****
The old dozer finally sputtered to a halt at the edge of the sprawling main campus. The big dormitories of Northside towered above us, dark and lifeless. The buildings had once bustled with students, vibrant with youthful enthusiasm, but now they stood empty, haunted.
The ash was too deep for the trucks, but we couldn’t leave the convoy in the middle of the road. We were only a few hundred yards short of a small parking garage, so we broke out shovels and the whole party took turns digging a path. The work was grueling. It took us two hours to reach the garage. Our hands were blistered and our backs ached from lifting shovelfuls of the heavy ash.
The box truck was too tall to fit through the low garage opening. We parked it outside and transferred the precious supplies into the beds of the trucks as they entered. We parked the convoy on the third floor. The garage was surprisingly full, but a thick layer of ash, blown in on the wind, covering the parked cars testified to their disuse.
We posted sentries at the entrances and then set up camp on the cool concrete floor. While a few of our neighbors prepared a meal, Deb and I climbed the stairs to the roof for a look around, hoping for evidence that the eerily silent campus was still inhabited. The power plant was just across the street, directly below us, but I could see no movement. It was clearly abandoned and inactive. I hoped it had just been shut down and not destroyed. I peered through my binoculars at the rest of the buildings around me. I could see no lights, no smoke, no movement, the campus was dead, a ghost-town. Discouraged, we returned to the campsite. After a meal of canned beans and stale crackers, I finally collapsed under the weight of two days' worth of exhaustion.
The next morning we went exploring. Five of us filled backpacks with rations and ammunition, shouldered our weapons, and set off into the grey morning. Moving through the ash was a struggle from the first step. It was thigh deep in most places. Thankfully it had compacted under its own weight so our legs only sank in to the middle of our calves, but even so we were soon exhausted with the effort. We headed straight for the nearest building, sighing in relief as we stepped down through a broken glass door and landed on solid footing. In the dim light filtering in through the tops of the windows, we could see that the central lobby was empty, curiously devoid of furniture. The small snack bar at one end had been ransacked, its display case smashed and its vending machines gutted. The outer doors of an elevator stood open, revealing nothing but gloomy darkness. We found the lobby furniture packed into the main stairwell. The tangled mass of chairs and tables obviously placed there to deter intruders. We took this as a sign of habitation, but no one answered our echoing shouts.
Unwilling to waste time negotiating the jumble of furniture, we decided to try our luck with the next building. We crawled back out through the shattered door and struggled through the ash toward the nearby geology building. Halfway there a shot cracked in the still morning air.
The bullet buried itself in a puff of ash a few feet ahead of me. The others raised their rifles in response but I waved them down. We were stranded in the open, a dozen yards from cover. Hoping the shot was a warning and not just a poorly aimed attack, I left my rifle hanging from my shoulder and raised my hands over my head.
"We're friends!" I shouted up at the impassive building. "We're here to help!"
"Help with what?" The reply came from behind us.
I turned to find that our small group was surrounded by cops. There were only five of them, but all but one were staring at us down the sights of their rifles. They were dirty and unshaven, their uniforms almost white with ash. Their leader, the man who had spoken, walked a few paces forward and waved at the roof of the building we had been moving towards.
"I want you all to put your weapons down on the ground in front of you. Move slowly, the good doctor Burns has grown jumpy after the last couple packs of looters, I doubt he'll bother with another warning shot."
We complied nervously. As I bent to lay my rifle in the ash, I risked a glance at the roof. A hooded figure crouched behind the low wall at the edge, peering through the scope of his rifle at me.
His orders carried out, the tall officer relaxed and smiled warmly at us. His brilliant white teeth contrasted sharply with his dark skin.
"I'm Rodney Jones, UPD. I'm guessing you're with the group that's taken over my parking garage?"
"Grover McLelland," I replied, "Yes, we needed a place to stow our vehicles. I can assure you we're here peacefully. Our neighborhood was attacked by a band of lunatics the night before last. We're looking for a safe place for the children. We don't want any trouble."
"Well we won't give you any if you behave yourselves. Why don't we go inside and talk about it." He gestured toward the geology building. The other officers walk over and collected our weapons. "Until I get to know you a little better," Jones reassured me before I could protest.
I was surprised at how quickly they moved through the ash until I noticed the shoes they were wearing. Their feet were strapped to wooden frames which spread their weight out like snow shoes and kept them from sinking into the loose ash. They quickly outpaced us on our way to the building. I resolved to make a pair for myself.
The glass door to the annex had been shattered at some point and was now boarded up with thick plywood. Jones hammered on it a few times with his fist. After a surprisingly long wait, a peephole slid open. A young man with thick glasses and close cropped dark curly hair looked out at us suspiciously for a moment and then swung the door open. As we stepped inside he padded off down the long hallway without a word.
Jones rolled his eyes, nodding at the retreating figure, "Scientists. It's the end of the world and all they want to do is work."
He led us to a side room lined with decades of old periodicals. A pair of dusty couches were flanked by a few glossy old leather armchairs. He motioned for us to sit.
