Legacy Of Ashes

by Ric Beard

  Scruff grunted the affirmative as he pulled himself up.

  Jenna walked to the back of Patty’s bed and Scruff followed along on the ground. When they reached the back, he thrust up an open hand. Jenna watched as the wind tussled his interesting mixture of straw-and-sienna-colored hair, sending wild strands about his face. The knots and braids of his long beard didn’t budge. Slapping her much smaller hand into Scruff’s mud-crusted palm, she dropped into the sludge. Scruff’s hulking frame didn’t even seem to acknowledge her weight.

  She revved up her voice. “We need to kick ass until the rain rolls in!”

  Tyler and Ray, the other two members of her clearing crew, looked over from an old van they were checking out.

  “Yup!” Ray slapped his handheld into its holster and gestured for skinny Ty to follow him to the closer rust heaps lining the center of the highway to the east.

  Jenna checked the comm signal on her handheld.

  Still piss poor.

  “Storm might not be pouring yet, but it’s still blocking us.”

  Oklahoma City used high-altitude drones like links in a chain to carry signals out here from Little Rock, the outpost farthest east of Ok City on Old I-40. It was called the Stringer network.

  “Scruff, get a pod set up. When the sky opens up, I don’t want us standing beneath that lightning.”

  We shouldn’t have stacked them. Chalk it up to wishful thinking that we might actually get some work done and move a hundred yards east today.

  Scruff turned and squinted at the thick line of clouds in the distance. After a few flashes of lightning, he grunted and lurched off toward the equipment truck, where stacked metal pods with cylindrical anchors lined the front of its bed. His boots stuck to the mud cover with every step and he had to raise his knees high to keep any kind of pace.

  Guess that’s how it is when you weigh three-hundred pounds.

  The unpacking and construction of the hard-shelled structure would eat fifteen minutes of a normal person’s time, which equated to roughly ten minutes of Scruff’s. The design called for two sleepers, but each member had their own. It was the benefit of working with a woman out here. She wasn’t expected to share a pod with a male and if she was allowed her own cube, the guys should be afforded the same privacy. The C.O. of their civilian unit didn’t really care about fairness, but when Jenna politely pointed out that the guys weren’t military, and Commander Gilson wasn’t the one with his ass hanging out here in the middle of nowhere to be shot at by badlanders, he’d given her the cubes.

  She’d have unpacked another cube, but the four of them could fit comfortably inside one and she didn’t want to burn any more time that could be spent moving metal off the highway.

  I probably should’ve just left them where they were when we woke up. Oh well.

  Jenna motioned to the closest cluster of rusted, hundred-year old, derelict vehicles.

  “Ray,” she said. “While you and Ty check those heaps and mark them off, I’ll stack the ones behind you.” She extended an index finger. “I want to get to that big rig up there and punch its clock by nine. It’s seven-fifteen now.”

  Ray nodded. Ty shrugged and shoved his head inside the front window of a rusted out compact.

  Clearing the highway like bait for The Chain to shoot at was a thankless job, but she preferred nature to the dingy interior of OK City’s walls any day. Mud was one thing, but the pollution in the industrial zone of that city was a health hazard. She wasn’t from there and she had no desire to go back.

  Zooming her goggles and checking the horizons to the north, east, and west, Jenna sighed.

  Looks clear…for now.

  The Chain’s territorial bullshit grated on her nerves. With all the un-farmed land in what used to be the South and East regions of the old United States, well, decent people would share. The Chain were not decent people, though. They were marauders and murderers under the command of a tyrant, and Jenna had the distinct impression that the tyrant’s only motivation was to destroy everyone he didn’t control. Horace was the worst example of what became of humanity when the Oil Age came to a screeching halt and what she liked to call the Rust Age, started.

  The map on her handheld placed them roughly ten miles from Brinkley, a town in what used to be Arkansas. Memphis might be weeks or months away, depending on how long these daily storms continued to rage.

  Maybe if we’d stopped pumping Carbon Dioxide into the environment a decade sooner, we wouldn’t have all these storms.

