Treason in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “I just bet they have,” Ben said sarcastically.

  Bond hastened to add, “Of course, your western books are not affected by this order. Your government does not in any way wish to restrict your making a living.” He said all that without cracking a smile.

  Ben laughed in his face. “Close the gate on your way out,” he told the agents.

  Oklahoma City loomed before the Rebels. Ben came out of his bitter remembrances and pointed to a huge shopping mall coming up off to the right. “Over there. I want to prowl around some.”

  Ben stepped out of the Hummer and stretched. Teams of Rebels were quickly converging on what was left of the shopping center. Ben walked toward the mall entrance, not missing a step at his son’s shout.

  “Come on, Dad! Wait up. The damn place is not secure.”

  “So let’s secure it,” Ben called over his shoulder and kept walking.

  Buddy ran up to him and did what very few Rebels would dare do to Ben Raines: he grabbed Ben by the arm and spun him around. “Goddamn-it, Dad. What’s the matter with you? What turned you so angry all of a sudden?”

  “Well, boy,” Ben said, his eyes blazing, “on the way up here, among other things, I was recalling how, a few years before the Great War, good, decent, tax-paying citizens became afraid to leave their homes at night to go shopping, because the malls were not secure. The streets were not secure. And just before it all blew up in our faces, even the homes of good, decent, tax-paying men and women were not secure. Now, son of mine, I am going to go into that old mall and do some window shopping amid the ruins. And if there is anybody in there who might like to attempt to mug me, or molest me, or fuck with me, I am going to secure that mall in the manner we should have done years back. If the goddamn government hadn’t taken our guns away from us, that is. Thanks to the goddamn liberal Democratic Party. Now let go of my arm.”

  Ben stalked away.

  “He was telling us about how federal agents used to come to his house,” Cooper said, hurrying along after Ben. “It really, really pissed him off.”

  “The recalling of it?”

  “Yeah,” Jersey said. “I’ve been with your dad a good many years. I know all the signs. Nobody better jack around with him.”

  “Buddy!” Jim Peters, commander of 14 Battalion yelled. “Recon says the Creeps control the ruins of the city and gangs of punks control all the suburbs, including this old mall.”

  “Oh, hell!” Buddy muttered, just as Ben kicked in what remained of the mall’s electric doors and stalked inside.

  “Hey you!” a shouted voice stopped Ben just inside the huge old mall.

  Ben turned to face half a dozen young men, all wearing the most outlandish of clothing. “We’re the 89th Street Bombers,” one told him. “I’m called Prince. This is our turf. You get the hell out of here, dude.” He was wearing tennis shoes that had battery operated flashing lights on them.

  Ben laughed at the sight.

  “You laughin’ at me, pops?” the punk said.

  “Yeah,” Ben told him. “What the hell are you supposed to represent, an early Christmas?”

  “Say what?”

  “Forget it. Get out of my way.”

  “I think you need to be taught a lesson, pops,” the same punk said. “And we’s just the ones to do that. I think I’ll cut your ears off and make a necklace out of them.”

  “Then I would have to say you have extremely lousy tastes when it comes to jewelry.”

  “You ’bout a smart-assed mother-fucker, ain’t you?”

  Ben smiled. “Don’t press your luck, punk.”

  “Don’t you be callin’ me no punk, motherfucker.”

  “Look at all them soldiers over yonder,” another punk said. “And they’s cunts with ’em, too.”

  “You the Rebels, ain’t you?” the first punk asked Ben.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, you just carry your asses on outta here. ’Fore we show you what bad really is.”

  Ben chuckled. “Punks never change.”

  “I warned you ’bout that!” Prince said.

  “You punks work with the Night People, don’t you?” Ben asked. “You raid out in the country for humans and in exchange the Night People leave you alone. Isn’t that right?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I find that practice quite odious.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think you should stop doing that immediately.”

  “Or you’ll do what, pops?”

  “Kill you,” Ben said calmly.

