The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  It was highly unlikely that the US had suffered its fate alone. The more likely scenario was that there’d been a global nuclear war. He didn’t have any basis for his theory other than what he’d seen in movies and read in action novels; it made sense that the missiles were pre-programmed with targets and would automatically launch once the authority was given. If the Vultures or some other hacker group had gotten into the network and begun the first strike, then others would retaliate and the US would legitimately counterattack the nation that retaliated against them. It would be a vicious cycle until either all of the missiles had been launched or the computers that controlled them were shut down.

  The door to the car opened and the piece of ash that had caused his contemplation flew into the air and then spiraled out the door. Tyler sat down heavily and Aeric started laughing. “What?”

  “It looks like you’re covered in dirty snow, or really bad dandruff.”

  Tyler pulled the visor down and looked in the mirror. He had a thick layer of ash in his hair and on his shoulders. “Hmpf,” he grunted and ran his fingers rapidly back and forth over his hair to get the ash out of it. When he was done, his hand came away covered in a mixture of dark soot and white ash.

  Aeric looked out the window at the falling ash. From inside the car, it looked kind of pretty as it covered the road and lay in soft, fluffy layers on the thick needles of the cedar trees that lined the highway. He could almost imagine that it was snow, falling on a peaceful winter day. That flight of fancy was far from the truth. The crap falling from the sky was the remnants of his nation.

  “We need to get moving,” he said.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how much longer I can stay cooped up in this little car,” Tyler agreed and twisted his back to emphasize his point.

  They ate a quick meal and tossed the cans on the floorboard before getting out of the car. Aeric stretched for a moment and then went to relieve himself. By the time that he’d come back, Tyler was already digging through the backpacks for something.

  “Whatcha looking for?”

  The sound of ripping fabric answered him and then Tyler’s big, meaty fist thrust backwards at him. There was a ripped t-shirt dangling between his fingers. “We should probably cover our mouths so we don’t breathe in all that soot and get cancer or some other stupid fucking illness.”

  “Good idea,” Aeric agreed. “I guess we need to add gas masks—or at least those little paper masks—to our shopping list, huh?”

  “Along with better backpacks and some light jackets,” Tyler stated.

  “How the hell are we gonna pay for all that stuff?”

  “Credit card?”

  Aeric punched his friend on the shoulder. “Are you dense, bro? Remember, electronics don’t work anymore.”

  “We’ll figure something out. Maybe we can barter with all those cigarettes,” Tyler replied. He started walking north and then called over his shoulder, “Oh yeah, we’ll need good walking boots too.”

  “Sounds like we need to raid an REI or something,” Aeric muttered while he tied the cloth around his face. Then he fell into step behind Tyler, following the path through the ashes that he’d made.

  *****

  It turned out that they were much closer to the interstate than they’d anticipated and must have walked more than six miles the day that they’d left Wortham. They entered the small community of Richland after walking for less than thirty minutes.

  While the small, red-roofed convenience station allowed them in, the owner told them that the Army troops had cleaned out most of the supplies that she had. They scoured the bare shelves, not finding much of use besides several lighters and some Texas flag bandanas that they could use to cover their faces and help with the ash. Aeric offered two packs of cigarettes for the meager haul and the woman accepted them as payment for the goods.

  They thanked the owner and then, on a whim, Aeric asked about the soldiers that the woman had mentioned. “Oh, they’re an okay bunch,” she replied. “Paid with cash and haven’t bothered anyone. I was a little bit afraid of them at first when they pulled up with all those guns, but everything was fine. They’re situated up the road near the highway. Folks aren’t allowed to travel on the interstate right now, that’s only for military traffic, so their job is to keep people off of the road.”

  “Our car ran out of gas a few miles back and we haven’t seen anyone driving since then. Have you seen much traffic?” Aeric hadn’t outright lied to her; it had been more than just a few miles from where they’d abandoned the car.

  “You know, it’s funny,” she said. “This mess with the Army keeping people off the roads has only been going on for two weeks and people are already rationing gas like you wouldn’t believe. I sold out a week ago and haven’t been able to get a new truck yet.”

  “Two weeks? The power went out in Austin four days ago.”

  “Well, the soldiers were on the highway before then; they’ve been around for a while. They didn’t shut it down to traffic until about the same time that you’re talking about.”

  Tyler tapped him roughly with an elbow and asked, “Why were the soldiers already pre-positioned? Did they know something was gonna happen?”

  He shrugged, how the hell should he know? A week ago he was worried about midterms, now here he was on foot in the middle of Texas after a global nuclear war. “No clue. Hey, thank you very much, ma’am. You’ve been really helpful.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you fellas any food or anything, but like I said, those soldiers cleaned me out!”

  “No worries,” Aeric replied with a wave and pushed the door open. The bell ringing on the handle sounded too normal to him, reminding him of better days and was in stark contrast to the dark gray clouds of low-hanging smoke that seemed to loom over the countryside.

  “Shouldn’t those damn clouds be clearing off soon,” he grumbled as he adjusted the packs on his back and started to walk to the road.