  She’d pulled the control box of the lifter from Patty’s bed and started powering it up when she heard Ray yell, “Mother Fucker!”

  Dropping the control box so it dangled from its ribbed metal cable from the side of the rig, Jenna swung around and slapped her hand to her sidearm. Tyler was bent over bursting with laughter as Ray hopped around furiously brushing something off his shoulder. Whatever it was rattled to the ground. Jenna marched over to them. A skeletal hand lay on the asphalt between the two men. It was missing the top half of the middle digit.

  Jenna looked up and saw Scruff had unsheathed the large axe from his self-made back sling and was stalking toward them.

  Uh oh.

  “Show respect!” he growled at Tyler.

  Jenna stepped between Scruff and Tyler and held out a warding hand. “All of you stop it!”

  Cabin fever was an understatement.

  Scruff stopped walking and the other two turned their eyes on Jenna. She wagged a finger in each direction as she spoke.

  “Scruff, put it away! Ray, grow a pair! Tyler, pull that shit again and I’ll lose you out here.” She finally thrusted the finger at the bones on the road. “Pick it up!”

  Tyler shook his head as frustration crawled across his face.

  “I was just playin’. It’s just a hand.”

  “Shut it!” She stomped up to him and extended an index finger. “You know my rules. Respect the dead and do your damn job, Tyler.”

  “They’ve been dead a hundred years, boss? What the f—”

  She grabbed his collar and jerked his face closer. “You know damn well how they found Scruff, Ty. Don’t play that sanctimonious shit with me. If you can’t respect the dead, then respect Scruff. He’s earned it. You’re the only non-badlander I’ve ever seen him pick up that axe for. You want a piece of that action?”

  He looked over and up at Scruff and then down, licking his bottom lip.

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “Good.” She shoved him back and released his collar. “Now let’s try to get some of these heaps stacked before another storm rolls in.”

  Jenna turned and walked back toward Patty. A glance over her shoulder revealed Tyler giving her laser eyes. When they locked eyes, he snapped his head to the side in avoidance like some kind of damned dog. She paused and saw Scruff take a step toward him, the axe leaning on his shoulder.

  Tyler backed away a few paces, eyeing the giant. He turned, grabbed the bones, and stomped toward the cars.

  Jenna leaned against Patty, and continued to watch her newest crew member as he stormed off. Tyler’s eyes were too widely spaced, his face was composed of sharp, harsh angles, and he had a crooked beak for a nose. Her fears about what lay beneath set Jenna on edge.

  He’d joined in the wake of a tetanus scare that ended in Danny getting shipped back to OK City. Scruff and Ray were known entities, and at the end of the day, they had her back. But Tyler was more than just a cut up. Tyler was in it for Tyler. He didn’t fit the mold of the people who risked their lives out here to join two cities. Sure, they got hazard pay, but no one was getting rich. So, what was he getting out of it?

  Judging from the joy he took in badlander attacks, she had a dark idea and she didn’t like it. At all.

  Ray approached and Jenna pushed off the rig. He had softer facial features with protruding ears, cropped dark hair, and the kind of smile that was either genuine or absent. Not an ounce of pretense in the man. She’d worked with him for a year on the last cre
w leader’s team before being elevated to her current position when Rick retired from the death parade and scooted on back to the city. She felt a twinge of guilt at telling Ray to grow a pair. If anyone had a pair, it was Ray. He could’ve rotated out with his old friend, Rick, if he’d so chosen, but he’d opted to stick with Jenna.

  “Sorry, boss,” Ray said.

  “Strictly between us?” Jenna asked.

  Ray nodded.

  She leaned in close. “Fuck that guy.” She smiled. He returned it. “I can’t show favoritism and I know you get that.”

  “I do, boss. It’s why I followed you out here.”

  She clapped his shoulder and looked northwest.

  “Shit’s comin’.”

  Ray showed her that genuine smile. “When’s the shit not comin’?” He ticked his head up and turned away.

  Jenna returned the smile at the back of his head.

  Scruff was turning the wrench on the pod again with his axe leaning against the oversized wheel of the equipment truck next to him.

