Out of the Ashes

The trucks slowed as the drivers spotted him. The trucks pulled into the parking area and stopped, their engines cut. The morning was very quiet. When the men got out of the cabs, Ben fought to keep from laughing.

They were dressed in a mishmash of military and Georgia Highway Patrol uniforms and were a living caricature of the Hell's Angels. But Ben could sense a real danger all around him.

“We are a part of the Georgia Militia,” a pus-gutted, unshaven man said. “It is our duty to see to it that no riffraff enter this state.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Huh?”

Ben said nothing, just looked at the men.

“Are you friendly?”

“To my friends.”

“That's not much of an answer, mister.”

“Wasn't much of a question.”

“Who do you have traveling with you?” The man licked thick wet lips. That he was asking about women was obvious.

“I don't figure that's any of your goddamned business,” Ben told him bluntly. The M-10 was off safety, on full auto.

“I don't care for your attitude, mister.”

“One of life's little tragedies, I'm sure.”

“I don't much care for you, either.”

“Where's your sheet and burning cross, redneck?”

“Well now.” The man smiled. “We got us a nigger lover here. ‘At's allraht though. I ain't had me no smoked meat in some time. Got you a nigger gal travelin’ with you, huh? Stand aside.”

“Fuck you!” Ben lifted the M-10 and shot the man in his pus gut; at the same time he tossed the grenade at the others. Ben dived for the protection of an abandoned car.

The fragmentation grenade blew, and left one dead and two badly wounded on the ground. Before the rocking sounds had abated, Ben lobbed another grenade into the rear of the first truck and hit the ground. The frag grenade blew, sending one man through the ribs of the canvas mount and over the side of the truck. Someone screamed in the back of the truck.

Ben rose to one knee and sprayed the back of the second truck, changed clips, and waited. A man lunged out of the truck and tried to run. Ben put a short burst into his back, knocking him face-down on the concrete.

It was over. It was silent. The smell of gunpowder was thick, mixing with the heavy blood odor. Ben's legs were shaky and his hands trembled. But he and April were alive. Juno was at his side, the hairs on his back and neck raised, his fangs bared. April came around the corner of the building and put one hand to her mouth as she saw the carnage and smelled the shit and the piss from relaxed bladders and bowels. She was sick for a moment, retching onto the gravel. Ben changed clips in the M-10 and slung it over his shoulder. He pulled out his pistol and walked to the bed of a truck. All dead. He stepped to the other truck and looked inside.

One man was alive, but just barely.

“Help me,” the man pleaded.

“All right,” Ben said, then raised the 9-mm and shot the man between the eyes. He walked back to April. Her face was pale, lips bloodless.

“I can't believe you did that, Ben.”

Ben turned his back to her and walked away.

In Moultrie, Ben found quite a group of people, more than a hundred, he guessed, gathered at a local church. He had to struggle to hide his amusement. It had taken a worldwide catastrophe to bring blacks and whites together—at least here in Moultrie.

He told the crowd what had happened down the road. They seemed to sigh as one in relief.

“There is no Georgia Militia, Mr. Raines,” a man said. “That was Luther Pitrie and his pack of filth. We're Christian people here, or try to be; no way would we tolerate that kind of man among us.”

“He tried to make trouble for you?”

“About three months back. He had gathered around him some thirty or forty of the worst types of trash you could imagine. Convicts, ne'er-do-wells, degenerates. They strutted in here just as we were picking up our lives and trying to restore some reason for being. He killed one man. I guess rage overcame us; we buried eleven of those who came with him. The rest have not been back.”

“Good for you,” Ben said, conscious of April's look of horror.

“Please stay and have supper with us, Mr. Raines. Spend the night. I know what happened today was a terrible experience; doubly so for Miss Simpson. Rest awhile, you'll be safe and you certainly are welcome.”

Good people, Ben thought. I hope there are a great many more pockets of people such as these.

“You've heard what's happened in Chicago?” the leader of the small band in Moultrie asked.

Ben shook his head. “No, I haven't.” But he had a quick flash of déjà vu.

Carl.

“Well, communications are, at best, spotty—we rely mostly on ham operators for news, and we don't get that very often.” The man paused to butter a slice of home-baked bread. Real homemade country butter.

Ben said, “I was in Chicago last fall—couple of weeks after the war. The suburbs, actually. I didn't like what I saw brewing.”

“The brew exploded, I'm afraid. Some sort of movement started there. Neo-Nazi, fascist—something of that type.”