“What do your brothers and sisters do for a living?”
“One of my brothers helps Dad run the farm. My other brother is an officer in the army. My sisters are married and living in a nearby town, raising kids and preaching the party line to anyone who will listen. I’m the youngest of five.”
“What unit is your brother in?”
“Some sort of specially trained outfit. I really don’t know for sure. They’re bully boys, I know that. My brother’s been a bully all his life. We’re not close, never got along. He’s an asshole.”
Ben smiled. “You’re the rebel of the family, then?”
“You’d better believe it. Always have been. I think my parents were glad to see me leave, in a way. That’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Not if it’s the truth.”
“It’s the truth. Slow down. Here’s the turnoff. Now we’re going to see some wild, desolate country.”
Ben slowed and turned off onto the old road. The landscape was stark and lonely looking.
“How far down this road until we come to one of those old houses you mentioned?”
“Several miles. It’s set off the road about half a mile. Off to the right. I never got real close to it. Don’t know what it’s like inside.”
“Probably a mess. But we’re going to find out in a few minutes. I’m hungry and want a cup of coffee.”
“I’d like to have a long, hot, soapy bath. Think you can arrange that?”
“I doubt it. How about a short wash in cold water?”
Marcie sighed. “That’ll have to do, but I can dream, can’t I?”
“All you want. We’ll get out of this mess. Then you can have your hot bath.”
She stared at the road for a moment, then said, “Can I live in the SUSA?”
“Of course. I think you’d fit right in. You seem to be a person who thinks for herself and doesn’t need the damn government telling her what to do and looking over her shoulder and holding her hand twenty-four hours a day.”
“I definitely fit in that category. Look over there, Ben Raines. There’s the old house.”
Ben slowed and turned down the dirt road. “I really hope there isn’t a gang of punks waiting for us there.”
“Me, too. Anyone who tries to leave Slick’s gang is killed. That’s the rule, and it’s enforced. I’ve seen it. If they find me, I’m dead.”
Nine
Ben pulled in behind the old home, tucking the pickup in close to the back porch. The dirt road they had come in on was so hard packed they’d left no tracks to give them away.
“I don’t think anyone is home, Ben Raines,” Marcie said.
“I think you’re right. Let’s check it out.” He reached down to the floorboards and retrieved her web belt and pistol and handed it to her. “You’ll need this.”
She met his gaze, locked her green eyes with his for a few seconds. “Aren’t you taking quite a chance handing that to me?”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll know for sure in a few minutes, won’t I?”
“I’ll tell you now, General. I won’t turn on you. You have my word on that.”
“All right. Let’s check out the house.” Ben opened the door and stepped out of the truck, deliberately putting his back to the young woman. When he turned around, she was walking toward the back porch.
She paused and looked at him, question in her eyes. “You coming?”
Ben smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a full magazine for the 9mm. He held it out to her. “You’d better replace that empty mag in your sidearm with this full one, Marcie. You might need it.”
She looked startled for a couple of seconds. Then a slow smile moved her lips. She laughed softly and stepped toward him, taking the full clip. “Interesting way you have of testing people.”
“Ben.”
“All right.” She ejected the empty from the butt of the nine and slipped home the full mag. “Ben it is.”
He stepped up onto the old steps leading to the once-screened in porch. The screen was nearly gone, now, ragged hanging in shreds. “Wait for my all clear.”
“I’ll do it.”
Ben was a cautious man. He had removed the keys from the truck’s ignition. He pushed open the back door and stepped into what had once been the kitchen. The floor and the old table were covered with dust and litter and rat droppings. Ben walked through the house. There had been no one there for a long, long time. Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in the house, but decided it wouldn’t take long to clean out one room and then they could spend one night. He called for Marcie. He heard her footsteps as she walked through the kitchen and up the short hallway.
The young woman stuck her head into the room. “I think we’re alone here.”
“I believe so. Let’s get this room cleaned up and have something to eat.”
Ben awakened once during the night. Something had jarred him awake. He lay in his sleeping bag and listened. A few feet away, Marcie was sleeping soundly. Ben looked at his watch. One o’clock. Whatever sound had awakened him was not repeated, and he drifted back to sleep. He awakened at four thirty and slipped from the bag. After his toilet, Ben prowled around the outside of the house, CAR in hand. Nothing was amiss.
He used a couple of heat tabs to fix coffee and took a cup into Marcie. They ate a cold breakfast of field rations and then smoked and talked softly in the dark silence of pre-dawn.
“So when we get out of this mess,” Ben said, “you’re not going back to your parents’ home?”
“No. Like I said, I think I’ll move into the SUSA. I ought to be able to find some sort of work.”
“No doubt about that. Jobs are going begging there.”
“Why?”
“Our economy’s booming. We have the strongest currency of any nation in the world. But we need a few million more people to fill all the jobs that are available.”
“There should be lots of people who would be more than willing to come into the SUSA if a good job is waiting for them.”