  Jenna kept Scruff close. No, maybe it was the other way around. The massive man had adopted her after meeting her at the indoctrination facility in OK City when no one else could get through to him. The loyalty her C.O. claimed Jenna naturally inspired in her troops prompted him to enlist her in a project that was the 300-pound man who wouldn’t talk to anyone else and chose to stay in his cage. Since then they’d been inseparable.

  In spite of the taunting by Tyler, Jenna saw Ray’s happy-go-lucky saunter carrying him back to the rusted-out vehicles to pitch in. He stopped on the way, patted Scruff on the shoulder, and said something Jenna couldn’t quite make out. Scruff punched him lightly on the shoulder, grunted something short, and nodded. Ray cringed and rubbed his shoulder furiously and, this time, Jenna caught the end of his response.

  “…ya fuckin’ beast!” He continued rubbing as he walked on. Scruff smiled at the back of Ray’s head, nodded satisfaction with the state of the world, and turned back to his work.

  Jenna felt the side of her mouth tick up again. If someone had slapped Scruff’s shoulder two years earlier, he might have ripped off an arm and beaten them with it.

  When Ray arrived at the vehicles, Jenna saw him say something to Tyler and give him a quick pat on the back. Tyler ignored him.

  That decided her. She was rotating him out when they rotated to Little Rock next month.

  An hour flew by as the four of them checked the derelicts for corpses and goods. They worked through a light rain. Once the vehicles were emptied, Jenna stacked them away from the side of the road, where the crew working behind them would flatten them and prepare them to be hauled away when they caught up in a few weeks. The corpses were placed in a mass grave, and the keepers shoved into a locking compartment beneath the truck. OK City was particularly interested in gold and other precious metals that didn’t rust.

  The front only gave them ninety minutes. They worked through the light stuff for twenty minutes when the wind picked up, signaling the arrival of the heavier stuff. Once the sun was blotted out completely by the cloud cover, the rig wouldn’t run for long anyway. Its batteries only held so much energy without the solar to assist.

  “Pack it up! Ray, empty your pockets in the box and close it up.”

  Ray laughed and dropped a necklace in the chest before slapping the lid closed. It had become a tradition for him to pocket something for his many girlfriends back Little Rock Outpost. Jenna even let him get away with it from time to time.

  She powered down the heavy lifter.

  Even Scruff’s beard was starting to waver in the wind by the time they walked to the pod. He paused and looked around.

  “What is it?” Jenna asked.

  He screwed up his expression, looking around one more time, shrugged, and ducked into the pod.

  He wanted me to climb in first.

  Once the guys were in the pod, she told Scruff she’d be right in and punched the panel to close the door. She pulled the tank top over her head and raised her face as the rain poured down, washing the grime off her skin.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Unplanned Company

  Instead of rolling in, pissing down a lake, and moving on like recent storms, the monster cell parked above them and poured with abandon. At one point, a lightning bolt touched down so close that Jenna would’ve sworn it hit the rig outside. The pod came equipped with rechargeable power systems, low frequency transponders, two bunks, and hidden LED strip lighting, but none of that was going to keep them from floating away.

  You’re being a drama queen.

  She checked her handheld. Fifteen-hundred hours, local time. About six hours since the storm started, and the four were still packed into the sleeping pod like ammunition in a shotgun.

  We leave the cubes unpacked until we move the rig from now on. I’m tired of smelling these guys.

  Though the pod was part storm shelter and part armored bunker designed for rapid deployment in all kinds of conditions, the rumble of the thunder above served as a reminder that nature always took its due and didn’t like being underestimated.

  Drama queen.

  Jenna didn’t like the sterile environment and couldn’t stand the sound of the non-optional air filters running each time the door latched. But when the shit was blowing like it was then, she’d count her luckies. On clear nights with dry ground, she opted for her sleeping tube in the open air.

  In the passing hours, Jenna caught up on two days of reports, detailing the various work stoppages due to the unrelenting chain of storm systems. The reports were becoming backlogged on her handheld because she couldn’t transmit them along the Stringer.