  Before the Prince of Punks could respond, Buddy called, “Punks coming up behind you, Dad. And more coming in to back up this punk pack.”

  “You take care of them, son. I’ll handle Prince and those with him.”

  “Say what?” Prince asked.

  “Are you hard of hearing, stupid, or a combination of both?” Ben questioned.

  “The General’s pushing hard,” Cooper whispered.

  “No kidding?” Jersey returned the whisper.

  “You know how he hates punks,” Beth said.

  “Hey, Prince!” one of his followers said, slowly looking all around him. “We is surrounded, man.”

  “Prince!” the shout came from behind Ben. “They’s tanks outside. All over the place. Must be three or four thousand soldiers.”

  Prince glared at Ben, and Ben smiled. “You still want to cut off my ears, you punk bastard?”

  “Man, why for you pushin’ at me so hard?”

  “Because I despise worthless punks like you, that’s why.”

  “You honky, racist son of a bitch!”

  Ben laughed. “Look around you, punk. Look at the Rebels. All races, all religions. I don’t see anything but blacks in your punk pack. So who is the racist?”

  One of the gang members very slowly squatted down, conscious of a hundred guns on him, and laid his AK-47 on the floor. “I’m out of this, Ben Raines. And you is Ben Raines, ain’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You let me get my shit together, and I’m gone like a cool breeze, General.”

  “Get gone, then.”

  “You won’t shoot or hang me?”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “I got family down in Mississippi. My mama’s down there. I want to see her.”

  “That’s Rebel-controlled territory now. Stick around. There’ll be planes coming here tomorrow. We’ll fly you back and you can start a new life . . . if you want to.”

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  Another young man said, “I’m from Natchez. Can I go back with Ernie?”

  “If you want to start over and change your ways, yes. But you both better understand Rebel law and be willing to play by the rules.”

  “I was going to go to college and be a teacher, then the Great War tore everything apart. But I’d still like to teach. You got colleges down there?”

  “Several of them. You and Ernie get outside.”

  Prince cussed the two men. They did not look back as they hustled out of the mall.

  “Prince, this is crazy!” a shout came from behind the Prince of Punks. “They’ll kill us all. I don’t want to die.”

  “Then join them other traitors,” Prince said, his eyes never leaving Ben Raines. “I don’t need cowards with me.”

  “Coward ain’t got nothin’ to do with nothin’,” a gang member standing close to Prince said. “We talkin’ good sense here, man.”

  “Then get away from me!” Prince shouted.

  “Naw,” another punk standing close said. “I ain’t livin’ under Rebel rule.”

  “Good man,” Prince said. “Some of us are gonna get hurt, but I think we can beat these do-gooders.”

  “Then start the dance,” Ben said softly.

  “I believe I will,” Prince said, and lifted his Uzi.

  EIGHT

  More than half of the gang dropped their weapons and hit the littered mall floor. The rest die
d where they stood as the entrance to the huge old mall hammered with gunfire.

  Ben lifted his Thompson and stitched Prince from left to right, fighting the rise of the powerful old SMG as he held the trigger back.

  It was over in two heartbeats. Prince and those who chose to stay with him unto death got their wish. Some of those who chose to live were sobbing in fear as they lay amid the litter. Others were so badly frightened they peed their dirty underwear.

  They all realized just how hard Ben Raines was when he said, “Drag the bodies outside and burn them. Interrogate the others and find out what they know about the Creeps and their location.” He took a few steps to stand over a gang member who was praying, huddled in a ball on the floor. “You’re calling on God?” Ben said, his voice as sharp as tempered steel. “You’ve helped in forcing hundreds of people to a horrible death by cannibals and you’re actually calling on God? Get up, you son of a bitch!” he shouted.

  But the man was shaking so badly his knees would not support his weight. He lay on the floor and stared in horror at his dead friends sprawled all around him. He continued to mouth heavenly cast supplications.