“Oh, there are lots of people who think they want to live there, Marcie. We get hundreds of inquiries every day. But only about two out of every ten could make it in the SUSA. A person has to possess an uncommon amount of common sense to make it in our society.”
“And those who don’t have a lot of common sense? Or don’t use what they have?”
“Some of them get hurt. A few have gotten killed. A very few, thank God. Most either straighten up their act or pull up stakes and leave before they’re asked.”
“You say thank God. Are you a religious man, Ben?”
“I certainly have a very strong belief in God. And so do a large percentage of people who live in the SUSA. We have a lot of different faiths there.”
“Is church mandatory? That’s the word that’s being passed around outside your borders. A person is required to attend some church.”
Ben had a good laugh at that. “No, Marcie. Church attendance is by no means required of any resident of the SUSA. I heard that silly rumor. It’s just part of the massive misinformation campaign started by the USA’s liberal press and kept alive by Osterman and Millard.”
Marcie glanced out the window—minus the pane. Silver was beginning to streak the eastern sky. “Be light soon.”
Ben glanced out the window. “Yes, you’re right. We’ll pull out when it’s full light . . . and that won’t be long. When we’re on the road and reach some high elevation, I want to try the CB and scanner in the truck. And the dash radio.”
“They all work. Sometimes something will come over the radio. The AM stations. Not the FM.”
“Music?”
“Sometimes. Mostly it’s talk from the USA stations. A lot of it’s propaganda.”
“I’ve heard some of it. Much of it’s directed against us.” He laughed softly. “Osterman and Millard and their left-wing cohorts are really afraid of us, Marcie. And that tells me we’re doing something right.”
“But they thi
nk they’re right.”
“Yes. But they want power, total control over peoples’ lives. That’s something we don’t have and don’t want in the SUSA. It would be rather difficult to have total control when the entire population is armed. The gun control crowd—the left wingers—have always been afraid of an armed population.”
“They sure hated the militias and the survivalist groups. I’ve read a lot of old books written about that.”
“The liberals hated them because they were afraid of them. The liberals were taking us to the left, and toward the end, just before the collapse, the militias and survivalist groups were ready for armed intervention. And I would have joined them in the fight,” Ben added, getting to his feet. “Let’s pack it up and get rolling. I want to check out those radios.”
Marcie had helped Ben transfer the gear from the trailer to the bed of the pickup, and she was still amazed at the amount of material that had been stored right under their noses.
Rolling up the sleeping bags, she asked, “These caches are all over the country?”
“Hundreds of them.” Ben smiled at her. “The Rebels try not to leave anything to doubt when it comes to survival. We plan pretty well.”
She returned the smile. “I would sure say so.”
When they were on the road, heading out on the old county road, Ben turned on the dash radio and tried to find a station. He could find two, both what used to be called National Public Radio, now no more than hard-line propaganda outlets for the left-wing government. The news was all about what the government was doing to help the people, and how the people must work harder to help their government help them.
“Lenin would be so proud,” Ben said, turning down the volume.
“Disgusting,” he added.
“We’ve had a decade of that, Ben. Off and on. An entire generation has grown from little children to teenagers listening to that crap.”
“I’m glad you recognize it as crap.”
“Oh, I always have. But many—a large percentage—of kids don’t. The left wingers have destroyed millions of books and hundreds of films—movies, documentaries, TV programs—that glorified anything that was to the right of their own screwed up philosophy of government. I was arrested once for reading one of your books.”
“Arrested?” Ben had known it was bad outside the SUSA, but he had not realized it was that bad.
“Yes, I was detained until my parents could come to the police station and get me. I was about eighteen or nineteen years old, I guess.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“Your books are banned. I mean, everything you’ve ever written.”
Ben nodded his head. “Yeah, I knew that. That started several years ago. What I didn’t know was that people were being arrested just for having a copy of my work.”
“Oh, The Watchers aren’t that obvious about it.”
“The Watchers?”
“That’s what we call them. The people, civilians who are snitches for the government. Every town has them. I know you’ve heard about them.”
“Yes, of course we’ve heard of the block wardens. But I didn’t know there were that many of them.”
“Oh, no one really knows who they are. Not officially. But after a time, you can spot them. You can’t prove it’s them, but you know. They eat better than other people, have a nicer home, a better car, dress nicer.”
“Things really have gone to shit outside the SUSA,” Ben muttered.
“More than you know. And it was all done very quietly and very slowly. We didn’t even know it was going on until everyone was in place and reporting to their superior. There must be hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of these people, spread out all over America . . . the USA, I mean. Each little town has ten or twelve at least, snooping and spying and taking notes on everybody else.”
“It’s worse than our intelligence people thought . . .” Ben paused and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Unless our intelligence network outside the SUSA has been compromised.”
“It’s probably been compromised inside the SUSA as well,” Marcie said.
