Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Five minutes later, gunfire erupted again, this time from the east side of the building. Once more people came out to investigate, and once more Ben opened fire, killing a couple more. A few minutes later, Carrie, who was running around the building, started firing from the west side, and again, Ben was waiting to drive them back inside when they came out.

  The plan was to generate confusion, and also to force everyone into the building to use it as a fortress. Then, with everyone inside, Ben was ready to put the next part of his plan into action.

  Ben moved around the grounds until he reached the septic tank. Then, taking out the pouch of gasoline he had been carrying with him from the time of the crash, he lit the plastic edge of it. When he saw that it was burning well, he dropped the pouch down the vent, then turned and ran back to the edge of the woods. Carrie was waiting for him.

  “You think it will work?” Carrie asked.

  “From the smell of it, I’d say that the septic tank is not only full, it is backed up,” Ben explained. “That means there should be enough methane gas trapped in the lines to make a pretty good show.”

  “How big a show?” Carrie asked.

  Before Ben could answer, the entire building exploded. The fireball and concussion from the explosion was much, much larger than Ben would have ever imagined, and the pressure wave from the blast knocked both of them down.

  “Holy shit!” Ben said as he looked over toward where the building had been.

  The fireball kept growing, bigger and bigger, until Ben feared it was going to envelop them as well, and he pulled Carrie to him, then covered both of them with the bearskin. He could hear, and feel, flaming pieces of wreckage falling all around him.

  Finally, the roar of the explosion subsided and Ben threw off the bearskin and looked toward the building. Or rather, what was left of it.

  When the fire burned down and the smoke cleared, Ben, his weapon at the ready, picked his way through the wreckage looking for survivors. There were none.

  “They called themselves Die Kontrollgruppe,” Carrie said. “I’m not sure who or what they are. Were,” she corrected. “They are obviously no more.”

  “They were a terrorist group,” Ben said. “And a little over a week ago, they bombed a middle school down in Louisiana.”

  “Yes!” Carrie said. “Yes, I remember reading about that in the newspaper. The school they bombed was named after the general who started the SUSA.”

  “Raines,” Ben said. “Ben Raines.”

  “Ben Raines, yes, I believe that is . . .” Carrie stopped in midsentence and looked at Ben. “Your first name is Ben,” she said. “Could you be . . . ?”

  “I am,” Ben said. “You’ve got your memory back!”

  “I have,” Ben said. He reached for her. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Raines City, CD.

  “Adams was right about Claire Osterman,” Mike said. “We just got word that she, General Goddard, and the entire Cabinet are dead. Derek Owen has declared himself as head of the government until he can organize a nationwide election.”

  “Ha. When is that going to be? One hundred years from now?” Anna asked.

  “That would be my guess,” Mike replied.

  “So what’s next?” Harley asked. “Do we have a plan?”

  “Yes, we have a plan,” Coop said. “That is, Jersey and I do.”

  “What is that?”

  “To start with, put our military on full alert,” Coop said. “Close down the borders, and don’t let anyone in or out.”

  “All right.”

  “Then give Jersey and me full authority to go to Richmond to deal with Owen.”

  “Deal with him? You mean negotiate?”

  Coop shook his head. “No. No more negotiating with anyone over there,” he said. “I intend to deal with Mr. Owen with extreme prejudice.”

  “You mean kill him?”

  “Yes,” Coop replied.

  “He’s just pulled off a successful coup,” Mike said.

  “You know he’s going to be surrounded by bodyguards.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d say you would probably have only a one-in-ten chance of succeeding.”

  “Yeah, we know that too,” Jersey said.

  “Then you will understand why I am going to say no,” he said.

  “No, I don’t understand.”

  “Coop, look at it from my point of view. Right now the situation is critical. Ben is gone, probably dead. Buddy is dead. And for all I know, Derek Owen is hours away from invading us. You two are too valuable to risk. I can’t let you do it.”

  “You don’t understand, Mike. It was only a matter of courtesy that caused us to ask you for authority to deal with him. But whether you grant it or not, we’re going,” Jersey said.

  “Goddamnit, Jersey! No!” Mike said. “I won’t allow it!”

  “Do you really think you can stop us?” Coop asked.

  Mike sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was silent for a long moment.

  “Mike, you know this has to be done,” Jersey said quietly. “If we can take him out, there will be no invasion, and we’ll have time to put the pieces together here again. With or without the general.”

  After a long moment of silence, Mike nodded. “I know it,” he finally said.

  “And you know we are the only ones who can do it,” Jersey said.

  Mike nodded again. “I know that as well.”

  “It would be easier on us if you don’t try to stop us,” Coop said.

  “All right. You can go. I won’t try to stop you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help? Anything I can do for you before you go?”

  “Yes,” Jersey answered. “There’s one thing you can do.”

  “What’s that?”

  Smiling, Jersey put her arm though Cooper’s arm. “You can marry us,” she said.

  Richmond

  Derek Owen was standing at the window of his new office, looking out over the rose garden that Claire Osterman had planted. He was enjoying his new position, especially the prestige and power that went with it.

