World of Ashes

by J. K. Robinson

  “I said, put you gun on the ground!” The female Marine, who wore corporal rank, shouted at Allen, furious she wasn’t being obeyed.

  “Oh, c’mon now, Corporal.” Lee said, pulling the hammer back on his .357 and pressing the cold steel to her head. “You know it’s a weapon, not a gun.” The trap was sprung, the entire Sullivan 1st Cav came out of the woods and surrounded the Texans.

  “My name is Captain Lee Cally of the Sullivan First Cavalry Company.” Lee shouted as the Mexican standoff grew tenser. “We’re on a supply gathering mission, we mean you no harm. State your business and show me your commanding officer or NCOIC.” Lee demanded.

  “I’m right here.” Came a gruff voice. All eyes not trained down a barrel fell on a burly looking man that made R. Lee Ermy look like a fluffy teddy bear. “I’m Master Gunnery Sergeant Judge.” Lurch the Marine stood fast, as if not impressed by Lee or his men. His rifle wasn’t raised, but then it hadn’t been to begin with.

  “Good to meet you Master Gunny.” Lee holstered his weapon. “So what brings you to my humble supply convoy?”

  “What do you think, Captain?” Master Gunnery Sergeant Judge didn’t seem to have much patience for the situation. “It’s not often you see a movement like this anymore. We were doing our duty and closing-with in preparation for the likelihood we would have to kill you.”

  “Well, I would certainly hope the ten of you aren’t going to attack a company size element while surrounded in the open.”

  “I don’t mind being surrounded. Just means I can shoot from any direction. Ya feel me?” The master Marine remained as still as a stone.

  “Chesty Puller.” Lee smiled, recognizing the loosely recited quote from the most decorated Marine in United States history.

  Judge nodded and spat tobacco. “Yeah, you’re an officer alright. So what were ya before all this? A car salesmen who liked to play paintball?”

  “I was a first lieutenant in the United States Army. But as I’m sure you know, there is no more United States to need an Army.”

  That statement got a long silence out of Master Gunny Judge as he looked down at the Texas flag on shoulder. “We gotta do what we gotta do.” He shrugged. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think we should put the guns away.”

  “Agreed.” Lee motioned and the soldiers lowered their weapons, but didn’t put them away.

  “I suppose you’ve got some questions.” Master Gunny reached into his shoulder pocket and pulled out a tan, all weather notebook. He looked over some notes. “Well, I’m not supposed to give any details to individuals regarding the Independent Republic of Texas, as it’s safer to remain wherever you are rather than risk traveling there, but since you folks don’t count as individuals I think I could explain some.”

  “That would be appreciated.” Ethan said, sizing up the female corporal. She was short, but pretty. Life as of late had hardened someone who had never expected to see the outside of an S-1 cubical. She had on fingerless gloves, her once manicured nails were grown out and dirty, a bloodied machete in a duct tape sheath on her well- proportioned left hip was a giveaway she was not afraid of zombies. Not many women could make fatigues look good, especially with a rat’s nest in their hair and mud smeared on her face.

  Master Gunnery Sergeant Judge cleared his throat. “Texas is keeping as many of the power plants going as possible, especially in this area because your town alone seems to have survived the odds, but there are estimated to be thousands of holdouts scattered all over this region.”

  “There’s no other towns around that have made it?” Allen asked.

  “The closest towns that can still be called towns beside your own are in Kansas and Arkansas. There’s rumors of one in Indiana too, but-”

  Ethan had to cut the Marine off, “What about the government safe zones? The one in Oklahoma City specifically.”

  Judge nodded, searching for the right words. “Texas evacuated as many people as they could, but resources were limited, confusion was the name of the game. I don’t know who you know that went to that camp, but almost no one who went to a FEMA refugee camp made it out. All the camps became hotspots for infestations in the last days. I’m afraid most of the safe zones were hit with thermobaric weapons only a month or so after the Federal Government supposedly collapsed. Couldn’t tell you if it was us or them, though. Neither would surprise me.”

