World of Ashes (58 page)

             
“Don’t… Move…” Ethan said. The men froze in place, an expired beer can dropped from one of their grubby hands and fizzed on the ground. “My name is Sheriff Ethan J. Cally, and I’ll be the one taking your weapons now.”

             
“You don’t want to do this, man.” The one Ethan didn’t have a gun barrel pressed against said, “We got a tank too, bro.” The man gestured with a nod to the graffiti decorated pile of rust that had once been a proud war machine.

             
“Very astute. Eat any good books lately?” The quote from Star Trek went right over the man’s head. Even if this were still the Old World he wouldn’t have gotten it.

             
“What?” The shabby sentry said in bewilderment as the Cavalry swooped in and silently gagged both men, dragging them away by their feet while Ethan holstered the .44 caliber hand-cannon. Two soldiers were already on top of the tank preparing to drop a grenade in it at the earliest sign of hostility. They reached the hatch and moments later one was inside, and then promptly back out, waving his hand back and forth like he’d stepped in shit. No one had ever bothered to clean the machine, the bodies of the soldiers manning it were probably still inside.

             
Lee gave the hand signal for
What The Fuck
? The men shrugged and gave the all clear sign for the tank, mostly because no one wanted to go back inside it. They swept the camp next to the road before spotting a trail that led off into the woods. Trash littered the path, dirty, tattered clothing and other belongings of no value were strewn every which way. Since they were next to a cliff Ethan took the next logical step and peered over the edge. There had to be thirty cars in various states of rusting decay, burned out and smashed, crushed one upon another in a pile like a junkyard. They’d been shoved off the cliff where the East bound bridge was blown.

Lee came up next to his brother as the rest of the troops swept the area.
He pulled out his binoculars and looked down. “Ethan, get away from the edge!”

             
Ethan took the binoculars and looked for himself. “Jesus Christ, no…”

             
Lee and several other troops had trouble keeping up with Ethan as he ran into the brush, nearly skiing down the steep slope to the overgrown road below. He stumbled toward the wreckage while the others caught up. They were all out of breath because of the frigid air as they caught up to Ethan where he was standing still as stone in the middle of the grass and trash covered road. The wind whipped up and the smell of burned flesh and plastic wafted over them.

             
“We might as well have carved their tombstones for them, Lee.” Ethan turned and headed back up the hill, a look Ethan had seen before burning bright behind his brother’s eyes. Lee looked at the pile of cars. He felt sick to his stomach as he saw what his brother had spotted from above. The burned, picked clean skeletal remains of the religious zealots they’d kicked out of town for inciting a riot. Lee threw up when he saw the torn in half body of a little boy he’d met once. The boy had been an okay kid, his parents were a completely different story, their rhetoric reminiscent of Westboro Baptist Church’s psychotic dribble. Lee had given him a bicycle helmet that looked like a WWII Army steel pot. They’d found lots of them at a Wal*Mart and given them out to children on Veteran’s Day the year before. This one had sergeant’s stripes Lee had rather poorly painted on himself, just for the boy so his would be special.

Not everyone fared the Apocalypse
well, the loss of their world of gadgets and television. The boy had lived through and adjusted to it all, a young man with a bright future, only to be murdered for what meager supplies they had and unceremoniously pushed off a cliff. His body, and those of his family and church had been eaten by zombies and wild animals while the men above them partied like there was no tomorrow. Just because there probably won’t be a tomorrow doesn’t give one permission to behave like a savage.

             
“Sorry kid.” He whispered, feeling his blood begin to boil. His men were loyal. They would never say anything, they knew and agreed revenge was the next, and only course of action to be taken. These people were all going to die for what they’d done, no prisoners, no lengthy trial. Not that there was anyone left for Lee to answer to, no judges or juries left to try him for war crimes. Lee felt a sudden empathy for Annakin Skywalker, before he was Darth Vader, when he decided to kill all of the Sand People. If only there were dramatic theme music for this moment.

