Fire & Ash bi-4 Read online

  “When you met a responsible adult,” thundered Joe.

  “Really?” returned Benny acidly. “Responsible adult? That’s a joke. Almost every adult we’ve met since we left home has been one kind of psychopath or another. Bounty hunters who tried to make us fight in the zombie pits at Gameland. Nutjob loners who like putting people’s heads on their gateposts. Way-station monks who think the zoms are the meek who are supposed to inherit the earth. Scientists who lock themselves in a blockhouse and won’t even talk to us. Reapers who are trying to kill everyone, and you — whatever you are. Joe Action Figure. Don’t lecture me on ‘responsible adults.’ Me and my friends — the kids you’re talking about — we haven’t started fights with anyone. We’re not trying to push our religious views on anybody, and we’re not trying to take what anyone else has. And just because we’re teenagers doesn’t mean that we can’t make good decisions and take care of ourselves. We’re not little kids anymore. We’ve had to grow up a lot in the last few months. A whole lot. We came out here to find proof that the people of your generation haven’t actually destroyed everything that was ever worth anything. Why? Because your story might be over, but ours isn’t. I just hope that when we become adults we’re not as vicious, violent, and destructive as most of the so-called adults we’ve met out here in the Ruin. ’Cause I’m here to tell you, Joe, we could use some better role models.”

  Joe sucked his teeth. “You finished?”

  “No. The reaper who attacked me was also an adult.”

  Grimm gave a throaty whuff.

  Joe shot the dog an evil look. “Who asked you to take sides?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Okay, okay, so life’s been hard for you, kid, I get it. Later on we can sit down and cry a little. Right now, though, how about you stop making speeches and tell me what happened at the plane? Actually, no. First tell me how you got away? And where’s the reaper now?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How—?”

  Benny looked him straight in the eye. “I killed him.”

  Joe said, “What?”

  “I killed him. He came at me with a knife. I… had no choice.”

  “Ah, jeez, kid.” Joe sat down heavily on the stack of cinder blocks. “Look, Ben, I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  It was not the response Benny had expected. He thought there would be more yelling, or some booyah crap about the glory of combat. Instead Joe looked genuinely sad. It confused Benny.

  “I’m pretty sorry I had to go through it too,” he said.

  “You sure you’re not hurt?” asked Joe.

  Benny shrugged. “Some bruises. A bad case of the shakes… and I guess a sick feeling in my stomach.”

  “Yeah. That pretty much comes with the job.”

  “Job? What job? I’m not a soldier.”

  “Maybe not, but let’s face it, kid, we are at war. Saint John has launched a genocidal holy war, and the very fact that we’re alive makes us enemy combatants in his book.”

  “I don’t want to fight Saint John.”

  “Hey, I don’t either.”

  “Besides, the reaper army vanished. You drove them off with the rocket launchers and all that.”

  Joe shook his head. “Be nice if that was true, kid, but the reapers I fought were Mother Rose’s splinter group. The main force of the reaper army is somewhere else. Hopefully they’re far, far from here, but the plain fact is they’re out there somewhere.”

  “ ‘Main force’? How many reapers are there?”

  “Conservative guess, including the group with Saint John and a half-dozen smaller groups he could gather together if he needs… call it thirty-five, forty thousand.”

  Benny nearly fell down. “What?”

  “Could be more.”

  “But… that’s more than all the people in Mountainside and the other eight towns put together!”

  “I know. It’s also why Saint John keeps winning. He has too big an army to lose any fight. Even if the defenders are well armed, Saint John can keep throwing bodies at them until they run out of bullets. He’s not a tactical genius, you know, he’s simply willing to do whatever it takes to win.”

  “And people are willing to die for him… that’s so…”

  “You’re looking at it the wrong way,” said Joe. “They’re not dying for Saint John, they’re dying for what he’s selling. He has them convinced that death is the antidote to pain and suffering, and it’s a hard argument to beat. Most religions talk about an afterlife or a paradise, right? Well, this world has been pretty much a crap sandwich for fifteen years, and it wasn’t always so friggin’ wonderful before that. Life is hard, people suffer, people get sick, they lose those they love. If you really believed that once you pass into the darkness, as Saint John calls it, there is no more pain, no more suffering, just bliss — if you believed that, you’d do anything to get there. Even walk into a fusillade of bullets. Especially if you believed that by dying for the cause you’re ensuring the salvation and bliss of everyone else. It’s a win-win situation. Saint John may actually believe this crap too, and probably does. In strategic terms, though, he’s adopted an ‘anything goes’ approach to winning.”

  “Jeez…”

  “The reason no one’s beat him yet,” said Joe, “is that people these days are afraid. They’re fighting like whipped dogs. There’s no genuine aggression left in them. They fight defensively, and that’s why they’re going to lose every battle.”

  “I thought the saying was that the best offense is a strong defense.”

  “You have it the wrong way around. The best defense is a strong offense. There’s an adage from the Wing Chun style of kung fu that goes ‘The hand which blocks also strikes.’ You understand what that means?”

  Benny nodded.

  “It’s academic, though… there’s no one west of the Rockies with either the technical oomph or the monkey-bat crazy nerve to fight him the right way.”