"I'm afraid I can't offer you much in terms of refreshments, supplies are running low." For the first time, I noticed how drawn and thin his face was. His uniform seemed a few sizes too big. His men settled into chairs, their frames similarly diminished by hunger.
"When was the last time you ate something, officer?" I asked, hoping to make a peace offering.
"Please, call me Rodney. I won't lie to you, it's starting to get hungry around here. Most of the food in the cafeteria freezers spoiled when the power went. We've been living off of junk from the vending machines, but that's running out quick. I hope you and your people haven't come looking for a handout. As much as I'd love to help, we can't spare a crumb."
"How does a big mess of scrambled eggs sound?" I asked with a grin.
"Ugh, don't play that game. I don't think we'll ever have a decent breakfast again." he replied, groaning.
"It's not a game, it’s an offer. We've got a dozen chickens up there in the garage. We've been eating fresh eggs every morning since all this started. I'll make sure you get some later. For now, I can offer you canned chili if you like. With beans or without?" I pulled the cans from my pack with a flourish. My friends began producing similar gifts.
The cops gazed hungrily at the bounty we had produced. Jones picked up a can, turning it lovingly in his hands. I handed him my can opener and he had the lid off in seconds. He drank half of it down and sighed in satisfaction. The other officers devoured their own cans with similar gusto.
"I always hated this stuff." Jones laughed, "but I've never tasted anything so delicious."
"There's plenty more. How many people do you have here?"
"Around thirty in this building, but there are hundreds more all over campus. Most of the students left when things went to shit, but a lot of the professors and grads just showed up to work in their labs like nothing had happened. Fucking scientists...” He rolled his eyes again.
“We tried to make it to one of the grocery stores on the other side of campus, but there's a bad bunch dug in at one of the middle schools. I lost some good men before I called it off. The savages wouldn't even talk to us...jus
t started shooting." He stopped there and stared at the floor, reliving the tragedy.
I broke the silence. "What food we have won't go far I'm afraid, but we've got some ideas on how we can get more. Look Rodney, we'll gladly share what we have, but I need something in return."
"There's always a price, I hope it isn't too steep, we can't offer much."
Glad to finally have an ally, I sat back and told him about the Fellowship.
****
It was a month before they arrived. We had plenty of warning. Their progress south was marked by soot-black columns of roiling smoke, each a miniature reminder of the huge pillar which had caused it all. The reverend was doing his holy duty, wiping the stain of man from the earth. We kept sentries in the high buildings at the edge of campus.
We had made good use of the time allotted to us. The scientists, administrators, maintenance workers, and students who had huddled in fear and despair in the dark buildings were organized and put to work. The weeks they had spent struggling to survive had sapped them of purpose, most were simply waiting to die. They rallied behind our cause; we filled them with a renewed hope for the future.
Our first order of business had been to clear the streets. Officer Jones led a working party to the campus motor pool and returned with dozens of yellow plastic fuel cans, each heavy with diesel. Scott had the dozer moving again shortly, and went to work plowing the tangle of roads and pathways between the buildings. Soon, more heavy equipment was scoured from the ash. By then end of the first week, Scott and a dozen maintenance workers and mechanics had cleared most of main campus.
As the streets were cleared, progress on the rest of our projects accelerated. We organized scouting parties, each with three or four men and women, and we traipsed through the ash ahead of the dozers, making contact with the groups marooned in the buildings. We found a dozen of the school's top administrators starving and desperate in the academic building. Once they were properly fed, we set them to work organizing our efforts. The stately building, with its towering rotunda and balustraded balconies became our headquarters. Our dwindling stock of precious supplies was transferred to a storeroom there and kept under guard.
At each building, after a short introduction and a small gift of food, we briefly interviewed the occupants. We recorded each person's name and field of study or area of expertise. Our cadre of administrators used these lists to assign volunteers to working parties for the various projects. Everyone who volunteered was issued rations. By the end of the first week there was a constant crowd lining the hallways waiting patiently for assignment.
The first priority was food production. The center of campus held an aging block of greenhouses. These were quickly cleaned out and hundreds of vegetables were planted. Construction was begun on a dozen more which would be cobbled together from scavenged lumber and window panes. A more immediate source of calories was needed, however, so two foraging parties were organized.
One set out each day to scour the neighborhoods and businesses which surrounded the campus. Much of the area had been thoroughly looted, occasionally the group returned triumphant with sacks of canned goods, but often they shuffled back to campus discouraged. The second party was more successful. They were assigned to the vast ag-science complex which sprawled to the northwest. Most of the larger livestock, the cattle and horses, had sadly starved for lack of fodder. We did what we could for those that seemed strong enough to recover and slaughtered the rest. The smaller, hardier species had thrived.
After three days of searching, the foraging party had collected a sizeable herd of pigs, dozens of goats, even a few sheep. The precious animals were herded or dragged back to main campus and installed in a long cavernous building which we had converted for the purpose. A huge warren of fat research rabbits was found in one room of the complex. Their caretakers had apparently opened the cages and left a mountain of feed for them before evacuating. It was the same story with a long, low building full of poultry.
The biologists and biochemists volunteered to contribute to the growing food stockpiles as well. Their offerings of slimy green algae and stinking yeast were a good source of nutrients, but they were not welcomed with the same enthusiasm as the herd of fresh pork. Most of the unappetizing ooze was used to feed the livestock.
