Ash: Rise of the Republic (18 page)

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.

Captain Rockfort ordered his troops to hold
their fire and stay hidden behind the defenses. I told my small
company to do the same.

They were forced to stop at the mound of ash
we had piled in the middle of the roadway. The reverend stared up
at the towering buildings, growling in surprise at the fluorescent
glow of electricity in the windows. He pointed and snarled orders,
unintelligible from my perch at the top of the dorm nearest the
road. A half dozen of his followers, wrapped in their dirty
bedsheets, poured from one of the trucks and stumbled through the
ash, heading for the base of my building. Flaming rags burned in
the necks of the bottles in their hands. I waited for them to get
close and then pressed down on the small switch in my hand.

The ash at the feet of the attackers erupted
in flame and shrapnel. Jagged chunks of hot scrap iron tore through
the marauders' filthy bedsheets in a gush of flame and blood. The
gas-filled bottles in their hands shattered and burst into flame,
adding to the carnage. I grunted in satisfaction as smoke drifted
up at me. The homemade claymores had shredded the Fellowship goons.
Nothing was left of them but torn cloth and smoldering viscera.
Their blood glistened bright on the ash.

I heard a squeal of anger from the
reverend's truck. Looking up, I saw that the boy was staring at me,
a grimace of hate clouding his face. I was transfixed for a moment,
surprised at the fear that the child invoked in me. The spell was
broken by a terse shout from Captain Rockfort.

"Fire at will!"

A hundred rifle barrels sprouted from the
dormitory windows. Their booming crackle was curiously muffled by
the heavy ashfall. The cadets had been obsessively training on the
makeshift firing range we had cut into the ash in a nearby field.
Their practice paid off. Dozens of the reverend's men, sitting
exposed in the beds of the nearest pickups, were mown down. Some
screamed in pain and surprise, others slumped, dying quietly.

The reverend was screaming in rage now,
waving his tattered bible at us, urging his remaining men to rally
and return fire. I leveled my rifle, lining up the iron sights on
his chest, eager to avenge my fallen friends. I held my breath and
pulled the trigger. The rifle boomed and then the bolt jammed open,
the action caked with gritty ash. I cursed, the shot had gone wide.
Deb and the rest of my troop on the roof opened fire, but the
reverend seemed charmed. Bullets thumped into the truck all around
him but he was miraculously untouched as he flailed his arms and
shouted with biblical fury.

The boy next to him kept a cooler head. As
the gunfire erupted above him, he slipped over the side of the bed
and huddled behind the rear wheel. I could hear his shrill youthful
voice over the thunder of the guns, screaming at the men at the
rear of the column to retreat. Somehow they heard the order and the
tail of the convoy began to reverse, the men in the beds spilling
over the sides to escape the shower of lead.

I was still struggling with my jammed rifle
when Deb punched my arm. She pointed to the retreating trucks. I
nodded and picked up another detonator, mashing on the contact. The
mines we had embedded in the walls of the trench coughed their fire
and metal at the slowly fleeing trucks. Burning chunks of jagged
steel ripped through thin sheet metal and savaged the men inside.
The rear-most truck erupted in flame, its gas tank pierced and
ignited by the smoldering shrapnel. The men sheltering behind the
vehicle ran up the opposite bank of the trench, screaming and
swatting at the flames which suddenly enveloped them. When I closed
the contact on the next switch, the survivors of the Fellowship
broke and ran.

They threw down their weapons, scrambled in
terror up the steep banks, and stumbled through deep ash to the
perceived safety of the abandoned bars and restaurants across the
street. The reverend ran behind them, screaming at them to turn and
fight. I waited until the first of the terrified men reached the
buildings before I hit the last detonator.

At the sight of their comrades
disintegrating in clouds of flame and pink mist, the bulk of the
fellowship army stopped in despair. They raised their hands in
dejected surrender. Rockfort bellowed the ceasefire order and the
cadets' guns fell silent. I heard the reverend screaming again. In
the thick ashfall I could barely make out his filthy black suit. He
was struggling wildly as two of his men were dragging him away. Two
more rushed up to grab his legs and the group stumbled quickly out
of sight. Before they disappeared, I saw that they were led by the
boy, shouting orders from his perch on the shoulders of a huge
man.

I jumped up and gestured for my troop to
follow. We rushed down the stairs, taking them two and three at a
time. I was desperate not to let them escape. We had hoped to crush
the Fellowship here, and we had largely succeeded, but if the
leaders broke free they would gather more men and return.

A platoon of cadets, detailed beforehand for
the purpose, was already rounding up the prisoners when we burst
from the doors. We sprinted after the retreating group, quickly
gaining on them thanks to our superior footwear. As we drew close,
Werner glanced behind and saw our approach. He screamed at his men
to drop the reverend and fire on us.