             
On top of the hill the Cavalry had captured a third highwayman. This one was a woman, and not much of one. Skinny, strung out, improperly dressed for the weather. She wasn’t even half as cooperative as the two men. Not that it mattered. When Lee made it to the top of the hill he pulled his brother’s 1851 Colt from his holster without so much as asking. Before Ethan knew what was happening Lee shot the woman in the temple with it. She cartwheeled off the cliff, landing with a crash on a windshield below.

Time slowed down for
Ethan. He watched the hammer slam down against copper cap, the sizzle of the powder as it ignited, and finally the thunder of the explosion when the ball sailed through the air and blew the majority of the woman’s face out the back of her head. “Find the rest of them. Kill them.”

             
Finding the rest of the camp turned out to be easier than expected. The killers had been camped out in a row of RVs on the other side of the wood line. The battle was short and bloody, the gang of nearly thirty men and what might have passed for women before they were strung out on meth and heroin were all quickly killed. Like the gang at Mt. Sterling none of them offered to surrender, though some were passed out and offered no resistance. The two prisoners they’d first encountered were brought back to the edge of the cliff as well. Once lined up none of the few living members would shut up, or stop blaming the other. It was pandemonium, a clusterfuck for which none of the Cavalrymen had the time or patience. They had by now all seen the carnage below. Some of those people, though outcasts, were friends and fellow survivors. The things these people had done to others was simply unforgivable.

             
“SHUT UP!” Lee shouted, pulling the hammer back on the Colt. He leveled the barrel at the two men they’d first encountered. “You. Tell me who the leader is.”

             
“Him.” The man they now knew as Sam Clark of Cincinnati pointed at a man who more resembled Ted Kaczynski than the suited businessman he’d once probably been. The suit was in tatters, and he hadn’t bothered to repair it. No one there bathed. This was an encampment of thieves and murderers, subhuman creatures who’d given up on the ideals of civilization.

             
Lee shot the leader without so much as blinking. The other troops shot the rest of the vagrants except the two men they’d first encountered. By their stories and general appearance they were recent additions to the gang. They didn’t yet smell only of meth and urine. The two men stood trembling, remaining the only ones alive as the last body thumped to the frozen wrecks below, joining their victims in death.

             
“Strip.” Ethan said to the survivors. “You deserve to die along with them. You will never convince me there was a reason for you two to throw in with this lot… Your cooperation is all that spares your lives. I do not have room for prisoners, but I will not allow you to enjoy the loot taken from your victims. Now take off your clothes.” The men did so without hesitation. It was below freezing as the sun began to set, but that wasn’t Ethan’s problem. “See the sunset? Start walking towards it until you can’t see it anymore. So much as look back, or come back, and you’ll die no matter the circumstance.”

             
No one slept that night. They lit the cars below the cliff on fire one last time and stood a silent vigil as the pile reduced itself to metal shards and unburned bone. The smell was putrid, but no one dared wear a mask. In the dark any half thawed Zim could stumble into a masked man’s blind spot and take a chunk of one’s neck before there was time to could scream.

             
The next morning some of the men who’d been construction workers rigged a harness to lower themselves below where the bridge met the bluff. They didn’t like what they saw and the survey was over quickly. “It’s a miracle she’s survived two winters. I’d say the Air Force tried to blow it from the air during the panic. That’s why the single lane is still there. See that area down there where all the trees are either stumps or saplings? It’s an impact crater, probably from a JDAM.” One of them said to Ethan as they prepared to move out. “The supports on the remaining lane didn’t take the full force of the impact, but there is some buckling near the base. I saw exposed rebar where the concrete was blown or crumbled away.”

             
“Will it hold the tanks?”

             
“If it holds us going across it then it probably will on the way back.” The man shrugged, “No way to tell. If this were in the Days Before we’d never bother repairing a bridge this damaged. It would have been demolished and a new one built instead. I don’t even know if there is a way to truly assess the bridge’s load capacity. It’s probably only holding together because the pavement hasn’t buckled. You can see the West bound lane is listing pretty bad. I wouldn’t even walk across it, personally.” He pointed to some ladders the gang had been using to cross over onto the isolated bridge section, a last refuge against Zims. They’d been using it as a toilet rather than a fallback position with a natural chokepoint.