“I doubt it. Outside, yes. But our people inside the SUSA, as well as those returning from any operations work are polygraphed, PSE’d, or both. It’s those living and working outside the SUSA and reporting in who’ve been compromised. How deeply is something I wouldn’t even try to guess.”
“Don’t underestimate those in power, Ben. Now don’t get mad at me for saying it, but I think underestimating them is what you’ve done.”
Ben kept his cool and slowly nodded his head. “I think you’re right. That’s exactly what I have done. Damnit!”
Ben chastised himself as they drove along. He had indeed considered Osterman and Millard to be nothing more than lightweights with big mouths and extremely left-wing ideas . . . and he had held that opinion for years. Now he had to admit to having been very wrong. Now his mistakes were coming home to haunt him.
Ben drove for another few miles, then stopped in the middle of the dirt and gravel road and tried the CB and the scanner, both mounted under the dash. He could receive nothing. Either he was out of range or nobody was talking.
A few miles later they reached what was left of an old bridge. They could go no further—the bridge had been destroyed.
“The bridge was intact a few weeks ago,” Marcie said. “I crossed it with some of the women. We were just riding around talking.”
“It’s been blown,” Ben said, standing beside the young woman on the south side of the ruined bridge. “Dynamited, probably. Or C-4. Whatever. It’s back to the highway for us. You know another way around Marfa?”
She shook her head. “No. But surely there is one.”
“We’ll check those county maps I found.”
“Why would someone blow up this old bridge? It’s in the middle of nowhere. Slick doesn’t have any explosives. I know that for a fact. Besides, he’s too dumb to know how to use them. Duane and his people don’t know anything about us, and they sure as hell wouldn’t know we were heading this way.”
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Marcie. But standing here staring at the wreckage won’t rebuild it. Let’s start backtracking.”
Marcie checked the old maps while they drove back to Highway 90. “There are several roads that will take us around the town, but I sure wouldn’t want to make a guess as to their condition.”
“We’ve got to try them. If Duane and his mob have taken over Marfa, and they’re as large as you say, we don’t have any choice in the matter.”
“Biggest gang in West Texas. Slick was scared to death of them. He’ll be scared even more now, with his gang cut down considerably.”
“Maybe he’ll try to join the gangs.”
Marcie shook her head. “No way. Slick told me he’s tried to do that several times. Duane wouldn’t even consider it. Duane doesn’t have much use for Slick. Slick’s bunch is made up of the losers from other gangs in the area.”
“But still you stayed with them.”
“I didn’t have much choice. If a woman joins up with Duane, there is some sort of initiation she has to go through . . . taking on the entire bunch of guys, if you know what I mean.”
“Typical punk shit,” Ben said.
“You got it. And I didn’t want any part of that. I was sort of between a rock and hard place as to choices.”
“I would say so.”
They reached the highway, and before pulling out Ben again checked the CB and scanner. Nothing. He pulled onto the concrete slab and headed west. They had approximately three miles to go before reaching the county road that wound around for miles and miles before eventually leading to and ending on the highway at the west side of Marfa.
“If there is a road there must be houses on the damn thing,” Marcie remarked. “Ranches, I guess. Otherwise why would the county build it?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know much about this part of the state. But I
’ll sure make a bet there is one thing we won’t find.”
“And that is?”
“Water.”
“But there must be creeks and springs around here.”
“A few, probably. But I don’t know where they are.”
Marcie stared out the window for a moment. “Desolate,” she finally said. “Lonely.”
“There used to be people living out here. We see old houses every so often. But those who stayed after the collapse and our rebuilding were relocated after the punks moved back in and it become too dangerous to live out here. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of cattle are roaming around all over the place. Look over there to your right at that small bunch—herd.
“Yeah, I see them. Some of the bulls will attack, too. I heard some of the gang talking about people having been gored by attacking bulls.”
“You want a steak for lunch?”
“I really just want to get out of this area and be safe for awhile.”
“We’ll make it, Marcie. I’ve been in a lot worse situations and made it out.”
“I haven’t,” she stated softly. “By now Slick’s got every member of his gang out looking for me . . . including the women . . .” She paused for a few seconds. “Especially the women. And I know what’s going to happen to me if they catch me. Let’s just say it won’t be pleasant.”
“I think I can imagine.”
“Not a pretty picture.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Ben found the gravel and dirt road leading off to the south, and took it. Several miles later it seemed as if they had suddenly been transported into a strange, desolate, and silent land. Beside him, Marcie looked out the window for a time and shuddered.
“It’s as if we’re the only two people left on the face of the planet,” she said.
“That’d be one way of getting out of this mess we’re in.” Ben grinned at her.
She frowned for a second or two and then burst out laughing. “Yeah, it sure would. Then we could start the human race all over, couldn’t we?”
He smiled. “Well, it’s a thought. But somehow Ben and Marcie doesn’t have quite the same ring as Adam and Eve.”
“People would have thousands of years to get used to it.”
Hatred in the Ashes Page 9