  “Depends on how many fires there are,” Tyler said. “Remember a few years ago when those volcanoes blew in Iceland? They said the ash cloud would get blown all over Europe for weeks. What if fires like the ones that we saw last night are burning all over the world? They may stick around for a while because the wind currents will continually lift up the ash, keeping most of it aloft for a long time.”

  Aeric stopped and stared at his friend. Sometimes the things that came from his mouth were profoundly thought-provoking, other times, they were profoundly stupid. In this instance, it was the former. “How do you know so much about ash clouds?”

  “I watched a Discovery Channel special on it.”

  “So, how long are we talking about here?”

  “I don’t know, man. There have been cases where it was like three weeks, the winds way up in the atmosphere kept shifting everything around. Volcanoes throw millions of tons of ash into the air, though. Surely this isn’t as bad as that.”

  Aeric glanced at the sky and replied, “I don’t know. There were a lot of massive explosions. All combined, they probably put more dirt and ash into the air than any volcano ever did.”

  “Maybe,” Tyler replied and continued walking towards the Interstate 45 on-ramp. “Hey, are we gonna try to get some bicycles or what?”

  “Where are we going to get them from? We’d have to steal them and I’m not really interested in becoming a thief.”

  “It’s not stealing if the owner isn’t around. Maybe they’re dead.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a morbid way of looking at things.”

  “Is it morbid or just realistic?” Tyler asked. “Look, if those really were nukes and we’ve erased a hundred years of electrical engineering across the globe, then things are gonna get bad. Like, real bad. You think those murders and settling of scores that happened in Austin were bad? All of that happened before we were on the losing end of a nuclear war. Think about what the next few weeks are gonna be like.”

  “Fuck! That’s another smart comment from you in les
s than two minutes,” Aeric moaned. “Any more and you’ll be elected mayor of some weird survivalist commune or something.”

  “Nah, they don’t want gay dudes in a survivalist camp, they want people who’re gonna reproduce. Nope, I’m better out here on the road watching out for you.”

  He had another good point, this time inadvertently. The future of mankind would hinge on being able to reproduce and those who didn’t might end up as outcasts. Aeric shook his head. He wouldn’t let that happen to his friend. He already had enough issues with his family’s lack of acceptance that he’d been able to put behind him for a while down in Austin. There was no way that Aeric would let anyone be like that with him from here on out.

  “Well, I need all the help I can get, so you’re welcome to stay with me as long as you want to, bro. We’ll see about acquiring a couple of bikes soon, too.”

  “I just want to ride in style.”

  As they walked, the tan outline of military vehicles took shape on the overpass and another was parked sideways across the on-ramp. Rolls of coiled barbed wire stretched across the road and about one hundred feet into the fields on either side to keep people from driving around the blocked road. Signs on the side of the road told travelers that it was closed and directed people to either turn around or proceed along the service road without attempting to enter the interstate.

  “Looks like they’re serious about keeping people off the road,” Tyler said.

  “Yeah, I don’t like this. Looks almost like they knew something was gonna happen,” Aeric said as he adjusted his grip on the rifle and then put his arm through the sling to rest it on his shoulder. He didn’t want the soldiers to think that he was walking up to them in a threatening manner with the gun.

  “There’s that conspiracy theory streak again. What point would the government have for starting a nuclear war?”

  “Maybe that wasn’t their intention. Maybe they were planning to raid Austin to get the Vultures, I don’t know why, but just like that gas station owner said, they were here before the shit got bad.”

  “I wonder how much of the interstate system is blocked off,” Tyler said idly as he raised his hands above his head and kept walking forward. “I mean, there’s no way that they blocked off every on-ramp to the interstate. We don’t have that many soldiers.”

  Aeric followed his friend’s lead and raised his hands too. “You’re right. Maybe just the ones that lead between really important points are being secured.”

  “COME FORWARD SLOWLY,” a soldier ordered through what looked like a cheerleader’s megaphone. It was another indication to Aeric that they’d known something was going to happen. He couldn’t imagine that a non-electrical method of making your voice louder would be standard equipment for the Army.

  They walked slowly forward as they’d been directed, continuing to keep their hands in the air as far from their weapons as possible. When they neared the vehicle, a soldier wearing a full chemical protective suit and mask stepped out from behind the door. He had his weapon pointed at them, not towards the ground or off to the side, but directly at them.

  “What’s your business?” he asked. His voice sounded distorted and muffled through the mask that he wore.

  “We’re trying to go to Missouri. My family lives in Springfield and I’m going home,” Aeric answered truthfully.

  “Missouri got slagged. There’s nothing left.”

  Aeric dropped his hands and demanded, “What do you mean?”

  “Put your hands back up!” the soldier ordered with a threatening step forward.

  He lifted his hands once again and said, “I’m an American citizen. I’m just trying to move past your checkpoint to go home.”

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth? You could be trying to get a read on our position and troop strength so you can attack us.” The soldier in the turret of the Humvee slewed the large machine gun left to right slightly as if to emphasize the man on the ground’s point.

  “What?” Tyler asked. “You know this is all crazy, right?”