             
“Think we should leave someone to guard this position? It could take hours to go around it if someone retakes it.” Lee asked Ethan’s opinion as they walked back to the trucks.

             
“No. If anyone’s watching, and I promise they are, they’d love nothing more than for us to leave a couple guys behind so they can kidnap them. Hajj has been doing it since OIF I.”

             
“This isn’t Iraq.”

             
“Tell that to the them.” Ethan gestured to the smoldering bodies below. They climbed in the lead truck and started the engine. It wasn’t likely they’d make it all the way to Ft. Leonard Wood today, but they’d be in a position to scout the area before night came again. As the men crossed precariously over the bridge Lee pointed down the hill to the river where the shoreline was frozen several feet out. Two pale, naked bodies were protruding from the thin ice sheet. Justice or murder, you’d have to have been there, smelled the bodies, seen the carnage, seen the raped bodies. Civilized men of a future era would have to judge Lee’s Cavalrymen, assuming this ever made it into the history books. Someone would write about it. They always did.

Back in Town

              Allen hated playing Sheriff. He had other things to do, like quietly keep to himself at the edge of town and watch old movies with a bowl of popcorn and hot girl. He’d settled in with two lovely girls, one from each coast, and didn’t want to leave them at home to go play cop.
At least I’m not on this ridiculous mission too
, he thought to himself. He was still receiving physical therapy from the hospital after the plane crash, but only Allison and Amanda knew he still got confused sometimes. When his stress level was too high his upper back would spasm as well. He had no business playing cop anymore, let alone being outside the wire on a mission that was undoubtedly dangerous and might yield no results but more dead Soldiers.

             
“Hey, Sheriff, we have some unusual guests you might want to speak with.” One of the Cavalrymen, PFC Cook said, poking his head in through a window at the police station.

             
“Not now, Cook, I’m busy.
Ren & Stimpy
is on.”

             
“Super, thanks for sharing, Sheriff, but they claim to be official ambassadors of the United States of America.” Cook’s shit eating grin disappeared when Allen’s face turned deadly serious.

             
“Get Mary Cally on the phone, and get the Mayor up. Nap-time is over.” Allen sprang into action as best he could. He would probably need a cane soon, if his back degraded any farther. “Alert the Cavalry and get all the Reserves to FOB Alamo as fast as you can. Set Security Condition Two.”

             
“Sir?” Cook looked confused, “Are they like the ones who attacked us?”

             
“I don’t know, Cook! I’m still in here aren’t I? How did you hear about this?”

             
“They’re at the South Gate.”

             
“The South Gate?”

             
“They came from Jefferson City, Sir. I think they know there’s nothing up North too.”

             
“Alright…” Allen had to think quickly. “You stay here, Cook. I’m going to the gate.”

             
“Yessir.” Cook didn’t know how to run the office, but was more than happy to watch old Nickelodeon cartoons and keep Allen’s seat warm while he made the necessary calls.

             
Allen jumped in a patrol car and raced to gate, which was close. Why he hadn’t heard the engines of an arriving convoy he didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t know a lot. The radio was abuzz with sightings of a large convoy of light blue vehicles, some were labeled FEMA, others with acronyms that were foreign to them. This was what Ethan had warned him about. The Government trying their version of “help.” As the patrol car came around the corner Allen got his first glimpse of what was outside the gate. He pulled to a stop and climbed the nearest guard tower. He could walk the embattlements to the gate from there, though climbing the ladder made him dizzy enough to drop his Stetson. Already frustrated, he peered over the wall. What he saw was jaw dropping. The sentries, most of which were embroiled in a staring contest with the guns of the convoy, had the same expression. There had to be a hundred trucks, all of them UN blue, all bearing white serial numbers, some labeled HAZMAT TEAM, others SECURITY FORCES. What got Allen’s attention were the ten, desert tan armored personnel carriers that escorting the convoy. They flew the American Flag, all thirteen stripes and fifty stars, but there was a new flag next to it, and it only had one star amid thirteen stripes. One star, one nation. Change the flag, change the nation. Ethan and his marathon watching of
Jericho
was becoming eerily true to life.