  Ethan threw up, barely able to turn away from the Marine in time. He excused himself and stepped around back to the other side of the truck. The female Marine, apparently the first ever Marine Medic, as Navy Corpsmen would normally do the job, if there were any left, followed Ethan with a look of concern on her face. Spontaneous vomiting wasn’t normal, even after hearing traumatic news.

  Lee narrowed his eyes at Judge, nearly appalled at his lack of sensitivity. Ethan asked about the refugee camp specifically. Who did Judge think was there? Asshole. “Our entire family was sent there, Master Guns. His fiancé too.”

  Master Gunny Judge leaned against the five ton as the other Marines began to relax, starting minor conversations with the soldiers, most happy to see new faces and exchange stories. Seeing that he’d done more to upset Lee and Ethan than the end of the world, he figured dropping the pretense that he was a simple Marine who didn’t know what was going on might smooth things over. He sighed, knowing he could get in trouble for this. “What’s left of the Federal Government, to include the Air Force, and Army, and even some elements of Navy and Marine command, are hold up in Cheyenne Mountain. My ex wife used worked in Washington DC. She was evacuated there and managed to call me before everything went completely to shit. The President ordered all the safe-zones NASA’s satellites could identify hotspots to be wiped out by the Air Force. Texas warned ‘em though. The Texan Congress made it very clear before all the news stopped from Cheyenne that if they dropped one bomb, fired on bullet across the Texas boarder that we’d retaliate. World’s descended into chaos and shit, Skipper.”

  “I take it you’re Texan by birth.” Lee asked.

  “No, I shit you not I was born and raised in Forks, Washington. And before you ask, I fucking hate that sparkly vampire shit.” Master Gunny Judge sighed, “Anyone who wears the Texas flag in service during this time becomes a naturalized Texas Citizen. Hell, there’s already a president and congress and some pretty reasonable judges. A fully functioning government, minus the bullshit Washington used to bring with it. I’d call bureaucracy a thing of the past down South.”

  “That’s awesome and terrifying at the same time.” Lee folded his arms, listening.

  “Has to be.” Now Judge rolled his eyes, “Fucking Mexicans are worse than the zombies!” Looking over his shoulder he quickly added to a Hispanic Marine, “Yeah, I’m talkin’ bout your heathen brethren, Rod.”

  “Fuck you, Guns.” A Marine who’s uniform identified him as Staff Sergeant Rodriguez shouted back like a true Marine. “Fucking gang-bangers be trippin’ to attack Texas!” He pronounced Texas Tehas, as you would in Spanish. “We gonna bitch slap em till they’re asses is red!”

  “Across the boarder there’s nothing but drug lords and zombies. No one down there had the money for the guns and supplies except the drug barons. Now they think they own Mexico. Problem is they’re right. They’ve stepped up attacks so much Texas may recall this unit.”

  “Then what would happen out here?”

  “With no one to protect the power plant the civilians would accompany us back to Texas.”

  “So no more power.”

  “Afraid not. Fuel ain’t the problem… yet. The personnel is.”

  Lee knew it was futile to suggest training locals to run the plant. Someone would still have to drive the coal trains, which he suspected were being picked up off of rail yards and lines where the engineers had abandoned them during the panic. “So now what?”

  Ethan heard Lee chatting with the Master Gunny and thanking him for his honesty and all the other bullshit officers are supposed to do. It was good, Ethan decided, t
hat he hadn’t eaten anything substantial that morning or throwing it all up might have taken longer. He hated himself even more now. Not only had he abandoned Nicole and his mother and father to go play army, albeit against his will, but now he had to live his life knowing they were truly gone. Waking nightmares, phantasm of the most horrible order danced through his mind, a collage of colors and images and an anxious, burning pain he couldn’t escape. All he had now in all the world was a brother he hated as much as he loved, and the memory of a fiancé he’d have happily traded places with on the voyage across the River Stixx.

  Wiping the spit from his mouth Ethan straightened up and adjusted his uniform. There was a piece of whatever and spittle on his badge. The female Marine reached over and flicked it off and rubbed the star with her sleeve. “You gonna be okay, Sheriff?”

  “No.” Ethan closed his eyes and tried to breath.