  The soldier shifted the barrel of his weapon towards the bigger man and a small cascade of ash fell from his helmet. “Crazy? What’s crazy is that we were put out here two weeks ago with no explanation of what was happening. The only thing we were told was that under no circumstances was anyone allowed on Interstate 45. Then the fucking missiles started hitting yesterday.

  “Like I said, man, Missouri is gone. We had our big Stealth Bomber airbase near Kansas City and St. Louis on the east side of the state. We heard on the radio that they were both wiped off the face of the earth.”

  Aeric took half a step forward and then backed up quickly when the rifle aimed back at him. “Springfield wasn’t hit, right?”

  The soldier lowered his weapon slightly and looked over his shoulder to another masked individual in the passenger seat of the Humvee. The soldier inside looked down at their lap and then back up, shaking their head. “No, Springfield wasn’t hit the last time that they gave us updates about what’s left.”

  “So let us through. We don’t want any trouble and we’re not getting on the interstate. All we want to do is go to my family’s house in Springfield.”

  “You plan on walking?”

  “If we have to,” Tyler answered. “Look, I know that you’re just doing your job, but we aren’t a problem. We’ll travel up the side road here until we get to Corsicana and then shoot down Highway 31 to the northeast. You guys will never see us again.”

  “That must be hundreds of miles,” the soldier answered and lowered his weapon to the low ready position.

  “Yeah, it’s a long way. We’re going to try and find some bicycles that are for sale or something. Then we’ll make it the rest of the way there.”

  He relaxed even more and allowed the rifle to hang freely on the strap from his shoulder. “You’ll want to try and avoid Little Rock. We got word that it was wiped out before our radios went down. Cheap pieces of shit were supposed to be shielded against EMP; I guess all of the detonations so close were too much for the circuitry.”

  “Was it Austin or San Antonio that got it to the south yesterday?” Aeric asked.

  The door to the Humvee opened and the soldier from the passenger seat stepped out. “Last we heard, it was San Antonio that got hit, not Austin,” she stated.

  Aeric was surprised to hear a woman’s voice coming from behind the mask, but didn’t let it show. “Oh, good,” he replied. “We have friends back in Austin. I don’t want them to be dead.”

  “Things are going to get very bad pretty soon. Food and resources are going to dry up without the large distribution centers in the cities sending food out every day,” the woman said. “New England is… It’s just gone and most of the big cities were hit too. I don’t know what happened with our higher headquarters. We stopped getting updates from them a few hours before the radios went out.”

  “Wait, isn’t your equipment protected against things like EMPs?” Tyler asked. He shrugged at Aeric’s questioning look and said, “More Discovery channel stuff I guess.”

  “Our radios still work. The lights are on and everything checks out with them., there’s just nobody answering on the other end. I don’t know if that’s because the relays were knocked out or if our base is gone. After the first couple of big explosions, we lost comms with Fort Hood and we were getting generic updates from a substation, but now I… I don’t know what the situation is.”

  “Lieutenant, are you sure you should be giving that information to these people?”

  She swiped her hands across the air and made a path through the drifting ash. It swirled away from her on the miniature wind current that she’d created. “Look around you, Sergeant Cantrell. Everything is burning. The world is falling apart. These two men aren’t any threat to us or the nation. They’re just trying to get home. We’re doing our job to keep them off the interstate, but we don’t need to keep making them feel like criminals—put your damn hands down, you two.”
/>   Aeric lowered his hands slowly. “If your headquarters are gone, what are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to do our job, sir,” she answered. “We’ll stay here until we’re released or run out of food. Then? I don’t know.”

  “After we go to Springfield to get my family, we’re coming back to Austin and then maybe a little town called San Angelo if things in Austin are bad. We have a friend who lives out there.”

  “Okay, why are you telling me? I don’t care where you go. You’re free to move past our checkpoint, sir.”

  He sighed in frustration. “I mean, if you guys find yourself with no place to go, that’s where we’re headed when everything is said and done. Our friend told us all about the nice little city on the banks of a couple of lakes. There’s a small Air Force base there. I’m sure they could use your firepower to help defend them if things get as bad as we all think they might.”

  The lieutenant’s eyes wrinkled at the corners and he could tell that she was smiling behind the mask. “We might take you up on that. My home was in Boston and Sergeant Cantrell is from Maryland. Those don’t exist anymore. If things are as bad as I fear and we haven’t heard from Higher, then we’ll have to move in a couple of days. We’ll head back to our base at Fort Hood first, depending on what we find there, we may try to make the trip. The Air Force base that’s there, Goodfellow, is the next closest active duty installation, so that’s where we would be required to go anyways.”

  “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do, ma’am,” the sergeant replied. “We haven’t had any contact with anyone in more than twelve hours. We could disband and I’ll try to make it back home.”

  “We’re still a part of the First Cavalry Division, Sergeant Cantrell, and you’ll follow orders. If we get back to Fort Hood and nothing is left, then you’re free to go off and do whatever you want to do. Until then, we stay here. Once we only have twenty-four hours of rations left, then we RTB,” she said using the military slang for Return to Base.