  Ray, who sat next to Tyler on the bunk across from Jenna, watched porn on his handheld, ear buds in. He must have downloaded a couple new ones while they were on hiatus in Little Rock. Sometimes, it was nice being treated like one of the guys. This was not one of those times. Tyler was sneaking peeks over Ray’s shoulder between tinkering on his own handheld. Scruff sat between the two bunks with his head resting against the wall. He couldn’t sit on the bunks because he would have to tilt his head forward to keep it from bumping against the roof.

  As the constant pattering of rain on the pod relented, Tyler stopped tinkering on his handheld and slapped his hand over Ray’s.

  “You hear that?”

  Ray yanked the earbuds out of his ears.

  “What?” Jenna asked. Then she heard it. A low droning noise beneath the remnants of the rain. She tilted her head to get a better listen. The drone grew louder, like hives of bees merging into a swarm.

  “Motors?” Ray asked. He clicked off the porno and tapped on his handheld. “No signal in this mess.” He raised the device toward the ceiling, questing for a signal.

  Nothing.

  Jenna’s ears perked up. That was definitely a motor.

  “Unplanned company!” Jenna snapped. “Move!”

  All four jumped into crouches, jerked on hats, and laced boots. Jenna brought up the rear as the shelter hatch flung open and they leapt out into the drizzle. Scruff slammed the hatch button behind them. Jenna turned toward the sound and looked across the once east- and west-bound lanes of asphalt. At the crest of a hill running parallel to the highway less than a mile away, she saw the unmistakable shapes of bikes motoring toward them. She counted seven. Jenna ran to the truck and grabbed her goggles. She swept a wider view to be sure, but saw only the single group.

  Bastards waited for the heavy stuff to move in and blew it, she thought. She wondered if she would have heard them if the storm hadn’t let up at that exact moment.

  At least Tyler’s ears work, even if his social filter doesn’t.

  “Projectiles,” Jenna ordered, “the auto turrets will be useless in this rain.” But when she turned and looked, Ray had already climbed onto the back of the equipment truck and was tossing metal cases down to Scruff. Each grabbed the case with their animal symbol stamped on it in neat white paint.

  Ray
, the tiger.

  Jenna, the lion, or lioness.

  Scruff, the bear.

  And Tyler, of course, the snake.

  They dragged their cases in front of them and tapped in their codes. Then they snapped the latches and popped the lids. She glanced up from her case at her team. Jenna’s men were machines. Guns were assembled, loaded and at the ready in seconds. The four fanned out, taking up positions about fifteen feet apart behind the cars they’d already pushed off the side of the road. Jenna assembled her weapon on the move. Unlike the rest, Jenna’s weapon was built for ranged attack. But it could be switched for up-close combat with the jerk of a lever. She slapped her clip in, readied her weapon, and leveled her aim on what would be her target.

  “Double up, left and right,” Jenna said. “Wait for them to close.”

  “Wind fifteen knots from the northwest, boss!” Ray shouted. “Shit, one of ‘em’s got a hover bike!”

  A hover bike? This far out?

  “I don’t know how the rest are keeping those wheels on the wet surface,” Tyler said.

  The others were on ground-based motor bikes and trikes.

  “Focus on your targets!” Jenna replied.

  “Target lock, boss!” Tyler yelled. He screamed it like he was about to parachute off of a cliff.

  “Wait,” Jenna said.

  The bikes were half a click out now and spinning their wheels at a good clip on the cracked asphalt. The lead bike slid to the center and the other fell into single file alignment behind.

  Jenna spoke in a level tone. “They’ll fan out again when they raise weapons. Wait for it.”

  Seventy-five yards.

  The badlanders raised weapons as their bikes jetted down to where the ground leveled out.

  She leveled hers and tightened up on her target—a particularly ugly breed with a nasty scar she saw clearly running along his jaw.

  Fifty yards.

  “On my shot!” she yelled.

  The wind gusted. Jenna flicked a knob on her scope to adjust for it, took a deep breath, and let it all the way out. She pinned the crosshairs on Scarface’s heart.