  “I wish I could send you back to town, bro.” Keith sighed, coming up behind them. “Can you stick it out till we’re done here?”

  Ethan nodded and pulled his sunglasses down so no one could see his eyes go bloodshot. “Right. Fuck my life. Let’s go.”

  Lee invited the Marines to ride with the Cavalry into Washington proper. The female Marine sat next to Ethan on the trip, apparently keeping an eye on him. It surprised no one that the abandoned military checkpoint Ethan and Allen had found on their first visit had been looted since then. It was a fact that there would be a lot of civilians out there with machine guns, explosives, even tanks now. This site had been looted very recently, there were still footprints in the straight lines of the living running in the snow. There were even and a couple of yellow patches behind a tent with beer bottles scattered everywhere. Someone had crudely written the name John in the snow with urine, someone at least Ethan’s age because they could still write in cursive.

  Ethan found a JP Medium tent that no one had checked yet. He was looking for some privacy, but his concerned companion wasn’t about to give it to him. “We’ve had at least two attempted raids on the power plant since you all paid us a visit last summer.” The female Marine, her nametape read Hoffman, said, creating conversation. “The last group tried to shoot an AT4 at us. Fucking retards couldn’t get the safety off.” Ethan didn’t feel like talking, and didn’t really want Hoffman to keep talking to him either. She just didn’t shut up, and he couldn’t figure out why.

  “How do you know that?” Ethan took the bait, hoping that she would say her peace and fuck off.

  “Because when I pried it out of his death grip the safety was still on.” She said, picking up a yellow notepad left on a table inside the tent. It was the only item on the tables besides a tipped over box of printer paper. She stood there and read it for a moment, her expression changing with the words. Hoffman’s lips moved too, she was probably the type that read aloud if no one was around.

  Ethan had to admit he didn’t really give a shit what was on the notepad. He was only sitting inside the tent while the others snooped around because he wanted to be alone until he worked up the courage to put his gun in his mouth. Hoffman started crying a little bit. She tried to use her glove to cover up the sniffle, but whatever grease or mud was on them just smeared onto her face. Ethan wanted to wipe it off, he even figured she’d let him, but he didn’t want to be close to anyone. He knew where his thought process would inevitably take him, and if he gave any indication to the others they might stop him.

  “Do I even want to know?” Ethan really didn’t, and certainly didn’t know why he’d asked. Every time he said something it was an invitation for others to speak.

  For a minute Hoffman didn’t respond, she just kept reading. Pulling herself up on the table that had once held all sorts of equipment, the outlines in the dust still remaining, she started reading aloud. Her voice shook a little, it was low and gravely for a woman her age.

  Dear Mom,

  Things are really fucked up right now. I can’t mail this home because there’s a commo blackout… There’s always a fucking commo blackout. I’ll send them when I can, but I hope I get to give them to you in person. I just wanted to record some of this…

  20150613: Things have gone from bad to worse since the president abandoned Washington. The others and I wonder if Major McPherson will order us to abandon this post. I hope he does. I fucking hate Missouri. It’s not as disgustingly humid as Georgia was, but it’s not home. I miss the mountains. I’m privy to a lot of information here, but I can’t write about it. None of it would help you anyhow, I just keep watching the casualty reports come in. We’re not going to win this one, Mom. Just hunker down, I’ll be home when it’s over.

  20150614: I hadn’t expected to make another entry so soon, but today Interstate 44 was shut down to civilian traffic. That should effectively dry up the flow of refugees that randomly choose to come our way. We’re in Washington, Missouri by the way. It’s big enough to be on Bill’s map, I promise. Hopefully that means we can get the last two thousand or so residents on the trucks to the Sullivan evac point by the end of the week. No idea where I’ll go from there. Probably to the safe zone in Oklahoma. I’ll call if they ever lift the fucking blackout.

  20150616: Frak all to hell what I said before. I’ve literally been awake since my last entry, the refugees have gotten so bad. They flooded across the bridge near the hospital. Most of them walked here form Columbia, MO. That’s a long way to hump it, especially since they were being chased by half the infected people in the state! I’ve never seen such a show when the Air Force actually did their jobs and took that bridge out. I video taped it, who knows if my camera will survive long enough to send the tape back to you. We’ve been promised rack-time soon. Got to go.