The second priority was power. A dozen engineers, leading a small army of maintenance workers, set to work overhauling the small power plant on the north side of campus. For a week they painstakingly scraped at the conductive ash which had shorted vital electrical components. They replaced miles of wiring, dozens of transformers, and scrubbed countless circuit boards. For two days, a hundred men labored to fill the vast boilers with nothing but buckets of water fetched from all over campus.
Their tireless efforts were finally rewarded with a roar from the turbines and a subtle hum of electricity. The natural gas pipelines which fired the boilers still held pressure for some reason. We took it as a sign that at least a portion of the country's infrastructure was still in operation. Not knowing how long our good fortune would last, the engineers began drawing up plans to construct coal burners in preparation for the day that the gas lines ran dry.
With the power restored, we were able to get the water running again. The campus water tower had run dry nearly a week before we arrived. The scattered survivors had been living off the water from toilet tanks and hot water heaters. As soon as the lights came on, we sent a team to wrangle the big wellhead pumps back to life. The tower took a day to fill up, and was nearly empty again by morning. There was a mad rush on the showers.
With our successes beginning to pile up, Deb and I joined forces with Officer Jones to put together a fighting force to protect it all. The university had started as a military college, and there was still a huge ROTC program which dominated campus life. The cadet barracks and training facilities occupied a large portion of the campus. Most of the cadets had fled with the students, but we found a few dozen huddled in one of the dorms, starving. They were led by a retired US Army Captain, Michael Rockfort, one of the school's military history instructors.
The ROTC storerooms bore a wealth of military uniforms and tactical gear. When we approached Captain Rockfort about our plans to raise a fighting force to protect the campus he enthusiastically offered us access to any equipment we required. He asked for volunteers from his cadets and every one of them stepped forward. They had no weapons, but Officer Jones offered up the spare rifles and shotguns from the UPD armory.
The cadets were a lucky break. Once they were properly fed they formed a ready-made, well trained company of inexperienced but enthusiastic soldiers. Rockfort kept them busy establishing defensive positions on the campus perimeter. He put out a call for volunteers from the general population and dozens more stepped up. Many of my surviving group of neighbors joined the growing force, including Andy Beal, fully recovered now from his wounds. By then end of the third week, we had over a hundred men and women keeping careful watch to the north.
Satisfied that more organized and capable people than I were running the various projects, I began leading patrols into the surrounding city with Deb. For days at a time we would trudge warily through the ruins on our new ash-shoes. Jones and his four officers soon joined us, along with Mike, Clint, and a handful of my other neighbors. We made long, sweeping loops through the abandoned houses and businesses, uncovering caches of weapons, food, and other supplies. Sometimes we met resistance.
There were dozens of small bands of looters combing the dead city, preying on isolated families and survivalists. We always tried to reason with the looters, to welcome them into the new civilization we were building. Some joined us, but most chose to fight. The battles were usually brief. Most of the looters, untrained and hungry, were no match for the five experienced cops.
On one of the first patrols, I tried to defer to Jones' authority. He was the more experienced man and the natural choice to lead us. He just laughed and shook his head.
"Don't be ridiculous,
" he said, flashing his iridescent smile, "I've seen what you're capable of. I ran that campus for a month and we all nearly starved to death. You show up and three weeks later we have power and running water. I had bacon and eggs this morning, for fucks sake! No way buddy, you're the one in charge."
We ran into plenty of families on our patrols, most were desperate, close to starving. The bands of looters harassed them constantly, and howling packs of feral dogs were beginning to become a problem. Most of them broke out in tears when we told them of the paradise we were carving out of the nearby campus. They would eagerly pack their belongings, bundle up their children, and stumble off through the swirling ash towards civilization. The vast dorms began to fill with these refugees. We gladly gave them refuge in return for hard work or valuable expertise.
We kept careful watch for the Fellowship in our ranging. We questioned everyone we met, but at first there were no rumors of the army of religious fanatics. As we moved further north, we began to hear tales of horror and fire dealt out by crazed men in bedsheets. At the end of the third week we saw the first signs of them.
We were on our longest patrol yet, picking our way slowly north, roughly parallel to the narrow trench we had cut with the dozer during our flight weeks before. It was a surprisingly clear day. The rotten, bloated clouds seemed higher than usual. The chill autumn air was still and blessedly free of falling ash. From the crest of a low rise near the highway, we could see for miles. To the north, there was destruction.
The remains of a large industrial park were smoldering. Thick fingers of black smoke swirled up from the ruined warehouses. There was no sign of the perpetrators, but there was no question who was responsible. We cut the patrol short and hurried back to warn the others.
****
We waited behind sandbags at the edge of campus and watched as the dark pillars grew closer. The ash was falling thick when they first rolled into view. Their convoy of trucks was longer now, a glittering snake of headlights trundling slowly toward us in the narrow trench. My battered red truck still led the column. I could see the reverend, still in his business suit, even dirtier now, standing tall in its bed. His treacherous little companion stood by his side.
Ash: Rise of the Republic Page 13