  Ben looked at those Rebels gathered in the mall. “We became lax over the past few years. Lax enough to cut too much slack to the criminal element. All that ended today. From this moment forward, we give outlaw gangs one chance to surrender. If they refuse, we strike, and we strike hard. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Fine. Now I’m going window shopping.” Ben turned and began walking slowly up the long corridor of the mall, his personal team with him.

  Buddy waved toward a group of Rebels, pointing a finger. They took off at a run, racing ahead of Ben.

  It was bright outside, and the mall was illuminated by a wide skylight, much of it still intact after all the bloody years. The floor was, of course, littered with everything imaginable, empty beer cans and wine and liquor bottles most prevalent.

  “Prince and his punks were very fastidious folks,” Ben remarked.

  “Yes,” Beth said, kicking away a pair of extremely filthy underwear. “And hygienic, too.”

  “Those two who wanted to try our ways,” Cooper said. “You think they’ll work out, General?”

  “No. But we’ll give them a chance. They’ll last about a month back at Base Camp One. The first time they step over the line down there they’ll get a bullet and that will be the end of it.”

  Ben stopped in front of a bookstore and looked in through the glass, remarkably still intact. The place had been trashed, torn and ripped books ankle deep on the floor.

  “If they won’t want to read the books,” Corrie said. “Why don’t they just leave them alone?”

  “Because they contain knowledge,” Ben told her. “And certain types of people are very much afraid of that. They think if they destroy the words, everybody else will become as them. Dictators have practiced that misguided theory for centuries.”

  Ninety-nine point nine percent of all Rebels were voracious readers. Reading was stressed in Rebel schools, beginning in most Rebel homes as soon as the child was able to hear words being read to them. The older Rebels had watched a nation slide away from reading and they were determined that would not happen in their new order. Everywhere they went, Rebels gathered up old newspapers and shipped them back to Base Camp One, where they were carefully cataloged and put on microfilm, to save for posterity. Someone had to preserve the history—not just of what used to be America, but the world—and that job fell to the Rebels.

  Rebels were not just very capable warriors. They were historians, teachers, medics, and just about anything else one could think of.

  As they walked the huge mall, the Rebels found others of Prince’s gang in hiding. Very few offered any resistance. Those that did, died. Those who wisely surrendered were disarmed and rousted outside. At first, a few of the gang members resisted Rebel attempts to extract information from them. They soon learned that the Rebels had highly sophisticated ways of interrogation and were not at all hesitant to use them. Before noon of that day, the Rebels had learned every location of the Creepies in the ruins of Oklahoma City. With the aid of a city map, Rebel artillery was quickly brought up and ranged in.

  Ben carefully spread his four battalions out and the thunderous bombardment began. It would continue throughout the night. Long before dusk settled around the land, the city was blazing from the hundreds of rounds of Willie Peter dropping in.

  The Creeps tried to escape the towering flames. The Rebels shot them down.

  Other gangs had been found on the outskirts of the city and the survivors brought in. They sat under guard in the parking lot of the old mall and were awed by the massive firepower in the hands of the disciplined Rebels.

  Under the glare of powerful lights, electricity provided by huge generators, the gang members were hosed down and deloused before being given physical examinations by Rebel doctors and medics. With the slam and boom of artillery in the background, Ben read the preliminary reports.

  “Some of these gang members have more diseases than could be found in a garbage dump,” Ben said.

  “Many of them too far gone to be effectively treated,” the doctors told him. “You have two choices, General.”

  “I know what they are,” Ben said shortly. “Turn them loose and let them die. I won’t waste our medical supplies on these people. They chose their way of life, so to hell with them.”

  To say that Ben Raines was a hard man would be the understatement of the millennium.

  A gang leader who went by the name of Pookie said, “That Ben Raines is the meanest son of a bitch I ever seen in all my life!”

