macabre finger paintings.

  Since they hadn't been spotted yet, Ethan and Keith waited for backup to arrive. Half an hour later three police cars and a five-ton loaded with deputies pulled in behind them. Ethan made a show of letting everyone look through the binoculars at the scene and strongly suggested they work on response times, and see about setting up some kind of telephone or telegraph system for rural and urban homes to call for help. After the briefing, the men set about using a tactic a young man, the kid who’d originally spotted the gangbangers, had thought up. They sent out a fast runner, someone who could outrun anyone still in the Rage Phase, to make a lot of noise and get the undead to come after him. Then, like a slaughterhouse, they practiced clubbing each adult to death. The children, of which made up about half the undead, were shot from a distance. No one was going to club a kid, alive or undead. It would be like clubbing baby seals. Covered in guts and shattered bone, the smallest girl in the family was dragging her half eaten corpse toward the men, the gnawed off leg of her Yorkie hanging by tendons caught between her adolescent teeth. Ethan raised his gun and put her down so no one else had to live with that. He was already a tortured soul, why not add to it?

  The rest of the day Ethan stayed relatively drunk, Keith more than willing to drive around, even though occasionally Ethan would take the vehicle on his own. Keith also warned the South Gate not to let Ethan leave under any circumstances, but luckily he never tried. Maybe he knew about Keith’s orders, maybe he didn’t. As badly as he wanted to go to Oklahoma, he wanted to wait for his brother to get home even more. Later that day the phones failed altogether. Their only contact with the outside from then on would be drifters and zombies and an occasional internet signal. None were very useful to them when no one was left alive to respond.

  "We need to send a scouting party to the nearest power plant." Reynolds suggested at the police station later that evening. Someone had swapped the AC unit out with one from a building no one was going to use anymore, half the roof collapsed from fire already. "We need to see how and why it’s still running. I mean, Labodie is coal powered, right? And they need a lot of it. That means trains, but I haven’t seen a single train come through here in over a month.”

  “What about the nuclear plants?” Rowe asked.

  “The closest one is halfway to Kansas City.” Reynolds informed his colleague. “We may be drawing some power from it if it’s even still open. I’d say most of our power is locally made. I doubt, however, any of it is coming from Lake of the Ozarks. I heard the dam there had been shut down as well, maybe even burst. I don’t know. Lots of rumors.”

  “We get most of our power from local plants, what surplus they produce goes into the national grid, but that isn't a whole lot. We're still being powered by Labodie. If there wasn't so much fucking ash in the sky we could probably still see the exhaust stacks." Ethan said. "We need to take a scouting party, I guess.”

  Keith nodded. "We'll take a Humvee. We need a gunner though. The fewer people the better."

  "I'll go." A hand raised from behind the group of deputies who’d gathered for the meeting. It was the kid who'd been on the gun when the Bloods had shown up. Keith nodded, the kid wasn't trigger happy, but he also wasn't afraid to put rounds down range. Apparently his older brother had been in Afghanistan and at the Fall of Georgetown, the nickname for the decimation of Washington. When he came home, before being drafted like Ethan never to return, he’d trained the next oldest sibling how to use every piece of equipment he thought would save his family’s life if he were gone.

  "What's your name?" Ethan asked after the meeting.

  "Allen." The kid said quietly as Keith showed him how to load and clear jams from the machine gun in the turret. They were checking the truck for the next day’s mission.

  "Well, Allen, if we run into bandits I expect nothing short of gratuitous violence from you. Understand? Mind if I ask where your older brother is?”

  "He’s dead, Sir. Another soldier shot him on accident. The government sent my parents an email… couldn’t even be bothered to send a letter or someone in person. Happened about ten months ago at the Battle of Memphis.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to say… There’s a lot of that going around these days. I got a similar email, only it was declaring me dead. We’ll try to bring you home alive for your little brother.” Ethan promised, and pointed to the left breast pocket of Allen's cammo uniform. "Wear your badge up there. It will be easier for people to see. We’ll see you in the morning, okay? Zero Five Thirty here at the station.”

  “Sure.” Allen said. He was still unsure and afraid of the town’s people after the Bloods incident. No one knew he was the gunner, but that wouldn’t stay a secret for long. Besides, he had to live with what he’d done, and that might be the hardest part.

  Because of roaming zombies, Ethan and Keith slept in the house’s converted loft bedroom. Keith was asleep with a book in his hand on the couch, Ethan laying wide eyed in his bed watching the ceiling fan turn round and round. On the string for the lights was an action figure of Spiderman, and on string for the fan a Jack in the Box antennae ball. For hours he’d watched the ball’s nose bounce off Spiderman as the unbalanced fan continued like the world hadn’t stopped any more than it had. How many nights had it been since Ethan had actually been able to sleep? More accurately, when was the last time he remembered sleeping? It had been years. Since before Iraq for sure. Like every night that he hadn’t had enough liquor to knock him out, Ethan stayed up well into the early morning thinking. Mostly it was his self loathing, of seeing everything he’d once held dear fall through his fingers like grains of sand, and that was before the zombies…

  The worst of the nightmares was one that had already happened once, the fear of it happening a second time was overwhelming. When Ethan had left Ft. Stewart, Georgia for the last time back in ’09, that was supposed to be the last time he ever had to see, hear, or smell a military base. The plastic aroma of C.I.F., the bleach of the chow halls or the unmistakable chemical stench of a brand of gun oil, CLP. (Note to the reader, CLP is an excellent product, just don’t get it in your eye. It’ll turn pink.) In this dream Ethan had to come back. The fog of details was there, as it was in any dream, but the point was he went from spiritual freedom to a tortured soul in the depths of hell reserved especially for non-hackers and cowards. Ethan would, as always, wake up in a puddle of his own sweat.

  Keith started the truck the next morning, letting the engine run a little to warm the crew compartme
nt. "Have you ever seen a war-torn landscape before?" Allen shook his head no, still groggy from lack of sleep. Keith and Ethan hadn’t slept at all. "It's a sight that will never go away, kid. I'd say you're better off staying at home, but now your home is the war zone, so you're just going to have to accept the nightmares and cowboy the fuck up.”

  “Cowboys aren’t real.” Allen caught Keith off guard. “They’re like Santa Claus. Only Marlboro made them up, not Coca Cola.” Keith just stared at Allen blankly.

  Ethan climbed back out of the truck and put headphones and a mike on Allen, plus a new Kevlar helmet. He shoved him down to where only his head and shoulders protruded. "Nametape defilade." He smiled as the radio let him speak loud and clear. “This way snipers and low wires don’t cut you in half.”

  “That would be a hell of a way to die.” Allen lit a cigarette, offering Ethan one. “What with my body flopping down inside and spraying blood everywhere. It would be like a Quinton Tarantino movie.”

  “I’m beginning to think there is something genuinely wrong with you and your little brother.”

  “It’s an extreme lack of parental guidance, I assure you.” Allen’s voice chirped over the radio.

  The ride out past the Japan Checkpoint was a harrowing experience. They were actually forced to shoot at a Nissan pickup that looked, honest to God, like something from the movie Blackhawk Down (a military how-to guide in what not to do) with a machine gun poorly welded into the bed. Allen tore the truck in half and had to change belts. Someone should talk to him about how to squeeze a trigger for three to five rounds, not twenty. Everyone inside the truck was extremely dead and in more pieces than they could count as the Humvee crept cautiously by. There was no clear motive for the attack, except that the hillbillies in the truck must not have known what a Humvee was. Ethan suspected that if the truck weren’t starting on fire he’d find more than just empty beer cans in the floorboard.