  -Didn’t get any sleep. I’m tired, so tired my body has no idea I’m tired. I remember Bill talking about how people who don’t sleep think like drunks or whatever. I think drunks could reason better than any of us. The hospital’s on fire and we’re packing up to abandon the TOC. I’m going to try to keep taping after I finish writing this. I love you and Bill so much. If you get this, tell him I said thank you. He was the best dad I ever had.

  -I don’t have time to make this look nice. The entire battalion has fallen back to this rallying point, a unit from the Six Flags checkpoint is supposed to come by and cover our escape, but I just heard Penn yelling at their radio guy to make the turn at Villa Ridge. I don’t think they’re coming, Mom.

  -I was right. They’re not coming. We’re not being evacuated. We’ve been ordered to hold out at all cost. I stopped doing my job. No one cares what an S-1 does during a gunfight, I think most people assume I’ve gone crazy, and maybe I have. Who gives a shit, right? We’re all about to die, I just accepted it before the others.

  Hoffman flipped the page, the handwriting had gotten better, or more girly, again…

  If you’re reading this and your name is not Cheryl Persiani/Watts, then I’m dead, but I promise I’m not a zombie. I have the round with my name etched on it in my left breast pocket. My name was Specialist Erin Persiani, I was in HHC 26 BSTB out of Ft. Carson, Colorado. I grew up near Estes Park, Colorado and I’m going to make a run for it. If you can, you should go there. It’s beautiful. You shouldn’t miss that before you die. Please mail this to my mother if the world doesn’t end.

  It was a macabre ending to an already macabre and brief story. It was also very common these days. People’s sons and daughters, husbands and wives were spread out far and wide, scattered from their homes like leaves on the wind by the tidal forces of military movements and fleeing refugees.

  “Have you ever been there?” Ethan asked, breaking the relative silence of the tent. He took the yellow pad from Hoffman’s hand and looked down at it. “I have. This Erin woman was right. It is beautiful.”

  “Why did the handwriting change before the end?” She asked at long last, trying to absorb the journal’s timeline and match it with where she was during all of this.

  “Because it was a suicide note.” Ethan tore
the pages out, folded them carefully, and while looking Hoffman in the eyes he gently put the lost woman’s last letter in the Marine’s left sleeve pocket. “When all this gets sorted out, I want you to deliver that to her parents. Everyone needs to see the Rockies before they die.”

  The tender moment was broken up when a Marine popped in through the tent flap. “There you are. Flirting with the locals are we?” He smiled.

  “Screw you, Jack. You’re such a prick.” Hoffman threw the now empty notebook at the other Marine.

  “That’s not what she said.” His smile broadened, completely out of place in the somber moment. “Look, Master Guns wants to get out of this valley so we can get commo with the COC.”

  “C.O.C.? The Cock?” Ethan raised an eyebrow, “My God. Marines really are latent homosexuals. Even your acronyms are gay.”

  The Marine named Jack raised an eyebrow, sizing Ethan up. “You’re funny, Sheriff. Maybe you’d like to have that star pinned to your ass.”

  “There you go again.” Ethan had him. “Gay at every turn. Hey, do you know why the Navy keeps Marines on their ships?”

  Jack started to answer, “Well, it started with Marines being sharpshooters in the rigging of old sailing ships, but then-”

  “Because sheep would be too obvious.” Ethan finished. Jack’s mouth closed and he absorbed the insult, wishing he could come up with something clever about cops.

  “Alright, alright. I’ll get the fucking radio to high ground.” Hoffman jumped off the table and walked past Ethan. He followed her into the daylight while Jack wondered off to be an asshole to someone else.

  “There’s an apartment complex on that hill right there.” Ethan pointed to the highest hill around. “You can get a pretty good signal up there.” Hoffman nodded and walked off. Ethan didn’t watch her leave. He was considering this brief moment of alone time to be the best opportunity to do what he needed to do, though he’d have to make sure to angle it higher than Tyler Durden had at the end of Fight Club. He didn’t want to make a mistake and live through it.