  “What’s the right way?”

  Joe cocked his head and considered Benny. “I’ve got my fair share of psychological issues,” he said. “There have been times when I’ve been in situations where I should have lost. I’ve been up against better numbers, and I’ve fought tougher men. You know why I’m still sucking air and they’re worm food? Because when it comes right down to it, there’s nothing I won’t do to win. Nothing. One time when we were really up against it, a guy I worked for looked at me and said, ‘I’d burn down heaven itself to stop this thing.’ If you think that sounds grandiose, that’s ’cause you didn’t know the man. That’s what he was willing to do, and I’m a whole lot crazier than him. So… I guess you have to ask yourself, young samurai, how far would you be willing to go to stop Saint John if he was coming after you and yours? How scary are you willing to be in order to take the heart out of the enemy? Are you willing to be the monster in the dark? Are you willing to be the boogeyman of their nightmares? If you can look inside your own head and see the line that you won’t cross, the limit that’s too far, then I can guarantee you Saint John will win. No question about it.”

  FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

  Until we found the crashed transport plane, we didn’t know what was out there in the Ruin. We knew someone had managed to fly a jet, but that didn’t tell us much.

  Now we know about the American Nation.

  The old government collapsed, and even though there are rumors that the president and some members of Congress went into hiding in a bunker, no one’s ever heard from them again. Captain Joe Ledger told us that a big group of survivors managed to take over the city of Asheville in North Carolina. There are more than a hundred thousand people there, and at least another fifty thousand living in fortified towns near there. Joe and a bunch of soldiers cleared out the zoms, and they have teams working to clear out all the areas around the city. They took back an army base and an air force base, too, which is why they have so many weapons. And the jet. They also have Black Hawk and
Apache attack helicopters. Most of that stuff is in North Carolina.

  I asked him if there were helicopters and stuff in the hangars, but he didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER 31

  Benny said, “I found something I think you need to see.”

  “Is it a red powder?” Joe asked quickly.

  “What? No. Why?”

  Joe waved it away. “What’ve you got for me?”

  Benny produced the Teambook and handed it to Joe.

  The ranger stared at it for a moment, eyes bulging from his face. “Where did you find this?”

  “The reaper had it in his quad. And no, I don’t know where he found it. We… didn’t really talk, you know.”

  “This must have come from the plane, and it definitely wasn’t there when I searched it. That means it was removed before that day.”

  “Is that good for us?” asked Benny. “Does it mean the D-series records are around somewhere?”

  “It might.”

  “Joe, what if the records aren’t around here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know… it just seems strange to me that one complete set of records is all that’s missing from the plane. So far we haven’t found that stuff, and none of the zoms was Dr. McReady. What if she was never onboard that plane?”

  “The whole point was to evacuate her, kid.”

  “I know, but maybe something else happened. Would there be any kind of record of that?”

  Joe grunted. “It’s possible but unlikely. Once the plane left, McReady wouldn’t have had any way of getting out of there, and my rangers have been to Hope One. She didn’t stay behind.”

  “Are there other places she could have landed? Other bases like Sanctuary?”

  “Not like Sanctuary, but there are a million places she could have landed. No way to know unless it was recorded, and I’ve been over every inch of that plane….” His voice trailed off.

  “What is it?” asked Benny.

  “I might be jumping the gun here. We actually don’t know if the plane landed anywhere else or not. There was no flight log in the cockpit, at least none that we could find. I knew all those guys. Only Luis would know, and we never found his body.”

  “Who?”

  “Luis Ortega, the logistics coordinator. He would have maintained a record of everything. Luis was detail-oriented like that. You sneeze and he has a record of the time, the date, and the air-speed velocity. He never missed a trick.”

  “Wait… I know that name.”

  Benny flipped to the picture of Sergeant Luis Ortega and showed it to Joe. “Is this the guy you’re talking about?”

  “That’s him. Luis was a big ol’ boy, looked like a linebacker but he had the heart of an accountant. He was exactly the kind of miss-nothing guy you’d send when you wanted to evac a research facility. He’d bring back every last paper clip.” Joe cocked an eye at Benny. “How is it you picked up on him so fast?”

  Benny explained about how he’d thought he recognized the man but couldn’t remember from where. “Is he here?” he asked. “I mean, is he maybe one of the zoms over on the airfield?”

  Joe thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. Last time I saw him was when they were loading the plane to fly up to Hope One. But… let me know if you remember where you saw him. If those D-series records weren’t onboard, or if Doc McReady planned any other stops, maybe to drop some of her research and cargo anywhere, then Ortega would definitely be the one to know all the details. That’s his job.” Joe grunted again.

  “What?”

  “I kind of wish he was over at the airfield. Being the logistics guy, he’d have a notebook with every detail of every movement of every person, every box, every piece of pocket lint. Ortega was totally anal-retentive. He was always making notes about stuff and shoving them into his shirt. Added them to his duty log at the end of the day.”

  “I also found one little notebook, but I don’t think it’s a duty log.” Benny handed it over.

  Joe leafed through it and gave a dismissive grunt. “Reaper prayer book. Might be useful as toilet paper, that’s about it.”