  The phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Mr. President, the tailors are here.”

  “The tailors?”

  “To fit you for the uniforms you ordered, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, thank you. Send them in,” Owen said.

  Owen had decided that the first change he would implement was to create a uniform for the president. After all, the president was the commander in chief. Yesterday he had made arrangements to have tailors sent out for a fitting. He’d also asked them to bring some ideas for a uniform that would be fitting for a man of his station.

  The tailors were a man and a woman. They were wearing matching white one-piece, form-fitting outfits. The woman was very attractive, but Owen was sure he had never seen anyone as fey as the man who was with her.

  “Tell me, Bruce, do you think you can come up with a design for our new president?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, honey, yes,” the man replied in a mincing tone. “Why, it won’t be hard at all. I mean, just look at him. He is gorgeous.”

  “Honey, you think every man is gorgeous,” the woman replied.

  “Well, aren’t they?” the man replied, hanging his wrist limply.

  The woman laughed. “Let’s get busy. I don’t have time to stand here and let you drool over our president,” she said. “We have to get this man in some clothes.”

  “Yes, and such is the pity,” the man replied. “When you and I would both love to get him out of his clothes.”

  The woman laughed again, then knelt down with a tape measure. She looked up at Owen. “I thought it would be better if I measured your inseam,” she said. “I don’t think you would want his hands down there.”

  “You have all the fun,” the man said.

  Owen glared.

  “Take these measurements down,” the wom
an said.

  “Wait a minute, dear, let me get the tablet and pencil,” the man said, reaching into the case they had carried in.

  “Hurry up, will you?” Owen said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  The man turned around to face Owen. The expression in his face had turned hard.

  “You don’t have any time left, asshole,” the man said. The mincing in his voice was gone.

  “What? Who are you? What is this?”

  “We are Mr. and Mrs. Cooper,” Coop said. “And this, you son of a bitch, is justice for all.”

  The gun bucked once in his hand, the silencer making a sound not much louder than a sneeze. The bullet hit Owen in the forehead and he fell back, dead before he hit the floor.

  Coop and Jersey left, Coop still mincing and carrying on about what a lovely uniform they would make for the president.

  “You think he’s ever made anything that didn’t have lace on it?” one of the security guards asked the others. They laughed.

  Fifteen minutes later, Coop and Jersey, now dressed as a farmer and his wife, were heading south on I-95. They had three hogs and a bale of hay in the back of a pickup truck that was colored with three shades of primer.

  They passed through a dozen checkpoints on their way to the border between the U.S. and the SUSA. The next morning, they crossed the border between the U.S. and the SUSA, doing so at a prearranged checkpoint, met there by Harley and Anna.

  “What are you going to do with those pigs, Coop?” Harley asked.

  “Have the biggest barbecue you ever saw,” Coop answered.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A new beginning

  Jim LaDoux turned off his battery-powered radio and wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time in several weeks, what the hell was going on in the war-torn nation. For months he’d been hearing about some invasion from space. So far as he knew, it had never materialized. But something from somewhere out in space had struck the earth, and within a matter of several weeks had created a panic. As far as he could tell, the panic was worldwide.

  Jim walked out of his mountain cabin and sat down on a bench his grandfather had made years back. His eyes were drawn to the tiny cemetery a hundred yards from the cabin. His mother and father and grandmother were buried there . . . and now his grandfather rested forever beside his wife of sixty years. Jim sighed. Now the cabin and the woods around it had grown too lonesome for Jim to remain. Everything he planned to take with him had been packed up and put in the bed of the pickup truck. He was ready to go. He walked over to the cemetery to say good-bye to the only family he had . . . that he knew of. His grandfather’s old dog, Brandy, was buried beside the man who had raised her from a pup. Brandy had grieved herself to death after the old man had died. She had never left the old man’s final resting place. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t take a drink of water. She just gave up and pined away. Devoted to the end.

  Jim went back to the place where he’d been raised, and walked through the roomy cabin one last time. He was leaving the only home he’d ever really known, and wonderful memories flooded the young man. He turned away and walked outside and got into his pickup. He drove away and did not look back.

  Raines City, C.D.

  “Have you heard from the general?”

  “They made it as far as Nevada,” the commo officer said. “They’re . . . in bad shape.”

  The team?”

  “Most are dead, including Jersey and Coop. They all have the virus.”

  “General Raines?”

  “He’s showing the first signs of the infection.”

  “For years he fought all over the fucking world, only to be brought down by a goddamn virus from space!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You feel all right, Brady?”

  “No, sir. The medics say I’ve got it. You?”

  “I’ve got the first signs. It won’t be long now. Tell the general this will probably be our last transmission. And . . . tell him good luck.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Idaho

  Jim stayed on the back roads after leaving the wilderness area, avoiding any major highways. He passed through small towns that he had visited often in the past. They were devoid of life. There were rotting bodies in the streets.

  “My God!” Jim said, pulling over to the curb. “What the hell has happened?”