  His brother, Mookie, said, “That man tole me if he ever seen me again he was gonna shoot me right between the eyes. I axed him what I was ’pposed to do? He said find me a nice piece of ground, grow a garden, and live decently and respect the rights of others. Shhittt! I ain’t no fuckin’ farmer.”

  “You is now,” his brother told him. “If you ain’t, you stay the hell away from me.”

  “Hey, brother!” Mookie shouted at a passing Rebel.

  The Rebel stopped and stared in disgust at the former gang member. “I am not your brother.”

  “You black, man!”

  “The similarity ends there, I assure you. What do you want?”

  “How long you been with that mean honky bastard?”

  “I assume you mean General Raines. And if you call him a mean honky bastard again, I’m going to shoot you.”

  “Now wait a minute. Shit, man! I got a right to an opinion, don’t I?”

  “Only if you would allow a white person to refer to you as a nigger.”

  “Say what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Well, that don’t make no sense.”

  “No. It probably doesn’t to the likes of you,” the Rebel said. “That is the reason I am what I am, and you are what you are.”

  “You ’bout a goofy talkin’ an’ a goofy actin’ nigger! You know that?”

  The Rebel smiled . . . thinly. “If you have nothing else to say, I’ll be on my way.”

  “That’s cool. Go on. You carry your zebra ass, man. Lick the boots of whitey. When the New Africa rises up, you ain’t gonna be part of it.”

  “How wonderful for me. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”

  Buddy was standing in the shadows and heard the conversation. The Rebel stopped by Buddy’s side. “Did you hear that idiocy, Colonel?”

  “Yes. It’s sad.”

  “Five or ten years ago it would be sad. Now it’s stupid. New Africa! Jesus Christ. When are people like that going to understand that if we don’t all pull together, we’re all going to fail?”

  Ben was leaning against a truck fender, standing in the darkness and listening. It flung him back in memory. Back to a time when he’d confronted some local black militants just outside his home town—back when he’d had a home town. Just a few days after the world had ex
ploded and there wasn’t a stable government left in any country around the globe.

  “You been riding high and mighty, Ben Raines,” one man had told him. “Big shot writer always criticizing people on welfare.”

  “I don’t always criticize people on welfare, Henry. And color has nothing to do with it. There are more whites on welfare than blacks. I criticize those people who have one baby right after another and expect the taxpayers to foot the bill. But that’s all over now, isn’t it?”

  “But you meant black people, didn’t you?”

  “No, Henry, I didn’t.”

  “I say you’re a liar, Mister Ben Raines.”

  Ben had paid a visit to the local sheriff’s office the day he’d come out of his sickness and had taken an old Thompson SMG from the gun rack, trying his best to ignore the bloated and stinking bodies. He’d also taken two .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols and all the ammo and clips for the pistols and SMG that he could find.

  Now he’d run up on one of the most militant and white-hating black men in the parish.

  Ben sighed. “Henry, back off and leave me alone. It’s a brand new world now, Henry. So stop hating whites and blaming them for all your troubles.”

  “I’m out of this, Ben,” one of the men with Henry said.

  “Fine, Lucas. You and I have always been friends.”

  “Me, too,” the others said. “Come on, Henry,” one urged. “You know Ben Raines hates the Klan as much as we do. Why start trouble now?”

  “Ain’t nobody around to read your goddamn trashy books now, Raines,” Henry said.

  “That’s a fact, Henry.”

  “And no law, either.”

  “That, too, is the truth.”

  Henry pointed a finger at Ben. “So I’ll tell you something. I killed that goddamn deputy Harrison . . . the one who beat me that time. Shot him dead yesterday.”

  “He caught you selling dope and you resisted arrest, pulled a knife on him. He hit you twice with a flashlight. He should have caved your head in and left you for the ants to eat,” Ben was very blunt, as was his custom.

  “You goddamn racist honky son of a bitch!” Henry grabbed for the pistol in his belt and Ben stitched him with the Thompson. Henry was dead before he hit the asphalt.