  “No,” said Benny, “look at the last page.”

  Joe flipped it over and scanned the list, and his face made an ugly shape. “Oh… crap.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  Joe held out the book and pointed to the first lines.

  CA/R 1: 4,522

  Quad: 66

  CA/R 2: 19,200

  Quad: 452

  “R stands for reaper. CA is California.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Benny.

  “Because there are abbreviations for Nevada and Wyoming, too. NV and WY.” Joe sighed. “These are head counts of reaper armies. Looks like there are two in California, one of 4,522 and a much bigger one of 19,200. Then you have 14,795 in Nevada, 2,375 in Utah, and 8,371 in Wyoming. You were asking about how many reapers there are. This is your answer.”

  Benny did the math in his head. “That’s 49,263. Oh my God.”

  “Yeah, well, we already knew we were in big trouble.”

  “What are the rest of those numbers? The quads… those are how many bikes they have?”

  “Yup, and the good news is that they don’t have a lot of them. Sixty-six for one group and only 452 for the big army.”

  “That’s good news?”

  Joe sighed. “Actually, come to think of it, it’s not. Saint John is probably using quads to pull equipment and food wagons, but push comes to shove, he’ll detach those and use the quads like light cavalry.”

  Benny had hoped this stuff might help Joe find the D-series notes, but instead it was quickly crushing Benny’s own optimism. He almost didn’t give the ranger the last piece.

  “I also found this,” he said reluctantly. “It’s a handwritten note, and I think it’s from Dr. McReady.”

  Joe read the note.

  Mutations reported in California.

  This needs to be checked out.

  Field Team Five?

  “What’s it mean?” asked Benny.

  The ranger gave him a brief, bleak stare. “It means that we have more questions than answers.” Joe clicked his tongue for Grimm, who lumbered to his feet. “Listen, kid, I want to go show this to Colonel Reid. Maybe she can make something out of it.”

  “Who?”

  “The base commander. She’s my boss.”

  “How come I never met her? You never told me anything about—”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, kid, and there’s a lot I’m not authorized to tell you. Now’s not the time to play catch-up. Go find your girlfriend and Lilah. Let them tell you their story.”

  “Why? What happened? Is Nix okay?”

  “She’s not hurt,” said Joe evasively. “Talk to her, talk to Lilah, and then maybe we’ll all have a conversation later. I’m going over to the blockhouse. You have to promise me — swear to me — that you won’t leave Sanctuary again. Not unless I’m with you.”

  “Sure,” said Benny, though he was pretty sure he was lying to the man.

  CHAPTER 32

  MILES AND MILES AWAY…

  “Heads up and eyes forward,” called the guard in the tower. “Trade wagon’s coming in.”

  The three fence guards glanced up at him and then followed the direction of his outthrust arm.

  “Trade wagon?” wondered Tully, the oldest of the guards. “This time of day?”

  His shift partner, Hooper, lifted the binoculars that hung around his neck on a leather strap and stared through the fence. The sun was almost down, and the slanting rays painted the big field and the distant tree line in shades of bloodred, vermilion, and Halloween orange.

  “Trade wagon, all right,” he said. “Half a day late and… wait… I think something’s wrong.”

  The youngest of the three, a fence guard trainee, raised his own binoculars. They were an old but expensive pair that had once belonged to his father. His dad was dead, though, killed in a construct
ion accident while helping to build a corn silo. He adjusted the focus.

  “The driver’s hurt,” he said.

  “How can you tell?” asked Hooper.

  “He’s bleeding,” said the young man.

  The older men stared and then grunted. “You got good eyes, Morgie,” said Tully.

  Morgie Mitchell did not acknowledge the compliment. His eyesight had qualified him as a tower guard, but he wanted to work down here on the ground. In another year they’d let him join the town watch as a cadet. And after that… well, when Morgie looked into the future, he saw himself sitting on a tall horse, a shotgun across his lap and a real steel katana slung over his shoulder in the rear fast-draw style Tom always used. That future Morgie wore a Freedom Riders sash and worked the roads from New Eden to Haven and every town in between.

  For now he was only an apprentice fence guard. A job of no distinction and long hours.

  Morgie was fine with that.

  Now was now, and the future was something he’d get to.

  The longer the shift, the less time he would have to be alone. And he didn’t believe that he deserved any distinction of any kind. Not yet. He didn’t want the borrowed celebrity that came from having studied with Tom Imura. That was Tom’s fame.

  And Tom was dead. Buried out in the Ruin near the charred bones of the evil place Tom had destroyed. Gameland.

  Morgie wished he’d been there. He should have been there.

  Even if it meant that he would have died there. Even an unmarked grave on that field would mean something.

  Tom had changed the world that day. Everyone knew it.

  Until Morgie had the age, the strength, the power to change even a splinter of the world, he’d work the jobs he could get.

  He continued to study the scene that was unfolding beyond the fence.

  The field between Mountainside and the forest was more than half a mile wide. It was thick with weeds except for a few select paths that laborers dressed in heavy carpet coats and football helmets kept clear. The trade roads had to be in good order or the flow of supplies into town would dry up.