  But the dead don’t speak, and there was no one left alive to tell him. At least, that’s what he first thought.

  A bullet whined off the cab of the truck, just inches from Jim’s head. Jim floorboarded the gas pedal and the pickup roared forward. In his side mirror, Jim watched as half a dozen men ran out of an alley, all of them armed. Then he was out of the small town, speeding down the highway, heading south in one hell of a hurry.

  “Shit!” Jim yelled as his heart began to slow its beating and the adrenaline ceased its wild rush through his system. “What the jumpin’ Jesus Christ is going on around here?”

  Several miles out of town, Jim pulled off the highway and drove down a gravel road for several hundred yards. There, he dug in a rucksack and belted on a pistol, a .45-caliber auto-loader. The belt had four full magazines in a web clip pouch. From another duffel bag, Jim took out a Ruger Mini-14 with a collapsible stock and a bag filled with twenty-and thirty-round magazines. The magazines were all full. He jacked a round into the chamber of the Mini-14 and clicked it on safety. He got out a canteen and took a swig of pure mountain spring water. He had jugs of the water in the bed of the truck. Feeling better, he rolled a cigarette and smoked, further calming his still-rattled nerves. Then he got back behind the wheel and once more headed south.

  Northern Nevada

  Ben forced himself to eat a few bites of food and drink some coffee. He had to keep his strength up despite the infection that was beginning to spread through his body. Judging from the others he’d seen with the wasting disease, Ben figured he had two to five days to live, at the max.

  He had tried all that morning to contact somebody, anybody, at Raines City. Nothing. He had tried all the Rebels’ emergency frequencies. Nothing.

  He felt certain that not all the Rebel Army was dead. His medical people had told him that in the hurried tests they had performed, some people had a built-in immunity to this . . . unknown bug that was sweeping the world. The doctors didn’t know if the immunity was in the individual’s blood, or what. They had not had time to complete their tests before they, to a person, were felled by this seemingly unstoppable virus.

  Ben looked over at the row of graves a hundred or so feet away. Shallow, narrow graves. His team. To a person. Cooper and Jersey among the dead. Married briefly, buried together.

  He looked up at the sound of vehicles on the road. Ben reached for his weapon. A lot of vehicles, maybe a dozen or more. So not everyone was gone. But what kind of person remained?

  Ben’s team had pulled off the road and into deep timber just a few miles south of the Idaho line when the first few Rebels began getting sick. Then his team began dying. Now he was alone and he was showing some serious symptoms of the virus.

  Ben listened as the vehicles traveled on. He turned on his CB radio and listened to the chatter.

  “Man, I gotta find me a woman pretty damn quick,” the male voice said. “I’m gettin’ tired of that damn whiny bitch we grabbed up in Mountain Home. All she does is squall and bitch. A man can’t enjoy pussy with all that hollerin’ goin’ on.”

  “We’ll get shut of her a little bit further on down the road,” another voice replied. “We’ll cut east soon as we can and slide over into Utah. Pick us up some Mormon pussy.”

  “So much for what kind of people those are,” Ben muttered, clicking off the CB to conserve the battery.

  Not that he would need much more time—or have much more time, he thought bitterly. He felt like warmed-over shit. He thought he’d take a nap. Maybe he’d feel better when he woke up.

  When Ben awakened, he was looking up into the tanned face of a young man with the gre
enest eyes Ben had ever seen.

  “I thought you were dead, sir,” the young man said.

  “I will be before long,” Ben replied. “I have the bug.”

  “The bug?”

  “The virus. Do you feel all right?”

  “I feel fine. Sir, what in the hell is going on?”

  “Have you been living in a cave, son?”

  The young man smiled. Very handsome young man, Ben thought. Maybe thirty years old, dark brown hair, square-jawed. Well built. Powerful-looking. Ben could not be sure, as he was lying down, looking up. But he judged the young man to be about six feet tall.

  “Sort of, sir. I lived with my family in what used to be called the Great Primitive Area of Idaho. We got no TV at all, not since the satellite dish went busted, and radio wasn’t all that great either. Especially the last month or so. Do we have spacemen landing in America?”

  Ben chuckled and sat up. “No. That was a rumor started by . . . Hell, I don’t know who started it. Doesn’t matter. What we have, had, is a number of capsules landing all over the world. They carried some sort of terrible plague. People began dying by the thousands. How did you find me?”

  “I pulled up behind some pretty rough-talking guys. Was listening to them on the CB. I decided I better hole up somewhere until they were far away. I saw this road and took it Who are you? What are you, military?”

  “Rebels.”

  “Really? Like in Raines’s Rebels?”

  “Yes. I’m Ben Raines.”

  The young man sat back on his butt in the spring growth of grass. “The Ben Raines? General Raines?”

  “Yes. And you are?”

  “Jim LaDoux.”

  “You have a French name with Irish eyes, Jim.”

  “Cajun French, General. I was born in south Louisiana. My dad took us north to my grandpa’s place in Idaho when I was four years old. My mother was from Ireland. My gramps said I had a hell of a combination in me. Cajun and Irish.”